The Journal of Negro History Volume V Part 64

"The trustees state that a very eligible site of three acres, within the city limits of Was.h.i.+ngton, of the northwest, has already been purchased, paid for and secured to the trustees, and that all which is now wanted is $20,000 wherewith to erect a larger and more suitable edifice for the reception of the applicants pressing upon it from the numerous free colored blacks in the District and adjacent States. The proposed edifice is designed to accommodate 150 scholars and to furnish homes for the teachers and pupils from a distance. The enlarged school will include the higher branches in its system of instruction.

"There was a meeting yesterday afternoon, in an ante-room of Tremont Temple, of gentlemen called together to listen to the statements of the Secretary of the a.s.sociation regarding this school. The meeting was small, but embraced such gentlemen as Hon. George S. Hillard, Rev. Dr. Lathrop, Rev. C. E. Hale, and Deacon Greele, all of whom are deeply interested in the project.

"The meeting decided to draw up and circulate a subscription paper, and counted upon receiving $10,000 for the purpose in this city. The pastors of several churches in New York had pledged their churches in the sum of a thousand dollars each. Mr. Beecher will solicit subscriptions in most of the princ.i.p.al towns of Ma.s.sachusetts. The designs and benefits of the project will be fully set forth at a public meeting in this city in the course of a fortnight."--_The Boston Journal_, April 18, 1857.

[5] An extract from Walter Lenox's article opposing Miss Miner's School, follows:

"With justice we can say to the advocate of this measure, you are not competent to decide this question: your habits of thought, your ignorance of our true relations to the colored population, prevent you from making a full and candid examination of its merits, and, above all, the temper of the public mind is inauspicious, even for its consideration. If your humanity demands this particular sphere for its action, and if, to use your own language, prejudice would brand them at your northern schools, establish inst.i.tutions in the free States, dispense your money there abundantly as your charity will supply, draw to them the unfortunate at your own door, or from abroad, and in all respects gratify the largest impulses of your philanthropy; but do not seek to impose upon us a system contrary to our wishes and interests, and for the further reason that by so doing you injure the cause of those whom you express a wish to serve."--_National Intelligencer_, May 6, 1857.

[6] _Special Report_, Commissioner of Education, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., 1868, p. 207.

[7] This statement is based on information obtained from Mrs. John F.

N. Wilkinson and Mrs. Amelia E. Wormley, who were pupils of Myrtilla Miner.

[8] _Report of Board of Education_, Dr. John Smith, Statistician.

COMMUNICATIONS

During the last five years a number of valuable facts have come to the office of the editor in various communications from persons interested in the work which the a.s.sociation has been promoting. While these communications do not as a whole bear upon any particular phase of Negro history, they will certainly be valuable to one making researches in the general field. Some of these follow.

A SUGGESTION

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D. C., Dec. 23, 1916.

CARTER G. WOODSON,

_My Dear Sir:_ I notice by the press your Connection with the "Dougla.s.s" celebration. It might interest you to receive the enclosed from a rank abolitionist of the John Brown School. After service in Kansas with the Brown element, then in open rebellion against the United States, as typified in men like Judge Taney, who decided that the black man had no rights the white man was bound to respect, I entered the Union army and served in it as a private in the 5th Wis. Infy and as Adjt. of the 7th Eastern Sh.o.r.e Md. Infy--3 years and 6 mos.... I wish some of your influential men would start a movement to erect a monument here for old John Brown, who gave his life to free the country from the great curse of slavery.

Cordially, (Signed) JOHN E. RASTALL.

SOME INTERESTING FACTS

MARION, ALABAMA July 7th 1916

DR. C. G. WOODSON

_Dear Sir:_

Absence from home has prevented my replying to your request sooner.

