LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| Symbolic Group Erected at Tuskegee Institute (1922) | [Frontispiece] |
| Founder’s Day Drill at Tuskegee | [6] |
| Cabinetmaking at Tuskegee | [23] |
| Booker T. Washington as a Hampton Graduate (1875) | [24] |
| Booker T. Washington’s Class (1875) at Hampton Institute | [31] |
| Tuskegee’s First Group of Buildings | [51] |
| A Sunday Afternoon Band Concert on the Campus | [58] |
| Automobile and Buggy Trimming at Tuskegee | [61] |
| Class in Physical Training at Tuskegee | [65] |
| White Hall; Chapel; Tatum Hall, Tuskegee Institute | [69] |
| John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital, Tuskegee Institute | [72] |
| Class in Photography, Tuskegee Institute | [74] |
| Chemistry Class, Tuskegee Academic Department | [89] |
| Truck Gardening, Tuskegee Institute | [92] |
| Domestic Science Class at Tuskegee | [95] |
| The Students’ Band of a Rural School | [99] |
| Tailoring Division, Tuskegee Institute | [101] |
| Booker T. Washington, First Principal of Tuskegee Institute | [119] |
| Booker T. Washington and His Family | [132] |
| Robert Russa Moton, Successor to Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee | [139] |
| Booker T. Washington and His Grandchildren | [141] |
A BOYS’ LIFE OF BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
CHAPTER I
EARLY CHILDHOOD
No state in the Union has a more interesting history than Virginia. It is the oldest of the states. It was at Jamestown in 1607 that the first permanent English settlement was made in America. Before the Revolution, it shared with Massachusetts the honor of being the leading colony. During the time of the Revolution, it furnished some of America’s greatest leaders—Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson. After the Revolution, it became known as the “Mother of Presidents.” Most of the battles of the Civil War were fought on its soil, and its capital was the capital of the Confederacy. Lee and Jackson, the two greatest leaders of the Confederacy, were Virginians.
It was in this state that slavery in North America began. We must remember, however, that slavery had been in existence a long, long time. The ancient Hebrews, we are told in the Old Testament, practiced this evil custom. So did all the nations about Palestine. The Greeks and the Romans also kept slaves. We must not think of the people that were enslaved by the Hebrews and Greeks and Romans as negroes. They were of all races. Whenever one people conquered another, it mattered not of what race, the conquerors made their captives slaves. This often resulted in the most cultured and highly educated people being made slaves. This was especially the case when the Romans captured Greeks.
Later on in the history of Europe, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the enslavement of negroes became very general, so that, by the time North America began to be settled by the people from Europe, negro slaves were bought and sold throughout the principal European countries and their colonies.
So it came about that, in Virginia, negro slavery was introduced into the United States. It was in 1619 that a Dutch ship, after a cruise in the West Indies, landed at Jamestown, and while there, engaging in trade with the inhabitants, sold them nineteen negroes. These were the first slaves sold in North America, and it was from this beginning that the system grew up in the country.
In Virginia too we had the first big plantations. Tobacco was the most important crop in the early history of the colony. The planters could sell tobacco at a great profit in England. Negro slaves could cultivate tobacco very successfully. The planters, therefore, bought slaves to raise tobacco, and they sold the tobacco and bought more slaves to raise more tobacco. The planters bought many hundreds of acres of land and many slaves to cultivate them. As you know, the slaves lived in cabins. These cabins were little houses, usually built of logs, and the cracks were daubed with mud. The cabin usually had one door, one window, and a dirt floor only. These cabins were all close together, not very far from the “big house,” and were known as the “quarters.”
The slaves did all the work on the plantation. Most of them worked in the fields. Some worked about the barn and in the garden. One drove the master’s carriage and took care of the horses. Another was the butler in the “big house.” Some of the small boys and girls also worked in the “big house,” serving their young masters and mistresses. And, of course, one of the negro women was the plantation cook.