The Indian refused to submit to bondage and to learn the white man's ways. The result is that the greater portion of the American Indians have disappeared, the greater portion of those who remain are not civilized. The Negro, wiser and more enduring than the Indian, patiently endured slavery; and contact with the white man has given him a civilization vastly superior to that of the Indian.
The Indian and the Negro met on the American continent for the first time at Jamestown, in 1619. Both were in the darkest barbarism. There were twenty Negroes and thousands of Indians. At the present time there are between nine and ten million Negroes and two hundred and eighty-four thousand and seventy-nine Indians. The annual tax upon the Government on account of the Indian is $14,236,078.71 (1905); the cost from 1789 to 1902, inclusive, reached the sum of $389,282,361.00. The one in this case not only decreased in numbers and failed to add anything to the economic value of his country, but has actually proven a charge upon the state.
The Negro seems to be about the only race that has been able to look the white man in the face during the long period of years and live—not only live, but multiply. The Negro has not only done this, but he has had the good sense to get something from the white man at every point where he has touched him—something that has made him a stronger and a better race.
Let me say in the beginning that nothing which I shall say should be taken as an endorsement of the enslavement of my race. The experience of the world's civilization teaches that the final and net result of slavery is bad—bad for the enslaved, and perhaps worse for the enslaver. If permitted a choice, I think I should prefer being the first to being the last. But in the case of the Negro in America no one, willing to be frank and fair, can fail to see that the Negro did get certain benefits out of slavery; at the same time he was, as I have stated, harmed. But in this connection we must deal with the facts and not with prejudice, either for or against the race.
Let me make this statement with which you may or may not agree: In my opinion, there cannot be found in the civilized or uncivilized world ten millions of Negroes whose economic, educational, moral and religious life is so advanced as that of the ten millions of Negroes within the United States. If this statement be true, let us find the cause thereof, especially as regards the Negro's moral and Christian growth. In doing so, let credit be given wherever it is due, whether to the Northern white man, the Southern white man, or the Negro himself. If, as stated, the ten millions of black people in the United States have excelled all the other groups of their race-type in moral and Christian growth, let us trace the cause, and in doing so we may get some light and information that will be of value in dealing with the Negro race in America and elsewhere, and in elevating and Christianizing other races.
In order to determine the influence of economic or industrial training upon the moral and Christian life of the Negro, we must begin with slavery and trace the development of the black man, noticing in a brief manner his development through slavery to freedom, and to the present time.
This involves, then, the period of slavery, and the period of freedom. To begin with, let me repeat that at first, at least, the underlying object of slavery was an economic, and an industrial one. The climatic and other new conditions required that the slave should wear clothing, a thing, for the most part, new to him. It has perhaps already occurred to you that one of the conditions requisite for the Christian life is clothing. So far as I know, Christianity is the only religion that makes the wearing of clothes one of its conditions. A naked Christian is impossible—and I may add that I have little faith in a hungry Christian.
Some years ago we were holding the Tuskeegee Annual Negro Conference, and I remember on several occasions there was one old fellow who tried to get the floor without success. He tried continually to get recognition from the chair, and, finally, was recognized. He said: "Mr. Washington, we's making great progress in our community. It is not the same as it used to be. We's making great progress. We's getting to the point where nearly all the people in my community owns their own pigs." I asked him why he was so much interested in his neighbors owning their own pigs. He said: "I feel that when all my neighbors own their own pigs, I can always sleep better every night." There is a good deal of philosophy underlying that remark.
The economic element not only made it necessary that the Negro slave should be clothed for the sake of decency and in order to preserve his health, but the same considerations made it necessary that he be housed and taught the comforts to be found in a home. Within a few months, then, after the arrival of the Negro in America, he was wearing clothes and living in a house—no inconsiderable step in the direction of morality and Christianity. True, the Negro slave had worn some kind of garment and occupied some kind of hut before he was brought to America, but he had made little progress in the improvement of his garments or in the kind of hut he inhabited. As we shall perhaps see later, his introduction into American slavery was the beginning of real growth in the two directions under consideration.
There is another important element. In his native country, owing to climatic conditions, and also because of his few simple and crude wants, the Negro, before coming to America, had little necessity to labor. You have, perhaps, read the story, that it is said might be true in certain portions of Africa, of how the native simply lies down on his back under a banana-tree and falls asleep with his mouth open. The banana falls into his mouth while he is asleep and when he wakes up he finds that all he has to do is to chew it—he has his meal already served.