[233] Thus far we have dealt with the main questions raised by Mr. Froude on the lines of his own choosing; lines which demonstrate to the fullest how unsuited his capacity is for appreciating—still less grappling with—the political and social issues he has so confidently undertaken to determine. In vain have we sought throughout his bastard philosophizing for any phrase giving promise of an adequate treatment of this important subject. We find paraded ostentatiously enough the doctrine that in the adjustment of human affairs the possession of a white skin should be the strongest recommendation. Wonder might fairly be felt that there is no suggestion of a corresponding advantage being accorded to the possession of a long nose or of auburn hair. Indeed, little [234] or no attention that can be deemed serious is given to the interest of the Blacks, as a large and (out of Africa) no longer despicable section of the human family, in the great world-problems which are so visibly preparing and press for definitive solutions. The intra-African Negro is clearly powerless to struggle successfully against personal enslavement, annexation, or volunteer forcible "protection" of his territory. What, we ask, will in the coming ages be the opinion and attitude of the extra-African millions—ten millions in the Western Hemisphere—dispersed so widely over the surface of the globe, apt apprentices in every conceivable department of civilized culture? Will these men remain for ever too poor, too isolated from one another for grand racial combinations? Or will the naturally opulent cradle of their people, too long a prey to violence and unholy greed, become at length the sacred watchword of a generation willing and able to conquer or perish under its inspiration? Such large and interesting questions it was within the province and duty of a famous historian, laying confident claim to prophetic insight, not to propound alone, but also definitely to solve. The sacred power [235] of forecast, however, has been confined to finical pronouncements regarding those for whose special benefit he has exercised it, and to childish insults of the Blacks whose doom must be sealed to secure the precious result which is aimed at. In view of this ill-intentioned omission, we shall offer a few cursory remarks bearing on, but not attempting to answer, those grave inquiries concerning the African people. As in our humble opinion these are questions paramount to all the petty local issues finically dilated on by the confident prophet of "The Bow of Ulysses," we will here briefly devote ourselves to its discussion.
Accepting the theory of human development propounded by our author, let us apply it to the African race. Except, of course, to intelligences having a share in the Councils of Eternity, there can be no attainable knowledge respecting the laws which regulate the growth and progress of civilization among the races of the earth. That in the existence of the human family every age has been marked by its own essential characteristics with regard to manifestations of intellectual life, however circumscribed, is a proposition too self-evident [236] to require more than the stating. But investigation beyond such evidence as we possess concerning the past—whether recorded by man himself in the written pages of history, or by the Creator on the tablets of nature—would be worse than futile. We see that in the past different races have successively come to the front, as prominent actors on the world's stage. The years of civilized development have dawned in turn on many sections of the human family, and the Anglo-Saxons, who now enjoy preeminence, got their turn only after Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, and others had successively held the palm of supremacy. And since these mighty empires have all passed away, may we not then, if the past teaches aught, confidently expect that other racial hegemonies will arise in the future to keep up the ceaseless progression of temporal existence towards the existence that is eternal? What is it in the nature of things that will oust the African race from the right to participate, in times to come, in the high destinies that have been assigned in times past to so many races that have not been in anywise superior to us in the qualifications, physical, moral, and intellectual, [237] that mark out a race for prominence amongst other races?
The normal composition of the typical Negro has the testimony of ages to its essential soundness and nobility. Physically, as an active labourer, he is capable of the most protracted exertion under climatic conditions the most exhausting. By the mere strain of his brawn and sinew he has converted waste tracts of earth into fertile regions of agricultural bountifulness. On the scenes of strife he has in his savage state been known to be indomitable save by the stress of irresistible forces, whether of men or of circumstances. Staunch in his friendship and tender towards the weak directly under his protection, the unvitiated African furnishes in himself the combination of native virtue which in the land of his exile was so prolific of good results for the welfare of the whole slave-class. But distracted at home by the sudden irruptions of skulking foes, he has been robbed, both intellectually and morally, of the immense advantage of Peace, which is the mother of Progress. Transplanted to alien climes, and through centuries of desolating trials, this irrepressible race has [238] bated not one throb of its energy, nor one jot of its heart or hope. In modern times, after his expatriation into dismal bondage, both Britain and America have had occasion to see that even in the paralysing fetters of political and social degradation the right arm of the Ethiop can be a valuable auxiliary on the field of battle. Britain, in her conflict with France for supremacy in the West Indies, did not disdain the aid of the sable arms that struck together with those of Britons for the trophies that furnished the motives for those epic contests.
