“Now I know that all this is the reason why the people of our colour don’t rise any faster. The scorn, the disgrace that every body flings on ’em, keeps ’em down, and they are sinkin’, and such treatment is enough to sink the Rocky mountains.
“Now I know from experience, that the better you treat a black man the better he will behave; for his own pride will keep his ambition up, and he’ll try to rise; why if you should treat white folks so they’d grow bad jist as fast. Why, who don’t know that a body will try to git the good will of those who treat ’em well, so as to make ’em respect ’em still more? And it’s jist like climbin’ a ladder; you’ll git up a round any day, but if you keep a knockin’ a man on the head with the club of prejudice, how in the name of common sense can he climb up.
“Now this is most as bad as slavery; ☜ for slavery keeps the foot on the black man’s neck all the time, and don’t let ’em rise at all; and prejudice keeps a knockin’ on him down as fast as he gits up; and we ought not to go to the South, till we can git the people of the North to treat our color like men and women. A good many people oppose abolitionists, and say, ‘why what will you do with the niggers when they are free? They will become drunken sots and vagabonds like our niggers at the North; why don’t they rise?’ I can answer that question in a hurry! The reason is, because they don’t give us the same chance with white folks; they won’t take us into their schools and colleges, and seminaries, and we don’t be allowed to go into good society to improve us; and if we set up business they won’t patronize us; they want us to be barbers, and cooks and whitewashers and shoeblacks and ostlers, camp-cullimen, and sich kind of mean low business. We ain’t suffered to attend any pleasant places, or enjoy the advantages of debating schools and libraries, and societies, &c. &c., and all these things is jist what improves the whites so fast. And if we by hook or by crook git into any sich place, why some feller will step on our toes, and give us a shove, and say, ‘stand back nig, you can see jist as well a little furder off.
“Now all these things is what keeps us so much in the back ground; for if we have a chance, we git up in the world as fast as any body. For there is smart and respectable colored folks; and you sarch out their history, and you’ll find that they once had a good chance to git larnin’, and they jumped arter it. I think one of the greatest things the abolition folks should be arter, is to help the free people of color to git up in the world, and grow respectable, and educated, and then we will prove false what our enemies say, ‘that we are better off in chains than we be in freedom.’”
BOOK THE SECOND
PETER WHEELER ON THE DEEP.
CHAPTER I.
Beginning of sea stories—sails with Captain Truesdell for the West-Indies—feelings on leaving the American shore—sun-set at sea—shake hands with a French frigate—a storm—old Neptune—a bottle or a shave—caboose—Peter gets two feathers in his cap—St. Bartholomews—climate—slaves—oranges—turtle—a small pig, “but dam’ old”—weigh anchor for New York—“sail ho!”—a wreck—a sailor on a buoy—get him aboard—his story—gets well, and turns out to be an enormous swearer—couldn’t draw a breath without an oath—approach to New York—quarantine—pass the Narrows—drop anchor—rejoicing times—Peter jumps ashore “a free nigger.”