FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]Keller, Albert Galloway, Ph.D.,Colonization, Boston, Copyright, 1908, p. 145.[2]DuBois, William Edward Burghardt,The Negro, New York, 1915, p. 164.[3]Keller, pp. 156-157.[4]Ibid.[5]Christie, W. D.,Notes on Brazil, London, 1821, pp. 69-76.[6]Christie, pp. 69-76.[7]Dawson, Thomas C.,South American Republics, two volumes, first edition, vol. I, New York, Copyright, 1903, p. 481.[8]DuBois,The Negro, p. 152.[9]Ibid.p. 184.[10]Negro Population in the United States, 1790-1915, p. 33.[11]Ingram, J. K.,A History of Slavery and Serfdom, London, 1895, p. 285.[12]Bureau of Census (Dept. of Commerce and Labor),A Century of Population Growth, Washington, 1909, p. 80.[13]Blake, William O.,A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, Columbus, 1857, p. 808.[14]DuBois,The Negro, p. 190.[15]Henderson, James,A History of Brazil, London, 1821, pp. 73-74.[16]Koster, Henry,Travels in Brazil, second edition, in two volumes, vol. II, London, 1817, pp. 247-259.[17]Christie, pp. 69-76.[18]Koster, p. 123.[19]Ibid., pp. 247-259.[20]Koster, pp. 247-259.[21]Encyclopedia Americana, 30 volumes, vol. 27, New York and Chicago, 1919, pp. 395-396.[22]Americana, pp. 395-396.[23]Koster, pp. 229-231.[24]Koster, pp. 246-247.[25]Southey, vol. III, pp. 781-783, states that in Pernambuco masters were opposed to selling their slaves.[26]Koster, pp. 246-247.[27]Brawley, Benjamin Griffith,A Short History of the American Negro, N. Y., 1917, pp. 20-21.[28]DuBois, p. 197.[29]Americana, pp. 395-396.[30]Koster, pp. 238-239.[31]Ibid.[32]Koster, pp. 236-238.[33]Luccock, John,Notes on Rio de Janeiro and the Southern Part of Brazil, London, 1820, p. 591.[34]Koster, pp. 229-231.[35]Christie, p. 578.[36]Luccock, p. 591.[37]Koster, pp. 233-235.[38]Ibid.[39]Keller, pp. 156-157.[40]Blake, p. 808.[41]Brawley, pp. 20-21.[42]Henderson, pp. 72-78.[43]Brawley, p. 90.[44]DuBois, p. 196[45]Ibid.[46]Brawley, p. 90.[47]Dawson, p. 375.[48]Henderson, pp. 339-340.[49]Henderson, p. 340.[50]Ibid., p. 340.[51]Brawley, p. 22.[52]Koster, ch. XVIII

[1]Keller, Albert Galloway, Ph.D.,Colonization, Boston, Copyright, 1908, p. 145.

[2]DuBois, William Edward Burghardt,The Negro, New York, 1915, p. 164.

[3]Keller, pp. 156-157.

[4]Ibid.

[5]Christie, W. D.,Notes on Brazil, London, 1821, pp. 69-76.

[6]Christie, pp. 69-76.

[7]Dawson, Thomas C.,South American Republics, two volumes, first edition, vol. I, New York, Copyright, 1903, p. 481.

[8]DuBois,The Negro, p. 152.

[9]Ibid.p. 184.

[10]Negro Population in the United States, 1790-1915, p. 33.

[11]Ingram, J. K.,A History of Slavery and Serfdom, London, 1895, p. 285.

[12]Bureau of Census (Dept. of Commerce and Labor),A Century of Population Growth, Washington, 1909, p. 80.

[13]Blake, William O.,A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, Columbus, 1857, p. 808.

[14]DuBois,The Negro, p. 190.

[15]Henderson, James,A History of Brazil, London, 1821, pp. 73-74.

[16]Koster, Henry,Travels in Brazil, second edition, in two volumes, vol. II, London, 1817, pp. 247-259.

[17]Christie, pp. 69-76.

[18]Koster, p. 123.

[19]Ibid., pp. 247-259.

[20]Koster, pp. 247-259.

[21]Encyclopedia Americana, 30 volumes, vol. 27, New York and Chicago, 1919, pp. 395-396.

[22]Americana, pp. 395-396.

[23]Koster, pp. 229-231.

[24]Koster, pp. 246-247.

[25]Southey, vol. III, pp. 781-783, states that in Pernambuco masters were opposed to selling their slaves.

[26]Koster, pp. 246-247.

[27]Brawley, Benjamin Griffith,A Short History of the American Negro, N. Y., 1917, pp. 20-21.

[28]DuBois, p. 197.

[29]Americana, pp. 395-396.

[30]Koster, pp. 238-239.

[31]Ibid.

[32]Koster, pp. 236-238.

[33]Luccock, John,Notes on Rio de Janeiro and the Southern Part of Brazil, London, 1820, p. 591.

[34]Koster, pp. 229-231.

[35]Christie, p. 578.

[36]Luccock, p. 591.

[37]Koster, pp. 233-235.

[38]Ibid.

[39]Keller, pp. 156-157.

[40]Blake, p. 808.

[41]Brawley, pp. 20-21.

[42]Henderson, pp. 72-78.

[43]Brawley, p. 90.

[44]DuBois, p. 196

[45]Ibid.

[46]Brawley, p. 90.

[47]Dawson, p. 375.

[48]Henderson, pp. 339-340.

[49]Henderson, p. 340.

[50]Ibid., p. 340.

[51]Brawley, p. 22.

[52]Koster, ch. XVIII

Columbus discovered this island December 6, 1492. It is of the Great Antilles of the Caribbean Sea, and lies between Cuba and Puerto Rico. He called the island Hispaniola, but Hayti, or Haiti, was its original name. It seems beyond the power of language to exaggerate its beauties, its productiveness, the loveliness of its climate, and its suitability as an abode for man.

