FOOTNOTES:[230]These letters are taken from E. B. Washburne'sSketch of Edward Coles, Second Governor of Illinois, and of the Slavery Struggle of 1823-1824.[231]Ibid., p. 18.[232]Jefferson's reply was published inThe Journal Op Negro History, Vol. III, p. 83.[233]The last paragraph of Mr. Birkbeck's letter cannot but excite admiration. The quotation from Horace applied with great force to the case of Governor Coles:"Neither the ardor of citizens ordering base things, nor the face of the threatening tyrant shakes a man just and tenacious of principle from his firm intentions."
[230]These letters are taken from E. B. Washburne'sSketch of Edward Coles, Second Governor of Illinois, and of the Slavery Struggle of 1823-1824.
[230]These letters are taken from E. B. Washburne'sSketch of Edward Coles, Second Governor of Illinois, and of the Slavery Struggle of 1823-1824.
[231]Ibid., p. 18.
[231]Ibid., p. 18.
[232]Jefferson's reply was published inThe Journal Op Negro History, Vol. III, p. 83.
[232]Jefferson's reply was published inThe Journal Op Negro History, Vol. III, p. 83.
[233]The last paragraph of Mr. Birkbeck's letter cannot but excite admiration. The quotation from Horace applied with great force to the case of Governor Coles:"Neither the ardor of citizens ordering base things, nor the face of the threatening tyrant shakes a man just and tenacious of principle from his firm intentions."
[233]The last paragraph of Mr. Birkbeck's letter cannot but excite admiration. The quotation from Horace applied with great force to the case of Governor Coles:
"Neither the ardor of citizens ordering base things, nor the face of the threatening tyrant shakes a man just and tenacious of principle from his firm intentions."
Solomon Humphries.Traveling through this country in 1833 at the very time when free Negroes were being denounced as an evil of which this country should by all means rid itself, C. D. Arfwedson found in Macon, Georgia a thrifty free Negro named Solomon Humphries, well known by all classes including local officials and even the governor of the State. Humphries had by dint of energy acquired his freedom and had made himself an asset in his community. He was then keeping a large grocery store and had more credit than many other merchants in the town, for he had accumulated about $20,000 worth of property. He had a neat and comfortably furnished home, presided over by his wife, an intelligent woman of color, who was often seen driving with him in his own unostentatious carriage. He was sought by the wealthiest people of the city whom he lavishly entertained at his home, doing them the honor of waiting on them in person himself, although he had a number of slaves who could have rendered this service. Making it a rule to be especially hospitable to strangers, he invited Arfwedson to be his guest while in the city; but on account of having planned to go to Columbus that day, Arfwedson could not accept his invitation.—Arfwedson's United States and Canada in 1833 and 1834, I, p. 425.
A Negro Colonizationist.While the American Colonization Society was being denounced by the free Negroes of the North, many blacks of the same status in the South had a different attitude toward the movement, especially during the twenties before it had been discovered that Liberia was not suitable for a civilized people. One of the Negroes of the South to be won to this movement was a free man of color named Creighton, a slave owner of Charleston, South Carolina. He had accumulated considerable wealth and had begun to feel that it would be better for him to spend his remaining days in a land of freedom. Several other free blacks were induced to go with him. In disposing of his property he offered his slaves, the alternative of being liberated on the condition of accompanying him on his expedition or of remaining in this countryto be sold as other property. Only one of his slaves 3could be prevailed upon to accept freedom on these terms and go with him to Liberia. Creighton then closed up his business in Charleston, purchased for the enterprise a schoonerThe Calypsoand set sail for Africa, October 17, 1821.—Niles Register, XXI, p. 163; taken fromThe New York Commercial Advertiser.
A Moralist.A white cooper called upon a Negro who owned a fine farm near Cincinnati and expressed a desire to purchase some stave timber from him. The Negro inquired as to what use the cooper would make of it. The latter replied that he had a contract to make some whisky barrels.
"Well, Sir," was the prompt reply, "I have the timber and want the money, but no man can purchase a single stave or hoop pole, or a particle of grain from me for that purpose."
The cooper, of course, became unusually angry on receiving such a stern reproof and contemptuously addressed this man of color, calling him a "Nigger."
"That is very true," mildly replied the Negro. "I can't help that, but Icanhelp selling my timber to make whisky barrels, and I mean to do it."—The Weekly Herald and Philanthropist, May 13, 1846.
A Benevolent Negro.Before the Northwest Territory became disturbed by the influx of free Negroes and fugitives running away from persecution in the South, there had been enough trouble with white vagrants to lead to drastic laws for the protection of certain communities. Michigan, which did not until 1827 pass a measure dealing especially with undesirable Negroes, had prior to this time a law providing for selling idle and dissolute persons at auction. At one of the sales in 1821 a Negro bought a white man and ordered him to follow his master, and the order was obeyed. But the benevolent black took his servant to the steamboat, paid his passage and restored him his freedom, making himself satisfied with sending the white vagrant out of the territory.—Niles Register, XXI, p. 214.