The majority of masters in this section of the country were kind to their slaves. They gave them plenty of good wholesome food, good clothes, (warm ones in winter) comfortable homes and attention from Doctors when sick. There were churches on nearly every plantation and ministers provided to preach to them. The _only very cruel_ masters were _Northern men_ who treated their slaves like _beasts_. For many years it was against the law to teach negroes to read or write because some of them would read things from the North that made them dissatisfied but our family owned such good negroes, who had principle like white people we did not think it could hurt them, and we taught them to read and write. There has always been a kind feeling between the whites and slaves in this country. The young ones were our playmates in childhood. The older ones our nurses and cooks who petted us and loved us as their own color. They were faithful during the War when our protectors were in the Army, and now altho' it is fifty years since they were freed, many of them are our best friends.--I do not know of anything else you wanted to know or I would gladly write you. In some sections of the South there may have been cruel treatment but it was generally from the overseers who were ignorant men and took advantage of their position to give license to their cruel natures.

James Childs and all of his family and many of his relatives belonged to my mother, and there still exists a kind feeling between us that will only be severed by Death. I would like to hear from him. I am nearly 75 years old and cannot be here much longer but want to do all the good I can before I am called.

Respectfully (Signed) MRS. JAS. A. SMITH, Marion Alabama

23 DRYADS GREEN, Nov. 7, 1916.

_My dear Mr. Woodson:_

Your letter in the interest of THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY is welcome. I will try to send you a subscriber or two.

Allow me to suggest a point. It may have been well covered already without my knowing of it. In Louisiana and, I think, in some other states, in Reconstruction days, the lieutenant-governors.h.i.+p was conceded by the Republican party, regularly, to a man of color. These men were sometimes, to say no more, of high character and ability. Such a one in Louisiana was Oscar J. Dunn, the first of them. He was of unmixt African origin. His signal ability and high integrity were acknowledged by his political enemies in the most rancorous days of his career, and his funeral was attended by Confederate generals.

I wish your enterprise the fullest measure of success.

Yours truly, (Signed) GEO. W. CABLE.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C.

1443 R ST., N. W., NOV. 1 --17.

MR. CARTER G. WOODSON, 1216 You St., N.W., Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.

_Dear Sir:_

I recently received from you a letter followed soon by a volume of THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY edited by yourself which I have scanned and am much impressed with its merits and consider a valuable contribution to our historical literature.

It is somewhat unusual to find colored men in America of American birth who are individually conversant with all of the West Indies a part of South America and the western part of Europe.

My advent in life began at an epoch in the early history of Baltimore when incidents occurred that seem to have escaped the notice of the numerous writers of the history of our race which I shall briefly relate.

Owing to the rapid decadence of the sugar industries of the British West Indies on the Abolition of Slavery and the gravity anent the threatened ruin of the peasantry, some philanthropists and business men from England were sent to Baltimore to try to get free colored people to go to Trinidad. They spoke in many colored churches and succeeded in interesting them so that several s.h.i.+ploads were sent. My father and mother and three children were of the number. I was an infant in arms.

I received an education there and after I grew up was variously employed as bookkeeper, clerking in dry goods stores, in the City Hall, overseer on sugar estate, coach and sign painter, was afterwards sent for by my father who was at the gold mines of Caratal in Venezuela and on my return to Trinidad visited several other islands of the West Indies.

I next returned to America my natal home the second year of Andrew Johnson's term.

I have not since led an idle life. For nearly 25 years I have been engaged as an itinerant private tutor teaching adult folks and I flatter myself that I was very successful among the hundreds of my pupils.

I found on my arrival in America that education was at a very low ebb amongst the members of my race perhaps not more than 15% of adult folks one would encounter in the streets could read and write.

When the Amendments were pa.s.sed by Congress conferring citizens.h.i.+p upon colored people I threw myself into the political current and was the first vice president of the 11th ward of Baltimore city which a few years subsequently chose a colored councilman, Harry c.u.mmins.

I became a merchant meanwhile experimenting in groceries, but after a year relinquished this for dry goods for which my early acquaintance therewith amply fitted me. I kept a dry goods store in Baltimore for seven years then went to Jacksonville, Fla.

where I successfully continued the business for eighteen years.

While I was in Baltimore I twice pa.s.sed the Civil Service examination with a handsome percentage this I did simply from curiosity. I kept strictly to merchandise and have never earned a dollar of Uncle Sam's money.