At the time of its discovery the island was divided into five states or cacicats. Thus divided it was easily conquered by the Spaniards who subjected the native Indians to slavery. Soon after the discovery, Spain began establishing a plantation colony as opposed to a farm colony. The work fell upon the subjected Indians, who vanished from the island, in about 50 years, leaving the problem of labor to the overseers and the colonists. To meet this need, the Spaniards repaired this loss by bringing in Africans, supplied by the Portuguese, who at that time occupied themselves with the slave trade. Hierrera, who claimed to be an authority, said that one Negro would do more work than four Indians.[1]In 1630, a number of French adventurers were expelled by the Spanish from St. Christophe, which they had taken possession of five years before under the leadership of Neil d'Enambroe of Dieppe. Shortly afterward they established themselves at La Fortue. In 1650 the Spaniards still held the inner and greater islands, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica; though in Hispaniola French buccaneers were laying the foundations of the prosperous French Colony of St. Domingo. Smouldering resentment on the part of the Spaniards soon burst forth in open hostility, exhibiting more seriousness than before. Then followed savage contention between Spain and France, the Spaniards disputing the rights of the French, theFrench creeping steadily inward until 1697 by virtue of the treaty of Ryswick an end was put to this struggle. Louis XIV obtained, under this treaty, from Charles II of Spain, the cession of all the western part of the island, which for forty years belonged to the French by virtue of conquest. Spain kept the eastern portion of the island, calling it Santo Domingo. This cession was of great economic value to France, she increased her number of slaves and soon supplied all Europe with cotton and sugar. Santo Domingo, Spain's portion of the island, as compared with Haiti, was a sluggish community. Here also Negroes increased as slaves and soon the population of these two colonies was mostly Negro.

The distinct line between master and slave, white and black, was to become smeared. Soon there grew up four distinct classes. Miscegenation, the result of the contact of European masters with slave women, gave rise to a new class called mulattoes. These were usually given their freedom, and it was the practice to liberate the mother as well. This gave rise to another class, the free-blacks. The mulattoes and free-blacks obtained with emancipation no political rights whatever. At first this caused no worry or serious difficulty. Some of the mulattoes received vast wealth from their fathers and often they were educated abroad, usually in France. Some of the free-blacks accumulated a little property but in a far lesser degree, however. With the increase of mulattoes and free-blacks, and the return of those mulattoes from studies abroad, dissatisfaction grew into thought and subsequently into expression and agitation for political rights. Behind and beneath the growing dissatisfaction of these two classes, the mulattoes and free-blacks, was a resentful and restless slave population.

At the outbreak of the French Revolution, even before it, France had in her possession eight slave holding colonies, San Domingo, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Cayenne, Tabago, St. Lucie, the Isle of France, and the Isle of Bourbon. The most important of these being Martinique and Guadeloupe,with a white population of about 25,000, contained about 150,000 slaves and a small number of free Negroes; and then there was her flourishing colony of San Domingo. Martinique and Guadeloupe were represented in the National Assemblies which brought France into early contact with the issue rising out of racial color.[2]San Domingo with its large population and economic importance offered a more perplexing problem. The population there was large. Moreau de St. Méry quoted the official figures of 1790 as 30,826 whites, 24,262 free Negroes and mulattoes, and 452,000 slaves.[3]

The legal status of slaves here was substantially the same as that of slaves in the tropical colonies of other nations; in fact, the Western European slave code remains practically the same. This slave colony seems singular in being unfavorable to the health and life of the natives. The annual excess of deaths over births amounted to about two and one half per cent. Added to this death rate was the rapid spread of the feverish desire for wealth at any cost among the peoples of European countries. The slave trade was profitable. The demand for slaves was continual, amounting at this period to anywhere between 30,000 to 35,000 a year in the French West Indies. Human life and rights were subordinate to gold, despite the position assumed by these nations as champions of Christianity.

The question of mulattoes and freedmen and their descendants was peculiar to San Domingo. The free Negroes and mulattoes were four fifths the whites in number. When the offspring of illicit unions between slave women and their masters attained their majority they were emancipated, and in many cases their mothers were set free also. As follows a system of servitude,

"The Sons of gods take the Daughters of men, butThe Sons of men dare not touch the daughters of the gods."

And thus it came about the number of these classes increased rapidly. The poor laboring class of the community,corresponding somewhat to the class of "poor whites" within the slave section of our country, was made up of free Negroes.

"According to theCode Noirof Louis XIV, freemen and their descendants were entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizens of France. However, in defiance of the law, race prejudice had built up during the eighteenth century a special body of customary rules for their control, and this custom was recognized by numerous administrative edicts and royal ordinances." Great effort was put forth to keep the possibilities of uprisings at a distance. Any use of fire arms was prohibited even the mulattoes, and the commissioned officers of military service were kept white without exception. A trace of Negro blood was a bar to individual attainment, even marriage to a mulatto received its share of condemnation. A strong feeling of social repugnance was being brought into play which outlawed all social intercourse between the races. This sort of thing, going on in so many different places—practically wherever the Western European colonized—became imbedded in custom and in places was expressed in law.