Harvard Studies.I.Varia Africana.I.Oric Bates, Editor,F. H. Sterns, Asst. Editor. Introduction byTheodore Roosevelt. The African Department of the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, Cambridge, 1917. Quarto. Pp. 292.
In the introduction to the Harvard African studies ex-President Roosevelt describes the enterprise which this volume represents as "the first serious attempt by Americans to contribute to the real study of the African." He might have added, with almost equal truth, that it is the first serious attempt by Americans to study the Negro.
Books have been written by Americans about the black man. Howard University, Washington, D. C., has a library of such books. There are other private collections, some of them running into several thousand volumes. Most of them are written in a controversial spirit. Many of them are theological, seeking to show, on the basis of scriptural quotations, that the social status of the black man is pre-ordained and eternally fixed. Others are pseudo-scientific attempts to solve the race problem by showing that the black man is not quite human. Some of them seek to prove, on the basis of anthropological data, that the Negro has no soul, hence efforts to Christianize him are hopeless.—Many more are written by Negroes to preserve some record of their meager history, or to defend the race against the monstrous attacks upon its humanity.
Such books are interesting and valuable as records of the sentiments and attitudes which the racial struggle has called forth in the black man and in the white. The strange distortions of fact and opinion which they record are significant, not so much for what they tell us of the Negro, as for what they reveal of the intensity of the racial conflict, and of the nature of the passions involved. Most books on the Negro in America published prior to 1900, and some books written since that time, are mainly valuable as source books for the social psychologist and the students of human nature. As literature they represent a melancholy anthology. As records of human nature, under the strains and stresses of a tragic although peaceful conflict, they have a new and fascinating interest.It is in this sense that we can say, spite of all that has been written, that there are no scientific studies of the American Negro, there are only materials awaiting scientific interpretation.
It must be regarded as an event of the first importance, therefore, that an institution of the authority of Harvard University and the Peabody Museum proposes to publish a series of studies intended to cover the whole wide range of native African life and to extend these studies eventually to the descendants of the African peoples in America. No study of the Negro in America will be complete which does not take account of the African background of the race. On the other hand, no attempt to assess the qualities and capacities of the native African, living in his isolated and primitive environment, will be adequate which does not take account of the Negro's progress under the conditions of a civilized environment. As a matter of fact the Africans are the only contemporaneous primitive people who have anywhere achieved race consciousness and civilization without losing their racial identity. As a consequence almost every fundamental process and stage of civilization, from the most primitive to the most cosmopolitan man, is somewhere represented in the contemporary life of the Negro in Africa and America. It is this fact which lends significance to the present volume, since these studies propose to cover eventually the whole range of Negro life in Africa and America, so far as that can be done within the limits of the anthropological sciences. An editorial note at the end of this first volume describes the plan and scope of the proposed series of publications.
The Harvard African Studies is designed to consist of annual volumes—under the title of Varia Africana—made up of miscellaneous papers, and of occasional monographs presenting the results of original field or laboratory research.The scope of the volumes may be defined as African anthropology in the widest sense. Only original papers are desired, but these may be of any length compatible with their presentation in a volume which is essentially in the nature of a journal, and may deal with any of the following subjects: psychology, archæology, ethnography, linguistics, sociology, ethno-geography, religion, folklore, or technology. A range so wide must perforce be limited in some directions, and the editors have therefore decided upon the exclusion of purely historical papers, even when the latter embody the political records of native tribes. As an exception to this rule, the editors may be willing, under certain circumstances, to accept historical material which, by establishing the presence of this or that group of people in a certain locality, or by throwing light on the nature or date of a migration, bears on racial questions and problems of primitive culture.The series is open to papers of a non-controversial character dealing with a topic sadly in need of more scientific treatment—we refer to the question of the American Negro. The anthropometrist, the sociologist, and the folklorist have in this direction a field of research which, if approached with adequate knowledge, can be made to yield invaluable results. As these results cannot but be of practical importance, the editors are particularly anxious to have an opportunity of presenting them.
The Harvard African Studies is designed to consist of annual volumes—under the title of Varia Africana—made up of miscellaneous papers, and of occasional monographs presenting the results of original field or laboratory research.
The scope of the volumes may be defined as African anthropology in the widest sense. Only original papers are desired, but these may be of any length compatible with their presentation in a volume which is essentially in the nature of a journal, and may deal with any of the following subjects: psychology, archæology, ethnography, linguistics, sociology, ethno-geography, religion, folklore, or technology. A range so wide must perforce be limited in some directions, and the editors have therefore decided upon the exclusion of purely historical papers, even when the latter embody the political records of native tribes. As an exception to this rule, the editors may be willing, under certain circumstances, to accept historical material which, by establishing the presence of this or that group of people in a certain locality, or by throwing light on the nature or date of a migration, bears on racial questions and problems of primitive culture.
