[Footnote 1: In "Horrid Ma.s.sacre," or, to use the more formal t.i.tle, "Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene which was Witnessed in Southampton County (Virginia) on Monday the 22d of August Last," the list below of the victims of Nat Turner"s insurrection is given. It must be said about this work, however, that it is not altogether impeccable; it seems to have been prepared very hastily after the event, its spelling of names is often arbitrary, and instead of the fifty-five victims noted it appears that at least fifty-seven white persons were killed:
Joseph Travis, wife and three children 5 Mrs. Elizabeth Turner, Hartwell Peebles, and Sarah Newsum 3 Mrs. Piety Reese and son, William 2 Trajan Doyal 1 Henry Briant, wife and child, and wife"s mother 4 Mrs. Catherine Whitehead, her son Richard, four daughters and a grandchild 7 Salathael Francis 1 Nathaniel Francis"s overseer and two children 3 John T. Barrow and George Vaughan 2 Mrs. Levi Waller and ten children 11 Mr. William Williams, wife and two boys 4 Mrs. Caswell Worrell and child 2 Mrs. Rebacca Vaughan, Ann Eliza Vaughan, and son Arthur 3 Mrs. Jacob Williams and three children and Edwin Drewry 5 __ 55 ]
As the men neared the home of James Parker, it was suggested that they call there; but Turner objected, as this man had already gone to Jerusalem and he himself wished to reach the county seat as soon as possible. However, he and some of the men remained at the gate while others went to the house half a mile away. This exploit proved to be the turning-point of the events of the day. Uneasy at the delay of those who went to the house, Turner went thither also. On his return he was met by a company of white men who had fired on those Negroes left at the gate and dispersed them. On discovering these men, Turner ordered his own men to halt and form, as now they were beginning to be alarmed. The white men, eighteen in number, approached and fired, but were forced to retreat. Reenforcements for them from Jerusalem were already at hand, however, and now the great pursuit of the Negro insurrectionists began.
Hark"s horse was shot under him and five or six of the men were wounded.
Turner"s force was largely dispersed, but on Monday night he stopped at the home of Major Ridley, and his company again increased to forty. He tried to sleep a little, but a sentinel gave the alarm; all were soon up and the number was again reduced to twenty. Final resistance was offered at the home of Dr. Blunt, but here still more of the men were put to flight and were never again seen by Turner.
A little later, however, the leader found two of his men named Jacob and Nat. These he sent with word to Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam to meet him at the place where on Sunday they had taken dinner together. With what thoughts Nat Turner returned alone to this place on Tuesday evening can only be imagined. Throughout the night he remained, but no one joined him and he presumed that his followers had all either been taken or had deserted him. Nor did any one come on Wednesday, or on Thursday. On Thursday night, having supplied himself with provisions from the Travis home, he scratched a hole under a pile of fence-rails, and here he remained for six weeks, leaving only at night to get water. All the while of course he had no means of learning of the fate of his companions or of anything else. Meanwhile not only the vicinity but the whole South was being wrought up to an hysterical state of mind. A reward of $500 for the capture of the man was offered by the Governor, and other rewards were also offered. On September 30 a false account of his capture appeared in the newspapers; on October 7 another; on October 8 still another. By this time Turner had begun to move about a little at night, not speaking to any human being and returning always to his hole before daybreak. Early on October 15 a dog smelt his provisions and led thither two Negroes. Nat appealed to these men for protection, but they at once began to run and excitedly spread the news. Turner fled in another direction and for ten days more hid among the wheat-stacks on the Francis plantation. All the while not less than five hundred men were on the watch for him, and they found the stick that he had notched from day to day. Once he thought of surrendering, and walked within two miles of Jerusalem. Three times he tried to get away, and failed. On October 25 he was discovered by Francis, who discharged at him a load of buckshot, twelve of which pa.s.sed through his hat, and he was at large for five days more. On October 30 Benjamin Phipps, a member of the patrol, pa.s.sing a clearing in the woods noticed a motion among the boughs. He paused, and gradually he saw Nat"s head emerging from a hole beneath. The fugitive now gave up as he knew that the woods were full of men. He was taken to the nearest house, and the crowd was so great and the excitement so intense that it was with difficulty that he was taken to Jerusalem. For more than two months, from August 25 to October 30, he had eluded his pursuers, remaining all the while in the vicinity of his insurrection.