Later on, the unparalleled struggle between the Northern and Southern States of the American Union put to the test the indestructible fibres of the Negro's nature, moral as well as physical. The Northern States, after months of hesitating repugnance, and when taught at last by dire defeats that colour did not in any way help to victory, at length sullenly acquiesced in the comradeship, hitherto disdained, of the eager African contingent. The records of Port Hudson, Vicksburg, Morris Island, and elsewhere, stand forth in imperishable attestation of the fact that the distinction of being laurelled during life as victor, or filling [239] in death a hero's grave, is reserved for no colour, but for the heart that can dare and the hand that can strike boldly in a righteous cause. The experience of the Southern slave-holders, on the other hand, was no less striking and worthy of admiration. Every man of the twelve seceding States forming the Southern Confederacy, then fighting desperately for the avowed purpose of perpetuating slavery, was called into the field, as no available male arm could be spared from the conflict on their side. Plantation owner, overseer, and every one in authority, had to be drafted away from the scene of their usual occupation to the stage whereon the bloody drama of internecine strife was being enacted. Not only the plantation, but the home and the household, including the mistress and her children, had to be left, not unprotected, it is glorious to observe, but, with confident assurance in their loyalty and good faith, under the protection of the four million of bondsmen, who, through the laws and customs of these very States, had been doomed to lifelong ignorance and exclusion from all moralizing influences. With what result? The protraction of the conflict on the part of the South would [240] have been impossible but for the admirable management and realization of their resources by those benighted slaves. On the other hand, not one of the thousands of Northern prisoners escaping from the durance of a Southern captivity ever appealed in vain for the assistance and protection of a Negro. Clearly the head and heart of those bondsmen were each in its proper place. The moral effect of these experiences of the Negroes' sterling qualities was not lost on either North or South. In the North it effaced from thousands of repugnant hearts the adverse feelings which had devised and accomplished so much to the Negro's detriment. In the South—but for the blunders of the Reconstructionists—it would have considerably facilitated the final readjustment of affairs between the erewhile master and slave in their new-born relations of employer and employed.
Reverting to the Africans who were conveyed to places other than the States, it will be seen that circumstances amongst them and in their favour came into play, modifying and lightening their unhappy condition. First, attention must be paid to the patriotic solidarity existing [241] amongst the bondsmen, a solidarity which, in the case of those who had been deported in the same ship, had all the sanctity of blood-relationship. Those who had thus travelled to the "white man's country" addressed and considered each other as brothers and sisters. Hence their descendants for many generations upheld, as if consanguineous, the modes of address and treatment which became hereditary in families whose originals had travelled in the same ship. These adopted uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, were so united by common sympathies, that good or ill befalling any one of them intensely affected the whole connection. Mutual support commensurate with the area of their location thus became the order among these people. At the time of the first deportation of Africans to the West Indies to replace the aborigines who had been decimated in the mines at Santo Domingo and in the pearl fisheries of the South Caribbean, the circumstances of the Spanish settlers in the Antilles were of singular, even romantic, interest.
The enthusiasm which overflowed from the crusades and the Moorish wars, upon the discovery and conquest of America, had occasioned [242] the peopling of the Western Archipelago by a race of men in whom the daring of freebooters was strangely blended with a fierce sort of religiousness. As holders of slaves, these men recognized, and endeavoured to their best to give effect to, the humane injunctions of Bishop Las Casas. The Negroes, therefore, male and female, were promptly presented for admission by baptism into the Catholic Church, which always had stood open and ready to welcome them. The relations of god-father and god-mother resulting from these baptismal functions had a most important bearing on the reciprocal stations of master and slave. The god-children were, according to ecclesiastical custom, considered in every sense entitled to all the protection and assistance which were within the competence of the god-parents, who, in their turn, received from the former the most absolute submission. It is easy to see that the planters, as well as those intimately connected with them, in assuming such obligations with their concomitant responsibilities, practically entered into bonds which they all regarded as, if possible, more solemn than the natural ties of secular parentage. The duty [243] of providing for these dependents usually took the shape of their being apprenticed to, and trained in the various arts and vocations that constitute the life of civilization. In many cases, at the death of their patrons, the bondsmen who were deemed most worthy were, according to the means of the testator, provided for in a manner lifting them above the necessity of future dependence. Manumission, too, either by favour or through purchase, was allowed the fullest operation. Here then was the active influence of higher motives than mere greed of gain or the pride of racial power mellowing the lot and gilding the future prospects of the dwellers in the tropical house of bondage.