While theCode Noirof Louis XIV went even so far as to lay down certain practices as the fundamental law of slavery, it was apparently only a "law." There was a lack of the moral support necessary to insure for it even a respectable amount of operation. There were at work, however, forces which sought to create a widespread social antipathy to slavery. This resulted somewhat from the situation in England where there was a strong sentiment against slavery. The Quakers in England, whose founder had been a fearless critic of the institution, were foremost in the attack on slavery. In 1727 the Society of Friends passed a resolution of censure against the slave trade, and in 1758 its influence was strongly exerted to keep its members from even an indirect connection with it. In 1765, Granville Sharp began to look after the interests of Negroes who were claimed in British ports as slaves, and in 1772 wasinstrumental in securing the famous Somerset decision that, as soon as any slave set foot on British soil he became free. In 1783 the Society of Friends submitted to Parliament the first petition for the abolition of the slave trade. In that same year Thomas Clarkson won the prize in a competition in Latin composition at Cambridge upon the assigned subject, "Whether it is right to enslave others against their will." His essay immediately became a standard authority among opponents of the trade and the institution. A greater consequence was that Clarkson himself was so inspired he devoted his life to the cause of the blacks. In 1787 a "Committee for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade" was organized. It was composed chiefly of Quakers, having Granville Sharp as President and Thomas Clarkson as its most prominent member. Their work was organized to embrace appeals to the public and petitions to the government. Wilberforce, a member of Parliament and an intimate friend of Pitt, was to head the campaign in Parliament, while the Committee was to solicit funds, collect information and arouse public sentiment. This campaign lasted until the abolition of British slave trade in 1806.

This work in behalf of freedom soon extended to France. A little over three months after the London Committee was formed it received a letter from Jean Pierre Brissot, requesting that he and Etienne Clavière might become associates of the committee for the purpose of publishing French translations of its literature and collecting subscriptions to be remitted to London for the good of the common cause. The committee declined the offer of financial aid but elected Brissot an honorary member and recommended that a society be formed in France. Now both Brissot and Clavière were active figures in the Revolution. Clavière was at one time minister of finances and Brissot, most ardent of revolutionists, was a Parish Deputy during the Reign of Terror, and a leader of the Girondins from 1789 to 1792. Accordingly, a society was formed in Paris in February, 1788, under the name of the Society ofFriends of the Blacks, with Clavière as President. It adopted the same seals as the Committee in England but was an entirely independent organization. Directly its influence began to draw within its folds powerful figures. The famous Comte de Mirabeau was a charter member, Marquis de Lafayette, an officer who had served in the American Revolution, and Condorcet, a member of the Convention, whose report as a member of the Committee of Public Instruction of the Legislative Assembly formed the actual basis of subsequent plans for education, were among the first additions to its membership. Other prominent members who came in later were Sièyés, Petion, Grégoire, Robespierre, and the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Mirabeau issued the early publications of the society as supplements to his journal; at a later time Brissot's journal, the "Patriote francaise," became the organ of the society.

With Brissot's return from a visit to America in 1788, the society went seriously to work. In America he seems to have met some things which clinched his convictions and determinations. Coincidental, the National Assembly was about to meet, deputies were being elected, cahiers were being written, and the country was stirred up over the watchword liberty. This offered an exceptional advantage to the society. What better opportunity could one anticipate to secure the abolition of slavery and the slave trade, the most flagrant violations of the principles of equality and liberty ever known? On February 3, 1789, Condorcet, at that time the President, addressed a circular letter to all the bailiwicks of France, urging that there be inserted in the cahiers a demand that the Estates-General destroy the slave trade and make preparations for the ultimate abolition of slavery. The results of this campaign were disappointing. As a whole the cahiers made it perfectly clear to the Society and all concerned, that an attack on slavery was not a matter vital to the mass of the nation, and that success, if it came at all, must be due to the loyalty of the Estates-General to the principles of equality andliberty, and to the ability and energy of the little group of intellectual leaders who made up the Society of Friends of the Blacks. This was the status of the controversy. Anti-slavery agitation was confined to an intellectual élite, promoted by an appeal to the mind.

In the National Assembly the contest between Friends of the Blacks and defenders of slavery began in connection with the application of a delegation for admission to the Estates-General as representatives of San Domingo. Early in 1788 there was formed in Paris an organization, the "colonial committee" by name, composed of certain colonial proprietors residing in France, a few merchants interested in colonial trade, and a small number of actual residents of San Domingo, which began an agitation for representation of the colony in the Estates-General, which had been promised for 1792. The committee circulated pamphlets and the like. It made a formal request of the king for representation of San Domingo. The request was refused by the Council of State. The agitators boldly drew up and sent to the colony a plan for electoral assemblies. These assemblies were held without any legal sanction, and thirty-one deputies were elected.

The committee continued its work in France, and succeeded in securing a demand for the admission of colonial deputies in at least fourteen cahiers of primary assemblies. Repeated applications were made to Necker and to the Minister of Marine, but without result, and when the Estates-General opened the representatives of San Domingo had no legal standing. Nevertheless part of the deputies presented themselves on June 8, making application separately to each of the three orders.

The third estate alone proved receptive. On June 20, eight San Domingo deputies were allowed to take the Tennis Court Oath. On June 27 the Committee on Credentials made a report unanimously recommending the admission of the colonial deputation but declared itself unable to agree on the number of deputies to which the colony wasproperly entitled. The Assembly accepted the report, apparently without a dissenting voice, and postponed discussion of the question of numbers to June 3. This brought squarely before the Assembly the delicate problem of slavery and the status of free-blacks under the new régime, and brought upon the colonial delegation the wrath of the powerful Society of the Friends of the Blacks.

The Friends of the Blacks recognized in this San Domingo delegation a foe. Mirabeau's newspaper challenged their right to count the slaves as a basis of representation, and taunted them with bitter words. "Either count your Negroes as men or as beasts; if they are men, free them, let them vote, let them be elected to office. If they are cattle, let the number of deputies be proportional to your human population; we have counted neither our horses nor our mules."[4]

Between the vote of admission on June 27 and the final debate on July 3 and 4 the Friends of the Blacks awoke to the importance of the issue. Condorcet published a vigorous pamphlet denouncing the slave holder and all his works. "We are tempted," said he, "to advocate a law which shall exclude from the National Assembly every man, who, as a slave holder, is interested in the maintenance of principles contrary to the natural rights of man, which are the only purpose of every political organization.... The natural rights of man to be governed only by laws to which he has given his consent cannot be invoked in favor of a man who is himself at the very moment violating the law of nature." The pamphlet closes with the remark that the planters can doubtless speak concerning their own interests, "but that on their lips the sacred word 'rights' would be blasphemy against reason."[5]