While Nat Turner was in prison, Thomas C. Gray, his counsel, received from him what are known as his "Confessions." This pamphlet is now almost inaccessible,[1] but it was in great demand at the time it was printed and it is now the chief source for information about the progress of the insurrection. Turner was tried November 5 and sentenced to be hanged six days later. Asked in court by Gray if he still believed in the providential nature of his mission, he asked, "Was not Christ crucified?" Of his execution itself we read: "Nat Turner was executed according to sentence, on Friday, the 11th of November, 1831, at Jerusalem, between the hours of 10 A.M. and 2 P.M. He exhibited the utmost composure throughout the whole ceremony; and, although a.s.sured that he might, if he thought proper, address the immense crowd a.s.sembled on the occasion, declined availing himself of the privilege; and, being asked if he had any further confessions to make, replied that he had nothing more than he had communicated; and told the sheriff in a firm voice that he was ready. Not a limb or muscle was observed to move. His body, after death, was given over to the surgeons for dissection."
[Footnote 1: The only copy that the author has seen is that in the library of Harvard University.]
Of fifty-three Negroes arraigned in connection with the insurrection "seventeen were executed and twelve transported. The rest were discharged, except ... four free Negroes sent on to the Superior Court.
Three of the four were executed." [1] Such figures as these, however, give no conception of the number of those who lost their lives in connection with the insurrection. In general, if slaves were convicted by legal process and executed or transported, or if they escaped before trial, they were paid for by the commonwealth; if killed, they were not paid for, and a man like Phipps might naturally desire to protect his prisoner in order to get his reward. In spite of this, the Negroes were slaughtered without trial and sometimes under circ.u.mstances of the greatest barbarity. One man proudly boasted that he had killed between ten and fifteen. A party went from Richmond with the intention of killing every Negro in Southampton County. Approaching the cabin of a free Negro they asked, "Is this Southampton County?" "Yes, sir," came the reply, "you have just crossed the line by yonder tree." They shot him dead and rode on. In general the period was one of terror, with voluntary patrols, frequently drunk, going in all directions. These men tortured, burned, or maimed the Negroes practically at will. Said one old woman [2] of them: "The patrols were low drunken whites, and in Nat"s time, if they heard any of the colored folks prayin" or singin" a hymn, they would fall upon "em and abuse "em, and sometimes kill "em....
The brightest and best was killed in Nat"s time. The whites always suspect such ones. They killed a great many at a place called Duplon.
They killed Antonio, a slave of Mr. J. Stanley, whom they shot; then they pointed their guns at him and told him to confess about the insurrection. He told "em he didn"t know anything about any insurrection. They shot several b.a.l.l.s through him, quartered him, and put his head on a pole at the fork of the road leading to the court....
It was there but a short time. He had no trial. They never do. In Nat"s time, the patrols would tie up the free colored people, flog "em, and try to make "em lie against one another, and often killed them before anybody could interfere. Mr. James Cole, High Sheriff, said if any of the patrols came on his plantation, he would lose his life in defense of his people. One day he heard a patroller boasting how many Negroes he had killed. Mr. Cole said, "If you don"t pack up, as quick as G.o.d Almighty will let you, and get out of this town, and never be seen in it again, I"ll put you where dogs won"t bark at you." He went off, and wasn"t seen in them parts again."
[Footnote 1: Drewry, 101.]
[Footnote 2: Charity Bowery, who gave testimony to L.M. Child, quoted by Higginson.]
The immediate panic created by the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia and the other states of the South it would be impossible to exaggerate.
When the news of what was happening at Cross Keys spread, two companies, on horse and foot, came from Murfreesboro as quickly as possible. On the Wednesday after the memorable Sunday night there came from Fortress Monroe three companies and a piece of artillery. These commands were reenforced from various sources until not less than eight hundred men were in arms. Many of the Negroes fled to the Dismal Swamp, and the wildest rumors were afloat. One was that Wilmington had been burned, and in Raleigh and Fayetteville the wildest excitement prevailed. In the latter place scores of white women and children fled to the swamps, coming out two days afterwards muddy, chilled, and half-starved. Slaves were imprisoned wholesale. In Wilmington four men were shot without trial and their heads placed on poles at the four corners of the town.