The next, and even more effectual agency in modifying and harmonizing the relations between owner and bondspeople was the inevitable attraction of one race to the other by the sentiment of natural affection. Out of this sprang living ties far more intimate and binding on the moral sense than even obligations contracted in deference to the Church. Natural impulses have often diviner sources than ecclesiastical mandates. Obedience to the former not seldom brings down the penalties of the Church; but [244] the culprit finds solace in the consciousness that the offence might in itself be a protection from the thunders it has provoked. Under these circumstances the general body of planters, who were in the main adventurers of the freest type, were fain to establish connections with such of the slave-women as attracted their sympathy, through personal comeliness or aptitude in domestic affairs, or, usually, both combined. There was ordinarily in this beginning of the seventeenth century no Vashti that needed expulsion from the abode of a plantation Ahasuerus to make room for the African Esther to be admitted to the chief place within the portals. One great natural consequence of this was the extension to the relatives or guardians of the bondswoman so preferred of an amount of favour which, in the case of the more capable males, completes the parallel we have been drawing by securing for each of them the precedence and responsibilities of a Mordecai. The offspring of these natural alliances came in therefore to cement more intimately the union of interests which previous relations had generated. Beloved by their fathers, and in many cases destined by them to a lot superior [245] to that whereto they were entitled by formal law and social prescription, these young procreations—Mulattos, as they were called—were made the objects of special and careful provisions on the fathers' part. They were, according to the means of their fathers in the majority of cases, sent for education and training to European or other superior institutions. After this course they were either formally acknowledged by their fathers, or, if that was impracticable, amply and suitably provided for in a career out of their native colony. To a reflecting mind there is something that interests, not to say fascinates, in studying the action and reaction upon one another of circumstances in the existence of the Mulatto. As a matter of fact, he had much more to complain of under the slave system than his pure-blooded African relations. The law, by decreeing that every child of a freeman and a slave woman must follow the fortune of the womb, thus making him the property of his mother exclusively, practically robbed him before his very birth of the nurture and protection of a father. His reputed father had no obligation to be even aware of his procreation, and nevertheless [246] —so inscrutable are the ways of Providence!—the Mulatto was the centre around which clustered the outraged instincts of nature in rebellion against the desecrating mandates that prescribed treason to herself. Law and society may decree; but in our normal humanity there throbs a sentiment which neutralizes every external impulse contrary to its promptings.
In meditating on the varied history of the Negro in the United States, since his first landing on the banks of the James River in 1619 till the Emancipation Act of President Lincoln in 1865, it is curious to observe that the elevation of the race, though in a great measure secured, proceeded from circumstances almost the reverse of those that operated so favourably in the same direction elsewhere. The men of the slave-holding States, chiefly Puritans or influenced by Puritanic surroundings, were not under the ecclesiastical sway which rendered possible in the West Indies and other Catholic countries the establishment of the reciprocal bonds of god-parents and god-children. The self-same causes operated to prevent any large blending of the two races, inasmuch as the immigrant from Britain who [247] had gone forth from his country to better his fortune had not left behind him his attachment to the institutions of the mother-land, among which marrying, whenever practicable, was one of the most cherished. Above all, too, as another powerful check at first to such alliances between the ruling and servile races of the States, there existed the native idiosyncracy of the Anglo-Saxon. That class of them who had left Britain were likelier than the more refined of their nation to exhibit in its crudest and cruellest form the innate jealousy and contempt of other races that pervades the Anglo-Saxon bosom. It is but a simple fact that, whenever he condescended thereto, familiarity with even the loveliest of the subject people was regarded as a mighty self-unbending for which the object should be correspondingly grateful. So there could, in the beginning, be no frequent instances of the romantic chivalry that gilded the quasi-marital relations of the more fervid and humane members of the Latin stock.