The series is open to papers of a non-controversial character dealing with a topic sadly in need of more scientific treatment—we refer to the question of the American Negro. The anthropometrist, the sociologist, and the folklorist have in this direction a field of research which, if approached with adequate knowledge, can be made to yield invaluable results. As these results cannot but be of practical importance, the editors are particularly anxious to have an opportunity of presenting them.
As a further indication of the method and purpose of these studies the editors emphasize that an effort will be made not only to add to the mass of information already extant in the writings of explorers, traders, and missionaries, but to correlate and organize the information already existing.
Travelers, missionaries, administrators, and scientists have published a vast amount of valuable information regarding the various peoples and regions in Africa. As yet, however, there has been comparatively little correlation of this evidence. Now that the day of the reconnaissance explorer is essentially past, and we begin to receive accurate and detailed studies of single tribes, it is highly desirable to have the great mass of published material carefully sifted, so that the future student and investigator may be able to make his efforts as productive as possible.From even a few such documents, it might be possible to plot cultural areas, as has been done for North America—the areas in question being regions of fairly uniform culture, marked off with some sharpness from other such areas. It would then appear whether the African areas depended on geographic conditions, on plant or animal distributions, or on the superior inventive genius of certain tribes or races. On the other hand, it might appear that the whole culture area hypothesis was untenable, and that within any given geographic area, or within any given tribe, there would exist elements of culture which were adopted at widely differing times and belonged to different culture levels. Thus, a true stratification of cultures might be exposed. Yet again, it might be found that people living in similar environments tended to develop a like culture regardless of any contact or close ethnic affinities.
Travelers, missionaries, administrators, and scientists have published a vast amount of valuable information regarding the various peoples and regions in Africa. As yet, however, there has been comparatively little correlation of this evidence. Now that the day of the reconnaissance explorer is essentially past, and we begin to receive accurate and detailed studies of single tribes, it is highly desirable to have the great mass of published material carefully sifted, so that the future student and investigator may be able to make his efforts as productive as possible.
From even a few such documents, it might be possible to plot cultural areas, as has been done for North America—the areas in question being regions of fairly uniform culture, marked off with some sharpness from other such areas. It would then appear whether the African areas depended on geographic conditions, on plant or animal distributions, or on the superior inventive genius of certain tribes or races. On the other hand, it might appear that the whole culture area hypothesis was untenable, and that within any given geographic area, or within any given tribe, there would exist elements of culture which were adopted at widely differing times and belonged to different culture levels. Thus, a true stratification of cultures might be exposed. Yet again, it might be found that people living in similar environments tended to develop a like culture regardless of any contact or close ethnic affinities.
At the present moment the task of correlating existing material in such a way as to test the validity of current theories and presuppositions of the anthropological sciences is quite as important as that of adding to existing collections of information. In this way only can the mass of information now extant be made available for the use of students in the secondary social sciences, like sociology and political science, which are dealing with immediate and practical problems. It is only in this way, for example, that the knowledge we have gained of the Negro in Africa will contribute to the solution of the race problem in America.
Interesting as is the prospect which opens with the first volume of the African Studies, the untechnical reader will probably bemore impressed with imposing appearance of the volume, with the character of its illustration and its general typographical appearance than with its contents. These consist of twelve articles of an average length of 23 pages dealing with the following types:Siwan customs,Oral surgery in Egypt during the Old Empire,Worship of the Dead as practiced by some African Tribes,The Paleoliths of the Eastern Desert,Notes on the Nungu Tribe,Nassawara Province,A study of the Ancient Speech of the Canary Islands,Benin Antiquities in the Peabody Museum,The Utendi of Mwana Kupon,Notes on Egyptian Saints,Dafûr Gourds,An Inscription from Gebel Barkal, andAncient Egyptian Fishing.
Perhaps the most interesting of these articles, for the sociologist, is that of R. H. Blanchard entitledNotes an Egyptian Saints. Sainthood, as the author remarks, "is not a difficulty of achievement in the Islamic world." Every hamlet has its shrine and in the larger villages there will usually be found two or three such sanctuaries. Once a year, on his birthday, a festival and religious fair in honor of the saint is held. The primitive character of these religious celebrations is attested by the orgiastic and often licentious performances that accompany them. For example on the occasion of the festival of el-Hamâl et-Rayah, a purely local celebrity, "the whole adult male population of the town, in defiance of all orthodox Moslem sentiment, intoxicated themselves with whatever alcoholic beverages they could procure. Half a dozen prostitutes, hired for the occasion, set up their booths or tents in the town, and received all comers. There was among the revelers a great deal of horseplay of the most licentious character, particularly in the vicinity of the booths if thesharamît. Drunken men were dragged into the lanes by their friends, and there left lying, exposed to the village wags and wits. In 1914 this festival was modified by Government, which suppressed the more offensive features of the celebration."