In Macon, Ga., a report was circulated that an armed band of Negroes was only five miles away, and within an hour the women and children were a.s.sembled in the largest building in the town, with a military force in front for protection.
The effects on legislation were immediate. Throughout the South the slave codes became more harsh; and while it was clear that the uprising had been one of slaves rather than of free Negroes, as usual special disabilities fell upon the free people of color. Delaware, that only recently had limited the franchise to white men, now forbade the use of firearms by free Negroes and would not suffer any more to come within the state. Tennessee also forbade such immigration, while Maryland pa.s.sed a law to the effect that all free Negroes must leave the state and be colonized in Africa--a monstrous piece of legislation that it was impossible to put into effect and that showed once for all the futility of attempts at forcible emigration as a solution of the problem. In general, however, the insurrection a.s.sisted the colonization scheme and also made more certain the carrying out of the policy of the Jackson administration to remove the Indians of the South to the West. It also focussed the attention of the nation upon the status of the Negro, crystallized opinion in the North, and thus helped with the formation of anti-slavery organizations. By it for the time being the Negro lost; in the long run he gained.
3. _The "Amistad" and "Creole" Cases_
On June 28, 1839, a schooner, the _Amistad_, sailed from Havana bound for Guanaja in the vicinity of Puerto Principe. She was under the command of her owner, Don Ramon Ferrer, was laden with merchandise, and had on board fifty-three Negroes, forty-nine of whom supposedly belonged to a Spaniard, Don Jose Ruiz, the other four belonging to Don Pedro Montes. During the night of June 30 the slaves, under the lead of one of their number named Cinque, rose upon the crew, killed the captain, a slave of his, and two sailors, and while they permitted most of the crew to escape, they took into close custody the two owners, Ruiz and Montes.
Montes, who had some knowledge of nautical affairs, was ordered to steer the vessel back to Africa. So he did by day, when the Negroes would watch him, but at night he tried to make his way to some land nearer at hand. Other vessels pa.s.sed from time to time, and from these the Negroes bought provisions, but Montes and Ruiz were so closely watched that they could not make known their plight. At length, on August 26, the schooner reached Long Island Sound, where it was detained by the American brig-of-war _Washington_, in command of Captain Gedney, who secured the Negroes and took them to New London, Conn. It took a year and a half to dispose of the issue thus raised. The case attracted the greatest amount of attention, led to international complications, and was not really disposed of until a former President had exhaustively argued the case for the Negroes before the Supreme Court of the United States.
In a letter of September 6, 1839, to John Forsyth, the American Secretary of State, Calderon, the Spanish minister, formally made four demands: 1. That the _Amistad_ be immediately delivered up to her owner, together with every article on board at the time of her capture; 2. That it be declared that no tribunal in the United States had the right to inst.i.tute proceedings against, or to impose penalties upon, the subjects of Spain, for crimes committed on board a Spanish vessel, and in the waters of Spanish territory; 3. That the Negroes be conveyed to Havana or otherwise placed at the disposal of the representatives of Spain; and 4. That if, in consequence of the intervention of the authorities in Connecticut, there should be any delay in the desired delivery of the vessel and the slaves, the owners both of the latter and of the former be indemnified for the injury that might accrue to them. In support of his demands Calderon invoked "the law of nations, the stipulations of existing treaties, and those good feelings so necessary in the maintenance of the friendly relations that subsist between the two countries, and are so interesting to both." Forsyth asked for any papers bearing on the question, and Calderon replied that he had none except "the declaration on oath of Montes and Ruiz."
Meanwhile the abolitionists were insisting that protection had _not_ been afforded the African strangers cast on American soil and that in no case did the executive arm of the Government have any authority to interfere with the regular administration of justice. "These Africans,"
it was said, "are detained in jail, under process of the United States courts, in a free state, after it has been decided by the District Judge, on sufficient proof, that they are recently from Africa, were never the lawful slaves of Ruiz and Montes," and "when it is clear as noonday that there is no law or treaty stipulation that requires the further detention of these Africans or their delivery to Spain or its subjects."