When the question was reopened on July 3, Mirabeau took the lead in the discussion, raising again the question of counting the slaves, and arguing further that the so-called deputies really represented only about one half thefree population, since the whole body of free blacks and mulattoes had been excluded from suffrage. The spokesman of the colonial deputation was the Marquis de Gouy d'Arsy, a colonial proprietor residing in Paris, from the beginning a leader in the movement for colonial representation. Gouy made no attempt to defend the principle of slave representation. He based his claim for the admission of eighteen or twenty delegates on the wealth and commercial importance of the colony. His weak point was the exclusion of free tax-paying mulattoes from the electoral assemblies. He said that since the mulattoes were natural enemies of the whites it would be dangerous to give them any influence, an argument which made a bad impression on the Assembly. The debate was finished the next day, and the number of deputies was fixed by a compromise at six. The chief importance of this discussion was the prominence which it gave to two questions that the colonial deputies were anxious to keep smothered—slavery and the civil status of the free Negroes. During the debate on June 27 the Duke de la Rochefoucauld found opportunity to present the aims of the Society of Friends of the Blacks, and requested the future consideration of the problem of emancipation. Remarks by other deputies to the effect that something be done to improve the condition of slaves received hearty applause.

The French Revolution plunged the island into a state of chaos. The vast majority of the population of the western colony were slaves, and the number of free blacks and mulattoes were nearly equal to the number of whites. "The news of the Revolution had encouraged each class of the colonial population to expect the realization of its peculiar hopes. The planters desired freer access to the markets of the world, the poor whites hoped for the advantages that their richer neighbors alone enjoyed, the free blacks and mulattoes for civil equality; even the slaves cherished hopes of liberty."[6]The clash of interests brought on civil war inSanto Domingo. The situation here, the richest of the sugar colonies, was serious; it soon received special attention from the home government. A colonial assembly was chosen, and did in miniature what the National Assembly undertook for all France. It controlled royal officers and troops, attempted to reorganize the administrative system and the courts, and even opened the ports to products specifically excluded by a royal ordinance. The question of the status of the free blacks had reached an acute stage. As property holders their interests were identical with those of the whites, provided the whites did not exclude them from a share in the civil conquests of the French Revolution. The National Assembly finally gave to the colonies an organization similar to the local administrative system of France except that it delegated executive powers to a governor. The constitution of the colony, once approved by the national legislature, could not be changed without the demand or consent of the local assemblies. To this local legislature was given the responsibility for the making of laws on all matters except trade and defense. If the governor did not withhold his consent in order that the authorities at Paris should first be consulted, laws could be put into force provisionally before they received the final sanction of the National Assembly and the Crown.

The free people of color petitioned the National Assembly for political rights and privileges in 1789. On May 15, 1791, on the question of the free blacks, the Assembly passed a decree declaring that people of color, born of free parents, were entitled to all the privileges of French citizens. When the news reached the island the mulattoes and free Negroes rejoiced. The whites were opposed to any such measure. Thereupon the governor of the island delayed promulgating the decree while he communicated with the home government. The free people of color were angered and civil strife followed. The mulattoes took up arms against the whites. To complicate matters, the slaves rose in insurrection in August, 1791. The whites, finding themselvesin a perilous situation, decided to accede to the demands of the free people of color, who in turn promised to combine with the whites to suppress the revolt. Meanwhile, in the last days of the Assembly the friends of the planters succeeded in having the whole matter referred to the colonial assemblies. The people of color, mulattoes and free blacks, fled to arms again and joined the slaves, leading bands of them against the whites or remained indifferent in actual warfare. Then followed actual civil war. The French land owners or "colons" called in the English to help them combat the blacks.[7]The English came to their aid. By the end of 1793 the latter took possession of a part of the island which seemed lost to France, being occupied partly by Spaniards and partly by English, when Toussaint L'Ouverture, the bondman leading the revolting slaves, espoused the cause of France. Following months of bloody war, France, apprehensive of a British invasion in full force, and not being able to put down the insurgents, weary and tired of the struggle, conciliated. August, 1793, Universal Freedom was proclaimed—this measure was ratified by the National convention early the following year. This was the first time in the history of the world a legislative assembly ever decreed the abolition of human slavery.

The British, having taken Port-au-Prince and besieged the French Governor at Port-de-la-Paix when the blacks under Toussaint L'Ouverture defeated them and released the French Governor, abandoned the island in 1797. L'Ouverture, who up to forty years of age had been a slave, thus succeeded in ridding the island of the Spaniards and the English. The French government rewarded him by appointing him major-general and governor of the island.

This left L'Ouverture Commander-in-Chief and virtually dictator of the island. He set up a Republic, drew up a Constitution, which he sent to Napoleon. For answer Napoleon appointed Leclerc governor of the colony, and sent a formidable army to reduce the authority of L'Ouverture.War broke out again. After several engagements L'Ouverture surrendered and retired on his properties. He was subsequently decoyed on board a French vessel, kidnapped and deported to Paris. He was then placed by Bonaparte in a damp prison of the fortress of Joux on the chilly heights of Jura where he died. In September, 1802, the peoples of color took up arms against French domination under the leadership of General Dessalines and swore to die rather than remain subservient any longer.[8]By the end of 1793 Rochambeau, who on the death of General Leclerc was put in command by Bonaparte, was hard pressed in the city of Cape Haitien by black troops and was compelled to capitulate and "the power of France was lost on the island forever." On January 1, 1804, Haiti, as it was better known, proclaimed its independence with General Dessalines as ruler. Slavery was abolished forever. In 1822 Haiti, the western colony, controlled the whole of the island; but in 1844 the eastern part seceded and established an independent government known today as the Dominican Republic.

