An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans Part 18

It is needless to multiply quotations; for the concurrent testimony of all travellers proves that industry is a common virtue in the interior of Africa.

Again, it is said that the negroes are treacherous, cunning, dishonest, and profligate. Let me ask you, candid reader, what you would be, if you labored under the same unnatural circ.u.mstances? The daily earnings of the slave, nay, his very wife and children, are constantly wrested from him, under the sanction of the laws; is this the way to teach a scrupulous regard to the property of others? How can purity be expected from him, who sees almost universal licentiousness prevail among those whom he is taught to regard as his superiors? Besides, we must remember how entirely unprotected the negro is in his domestic relations, and how very frequently husband and wife are separated by the caprice, or avarice, of the white man. I have no doubt that slaves are artful; for they _must_ be so. Cunning is always the resort of the weak against the strong; children, who have violent and unreasonable parents, become deceitful in self-defence. The only way to make young people sincere and frank, is to treat them with mildness and perfect justice.

The negro often pretends to be ill in order to avoid labor; and if you were situated as he is, you would do the same. But it is said that the blacks are malignant and revengeful. Granting it to be true,--is it their fault, or is it owing to the cruel circ.u.mstances in which they are placed? Surely there are proofs enough that they are naturally a kind and gentle people. True, they do sometimes murder their masters and overseers; but where there is utter hopelessness, can we wonder at occasional desperation? I do not believe that any cla.s.s of people subject to the same influences, would commit fewer crimes. d.i.c.kson, in his letters on slavery, informs us that "among one hundred and twenty thousand negroes and creoles of Barbadoes, only three murders have been known to be committed by them in the course of thirty years; although often provoked by the cruelty of the planters."

In estimating the vices of slaves, there are several items to be taken into the account. In the first place, we hear a great deal of the negroes' crimes, while we hear very little of their provocations. If they murder their masters, newspapers and almanacs blazon it all over the country; but if their masters murder _them_, a trifling fine is paid, and n.o.body thinks of mentioning the matter. I believe there are twenty negroes killed by white men, where there is one white man killed by a black. If you believe this to be mere conjecture, I pray you examine the Judicial Reports of the Southern States. The voice of _humanity_, concerning this subject, is weak and stifled; and when a master kills his own slave we are not likely to hear the tidings--but the voice of _avarice_ is loud and strong; and it sometimes happens that negroes, "die under a moderate punishment" administered by other hands: then prosecutions ensue, in order to recover the price of the slave; and in _this_ way we are enabled to form a tolerable conjecture concerning the frequency of such crimes.

I have said that we seldom hear of the grievous wrongs which provoke the vengeance of the slave; I will tell an anecdote, which I know to be true, as a proof in point. Within the last two years, a gentleman residing in Boston, was summoned to the West Indies in consequence of troubles on his plantation. His overseer had been killed by the slaves.

This fact was soon made public; and more than one exclaimed, "what diabolical pa.s.sions these negroes have!" To which I replied, that I only wondered they were half as good as they were. It was not long, however, before I discovered the particulars of the case: and I took some pains that the public should likewise be informed of them. The overseer was a bad, licentious man. How long and how much the slaves endured under his power I know not, but at last, he took a fancy to two of the negroes'

wives, ordered them to be brought to his house, and in spite of their entreaties and resistance, compelled them to remain as long as he thought proper. The husbands found their little huts deserted, and knew very well where the blame rested. In such a case, you would have gone to law; but the law does not recognise a negro's rights--he is the _property_ of his master, and subject to the will of his agent. If a slave should talk of being protected in his domestic relations, it would cause great merriment in a slaveholding State; the proposition would be deemed equally inconvenient and absurd. Under such circ.u.mstances, the negro husbands took justice into their own hands. They murdered the overseer. Four innocent slaves were taken up, and upon very slight circ.u.mstantial evidence were condemned to be shot; but the real actors in this scene pa.s.sed unsuspected. When the unhappy men found their companions were condemned to die, they avowed the fact, and exculpated all others from any share in the deed. Was not this true magnanimity?

Can you help respecting those negroes? If you can, I pity you.

Since the condition of slaves is such as I have described, are you surprised at occasional insurrections? You may _regret_ it most deeply; but _can_ you wonder at it. The famous Captain Smith, when he was a slave in Tartary, killed his overseer and made his escape. I never heard him blamed for it--it seems to be universally considered a simple act of self-defence. The same thing has often occurred with regard to white men taken by the Algerines.

The Poles have shed Russian "blood enough to float our navy;" and we admire and praise them, because they did it in resistance of oppression.