Writing on October 24 to the Spanish representative with reference to the arrest of Ruiz and Montes, Forsyth informed him that the two Spanish subjects had been arrested on process issuing from the superior court of the city of New York upon affidavits of certain men, natives of Africa, "for the purpose of securing their appearance before the proper tribunal, to answer for wrongs alleged to have been inflicted by them upon the persons of said Africans," that, consequently, the occurrence const.i.tuted simply a "case of resort by individuals against others to the judicial courts of the country, which are equally open to all without distinction," and that the agency of the Government to obtain the release of Messrs. Ruiz and Montes could not be afforded in the manner requested. Further pressure was brought to bear by the Spanish representative, however, and there was cited the case of Abraham Wendell, captain of the brig _Franklin_, who was prosecuted at first by Spanish officials for maltreatment of his mate, but with reference to whom doc.u.ments were afterwards sent from Havana to America. Much more correspondence followed, and Felix Grundy, of Tennessee, Attorney General of the United States, at length muddled everything by the following opinion: "These Negroes deny that they are slaves; if they should be delivered to the claimants, no opportunity may be afforded for the a.s.sertion of their right to freedom. For these reasons, it seems to me that a delivery to the Spanish minister is the only safe course for this Government to pursue." The fallacy of all this was shown in a letter dated November 18, 1839, from B.F. Butler, United States District Attorney in New York, to Aaron Vail, acting Secretary of State. Said Butler: "It does not appear to me that any question has yet arisen under the treaty with Spain; because, although it is an admitted principle, that neither the courts of this state, nor those of the United States, can take jurisdiction of criminal offenses committed by foreigners within the territory of a foreign state, yet it is equally settled in this country, that our courts will take cognizance of _civil_ actions between foreigners transiently within our jurisdiction, founded upon contracts or other transactions made or had in a foreign state."
Southern influence was strong, however, and a few weeks afterwards an order was given from the Department of State to have a vessel anchor off New Haven, Conn., January 10, 1840, to receive the Negroes from the United States marshal and take them to Cuba; and on January 7 the President, Van Buren, issued the necessary warrant.
The rights of humanity, however, were not to be handled in this summary fashion. The executive order was stayed, and the case went further on its progress to the highest tribunal in the land. Meanwhile the anti-slavery people were teaching the Africans the rudiments of English in order that they might be better able to tell their own story. From the first a committee had been appointed to look out for their interests and while they were awaiting the final decision in their case they cultivated a garden of fifteen acres.
The appearance of John Quincy Adams in behalf of these Negroes before the Supreme Court of the United States February 24 and March 1, 1841, is in every way one of the most beautiful acts in American history. In the fullness of years, with his own administration as President twelve years behind him, the "Old Man Eloquent" came once more to the tribunal that he knew so well to make a last plea for the needy and oppressed. To the task he brought all his talents--his profound knowledge of law, his unrivaled experience, and his impressive personality; and his argument covers 135 octavo pages. He gave an extended a.n.a.lysis of the demand of the Spanish minister, who asked the President to do what he simply had no const.i.tutional right to do. "The President," said Adams, "has no power to arrest either citizens or foreigners. But even that power is almost insignificant compared with that of sending men beyond seas to deliver them up to a foreign government." The Secretary of State had "degraded the country, in the face of the whole civilized world, not only by allowing these demands to remain unanswered, but by proceeding, throughout the whole transaction, as if the Executive were earnestly desirous to comply with every one of the demands." The Spanish minister had naturally insisted in his demands because he had not been properly met at first. The slave-trade was illegal by international agreement, and the only thing to do under the circ.u.mstances was to release the Negroes. Adams closed his plea with a magnificent review of his career and of the labors of the distinguished jurists he had known in the court for nearly forty years, and be it recorded wherever the name of Justice is spoken, he won his case.
Lewis Tappan now accompanied the Africans on a tour through the states to raise money for their pa.s.sage home. The first meeting was in Boston.
Several members of the company interested the audience by their readings from the New Testament or by their descriptions of their own country and of the horrors of the voyage. Cinque gave the impression of great dignity and of extraordinary ability; and Kali, a boy only eleven years of age, also attracted unusual attention. Near the close of 1841, accompanied by five missionaries and teachers, the Africans set sail from New York, to make their way first to Sierra Leone and then to their own homes as well as they could.