George W. Brown

FOOTNOTES:[1]Mossell,Toussaint L'Ouverture, p. xiii.[2]Hardy,Negro Question in French Revolution, p. 1.[3]Moreau de St. Méry,Response, etc., 72.[4]Hardy,The Negro Question in the French Revolution, p. 10.[5]Condorcet'sWorks.[6]Bourne,Revolutionary Period in Europe, p. 110.[7]American Encyclopedia—Haiti.[8]Mossell,Toussaint L'Ouverture.

[1]Mossell,Toussaint L'Ouverture, p. xiii.

[2]Hardy,Negro Question in French Revolution, p. 1.

[3]Moreau de St. Méry,Response, etc., 72.

[4]Hardy,The Negro Question in the French Revolution, p. 10.

[5]Condorcet'sWorks.

[6]Bourne,Revolutionary Period in Europe, p. 110.

[7]American Encyclopedia—Haiti.

[8]Mossell,Toussaint L'Ouverture.

There are a number of interesting references in the literature of the times to the part played by Negro refugees in defending the frontier of Canada during the troubles of 1838. The outbreaks in both Upper and Lower Canada in 1837 were followed by a series of petty attacks along the border in which American sympathizers participated. Sandwich, on the Detroit River, was one of the objectives of the attacking parties and there were also threats on the Niagara River frontier. One of the parties of "rebels" had taken possession of Navy Island, in the Niagara River, and a small ship, theCaroline, was used for conveying supplies. A Canadian party under command of Colonel MacNab crossed the river, seized the ship and after setting it afire allowed it to drift over the falls. This gave rise to an international issue and was the occasion of much bluster on both sides of the line that happily ended as bluster. All along the border on the American side there were "Hunter's Lodges"[1]organized during 1838 and this movement, joined with the widespread political disaffection, made the times unhappy for the Canadian provinces.

Sir Francis Bond Head, who was Governor of Upper Canada when the troubles of 1837 began and whose conduct did not tend materially to quelling the unrest, wrote his "apologia" a couple of years later and in it he speaks of the loyalty of the colored people, almost all of whom were refugees from slavery. He says:

"When our colored population were informed that American citizens, sympathizing with their sufferings, had taken violent possession of Navy Island, for the double object of liberating themfrom the domination of British rule, and of imparting to them the blessings of republican institutions, based upon the principle that all men are born equal, did our colored brethren hail their approach? No, on the contrary, they hastened as volunteers in wagon-loads to the Niagara frontier to beg from me permission that, in the intended attack upon Navy Island, they might be permitted to form the forlorn hope—in short they supplicated that they might be allowed to be foremost to defend the glorious institutions of Great Britain."[2]

Rev. J. W. Loguen, in the narrative of his life, says that he was urgently solicited by the Canadian government to accept the captaincy of a company of black troops who had been enrolled during the troubles. As the affair was then about all over by the joint effort of the Canadian and United States governments, he did not accept the offer but he makes this interesting comment:

"The colored population of Canada at that time was small compared to what it now is; nevertheless, it was sufficiently large to attract the attention of the government. They were almost to a man fugitives from the States. They could not, therefore, be passive when the success of the invaders would break the only arm interposed for their security, and destroy the only asylum for African freedom in North America. The promptness with which several companies of blacks were organized and equipped, and the desperate valor they displayed in this brief conflict, are an earnest of what may be expected from the swelling thousands of colored fugitives collecting there, in the event of a war between the two countries."[3]

Josiah Henson, founder of the Dawn colony in Upper Canada and famous as the reputed "original" of Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom, says in his narrative that he was captain of the second company of Essex colored volunteers and that he and his men assisted in the defence of Fort Malden (Amherstburg) from Christmas 1837 to May of 1838. Hesays further that he assisted in the capture of the schoonerAnne, an affair which took place on January 9, 1838.[4]

John MacMullen, in hisHistory of Canada, says that among the troops on the border during 1838 "were two hundred Indians from Delaware, and a body of colored men, settlers in the western part of the province, the poor hunted fugitives from American slavery, who had at length found liberty and security under the British flag."[5]

A rather interesting aftermath of the rebellion is contained in an item appearing in theAmherstburg Courierof March 10, 1849, reporting a meeting of Negroes in Sandwich township to protest against the Rebellion Losses Bill.[6]Colonel Prince was thanked for his opposition to the measure.[7]

Eighty years after the rebellion the Negro men of Canada were again called upon to fight, this time in another land and in a conflict that was destined to affect every race and every land. The service that was rendered in the Canadian army by the colored companies of pioneers will some day receive due recognition at the hands of an historian. In the meantime, it is not forgotten by the people of Canada.

Fred Landon

The Public Library,London, Ontario

FOOTNOTES:[1]A convention of Hunter's Lodges of Ohio and Michigan, held at Cleveland, September 16-22, 1838, was attended by seventy delegates.[2]Head, Sir, F. B.,A Narrative(London, 1839), page 392.[3]Loguen, J. W.,The Rev. J. W. Loguen as a Slave and as a Freeman(Syracuse, 1859), pp. 343-345.[4]An autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson, "Uncle Tom," from 1789 to 1881 (London, Ont., 1881), page 177. A sketch of Josiah Henson appeared inThe Journal of Negro Historyfor January, 1918 (Vol. III, no. 1, pp. 1-21). This is condensed from his autobiography which appeared in several editions.[5]MacMullen, John,History of Canada from its first Discovery to the Present Times(Brockville, Ont., 1868), pp. 459-460. He gives as his authority Radclift's despatch, "10th January, 1838."[6]The Rebellion Losses Bill proposed compensation for those who had sustained losses in Lower Canada (Quebec) during the troubles of 1837. It was fiercely opposed in Upper Canada (Ontario) by the element that regarded the French as "aliens" and "rebels." When Lord Elgin, the Governor, gave his assent to the bill in 1849 there were riots in Montreal in which the Parliament Buildings were burned.[7]Col. Prince was one of the leaders in the defense of the Canadian frontier along the Detroit River during 1838, afterwards a member of the Canadian Parliament. During the troubles of 1838 he ordered the shooting of four prisoners without the form of a trial. The act was condemned by Lord Brougham and others with great severity and is one dark spot on the records of the Canadian forces during the trying period.

[1]A convention of Hunter's Lodges of Ohio and Michigan, held at Cleveland, September 16-22, 1838, was attended by seventy delegates.

[2]Head, Sir, F. B.,A Narrative(London, 1839), page 392.

[3]Loguen, J. W.,The Rev. J. W. Loguen as a Slave and as a Freeman(Syracuse, 1859), pp. 343-345.

[4]An autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson, "Uncle Tom," from 1789 to 1881 (London, Ont., 1881), page 177. A sketch of Josiah Henson appeared inThe Journal of Negro Historyfor January, 1918 (Vol. III, no. 1, pp. 1-21). This is condensed from his autobiography which appeared in several editions.

[5]MacMullen, John,History of Canada from its first Discovery to the Present Times(Brockville, Ont., 1868), pp. 459-460. He gives as his authority Radclift's despatch, "10th January, 1838."

[6]The Rebellion Losses Bill proposed compensation for those who had sustained losses in Lower Canada (Quebec) during the troubles of 1837. It was fiercely opposed in Upper Canada (Ontario) by the element that regarded the French as "aliens" and "rebels." When Lord Elgin, the Governor, gave his assent to the bill in 1849 there were riots in Montreal in which the Parliament Buildings were burned.

[7]Col. Prince was one of the leaders in the defense of the Canadian frontier along the Detroit River during 1838, afterwards a member of the Canadian Parliament. During the troubles of 1838 he ordered the shooting of four prisoners without the form of a trial. The act was condemned by Lord Brougham and others with great severity and is one dark spot on the records of the Canadian forces during the trying period.

With Lott Cary and Colin Teague[2]sailing for Africa in 1821, a new era of missionary expansion was begun by Negro Baptists. The distinctive feature of this epoch, which may be termed modern, is the fact that behind these men was the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society, which gave them support, such as it was, and to which periodic reports were made. True enough, Lott Cary was underappointment of the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America but only that fact and the sum of $200 in cash and $100 in books appropriated for his use up to 1826[3]could not be sufficient evidence to claim him wholly as a missionary of the General Missionary Convention although he did receive some advisory instructions from its board.[4]Indeed, Lott Cary was the first American Baptist missionary in Africa, the first representative of a purely Negro missionary organization to labor beyond the limits of the United States.

Lott Cary was born on the estate of William A. Christian,[5]in Charles City County, Virginia,[6]thirty miles from Richmond,[7]about four years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. There was no exact record kept of the time of his birth, although it appears to have been about the year 1780.[8]

His mother and father lived together on the great plantation of their master, centering their attention on Lott, their only child. His mother gave no public profession of religion although she died giving evidence that she accepted the Christian faith. His father, however, was a pious man, a respected member of a Baptist church.[9]As a result, Lott received some early religious training which may have influenced his later life.

But there were temptings in his life; there were battles in his soul. Why should a slave boy hope? Could he ever become free? Why not drink life to the dregs? The chief among his playmates, he became the mischief-maker of the place. Profligate, profane, polluter was his title. Lott Cary tried to reform but he was only able to control himself a few days. Before long, in 1804,[10]he was hired out by the year as a common laborer[11]in the Shochoe tobacco warehouse at Richmond.[12]There he grew more intemperate and profane and showed little signs of reformation.

It was not reformation that he needed but regeneration as was evidenced one Lord's day in 1807[13]as he sat in the gallery of the First Baptist Church[14]and heard the minister preach. He was hopefully converted and was baptized by Pastor John Courtney[15]into the fellowship of the church. There he heard a sermon on the third chapter of the gospel of John which so inspired him that he obtained a Testament in order that he might read for himself the Lord's interview with Nicodemus. In a short time he knew the alphabet, and with very little assistance from the men at the warehouse,[16]he learned to read this chapter and also to write.[17]

Cary was a changed man—industrious, thrifty, Christian. Whereas he had been idle now he devoted his leisure time to reading and it is said that one of the books that he read was Adam Smith'sWealth of Nations.[18]By his application to reading and writing he was able in a little time to make dray tickets and to act as shipping clerk.[19]Hiswork in the warehouse was "such as no person, white or black, has equalled in the same situation.... He could produce any one of the hundreds of hogsheads of tobacco the instant it was called for."[20]For these services he was often given a five dollar note and the privilege to sell small quantities of waste tobacco for his own benefit.[21]He saved the money obtained in this way, and with the aid of a subscription among his employers accumulated by 1813 $850 with which he purchased freedom for himself and his two children.[22]

The following extract of a letter from William Crane to the Rev. Obadiah Brown of Washington City, which he forwarded to the corresponding secretary of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, corroborates, in the main, the foregoing statements as well as gives some interesting sidelights on the lives of Cary and Teague:

Richmond, March 28, 1819.You will probably recollect, that I introduced you to two of our colored brethren in this place, who are accustomed to speak in public; one named Collin Teague, the other Lot Carey. Ever since the missionary subject has been so much agitated in this country, these two brethren, associated with many others, have been wishing they could, in some way, aid their unhappy kindred in Africa; and I suppose you have heard of their having formed a missionary society for this sole purpose. Some letters published in No. VI of theLuminary(written by Kizell, the Baptist leader in Sherbro Island and by some others) have served to awaken them effectually. They are now determined to go themselves to Africa; and the only questions with them are, in what way will it be best for them to proceed? and what previous steps are requisite to be taken? They think it necessary to spend some time in study first. They both possess industry and abilities, such as, with the blessing of Providence, would soon make them rich. It is but two or three years since either of them enjoyed freedom; and both have paid large sums for their families. They now possess but little, excepta zealous wish to go and do what they can. Brother Lot has a wife, and several little children. He has a place a little below Richmond, that cost him $1500, but will probably not sell for more than $1000 at this time. Brother Collin has a wife, a son 14 years of age, and a daughter of 11, for whom he has paid $1300, and has scarcely any thing left. Both their wives are Baptists; their children, amiable and docile, have been to school considerably; and I hope, if they go, will likewise be of service. Collin is a saddler and harness maker. He had no early education. The little that he has gained, has been by chance and peacemeal. He has judgment, and as much keenness of penetration as almost any man. He can read, though he is not a good reader, and can write so as to make out a letter. The little knowledge he has of figures, has been gained by common calculations in business. Lot was brought up on a farm; and for a number of years has been chief manager among the labourers in the largest tobacco ware house in this city. He has charge of receiving, marking and shipping tobacco; and the circumstance that he receives $700 a-year wages may help you to form an estimate of the man. He reads better than Collin, and is in every respect a better scholar. They have been trying to preach about ten or eleven years, and are both about forty years of age.[23]

Richmond, March 28, 1819.

You will probably recollect, that I introduced you to two of our colored brethren in this place, who are accustomed to speak in public; one named Collin Teague, the other Lot Carey. Ever since the missionary subject has been so much agitated in this country, these two brethren, associated with many others, have been wishing they could, in some way, aid their unhappy kindred in Africa; and I suppose you have heard of their having formed a missionary society for this sole purpose. Some letters published in No. VI of theLuminary(written by Kizell, the Baptist leader in Sherbro Island and by some others) have served to awaken them effectually. They are now determined to go themselves to Africa; and the only questions with them are, in what way will it be best for them to proceed? and what previous steps are requisite to be taken? They think it necessary to spend some time in study first. They both possess industry and abilities, such as, with the blessing of Providence, would soon make them rich. It is but two or three years since either of them enjoyed freedom; and both have paid large sums for their families. They now possess but little, excepta zealous wish to go and do what they can. Brother Lot has a wife, and several little children. He has a place a little below Richmond, that cost him $1500, but will probably not sell for more than $1000 at this time. Brother Collin has a wife, a son 14 years of age, and a daughter of 11, for whom he has paid $1300, and has scarcely any thing left. Both their wives are Baptists; their children, amiable and docile, have been to school considerably; and I hope, if they go, will likewise be of service. Collin is a saddler and harness maker. He had no early education. The little that he has gained, has been by chance and peacemeal. He has judgment, and as much keenness of penetration as almost any man. He can read, though he is not a good reader, and can write so as to make out a letter. The little knowledge he has of figures, has been gained by common calculations in business. Lot was brought up on a farm; and for a number of years has been chief manager among the labourers in the largest tobacco ware house in this city. He has charge of receiving, marking and shipping tobacco; and the circumstance that he receives $700 a-year wages may help you to form an estimate of the man. He reads better than Collin, and is in every respect a better scholar. They have been trying to preach about ten or eleven years, and are both about forty years of age.[23]

Cary had been licensed to preach by the First Baptist Church, Richmond, and he exercised his talent every Lord's day among the colored people on plantations a few miles from Richmond.[24]It was not many months before he was the highly esteemed pastor of the African Baptist Church in Richmond. As a preacher, Cary was not polished, but "his ideas would sometimes burst upon you in their native solemnity, and awaken deeper feelings than the most polished, but less original" and artificial discourses.[25]

Lott Cary early exhibited the power of an organizer. In 1815, William Crane, who was a member of the First Baptist Church, felt that his ought to use his talent among the twelve hundred Negro members of that congregation.Consequently, he and David Roper[26]gratuitously opened a tri-weekly night school in the gallery of the old church with Lott Cary, Colin Teague and fifteen or twenty leading members of the church as pupils.[27]Now Crane was able to inspire such a group to practical missionary service, for he himself had been repeatedly urged to become a missionary and had had close contact with Luther Rice as one of the managers of the General Missionary Convention. But it was left to Lott Cary to excite among the Negroes a strong interest in behalf of Africa. The result was the formation of the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society in 1815. Crane was the president or corresponding secretary.[28]This was necessary, for since the various uprisings of Negroes[29]were making Virginia a hotbed of discontent, the city of Richmond was wary of having Negro meetings unless they were sponsored by white persons. Crane represented the Society in the General Missionary Convention,[30]formed in 1814, and remained its delegate for about twenty years.

At the first triennial session of the Convention at Philadelphia, in May, 1817, a letter was read from the corresponding secretary of the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society and it was unanimously

Resolved, that the said letter be noticed on the minutes of the Convention, and that the Board, if they find it practicable, be advised to institute an African Mission, conformably to the wishes of the said African Mission Society; and that the CorrespondingSecretary of the Board be requested to communicate this resolution together with an encouraging affectionate letter to that society.[31]

Feeling of sympathy for the African was high. Many slave-holding Baptists felt that they owed the Negro a debt which they should pay.[32]Moreover, the board of the Convention felt that the interest in Foreign missions manifested by the Negro Baptists of Richmond was a providential plan whereby the slaves brought from Africa might be converted and returned to evangelize that continent.[33]Since, therefore, mission work could be propagated in Africa in the English language and for one quarter the expense required for other lands,[34]the Convention felt no hesitancy in acknowledging the claims of Africa.

Luther Rice, while in Richmond during the winter of 1817, visited the African Missionary Society. "It afforded me much pleasure, indeed," he reported,[35]"to observe the zeal, and intelligence and capacity, and success, discovered in the African Mission Society."