But this kind of intercourse, which in the earlier generation was undoubtedly restricted in North America by the checks above adverted to, and, presumably, also by the mutual unintelligibility [248] in speech, gradually expanded with the natural increase of the slave population. The American-born, English-speaking Negro girl, who had in many cases been the playmate of her owner, was naturally more intelligible, more accessible, more attractive—and the inevitable consequence was the extension apace of that intercourse, the offspring whereof became at length so visibly numerous.
Among the Romans, the grandest of all colonizers, the individual's Civis Romanus sum—I am a Roman citizen—was something more than verbal vapouring; it was a protective talisman—a buckler no less than a sword. Yet was the possession of this noble and singular privilege no barrier to Roman citizens meeting on a broad humanitarian level any alien race, either allied to or under the protection of that world-famous commonwealth. In the speeches of the foremost orators and statesmen among the conquerors of the then known world, the allusions to subject or allied aliens are distinguished by a decorous observance of the proprieties which should mark any reference to those who had the dignity of Rome's [249] friendship, or the privilege of her august protection. Observations, therefore, regarding individuals of rank in these alien countries had the same sobriety and deference which marked allusions to born Romans of analogous degree. Such magnanimity, we grieve to say, is not characteristic of the race which now replaces the Romans in the colonizing leadership of the world. We read with feelings akin to despair of the cheap, not to say derogatory, manner in which, in both Houses of Parliament, native potentates, especially of non-European countries, are frequently spoken of by the hereditary aristocracy and the first gentlemen of the British Empire. The inborn racial contempt thus manifested in quarters where rigid self-control and decorum should form the very essence of normal deportment, was not likely, as we have before hinted, to find any mollifying ingredient in the settlers on the banks of the Mississippi. Therefore should we not be surprised to find, with regard to many an illicit issue of "down South," the arrogance of race so overmastering the promptings of nature as to render not unfrequent at the auction-block the sight of many a chattel of mixed blood, the offspring [250] of some planter whom business exigency had forced to this commercial transaction as the readiest mode of self-release. Yet were the exceptions to this rule enough to contribute appreciably to the weight and influence of the mixed race in the North, where education and a fair standing had been clandestinely secured for their children by parents to whom law and society had made it impossible to do more, and whom conscience rendered incapable of stopping at less.
From this comparative sketch of the history of the slaves in the States, in the West Indies and countries adjacent, it will be perceived that in the latter scenes of bondage everything had conspired to render a fusion of interests between the ruling and the servile classes not only easy, but inevitable. In the very first generation after their introduction, the Africans began to press upward, a movement which every decade has accelerated, in spite of the changes which supervened as each of the Colonies fell under British sway. Nearly two centuries had by this time elapsed, and the coloured influence, which had grown with their wealth, education, numbers, and unity, though [251] circumscribed by the emancipation of the slaves, and the consequent depression in fortune of all slave-owners, never was or could be annihilated. In the Government service there were many for whom the patronage of god-parents or the sheer influence of their family had effected an entrance. The prevalence and potency of the influences we have been dilating upon may be gauged by the fact that personages no less exalted than Governors of various Colonies—of Trinidad in three authentic cases—have been sharers in the prevailing usages, in the matter of standing sponsors (by proxy), and also of relaxing in the society of some fascinating daughter of the sun from the tension and wear of official duty. In the three cases just referred to, the most careful provision was made for the suitable education and starting in life of the issues. For the god-children of Governors there were places in the public service, and so from the highest to the lowest the humanitarian intercourse of the classes was confirmed.
Consequent on the frequent abandonment of their plantations by many owners who despaired of being able to get along by paying [252] their way, an opening was made for the insinuation of Absenteeism into our agricultural, in short, our economic existence. The powerful sugar lords, who had invested largely in the cane plantations, were fain to take over and cultivate the properties which their debtors doggedly refused to continue working, under pretext of the entire absence, or at any rate unreliability, of labour. The representatives of those new transatlantic estate proprietors displaced, but never could replace, the original cultivators, who were mostly gentlemen as well as agriculturists. It was from this overseer class that the vituperations and slanders went forth that soon became stereotyped, concerning the Negro's incorrigible laziness and want of ambition—those gentry adjusting the scale of wages, not according to the importance and value of the labour done, but according to the scornful estimate which they had formed of the Negro personally. And when the wages were fixed fairly, they almost invariably sought to indemnify themselves for their enforced justice by the insulting license of their tongues, addressed to males and females alike. The influence of such men on local legislation, in which they [253] had a preponderating share, either as actual proprietors or as the attorneys of absentees, was not in the direction of refinement or liberality. Indeed, the kind of laws which they enacted, especially during the apprenticeship (1834-8), is thus summarized by one, and him an English officer, who was a visitor in those agitated days of the Colonies:—
"It is demonstrated that the laws which were to come into operation immediately on expiration of the apprenticeship are of the most objectionable character, and fully established the fact not only of a future intention to infringe the rights of the emancipated classes, but of the actual commencement and extensive progress of a Colonial system for that purpose. The object of the laws is to circumscribe the market for free labour—to prohibit the possession or sale of ordinary articles of produce on sale, the obvious intention of which is to confine the emancipated classes to a course of agricultural servitude—to give the employers a monopoly of labour, and to keep down a free competition for wages—to create new and various modes of apprenticeship for the purpose of prolonging predial service, together with many evils of the [254] late system—to introduce unnecessary restraint and coercion, the design of which is to create a perpetual surveillance over the liberated negroes, and to establish a legislative despotism. The several laws passed are based upon the most vicious principles of legislation, and in their operation will be found intolerably oppressive and entirely subversive of the just intentions of the British Legislature."
These liberal-souled gentry were, in sooth, Mr. Froude's "representatives" of Britain, whose traditions steadily followed in their families, he has so well and sympathetically set forth.
We thus see that the irritation and rancour seething in the breast of the new plantocracy, of whom the majority was of the type that then also flourished in Barbados, Jamaica, and Demerara, were nourished and kept acute in order to crush the African element. Harm was done, certainly; but not to the ruinous extent sometimes declared. It was too late for perfect success, as, according to the Negroes' own phrase, people of colour had by that time already "passed the lock-jaw"* stage (at which trifling misadventures [255] might have nipped the germ of their progress in the bud.) In spite of adverse legislation, and in spite of the scandalous subservience of certain Governors to the Colonial Legislatures, the Race can point with thankfulness and pride to the visible records of their success wherever they have permanently sojourned.
Primary education of a more general and undiscriminating character, especially as to race and colour, was secured for the bulk of the West Indies by voluntary undertakings, and notably through the munificent provision of Lady Mico, which extended to the whole of the principal islands.
Thanks to Lord Harris for introducing, and to Sir Arthur Gordon for extending to the secondary stage, the public education of Trinidad, there has been since Emancipation, that is, during the last thirty-seven years, a more effective bringing together in public schools of various grades, of children of all races and ranks. Rivals at home, at school and college, in books as well as on the playground, they have very frequently gone abroad together to learn the professions they have selected. In this way there is an intercommunion between all the [256] intelligent sections of the inhabitants, based on a common training and the subtle sympathies usually generated in enlightened breasts by intimate personal knowledge. In mixed communities thus circumstanced, there is no possibility of maintaining distinctions based on mere colour, as advocated by Mr. Froude.
The following brief summary by the Rev. P. H. Doughlin, Rector of St. Clement's, Trinidad, a brilliant star among the sons of Ham, embodies this fact in language which, so far as it goes, is as comprehensive as it is weighty:—
"Who could, without seeming to insult the intelligence of men, have predicted on the day of Emancipation that the Negroes then released from the blight and withering influence of ten generations of cruel bondage, so weakened and half-destroyed—so denationalized and demoralized—so despoiled and naked, would be in the position they are now? In spite of the proud, supercilious, and dictatorial bearing of their teachers, in spite of the hampering of unsympathetic, alien oversight, in spite of the spirit of dependence and servility engendered by slavery, not only have individual members of the race entered into all the offices of dignity in [257] Church and State, as subalterns—as hewers of wood and drawers of water—but they have attained to the very highest places. Here in the West Indies, and on the West Coast of Africa, are to be found Surgeons of the Negro Race, Solicitors, Barristers, Mayors, Councillors, Principals and Founders of High Schools and Colleges, Editors and Proprietors of Newspapers, Archdeacons, Bishops, Judges, and Authors—men who not only teach those immediately around them, but also teach the world. Members of the race have even been entrusted with the administration of Governments. And it is not mere commonplace men that the Negro Race has produced. Not only have the British Universities thought them worthy of their honorary degrees and conferred them on them, but members of the race have won these University degrees. A few years back a full-blooded Negro took the highest degree Oxford has to give to a young man. The European world is looking with wonder and admiration at the progress made by the Negro Race—a progress unparalleled in the annals of the history of any race."
To this we may add that in the domain [258] of high literature the Blacks of the United States, for the twenty-five years of social emancipation, and despite the lingering obstructions of caste prejudice, have positively achieved wonders. Leaving aside the writings of men of such high calibre as F. Douglass, Dr. Hyland Garnet, Prof. Crummell, Prof. E. Blyden, Dr. Tanner, and others, it is gratifying to be able to chronicle the Ethiopic women of North America as moving shoulder to shoulder with the men in the highest spheres of literary activity. Among a brilliant band of these our sisters, conspicuous no less in poetry than in prose, we single out but a solitary name for the double purpose of preserving brevity and of giving in one embodiment the ideal Afro-American woman of letters. The allusion here can scarcely fail to point to Mrs. S. Harper. This lady's philosophical subtlety of reasoning on grave questions finds effective expression in a prose of singular precision and vigour. But it is as a poet that posterity will hail her in the coming ages of our Race. For pathos, depth of spiritual insight, and magical exercise of a rare power of self-utterance, it will hardly be questioned that she has surpassed every competitor [259] among females—white or black—save and except Elizabeth Barett Browning, with whom the gifted African stands on much the same plane of poetic excellence.
The above summary of our past vicissitudes and actual position shows that there is nothing in our political circumstances to occasion uneasiness. The miserable skin and race doctrine we have been discussing does not at all prefigure the destinies at all events of the West Indies, or determine the motives that will affect them. With the exception of those belonging to the Southern states of the Union, the vast body of African descendants now dispersed in various countries of the Western Hemisphere are at sufficient peace to begin occupying themselves, according to some fixed programme, about matters of racial importance. More than ten millions of Africans are scattered over the wide area indicated, and possess amongst them instances of mental and other qualifications which render them remarkable among their fellow-men. But like the essential parts of a complicated albeit perfect machine, these attainments and qualifications so widely dispersed await, it is evident, some potential [260] agency to collect and adjust them into the vast engine essential for executing the true purposes of the civilized African Race. Already, especially since the late Emancipation Jubilee, are signs manifest of a desire for intercommunion and intercomprehension amongst the more distinguished of our people. With intercourse and unity of purpose will be secured the means to carry out the obvious duties which are sure to devolve upon us, especially with reference to the cradle of our Race, which is most probably destined to be the ultimate resting-place and headquarters of millions of our posterity. Within the short time that we had to compass all that we have achieved, there could not have arisen opportunities for doing more than we have effected. Meanwhile our present device is: "Work, Hope, and Wait!"
Finally, it must be borne in mind that the abolition of physical bondage did not by any means secure all the requisite conditions of "a fair field and no favour" for the future career of the freedmen. The remnant of Jacob, on their return from the Captivity, were compelled, whilst rebuilding their Temple, literally to labour with the working tool in one hand [261] and the sword for personal defence in the other. Even so have the conditions, figuratively, presented themselves under which the Blacks have been obliged to rear the fabric of self-elevation since 1838, whilst combating ceaselessly the obstacles opposed to the realizing of their legitimate aspirations. Mental and, in many cases, material success has been gained, but the machinery for accumulating and applying the means required for comprehensive racial enterprises is waiting on Providence, time, and circumstances for its establishment and successful working.
NOTES
254. *"Yo té'ja passé mal machoè"—in metaphorical allusion to new-born infants who have lived beyond a certain number of days.