While this whole incident of the _Amistad_ was still engaging the interest of the public, there occurred another that also occasioned international friction and even more prolonged debate between the slavery and anti-slavery forces. On October 25, 1841, the brig _Creole_, Captain Ensor, of Richmond, Va., sailed from Richmond and on October 27 from Hampton Roads, with a cargo of tobacco and one hundred and thirty slaves bound for New Orleans. On the vessel also, aside from the crew, were the captain"s wife and child, and three or four pa.s.sengers, who were chiefly in charge of the slaves, one man, John R. Hewell, being directly in charge of those belonging to an owner named McCargo. About 9.30 on the night of Sunday, November 7, while out at sea, nineteen of the slaves rose, cowed the others, wounded the captain, and generally took command of the vessel. Madison Washington began the uprising by an attack on Gifford, the first mate, and Ben Blacksmith, one of the most aggressive of his a.s.sistants, killed Hewell. The insurgents seized the arms of the vessel, permitted no conversation between members of the crew except in their hearing, demanded and obtained the manifests of slaves, and threatened that if they were not taken to Abaco or some other British port they would throw the officers and crew overboard. The _Creole_ reached Na.s.sau, New Providence, on Tuesday, November 9, and the arrival of the vessel at once occasioned intense excitement. Gifford went ash.o.r.e and reported the matter, and the American consul, John F.
Bacon, contended to the English authorities that the slaves on board the brig were as much a part of the cargo as the tobacco and ent.i.tled to the same protection from loss to the owners. The governor, Sir Francis c.o.c.kburn, however, was uncertain whether to interfere in the business at all. He liberated those slaves who were not concerned in the uprising, spoke of all of the slaves as "pa.s.sengers," and guaranteed to the nineteen who were shown by an investigation to have been connected with the uprising all the rights of prisoners called before an English court.
He told them further that the British Government would be communicated with before their case was finally pa.s.sed upon, that if they wished copies of the informations these would be furnished them, and that they were privileged to have witnesses examined in refutation of the charges against them. From time to time Negroes who were natives of the island crowded about the brig in small boats and intimidated the American crew, but when on the morning of November 12 the Attorney General questioned them as to their intentions they replied with transparent good humor that they intended no violence and had a.s.sembled only for the purpose of conveying to sh.o.r.e such of the persons on the _Creole_ as might be permitted to leave and might need their a.s.sistance. The Attorney General required, however, that they throw overboard a dozen stout cudgels that they had. Here the whole case really rested. Daniel Webster as Secretary of State aroused the anti-slavery element by making a strong demand for the return of the slaves, basing his argument on the sacredness of vessels flying the American flag; but the English authorities at Na.s.sau never returned any of them. On March 21, 1842, Joshua R. Giddings, untiring defender of the rights of the Negro, offered in the House of Representatives resolutions to the effect that slavery could exist only by positive law of the different states; that the states had delegated no control over slavery to the Federal Government, which alone had jurisdiction on the high seas, and that, therefore, slaves on the high seas became free and the coastwise trade was unconst.i.tutional. The House, strongly pro-Southern, replied with a vote of censure and Giddings resigned, but he was immediately reelected by his Ohio const.i.tuency.
CHAPTER VIII
THE NEGRO REPLY, II: ORGANIZATION AND AGITATION
It is not the purpose of the present chapter primarily to consider social progress on the part of the Negro. A little later we shall endeavor to treat this interesting subject for the period between the Missouri Compromise and the Civil War. Just now we are concerned with the att.i.tude of the Negro himself toward the problem that seemed to present itself to America and for which such different solutions were proposed. So far as slavery was concerned, we have seen that the remedy suggested by Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner was insurrection. It is only to state an historical fact, however, to say that the great heart of the Negro people in the South did not believe in violence, but rather hoped and prayed for a better day to come by some other means. But what was the att.i.tude of those people, progressive citizens and thinking leaders, who were not satisfied with the condition of the race and who had to take a stand on the issues that confronted them? If we study the matter from this point of view, we shall find an amount of ferment and unrest and honest difference of opinion that is sometimes overlooked or completely forgotten in the questions of a later day.
1. _Walker"s "Appeal_"
The most widely discussed book written by a Negro in the period was one that appeared in Boston in 1829. David Walker, the author, had been born in North Carolina in 1785, of a free mother and a slave father, and he was therefore free.[1] He received a fair education, traveled widely over the United States, and by 1827 was living in Boston as the proprietor of a second-hand clothing store on Brattle Street. He felt very strongly on the subject of slavery and actually seems to have contemplated leading an insurrection. In 1828 he addressed various audiences of Negroes in Boston and elsewhere, and in 1829 he published his _Appeal, in four articles; together with a Preamble to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in particular, and very expressly, to those of the United States of America_. The book was remarkably successful.