Yet they have suffered less than black slaves, all the world over, are suffering. We honor our forefathers because they rebelled against certain principles dangerous to political freedom; yet from actual, personal tyranny, they suffered nothing: the negro on the contrary, is suffering all that oppression _can_ make human nature suffer. Why do we execrate in one set of men, what we laud so highly in another? I shall be reminded that insurrections and murders are totally at variance with the precepts of our religion; and this is most true. But according to this rule, the Americans, Poles, Parisians, Belgians, and all who have shed blood for the sake of liberty, are more to blame than the negroes; for the former are more enlightened, and can always have access to the fountain of religion; while the latter are kept in a state of brutal ignorance--not allowed to read their Bibles--knowing nothing of Christianity, except the examples of their masters, who profess to be governed by its maxims.

I hope I shall not be misunderstood on this point. I am not vindicating insurrections and murders; the very thought makes my blood run cold. I believe revenge is _always_ wicked; but I say, what the laws of every country acknowledge, that great provocations are a palliation of great crimes. When a man steals food because he is starving, we are more disposed to pity, than to blame him. And what _can_ human nature do, subject to continual and oppressive wrong--hopeless of change--not only unprotected by law, but the law itself changed into an enemy--and to complete the whole, shut out from the instructions and consolations of the Gospel! No wonder the West India missionaries found it very difficult to decide what they ought to say to the poor, suffering negroes! They could indeed tell them it was very impolitic to be rash and violent, because it could not, under existing circ.u.mstances, make their situation better, and would be very likely to make it worse; but if they urged the maxims of religion, the slaves might ask the embarra.s.sing question, is not our treatment in direct opposition to the precepts of the gospel? Our masters can read the Bible--they have a chance to know better. Why do not Christians deal justly by us, before they require us to deal mercifully with them?

Think of all these things, kind-hearted reader. Try to judge the negro by the same rules you judge other men; and while you condemn his faults, do not forget his manifold provocations.

CHAPTER VIII.

PREJUDICES AGAINST PEOPLE OF COLOR, AND OUR DUTIES IN RELATION TO THIS SUBJECT.

"A negro has a _soul_, an' please your honor," said the Corporal, (_doubtingly_.)

"I am not much versed, Corporal," quoth my Uncle Toby, "In things of that kind; but I suppose G.o.d would not leave him without one any more than thee or me."

"It would be putting one sadly over the head of the other,"

quoth the Corporal.

"It would so," said my Uncle Toby.

"Why then, an' please your honor, is a black man to be used worse than a white one."

"I can give no reason," said my Uncle Toby.

"Only," cried the Corporal, shaking his head, "because he has no one to stand up for him."

"It is that very thing, Trim," quoth my Uncle Toby, "which recommends him to protection."

While we bestow our earnest disapprobation on the system of slavery, let us not flatter ourselves that we are in reality any better than our brethren of the South. Thanks to our soil and climate, and the early exertions of the excellent Society of Friends, the _form_ of slavery does not exist among us; but the very _spirit_ of the hateful and mischievous thing is here in all its strength. The manner in which we use what power we have, gives us ample reason to be grateful that the nature of our inst.i.tutions does not intrust us with more. Our prejudice against colored people is even more inveterate than it is at the South.

The planter is often attached to his negroes, and lavishes caresses and kind words upon them, as he would on a favorite hound: but our cold-hearted, ign.o.ble prejudice admits of no exception--no intermission.

The Southerners have long continued habit, apparent interest and dreaded danger, to palliate the wrong they do; but we stand without excuse. They tell us that Northern s.h.i.+ps and Northern capital have been engaged in this wicked business; and the reproach is true. Several fortunes in this city have been made by the sale of negro blood. If these criminal transactions are still carried on, they are done in silence and secrecy, because public opinion has made them disgraceful. But if the free States wished to cherish the system of slavery for ever, they could not take a more direct course than they now do. Those who are kind and liberal on all other subjects, unite with the selfish and the proud in their unrelenting efforts to keep the colored population in the lowest state of degradation; and the influence they unconsciously exert over children early infuses into their innocent minds the same strong feelings of contempt.

The intelligent and well-informed have the least share of this prejudice; and when their minds can be brought to reflect upon it, I have generally observed that they soon cease to have any at all. But such a general apathy prevails and the subject is so seldom brought into view, that few are really aware how oppressively the influence of society is made to bear upon this injured cla.s.s of the community. When I have related facts, that came under my own observation, I have often been listened to with surprise, which gradually increased to indignation. In order that my readers may not be ignorant of the extent of this tyrannical prejudice, I will as briefly as possible state the evidence, and leave them to judge of it, as their hearts and consciences may dictate.

In the first place, an unjust law exists in this Commonwealth, by which marriages between persons of different color is p.r.o.nounced illegal. I am perfectly aware of the gross ridicule to which I may subject myself by alluding to this particular; but I have lived too long, and observed too much, to be disturbed by the world's mockery. In the first place, the government ought not to be invested with power to control the affections, any more than the consciences of citizens. A man has at least as good a right to choose his wife, as he has to choose his religion. His taste may not suit his neighbors; but so long as his deportment is correct, they have no right to interfere with his concerns. In the second place, this law is a _useless_ disgrace to Ma.s.sachusetts. Under existing circ.u.mstances, none but those whose condition in life is too low to be much affected by public opinion, will form such alliances; and they, when they choose to do so, _will_ make such marriages, in spite of the law. I know two or three instances where women of the laboring cla.s.s have been united to reputable, industrious colored men. These husbands regularly bring home their wages, and are kind to their families. If by some of the odd chances, which not unfrequently occur in the world, their wives should become heirs to any property, the children may be wronged out of it, because the law p.r.o.nounces them illegitimate. And while this injustice exists with regard to _honest_, industrious individuals, who are merely guilty of differing from us in a matter of taste, neither the legislation nor customs of slaveholding States exert their influence against _immoral_ connexions.

In one portion of our country this fact is shown in a very peculiar and striking manner. There is a numerous cla.s.s at New-Orleans, called Quateroons, or Quadroons, because their colored blood has for several successive generations been intermingled with the white. The women are much distinguished for personal beauty and gracefulness of motion; and their parents frequently send them to France for the advantages of an elegant education. White gentlemen of the first rank are desirous of being invited to their parties, and often become seriously in love with these fascinating but unfortunate beings. Prejudice forbids matrimony, but universal custom sanctions temporary connexions, to which a certain degree of respectability is allowed, on account of the peculiar situation of the parties. These attachments often continue for years--sometimes for life--and instances are not unfrequent of exemplary constancy and great propriety of deportment.

What eloquent vituperations we should pour forth, if the contending claims of nature and pride produced such a tissue of contradictions in some other country, and not in our own!

There is another Ma.s.sachusetts law, which an enlightened community would not probably suffer to be carried into execution under any circ.u.mstances; but it still remains to disgrace the statutes of this Commonwealth. It is as follows:

"No African or Negro, other than a subject of the Emperor of Morocco, or a citizen of the United States, (proved so by a certificate of the Secretary of the State of which he is a citizen,) shall tarry within this Commonwealth longer than two months; and on complaint a justice shall order him to depart in ten days; and if he do not then, the justice may commit such African or Negro to the House of Correction, there to be kept at hard labor; and at the next term of the Court of Common Pleas, he shall be tried, and if convicted of remaining as aforesaid, shall be whipped not exceeding ten lashes; and if he or she shall not _then_ depart, such process shall be repeated, and punishment inflicted, _toties quoties_." Stat. 1788, Ch. 54.

An honorable Haytian or Brazilian, who visited this country for business or information, might come under this law, unless public opinion rendered it a mere dead letter.

There is among the colored people an increasing desire for information, and laudable ambition to be respectable in manners and appearance. Are we not foolish as well as sinful, in trying to repress a tendency so salutary to themselves, and so beneficial to the community? Several individuals of this cla.s.s are very desirous to have persons of their own color qualified to teach something more than mere reading and writing.

But in the public schools, colored children are subject to many discouragements and difficulties; and into the private schools they cannot gain admission. A very sensible and well-informed colored woman in a neighboring town, whose family have been brought up in a manner that excited universal remark and approbation, has been extremely desirous to obtain for her eldest daughter the advantages of a private school; but she has been resolutely repulsed on account of her complexion. The girl is a very light mulatto, with great modesty and propriety of manners; perhaps no young person in the Commonwealth was less likely to have a bad influence on her a.s.sociates. The clergyman respected the family, and he remonstrated with the instructer; but while the latter admitted the injustice of the thing, he excused himself by saying such a step would occasion the loss of all his white scholars.

In a town adjoining Boston, a well behaved colored boy was kept out of the public school more than a year, by vote of the trustees. His mother, having some information herself, knew the importance of knowledge, and was anxious to obtain it for her family. She wrote repeatedly and urgently; and the schoolmaster himself told me that the correctness of her spelling, and the neatness of her hand-writing, formed a curious contrast with the notes he received from many white parents. At last, this spirited woman appeared before the committee, and reminded them that her husband, having for many years paid taxes as a citizen, had a right to the privileges of a citizen; and if her claim were refused, or longer postponed, she declared her determination to seek justice from a higher source. The trustees were, of course, obliged to yield to the equality of the laws, with the best grace they could. The boy was admitted, and made good progress in his studies. Had his mother been too ignorant to know her rights, or too abject to demand them, the lad would have had a fair chance to get a living out of the State as the occupant of a workhouse, or penitentiary.