One of the most interesting of these saints referred to was "an old Negro slave well known for his long, harmless, pious life." It is generally held that the body of a man who has during his life attained an unusual degree of sanctity is gifted with a supernatural power which is often exerted on those who carry his bier to the grave. The supernatural power of this old Negro saint was attested to in the following peculiar way: "Having died toward evening, he would not, on any account, have himself buried the same evening, and the bearers, in spite of all their shouting ofla ilahill Alllah(sic), could not bring the corpse to the graveyard. It remained therefore, all night in the house (though the people do not like to keep a corpse at night), watched by a multitude of people praying. Next morning also it could not be buried for a long time, the blessed dead compelled the bearers to go through all the streets of the town, till at last, on the recommendations of the governor, the higher officials carried the bier to the grave, even the Turkish soldiers could not accomplish it. The whole town was in uproar. The Mohammadans say the angels exercise this coercive power. The Christians believe it is the devil."
It seems probable, as the author suggests, that we have in these religious festivals in honor of a local celebrity surviving examples of localized and more primitive type of religious cult which has not yet been wholly superseded by the religion of Islam, with its wider outlook and more rational conceptions of life. The notes here recorded suggest at once questions which can only be answered by further investigation and by comparison of the materials gathered in this region with those that are now being brought to light in other fields. It is the purpose of the Harvard African studies to answer these questions, so far as they can be answered by a study of African life.
Interesting from other points of view are the reproductions of the remarkable collection of Benin antiquities at the Peabody Museum, of the celebrated Vai syllabary, and of an interesting poem of 100 lines in the Suaheli language said to have been dictated by a dying mother to her daughter. Transliteration and translation accompany the reproduction in the original script.
Robert E. Park.
Fifty Years and Other Poems.ByJames Weldon Johnson. With an Introduction byBrander Matthews. The Cornhill Co., Boston, 1917. Pp. xiv, 92.
From time to time for the last fifteen years Mr. James Weldon Johnson has been remarked as one of the literary men of the race. He has now brought together his verses in a little volume,Fifty Years and Other Poems, an introduction to which has been written by Professor Brander Matthews, of Columbia University. The task was eminently worth while.
The book falls into two parts. The first is made up of poems in the commonly accepted forms, though there are one or twoexamples ofvers libre; and the second is entitledJingles and Croons. This second division consists of dialect verses, especially the songs that have been set to music, most frequently by the poet's brother, Mr. J. Rosamond Johnson. Outstanding are the very first lines,Since you went away. It is well that these pieces have been brought together. For artistic achievement, however, attention will naturally be fixed upon the first division.Fifty Yearswas written in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the emancipation of the race. Professor Matthews speaks of it as "one of the noblest commemorative poems yet written by any American—a poem sonorous in its diction, vigorous in its workmanship, elevated in its imagination, and sincere in its emotion." This is high praise, and yet it may reasonably be asked if there are not in the book at least four pieces of finer poetic quality. These are, first of all, the two poems that originally appeared in the Century,Mother NightandO Black and Unknown Bards, andThe White WitchandThe Young Warrior. The first of these four poems is a sonnet well rounded out. The second gains merit by reason of its strong first and last two stanzas.The White Witchchooses a delicate and difficult theme, but contains some very strong stanzas.The Young Warrioris a poem of rugged strength and one that deserves all the popularity it has achieved with Mr. Burleigh's musical setting. Mr. Johnson is strongest in the simple, direct, and sometimes sensuous expression that characterizes these latter poems, and it is to be hoped that he may have the time and the inclination to write many more like them.
Benjamin Brawley.
Battles and Victories of Allen Allensworth.ByCharles Alexander. Sherman, French and Company, Boston, 1914. Pp. 429.
Here we have the story of a successful Negro born a slave in Kentucky but who, determined to succeed, rose to the distinction of a teacher and preacher and finally to that of a chaplain in the United States army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. The value of this book to the historian, however, is not the mere sketch of Colonel Allensworth but the valuable facts bearing on the history of the Negroes in various parts of the United States. The philanthropic attitude of the Quakers toward Negroes, the life of the slave on the Mississippi, the relations between the poor whites andthe slaves, the escape of fugitives to Canada, and the work of the abolitionists are all mentioned from page to page.
The larger portion of the book, however, gives details of the life of Allensworth, which would interest only those who knew him personally. But his founding a town in California inhabited altogether by Negroes stamps him as a pioneer whose achievements in this field must engage the attention of the historian. The detailed accounts of his service as a chaplain in the United States army in the Spanish-American War and later in the Philippines add other valuable experiences which the public should know. The book contains also references to the work of Frederick Douglass, Judge William Jay and John Brown. The author mentions also scores of other persons who have in various ways helped to make the history of the Negro in the United States and especially those who were effective in bringing about the emancipation of the race.
The style of this book is decidedly rough. The work does not show organization. It is written in such a way as to indicate that the writer recorded his facts as they came to him at random without regard as to the principles of composition. It was wholly unnecessary for him to wander astray, discussing in detail the careers of almost every man of that time influencing the life of the Negro, without showing the connection between those facts and the life of the subject of this sketch. The chief value of this work, therefore, is that of a source book.
The Negro Migrant in Pittsburgh, A study in Social Economics.ByAbraham Epstein. Published under the supervision of the School of Economics, University of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, Pa., 1918.
The movement of the Negroes from the South to the North during the present world war bids fair to be recorded as the most significant event of our local history during this decade. In about two years a million Negroes have gone North to take the places of those immigrants who annually sought our shores prior to this upheaval. To show the significance of the exodus a number of writers have sketched it in newspapers and magazines. Books bearing on the subject are forthcoming. The first scientific study of the transplanted southern Negroes to appear in print, however, is Epstein's interesting and valuable work.
Departing from the newspaper Pullman-palace-car method of studying social conditions, Mr. Epstein assiduously applied himself to the task of making a house-to-house investigation of the home life of this large and typical community of Negroes recently brought to the North. He learned whence they came, their antecedent circumstances, why they abandoned their old homes, what they seek in the North and to what extent they are realizing their dreams. The various factors contributing to the solution of their local problems in Pittsburgh and those effective in confusing the situation are well treated.
This work is especially valuable in its portrayal of home conditions. The author directed his attention to what these migrants do, where they live, how they spend their earnings and how they amuse themselves. In this treatment, therefore, appears a discussion of health, disease and crime as influenced by the presence of these newcomers from a section in which their condition differed materially from what they find in the North. Whether or not we agree with him in his conclusions, therefore, this treatise must claim the attention of students of present-day problems, desiring to deal with facts rather than theories.
On the whole, Mr. Epstein does not find the Negro an exception to any other migrant. Most of the facts which he sets forth are after all favorable to blacks when one considers that their peculiar circumstances are due to race prejudice and the proscription of trades unions. The author did not find them unusually afflicted with disease, as was predicted, and he saw no evidence of a wave of crime. Most of the offenses charged to the account of the migrants are of the petty sort which arise from the stimulus given such by the denizens of vice tolerated by the community. Students of Negro life and history, therefore, should read this dissertation.
C. G. Woodson.
Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard who was kind enough to call our attention to the misprint of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton Hart, for Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart., on page 20 of the January number ofThe Journal of Negro History, has sent us the following note in William Lloyd Garrison's own words concerning his relations with this distinguished friend of the Negro in England:
"On arriving in London I received a polite invitation by letter from Mr. Buxton to take breakfast with him. Presenting myself at the appointed time, when my name was announced, instead of coming forward promptly to take me by the hand, he scrutinized me from head to foot, and then inquired, somewhat dubiously, 'Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Garrison, of Boston, in the United States?' 'Yes, sir,' I replied, 'I am he; and I am here in accordance with your invitation.' Lifting up his hands he exclaimed, 'Why, my dear sir, I thought you were a black man! And I have consequently invited this company of ladies and gentlemen to be present to welcome Mr. Garrison, the black advocate of emancipation from the United States of America!' I have often said that that is the only compliment I have ever had paid to me that I care to remember, or to tell of! For Mr. Buxton had somehow or other supposed that no white American could plead for those in bondage as I had done, and therefore I must be black!"
"The worthy successor of Wilberforce, our esteemed friend and coadjutor, Thomas Fowell Buxton," had this picture drawn of him by his guest (Mr. Garrison) on his return to America:
"Buxton has sufficient fleshly timber to make two or three Wilberforces. He is six feet and a half in height, though rather slender than robust. What a formidable leader of the anti-slavery cause in appearance! We always felt delighted to see him rise in his seat in Parliament to address the House, for his towering form literally caused his pro-slavery opponents to 'hide their diminished heads.' He is a very good speaker, but not an orator: his manner is dignified, sincere, and conciliating, and his language without pretence. But he has hardly decision, energy, and boldness enough for a leader. His benevolent desires for the emancipation of thecolonial slaves led him to accede to a sordid compromise with the planters, and he advocated the proposition to remunerate these enemies of the human race, and to buy up wholesale robbery and oppression, in opposition to the remonstrances of the great body of English abolitionists, and it furnishes a dangerous precedent in the overthrow of established iniquity and crime throughout the world. The results of the bargain do not (January, 1836) reach Mr. Buxton's anticipations.... Still, aside from this false step, Mr. Buxton deserves universal admiration and gratitude for his long-continued, able and disinterested efforts, amidst severe ridicule and malignant opposition, to break every yoke and set the oppressed free."
President Nathan B. Young, of the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College, has kindly directed our attention to the following facts which appeared in an article in theTampa Tribune, showing how adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment was effected:
"How the vote that made the Federal amendment abolishing slavery was polled in the house of representatives on January 26, 1863, was told to a representative ofThe Tribuneyesterday by the reading clerk of that congress—now a Florida winter resident and nearing ninety years of age.
"A change of two votes would have defeated the amendment; and urgent business kept one man from being present to cast his vote against the measure, so it is seen that history came near being made another way that memorable day.
"The story was told, with all the vigor and freshness of a man just from the existing scenes and actions, by E. W. Barber, editor of the Jackson (Mich.)Daily Patriot, now at Crooked Lake, happy in the summer of Florida's winter. Mr. Barber was reading clerk for the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth and fortieth congresses, from December, 1863 to 1869; and he is today the only official of that body who is living. He will be ninety years old on the third of July, coming, and is wonderfully preserved, all except his leg. Indeed he laughingly declared that he would have been a dead tree if he had not been pruned of a dead limb!
"On the morning of December 26, 1863, said Mr. Barber, there was a stillness in the house that betokened doubt even then of thepassage of the amendment, for but four men in the world knew that it was a matter of accomplishment before the roll was called.
"The senate had already passed the amendment, he said, and the house had defeated it in the first session of the congress; and there was a doubt of its passage over in the lower body.
"After its defeat in the house, the party machinery was put in motion to bring into line sufficient votes to make the necessary three-fourths required. J. M. Ashley of Toledo and Augustus Frank of Warsaw, N. Y., were appointed a committee of two to see if votes enough could be secured at the short session to pass the bill through the house.
"Edward W. Barber, the reading clerk, and Richard U. Sherman, the tally clerk, kept a secret rollcall under lock and key in their desk, and on this was marked the name of every man who had voted against the amendment. As a man was changed or converted, his name was reported to these two and his name added to those already secured for the amendment. One by one the change came, and at last one day when a name was added—the member from the Gettysburg district—Ashley exclaimed "There, by God. We've got enough."
"That day in the house Ashley, who had changed his vote to "nay" after the defeat of the bill earlier so he could move its reconsideration, and had complied with that parliamentary condition, gave notice that on January 26 he would call up the bill for a vote.
"Betting ran high for and against the passage of the amendment, says Mr. Barber. The odds were that it would not be passed because of the violent opposition which it had evoked at the former attempt. There were but four men who knew how the matter would go, and those were E. W. Barber, reading clerk; Richard U. Sherman, tally clerk; J. M. Ashley, and Augustus Frank, the committee of two named to get the proper number of votes for the bill.
"The margin was close, two changes would have defeated it; and one member opposed to the amendment was absent, so he said afterward, because a large number of soldiers from his state were at Aquia Creek, and he felt he must pay them some attention. The name of this member was not given.
"Mr. Barber is still editing his paper, sending some fourteeneditorials a week to Jackson, Mich., for publication inThe Daily Patriot, from his Florida home, five miles south of Lake Wales.
"He has been coming to Florida for forty-five years and, while he has been delaying his coming until well into December, he said yesterday that from now on he expects to come early in November and stay until well into spring.
"He is a most entertaining and interesting speaker and is full of enthusiasm for his adopted home and his future prospects here."
A group of Southern folks have organized a Southern Publicity Committee to advertise among themselves some of the South's constructive work in racial matters. They propose to furnish Southern daily papers with brief and accurate accounts of things actually being done in definite places by given persons or groups or States in the South, for or in cooperation with Negroes for Negro betterment, and to make the South a better place, morally and economically, for both races to live in.
The chairman of the committee is Dr. J. H. Dillard, director of the Jeanes and Slater Funds, a Virginian, and an LL.D. of three Southern universities, including his alma mater, Washington and Lee. The other members are Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, specialist of the U. S. Bureau of Education; Mrs. Percy V. Pennypacker, of the National Federation of Women's Clubs; the Rt. Rev. Theodore D. Bratton, D.D., of the Diocese of Mississippi; Messrs. Clark Howell of the Atlanta Constitution; Arthur B. Krock, of the Louisville Courier-Journal; D. P. Toomey, of the Dallas News; C. P. J. Mooney of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal; E. E. Britton, formerly of the Raleigh Observer, private secretary to Secretary Daniels; Jackson Davis of Richmond, general field agent of the General Education Board; Walter Parker, general manager of the New Orleans Association of Commerce; the Rev. J. W. Lee, D.D., of St. Louis, the well-known Southern Methodist minister, author and lecturer; Dr. W. S. Currell, president of the South Carolina State University; Dr. Chas. L. Crow, of the State university of Florida; Dr. W. D. Weatherford, of Nashville, Tenn., secretary of the International Y. M. C. A.; and Mrs. John D. Hammond of Georgia, who will act as secretary for the committee.
The Committee will undertake publicity work in behalf of the best aspects of our inter-racial relations in no spirit of boastfulness or of self-satisfaction as Southerners. They are aware of the shadows, the back eddies, the sinister influences in the lives of bothraces. But they believe the good outweighs the evil, and deserves at least as wide a hearing; and that to give publicity to successful constructive work done by their own people will encourage others to similar efforts, and will further the interests of both races. They ask a hearing from the Southern public for these aspects of Southern life.
Dean Benjamin P. Brawley, of Morehouse College, has brought out a new work entitledThe Negro in Literature and Art, published by Duffield and Company, New York City. It was incorrectly reported in our last issue that this work was to be published by Dodd, Mead and Company.
Dean Brawley contributed to theSewanee Reviewfor January an article entitledRichard le Gallienne and the Tradition of Beauty. This is a literary study of merit.
Dr. James H. Dillard contributed toSchool and Societyan article entitledCounty Machinery for Colored Schools in the South. It contains information both helpful and valuable to persons interested in the education of the Negro.
M. M. Ponton'sLife and Times of Henry M. Turnerhas come from the press of A. B. Caldwell Publishing Company, Atlanta, Georgia.
G. P. Putnam's Sons have announced the publication of Ella Loun'sReconstruction in Louisiana.
J. E. Semmes has publishedJohn H. B. Latrobe and His Times, 1803-1891, through the Norman Remington Company, Baltimore.
This study is an attempt to give a connected and concise account of the institution of slavery as it existed in the State of Kentucky from 1792 to 1865. Much has been written of slavery in other States, but there has not been published a single account which deals adequately with the institution in Kentucky. A scholarly treatise onThe Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky, by Professor Asa E. Martin, of Pennsylvania State College, has appeared but, as this work is limited to a discussion of the history of the movement to overthrow slavery, our study parallels and supplements it.
In this study the chief emphasis has been placed upon the legal, economic and social history of slavery in Kentucky, mention being made of a few of the interesting anti-slavery incidents when these are known to have influenced the local status of the slave. We have first considered the inception of the system as based fundamentally upon the type of land settlement and tenure, followed by a study of the growth of the slave population, which brings in the question of the local economic value of the slave. An attempt has been made to explain the internal slave trade; andto consider to what extent Kentucky served as a breeding State for slaves destined to the market in the lower South.
In the chapter on the legal status of slavery special emphasis has been placed not only upon the legal position of the institution but upon the general evolution of the rights of the Negro in servitude. This section is vitally connected with the anti-slavery movement after about the year 1835. The problem of the fugitive slave and the general rights of emancipation and of the freed Negro have been approached purely from the legal standpoint.
The chapter on the social status of the slave considers the conditions of slave life that were more or less peculiar to Kentucky. There has often been made the statement, that in Kentucky Negro servitude was generally on a higher plane than in the States to the south and the treatment of slaves was much more humane. Some light has been thrown on these questions.
As a supplement to the discussion of the legal and social status a general summary of public opinion regarding emancipation and colonization has been added. Although for the most part consisting of previously published material this section has been treated from the viewpoint of the existing institution and not from the anti-slavery side which occasioned most of the original publication.
This study has been made from a consideration of the contemporary evidence as found in newspapers, statements of slaves, and general evidence of travelers and citizens of Kentucky during the period before the Civil War. The material for the study of this field is not only scattered throughout the country but for the most part it is very meager compared with the records of States like Virginia and Missouri. All the documents, papers, manuscripts and works known to be of value, however, have been consulted. The most valuable records for this treatise are to be found in the Durrett Collection at the University of Chicago, the extensive files of early Kentucky papers in the Library of the American Antiquarian Society, and the documents in the Kentucky State Library at Frankfort.
To Mr. Clarence S. Brigham, of the American Antiquarian Society, Mr. Edward A. Henry, of the University of Chicago Library, and Mr. Frank Kavanaugh, of the Kentucky State Library, I am indebted for invaluable assistance rendered in securing material for this work. The treatment of the legal status of slavery would have been very meager, were it not for the valuable aid given by Dr. George E. Wire, of the Worcester County (Massachusetts) Law Library. To Miss Florence Dillard, of the Lexington (Kentucky) Public Library, I am indebted for assistance given throughout the period of my studies. To Prof. George H. Blakeslee, of Clark University, I owe more than to any one else—for his inspiration during my three years of study, for his most valuable aid in the correction of the manuscript, his candid judgment and judicial reasoning and the many suggestions which have helped to make this study what it is.
Ivan E. McDougle
Clark University,Worcester, Massachusetts.
It is impossible to understand slavery in Kentucky without some knowledge of the method by which the land was settled in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Between 1782 and 1802 the seven States which had interest in western lands ceded their rights to the United States and all that territory with the exception of Kentucky and the Connecticut Reserve in Ohio was made a part of the public domain. Hence, one of the distinguishing features of the settlement of Kentucky as compared with Ohio was that in the latter State the land was sold by the Federal Government to settlers coming from all parts of the country but particularly from the northeastern section. The result of this was that few citizens of Ohio held more than 640 acres.
Kentucky had been reserved by Virginia and consequently the method of settlement was purely a matter governed by that State and was separate and apart from the system which was employed by the United States Government. Furthermore, Kentucky lands were all given out by 1790, just one year after the beginning of our national period. The federal land policy was at that time just beginning. Virginia gave out the lands in Kentucky by what is known as the patent system, and all the settlers in Kentucky held their lands by one of three different kinds of rights.
In the first place there were those who were given tracts in the new territory as a reward for military services which had been rendered in the Revolution. This had been provided for by the legislature of Virginia as early as December, 1778.[234]No land north of the Ohio River was to be granted out as a military bounty until all the "good lands" in theKentucky region had been exhausted. The size of these tracts was to be governed by the official status of the recipient in the late war, and the bounties finally granted by Virginia ranged all the way from one hundred to fifteen thousand acres.[235]
The Virginia legislature of 1779 found it necessary to establish a second method of settlement in Kentucky in response to the demands of the large number of people who were migrating to the west of the Alleghenies. Provision was made for the granting of preemption rights to new settlers and also for the introduction of a very generous system of settlement rights. These settlement and preemption rights were almost inseparable, as the latter was dependent upon the former. It was provided that four hundred acres of land would be given to every person or family who had settled in the region before the first of January, 1778.[236]The word "settlement" was stated to mean either a residence of one year in the territory or the raising of a crop of corn. In addition to the above grant every man who had built only a cabin or made any improvement on the land was entitled to a preemption of one thousand acres, providing such improvements had been made prior to January 1, 1778. Preference in the grants was to be given to the early settlers and even the most famous heroes of the Revolution were not allowed to interfere with the rights of those who held a certificate of settlement.
Thus far provision had been made only for those who had settled before 1778. To them was given the best of the land. Thereafter all settlement and preemption rights ceased and the further distribution of land in Kentucky was by means of treasury warrants. A person desiring land in Kentucky would appear at one of the Virginia land offices and make an entry and pay a fee amounting to about two cents per acre. The paper he would receive would give the approximate location of the tract and the recipient wouldproceed to have the land surveyed at his pleasure. Within three months after the survey had been made he was to appear at the land office and have the same recorded. A copy of this record was to be taken to the assistant register of the land office in Kentucky and there it was to remain six months in order to give prior settlers, if any, the right to prove their claims to the property. No such evidence being produced a final record of the patent was to be made and a copy given to the original grantee.[237]
An interesting example of this method of settlement is shown by the experience of Abraham Lincoln, the grandfather of President Lincoln. On March 4, 1780, soon after the establishment of the new system, he appeared at the land office in Richmond, Virginia, and was given three treasury warrants, each for four hundred acres of land in Kentucky. The first and third of these warrants were not returned for the final recording until May 16, 1787, at which time Beverly Randolph, Governor of Virginia, issued a final deed of 800 acres of land in Lincoln County, Kentucky, to Abraham Lincoln.[238]The second treasury warrant was not returned until July 2, 1798, more than a decade after the death of Abraham Lincoln and six years after Kentucky had become a State. At that time the warrant was presented with a record of the survey by Mordecai Lincoln, the eldest son of Abraham. After some period of investigation the deed for the four hundred acres in Jefferson County was turned over to Mordecai Lincoln on April 26, 1799.[239]
The result of this method of granting land was that Kentucky was settled by a comparatively few men who rented their property to tenants. A large number of the military bounties were never settled by the original owners but were farmed by the later incoming tenant class. George Washington had been given five thousand acres and this land was actually settled by the poorer white element. In thecase of the land warrant property it was true that it was usually granted to the poorer class of early settlers but as in the instance of the Lincoln family the land soon passed into the hands of the wealthier settlers either by purchase or through law suits. It is commonly stated that Daniel Boone thus became landless and was forced to migrate to Missouri.[240]
Thus we see that Kentucky was distinctly different from all the other settlements to the west of the Alleghenies in the original system of land tenure and she further inherited from her mother State of Virginia the ancient theory of a landed aristocracy which was based upon tenantry. The early inhabitants of Kentucky can be easily divided into three classes, the landed proprietors, their slaves, and the tenant class of whites. The second and third classes tended to keep alive the status of the former and led to the perpetuation of the landed aristocracy. In Kentucky, however, the laws of descent were always against primogeniture and this resulted in the division of the lands of the wealthier class with each new generation.
The institution of slavery in Kentucky, as in every other State, depended for the most part upon the existence of large plantations. The only reason Kentucky had such large estates was because of the method by which the land was given out by the mother State. Economically Kentucky was not adapted to plantation life. The greater part of the State required then, as it still does, the personal care and supervision of the owner or tenant. The original distribution of land made this impossible and there grew up a large class of landholders who seldom labored with their hands, because of the traditional system. A large number of inhabitants as early as 1805, Michaux found, were cultivating their lands themselves, but those who could do so had all the work done by Negro slaves.[241]
With passing years, while Kentucky maintained slavery,it came to have a social system not like that in the South but one more like the typical structure of the middle nineteenth century West. There were several reasons for this. In the first place, the absence of the policy of primogeniture in time came to distribute the lands over a much larger population. In the second place, while all the land in Kentucky had been granted by the year 1790, the patrician land-holding element was completely submerged by the flood of so-called plebeians who came in soon after Kentucky became a State. In 1790 there were only 61,133 white people in Kentucky, and although all the land had been granted, the white population in the next decade nearly tripled, reaching 179,871 in 1800, and this increase, at a slightly smaller rate, continued down to about 1820. Still further the nature of the soil made it more profitable for the wealthier landed class to let out their holdings to the incoming whites who did their own work and in time came to own the property. "Each year increased this element of the state at the expense of the larger properties."[242]
Population from 1790 to 1860 with Rates of Increase