Appearing in September, by March of the following year it had reached its third edition; and in each successive edition the language was more bold and vigorous. Walker"s projected insurrection did not take place, and he himself died in 1830. While there was no real proof of the fact, among the Negro people there was a strong belief that he met with foul play.
[Footnote 1: Adams: _Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery_, 93.]
Article I Walker headed "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Slavery." A trip over the United States had convinced him that the Negroes of the country were "the most degraded, wretched and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began." He quoted a South Carolina paper as saying, "The Turks are the most barbarous people in the world--they treat the Greeks more like brutes than human beings"; and then from the same paper cited an advertis.e.m.e.nt of the sale of eight Negro men and four women. "Are we men?" he exclaimed. "I ask you, O! my brothers, are we men?... Have we any other master but Jesus Christ alone? Is He not their master as well as ours? What right, then, have we to obey and call any man master but Himself? How we could be so submissive to a gang of men, whom we can not tell whether they are as good as ourselves, or not, I never could conceive." "The whites," he a.s.serted, "have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and bloodthirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority." As heathen the white people had been cruel enough, but as Christians they were ten times more so. As heathen "they were not quite so audacious as to go and take vessel loads of men, women and children, and in cold blood, through devilishness, throw them into the sea, and murder them in all kind of ways. But being Christians, enlightened and sensible, they are completely prepared for such h.e.l.lish cruelties." Next was considered "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Ignorance." In general the writer maintained that his people as a whole did not have intelligence enough to realize their own degradation; even if boys studied books they did not master their texts, nor did their information go sufficiently far to enable them actually to meet the problems of life. If one would but go to the South or West, he would see there a son take his mother, who bore almost the pains of death to give him birth, and by the command of a tyrant, strip her as naked as she came into the world and apply the cowhide to her until she fell a victim to death in the road. He would see a husband take his dear wife, not unfrequently in a pregnant state and perhaps far advanced, and beat her for an unmerciful wretch, until her infant fell a lifeless lump at her feet. Moreover, "there have been, and are this day, in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, colored men who are in league with tyrants and who receive a great portion of their daily bread of the moneys which they acquire from the blood and tears of their more miserable brethren, whom they scandalously deliver into the hands of our natural enemies." In Article III Walker considered "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Preachers of the Religion of Jesus Christ." Here was a fertile field, which was only partially developed. Walker evidently did not have at hand the utterances of Furman and others to serve as a definite point of attack. He did point out, however, the general failure of Christian ministers to live up to the teachings of Christ. "Even here in Boston," we are informed, "pride and prejudice have got to such a pitch, that in the very houses erected to the Lord they have built little places for the reception of colored people, where they must sit during meeting, or keep away from the house of G.o.d." Hypocrisy could hardly go further than that of preachers who could not see the evils at their door but could "send out missionaries to convert the heathen, notwithstanding." Article IV was headed "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of the Colonizing Plan." This was a bitter arraignment, especially directed against Henry Clay. "I appeal and ask every citizen of these United States," said Walker, "and of the world, both white and black, who has any knowledge of Mr. Clay"s public labors for these states--I want you candidly to answer the Lord, who sees the secrets of your hearts, Do you believe that Mr. Henry Clay, late Secretary of State, and now in Kentucky, is a friend to the blacks further than his personal interest extends?... Does he care a pinch of snuff about Africa--whether it remains a land of pagans and of blood, or of Christians, so long as he gets enough of her sons and daughters to dig up gold and silver for him?... Was he not made by the Creator to sit in the shade, and make the blacks work without remuneration for their services, to support him and his family? I have been for some time taking notice of this man"s speeches and public writings, but never to my knowledge have I seen anything in his writings which insisted on the emanc.i.p.ation of slavery, which has almost ruined his country." Walker then paid his compliments to Elias B. Caldwell and John Randolph, the former of whom had said, "The more you improve the condition of these people, the more you cultivate their minds, the more miserable you make them in their present state." "Here," the work continues, "is a demonstrative proof of a plan got up, by a gang of slaveholders, to select the free people of color from among the slaves, that our more miserable brethren may be the better secured in ignorance and wretchedness, to work their farms and dig their mines, and thus go on enriching the Christians with their blood and groans. What our brethren could have been thinking about, who have left their native land and gone away to Africa, I am unable to say.... The Americans may say or do as they please, but they have to raise us from the condition of brutes to that of respectable men, and to make a national acknowledgment to us for the wrongs they have inflicted on us.... You may doubt it, if you please. I know that thousands will doubt--they think they have us so well secured in wretchedness, to them and their children, that it is impossible for such things to occur. So did the antediluvians doubt Noah, until the day in which the flood came and swept them away. So did the Sodomites doubt, until Lot had got out of the city, and G.o.d rained down fire and brimstone from heaven upon them and burnt them up. So did the king of Egypt doubt the very existence of G.o.d, saying, "Who is the Lord, that I should let Israel go?" ... So did the Romans doubt.... But they got dreadfully deceived."