The attempt to establish a school for African girls at Canterbury, Connecticut, has made too much noise to need a detailed account in this volume. I do not know the lady who first formed the project, but I am told that she is a benevolent and religious woman. It certainly is difficult to imagine any other motives than good ones, for an undertaking so arduous and unpopular. Yet had the Pope himself attempted to establish his supremacy over that Commonwealth, he could hardly have been repelled with more determined and angry resistance. Town-meetings were held, the records of which are not highly creditable to the parties concerned. Pet.i.tions were sent to the Legislature, beseeching that no African school might be allowed to admit individuals not residing in the town where said school was established; and strange to relate, this law, which makes it impossible to collect a sufficient number of pupils, was sanctioned by the State. A colored girl, who availed herself of this opportunity to gain instruction, was warned out of town, and fined for not complying; and the instructress was imprisoned for persevering in her benevolent plan.

It was said, in excuse, that Canterbury would be inundated with vicious characters, who would corrupt the morals of the young men; that such a school would break down the distinctions between black and white; and that marriages between people of different colors would be the probable result. Yet they a.s.sumed the ground that colored people _must_ always be an inferior and degraded cla.s.s--that the prejudice against them _must_ be eternal; being deeply founded in the laws of G.o.d and nature. Finally, they endeavored to represent the school as one of the _incendiary_ proceedings of the Anti-Slavery Society; and they appealed to the Colonization Society, as an aggrieved child is wont to appeal to its parent.

The objection with regard to the introduction of vicious characters into a village, certainly has some force; but are such persons likely to leave cities for a quiet country town, in search of moral and intellectual improvement? Is it not obvious that the _best_ portion of the colored cla.s.s are the very ones to prize such an opportunity for instruction? Grant that a large proportion of these unfortunate people _are_ vicious--is it not our duty, and of course our wisest policy, to try to make them otherwise? And what will so effectually elevate their character and condition, as knowledge? I beseech you, my countrymen, think of these things wisely, and in season.

As for intermarriages, if there be such a repugnance between the two races, founded in the laws of _nature_, methinks there is small reason to dread their frequency.

The breaking down of distinctions in society, by means of extended information, is an objection which appropriately belongs to the Emperor of Austria, or the Sultan of Egypt.

I do not know how the affair at Canterbury is _generally_ considered: but I have heard individuals of all parties and all opinions speak of it--and never without merriment or indignation. Fifty years hence, the _black_ laws of Connecticut will be a greater source of amus.e.m.e.nt to the antiquarian, than her famous _blue_ laws.

A similar, though less violent opposition arose in consequence of the attempt to establish a college for colored people at New-Haven. A young colored man, who tried to obtain education at the Wesleyan college in Middletown, was obliged to relinquish the attempt on account of the persecution of his fellow students. Some collegians from the South objected to a colored a.s.sociate in their recitations; and those from New-England promptly and zealously joined in the hue and cry. A small but firm party were in favor of giving the colored man a chance to pursue his studies without insult or interruption; and I am told that this manly and disinterested band were all Southerners. As for those individuals, who exerted their influence to exclude an unoffending fellow-citizen from privileges which ought to be equally open to all, it is to be hoped that age will make them wiser--and that they will learn, before they die, to be ashamed of a step attended with more important results than usually belong to youthful follies.

It happens that these experiments have all been made in Connecticut; but it is no more than justice to that State to remark that a similar spirit would probably have been manifested in Ma.s.sachusetts, under like circ.u.mstances. At our debating clubs and other places of public discussion, the demon of prejudice girds himself for the battle, the moment negro colleges and high schools are alluded to. Alas, while we carry on our lips that religion which teaches us to "love our neighbors as ourselves," how little do we cherish its blessed influence within our hearts! How much republicanism we have to _speak_ of, and how little do we practise!

Let us seriously consider what injury a negro college could possibly do us. It is certainly a fair presumption that the scholars would be from the better portion of the colored population; and it is an equally fair presumption that knowledge would improve their characters. There are already many hundreds of colored people in the city of Boston. In the street they generally appear neat and respectable; and in our houses they do not "come between the wind and our n.o.bility." Would the addition of one or two hundred more even be perceived? As for giving offence to the Southerners by allowing such establishments--they have no right to interfere with our internal concerns, any more than we have with theirs.

Why should they not give up slavery to please us, by the same rule that we must refrain from educating the negroes to please them? If they are at liberty to do wrong, we certainly ought to be at liberty to do right.

They may talk and publish as much about us as they please; and we ask for no other influence over them.

It is a fact not generally known that the brave Kosciusko left a fund for the establishment of a negro college in the United States. Little did he think he had been fighting for a people, who would not grant one rood of their vast territory for the benevolent purpose!

According to present appearances, a college for colored persons will be established in Canada; and thus by means of our foolish and wicked pride, the credit of this philanthropic enterprise will be transferred to our mother country.

The preceding chapters show that it has been no uncommon thing for colored men to be educated at English, German, Portuguese, and Spanish Universities.

In Boston there is an Infant School, three Primary Schools, and a Grammar School. The two last are, I believe, supported by the public; and this fact is highly creditable.