As a matter of fact, the formation of the Richmond African Baptist Society was an epochal event. The example was followed by the African Baptist Church of Philadelphia[36]and by the Baptists of Petersburg, Virginia.[37]The African mission spirit even permeated North Carolina and Georgia, for during the years 1816 and 1817 the Negro Baptists of those parts contributed $32.64 to the cause.[38]This contribution far outstripped the donation of the white Baptists to the same cause. During the same time they contributed only $14.27, $12.27 of which was given by the newly formed African Mite Society of Providence, Rhode Island.[39]

Lott Cary resolved that it was his duty to go and preach the gospel in benighted Africa. It was at Crane's night school that this intention was made known. After Crane had reviewed the report of Burgess and Mills, telling of their exploring tour on the coast of Africa, Lott Cary said: "I have been determined for a long time to go to Africa and at least to see the country for myself."[40]There is no doubt that to some extent Gary was awakened to a deep sense of responsibility for his brethren in Africa by that part of this report which dealt with John Kizell, the Baptist leader in Sherbro Island, the president of the Friendly Society established by Paul Cuffee, the escort and guide of Burgess and Mills on their exploring tour, the man directly responsible for the beginning of the impractical scheme of deportation on the continent of Africa by the American Colonization Society.[41]

But how was he to accomplish his object? Crane said,[42]"I had thought of addressing the Corresponding Secretary on their (Cary and Teague) behalf, for the patronage of the American Baptist Mission Society, but again thought, that the Colonization Society might be pleased with taking them under their care, and that their mission might bear a more imposing aspect under the auspices of this society than it would with the Baptists alone." Lott Cary was received by the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, May 1, 1819,and was accepted by the American Colonization Society to work for them "without pay as other engagements would permit."[43]

The treasurer of the General Missionary Convention reported $2 for Africa received September 21, 1819, from a friend in Nashville Tennessee. The next year the society appropriated $200 in cash and $100 in books. Contrasted with this was the $483.25 paid April 17, 1820, by the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society to the General Missionary Convention to be appropriated for Africa.[44]Thus the Convention served only as a clearing house for the funds contributed from Richmond. With this in mind we can more clearly understand the following order voted by the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions in 1820:

With African Mission Society, Richmond,To various exp. for Collin Teague and Lot Carey ... 500 25.[45]

Furthermore, the historian of the Convention up to the year 1840[46]relates that the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society, of which Lott Cary was the recording secretary, appropriated to the cause of African redemption $700, all of its funds collected during the first five years of its existence. For many years thereafter the Society collected and contributed annually from $100 to $150 to the mission in Africa.[47]

Lott Cary was giving up much to be an apostle to his people—a pastorate of nearly eight hundred members, a farm and house costing $1,500 and a salary increase of $200 a year if he would stay.[48]But he must go. There were promptings big and great. Cary and Colin Teague are said to have wished to be where their color would be nodisparagement to their usefulness.[49]"I am an African," he is reported to have answered an intelligent minister who asked him why he was leaving,[50]"and, in this country, however meritorious my conduct, and respectable my character, I cannot receive the credit due to either. I wish to go to a country where I shall be estimated by my merits, not by my complexion; and I feel bound to labor for my suffering race."

It is highly probable that Cary possessed no such race consciousness as is portrayed in the foregoing reports of Crane and Gurley. True enough, the occasion for such sentiment was there in the institution of slavery but had Cary imbibed the spirit? On the one hand, the free Negro was not wanted in Virginia as is evidenced by an act which made unlawful the permanent residence in the State of any slave set free after May 1, 1806. But, on the other hand, this act was not generally enforced because of the economic value of many of the freedmen.[51]Thus it is doubtful whether Cary, whose salary would be increased if he remained in Virginia, and Teague, both effectual workmen whose industry was needed, would have to go away to gain a higher status.

Let us examine the facts further. Crane was certainly enthusiastic for African colonization and Gurley was the secretary of the American Colonization Society. Thus these statements, as well as similar ones which follow, seem like attempts on the part of the friends of colonization to make Cary say to the other free Negroes that colonization was a desirable thing. Certainly such an attitude would be a timely rebuttal of the anti-colonization sentiment of the Negro ministry in general.

Furthermore, this reason for going to Africa was not in accord with the one given at Crane's night school. Then he wanted to see Africa for himself; now he finds America no place for the Negro. He could have changed his pointof view, but did he? If he did change his view, he had changed again in less than two years (March 13, 1821) when he wrote as follows to the corresponding secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions:

If you intend doing anything for Africa you must not wait for the Colonization Society, nor for government, for neither of these are in search of missionary grounds, but of colonizing grounds; if it should not suit missionary needs, you cannot expect to gather in a missionary crop. And, moreover, all of us who are connected with the agents, who are under public instructions, must be conformed to their laws, whether they militate against missionary operation or not.[52]

Thus if Cary made statements which favor colonization he was very inconsistent, for it was he who was chiefly responsible for the colonists openly defying the Colonization Society in 1824. Nor could Cary write so well. It is most likely, therefore, that Lott Cary wanted to go to Africa simply to see the country and to do missionary work.

Prior to his public farewell, Lott Cary and Colin Teague were ordained and they, with their wives, Joseph Langford and wife and Hilary Teague, were organized in January, 1821, into a church. Lott Cary was elected pastor. The constitution of this body which they were to plant in Africa was modelled after the Samson Street Church of Philadelphia.[53]

Cary's farewell sermon, preached in the meeting house of the First Baptist Church, Richmond, was well ordered, without the rant common to some preachers of that day, dignified and pathetic, and left a lasting impression on the audience.[54]Teague had often remarked to William Crane, "Sir, I don't hear any of your white ministers that can preach like Lott Cary." Crane was anxious to hear him and after listening to his farewell message from Romans8:32—"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"—he did not hesitate to declare: "I have a most vivid recollection of the manner in which, towards the close, he dwelt upon the word 'freely.' With thrilling emphasis he exclaimed over and over, 'He gave them freely!' He rang a succession of perhaps a dozen changes upon the word, in a manner that would not have dishonored Whitfield."[55]

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