This doc.u.ment created the greatest consternation in the South. The Mayor of Savannah wrote to Mayor Otis of Boston, demanding that Walker be punished. Otis, in a widely published letter, replied expressing his disapproval of the pamphlet, but saying that the author had done nothing that made him "amenable" to the laws. In Virginia the legislature considered pa.s.sing an "extraordinary bill," not only forbidding the circulation of such seditious publications but forbidding the education of free Negroes. The bill pa.s.sed the House of Delegates, but failed in the Senate. The _Appeal_ even found its way to Louisiana, where there were already rumors of an insurrection, and immediately a law was pa.s.sed expelling all free Negroes who had come to the state since 1825.
_2. The Convention Movement_
As may be inferred from Walker"s att.i.tude, the representative men of the race were almost a unit in their opposition to colonization. They were not always opposed to colonization itself, for some looked favorably upon settlement in Canada, and a few hundred made their way to the West Indies. They did object, however, to the plan offered by the American Colonization Society, which more and more impressed them as a device on the part of slaveholders to get free Negroes out of the country in order that slave labor might be more valuable. Richard Allen, bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the foremost Negro of the period, said: "We were stolen from our mother country and brought here.
We have tilled the ground and made fortunes for thousands, and still they are not weary of our services. _But they who stay to till the ground must be slaves_. Is there not land enough in America, or "corn enough in Egypt"? Why should they send us into a far country to die? See the thousands of foreigners emigrating to America every year: and if there be ground sufficient for them to cultivate, and bread for them to eat, why would they wish to send the _first tillers_ of the land away?
Africans have made fortunes for thousands, who are yet unwilling to part with their services; but the free must be sent away, and those who remain must be slaves. I have no doubt that there are many good men who do not see as I do, and who are sending us to Liberia; but they have not duly considered the subject--they are not men of color. This land which we have watered with our tears and our blood is now our _mother country_, and we are well satisfied to stay where wisdom abounds and the gospel is free."[1] This point of view received popular expression in a song which bore the c.u.mbersome t.i.tle, "The Colored Man"s Opinion of Colonization," and which was sung to the tune of "Home, Sweet Home." The first stanza was as follows:
[Footnote 1: _Freedom"s Journal_, November 2, 1827, quoted by Walker.]
Great G.o.d, if the humble and weak are as dear To thy love as the proud, to thy children give ear!
Our brethren would drive us in deserts to roam; Forgive them, O Father, and keep us at home.
Home, sweet home!
We have no other; this, this is our home.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Anti-Slavery Picknick_, 105-107.]
To this sentiment formal expression was given in the measures adopted at various Negro meetings in the North. In 1817 the greatest excitement was occasioned by a report that through the efforts of the newly-formed Colonization Society all free Negroes were forcibly to be deported from the country. Resolutions of protest were adopted, and these were widely circulated.[1] Of special importance was the meeting in Philadelphia in January, presided over by James Forten. Of this the full report is as follows:
[Footnote 1: They are fully recorded in _Garrison"s Thoughts on African Colonization_.]
At a numerous meeting of the people of color, convened at Bethel Church, to take into consideration the propriety of remonstrating against the contemplated measure that is to exile us from the land of our nativity, James Forten was called to the chair, and Russell Parrott appointed secretary. The intent of the meeting having been stated by the chairman, the following resolutions were adopted without one dissenting voice: