"These points, it appears to us, are true, indisputably true. We are satisfied as to our claims as citizens here, and as to this being the virtual and destined home of colored Americans.
"We reflect upon this subject now, on account of the frequent agitations, introduced among us, in reference to our emigrating to some other country, each of which, embodies more or less of the colonizing principle, and all of which are of bad tendency, throwing our people into an unsettled state; and turning away our attention in this country, to uncertain things under another government, and evidently putting us back. All such agitations introduced among us, with a view to our emigrating, ought to be frowned upon by us, and we ought to teach the people that they may as well come here and agitate the emigration of the Jays, the Rings, the Adamses, the Otises, the Hanc.o.c.ks, et al., as to agitate our removal. We are all alike const.i.tuents of the same government, and members of the same rising family. Although we come up much more slowly, our rise is to be none the less sure.
This subject is pressed upon us, because we not infrequently meet some of our brethren in this unsettled state of mind, who, though by no means colonizationists yet adopt the colonization motto, and say they can not see how or when we are going to rise here.
Perhaps, if we looked only to the selfishness of man, and to him as absolute, we should think so, too. But while we know that G.o.d lives and governs, and always will; that He is just, and has declared that righteousness shall prevail; and that one day with Him is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day; we believe that, despite all corruption and caste, we shall yet be elevated with the American people here.
"It appears to us most conclusive, that our destinies in this country are for the better, not for the worse, in view of the many schemes introduced to our notice for emigrating to other countries having failed; thus teaching us that our rights, hopes, and prospects, are in this country; and it is a waste of time and of power to look for them under another government; and also, that G.o.d, in His providence, is instructing us to remain at home, where are all our interests and claims and to adopt proper measures and pursue them, and we yet shall partic.i.p.ate in all the immunities and privileges the American nation holds out to her citizens, and be happy. We are also strongly American in our character and disposition.
"We believe, therefore, in view of all the facts, that it is our duty and privilege to claim an equal place among the American people; to identify ourselves with American interests, and to exert all the power and influence we have, to break down all the disabilities under which we labor, and thus look to become a happy people in this extensive country."[11]
Ray rendered equally as valuable services to the Negroes as a promoter of the Underground Railroad. In fact he was approaching the climax of his career when the Underground Railroad became an efficient agency in offering relief to the large number of Negro slaves who found themselves reduced to the plane of beasts in the rapidly growing cotton kingdom. One of the striking cases in which he figured was that of the escape of the Weims family, so well known for the almost unparalleled deliverance from bondage of the entire family with one exception.
Exactly how the freedom of these slaves was obtained appears to better effect in the language of Ray himself. "But I must say a word about the younger girl, the price of whom they held as high as we gave for Catherine. We proposed another method for her freedom and carried it out, in which the mother acted a good part, as she could; we proposed to run her off. I was written to, to know whether a draft for three hundred dollars would be forwarded, conditioned upon the appearance of Ann Maria in my house or hands--the sum being appropriated to compensate the one who should deliver her safely in the North. I answered, of course, in the affirmative."[12]
The escape of Ann Maria, as proposed by this new plan, can best be explained by the correspondence between Mr. Ray and Mr. Bigelow in Washington, who, writing according to a method often adopted in those days in order the more effectually to secure concealment, designates Ann Maria as the parcel sent.[13] The letter reads thus:
"WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 17, 1855.
"REV. CHAS. B. RAY,
"_Dear Sir:_ I have a friend pa.s.sing through the city on his way to New York, and I mean to avail myself of his kindness to send to your lady the little parcel she has been so long expecting.
You can name it to her, and I now suggest that as soon as you find it convenient, you send me by express the wrapper and covering in which the valuables are packed, for I have another similar parcel to send and shall find these things exactly convenient for that purpose. My friend intends to leave here on Monday morning, with his own conveyance, taking it leisurely, and may not reach New York before about Thursday, but of this I speak more exactly before I close. I need not suggest to you how anxious I shall be to get the earliest news of the arrival of the package without breakage or injury."
Also he adds as follows:
"WASHINGTON, D. C., November 22, 1855.
"REV. CHAS. B. RAY, "_Dear Sir:_
"My last letter will lead you to expect to see the boy Joe to-day but it was afterwards calculated that he will not arrive till sometime to-morrow. I am requested for the gratification of Joe"s mother that you will be pleased on his arrival and before he changes his s.e.x, to have his daguerrotype taken for her use. It will make up a part of the Record."
Mr. Ray"s narration continues thus:
"Accordingly, one afternoon upon arriving home I found, sitting on the sofa at my home, a little boy about ten years old in appearance and looking rather feminine. I knew at once who it was, that it was Ann Maria. Upon her arrival I was to take her to Mr. Tappan, in whose hands the balance of the money was placed.
This I did, and the little boy Joe was taken to her uncle or to where he could obtain her and finally reached Canada."
The following incident has often been told in Mr. Ray"s family. "One summer morning, a loud rap with the knocker at the front door arrested the attention and the door being opened, a man entered, who after asking, "Does the Rev. Mr. Ray live here?" and receiving an affirmative answer, whistled as a signal to attract the notice of his comrades, then cried out, "Come on, boys!" and forthwith fourteen men in all entered, quite alarming the inmates of the house on seeing such a train of fugitives."
In the midst of these busy days Mr. Ray also served as a minister. For twenty years he was the pastor of the Bethesda Congregational Church in New York City where many learned to wait upon his ministry. He lived until 1886, long enough to enjoy some of that liberty for which he so patiently toiled. His more valuable services to his race, however, were rendered during the period prior to the Civil War.
Although in the midst of this struggle of the subsequent period there came forward men who towered higher in the public opinion than he did, the valuable work which he did as an abolitionist, and an editor, should not be neglected.
M. N. WORK
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A very good account of C. B. Ray"s literary efforts is given in I.
Garland Penn"s _The Afro-American Press_, pp. 32-47.
[2] Papers in the possession of Ray"s family.
[3] For further information see ma.n.u.scripts in the possession of Ray"s family.
[4] This convention movement is well treated in J. W. Cromwell"s _The Negro in American History_, pp. 27-46.
[5] Penn, _The Afro-American Press_, p. 35.
[6] Brown, _The Rising Son_, p. 473.
[7] Penn, _The Afro-American Press_, p. 38.
[8] Penn, _The Afro-American Press_, pp. 39-40.
[9] _Ibid._, p. 41.
[10] Penn, _The Afro-American Press_, pp. 42-43.
[11] Penn, _The Afro-American Press_, pp. 43-46.
[12] From papers in the possession of Ray"s family.
[13] These letters are in the possession of the author.
THE SLAVE IN UPPER CANADA[A]
The dictum of Lord Chief Justice Holt: "As soon as a slave enters England he becomes free"[1] was succeeded by the decision of the Court of King"s Bench to the same effect in the celebrated case of Somerset _v._ Stewart[2] where Lord Mansfield is reported to have said: "The air of England has long been too pure for a slave and every man is free who breathes it."[3]
James Somerest,[4] a Negro slave of Charles Stewart in Jamaica, had been brought by his master to England "to attend and abide with him and to carry him back as soon as his business should be transacted."
The Negro refused to go back, whereupon he was put in irons and taken on board the ship _Ann and Mary_ lying in the Thames and bound for Jamaica. Lord Mansfield granted a writ of habeas corpus requiring Captain Knowles to produce Somerset before him with the cause of the detainer. On the motion, the cause being stated as above indicated, Lord Mansfield referred the matter to the Full Court of King"s Bench; whereupon, on June 22, 1772, judgment was given for the Negro. The basis of the decision, the theme of the argument, was that the only kind of slavery known to English law was villeinage, that the Statute of Tenures (1660) (12 Car. 11, c. 24) expressly abolished villeins regardant to a manor and by implication villeins in gross. The reasons for the decision would hardly stand fire at the present day. The investigation of Paul Vinogradoff and others have conclusively established that there was not a real difference in status between the so-called villein regardant and villein in gross, and that in any case the villein was not properly a slave but rather a serf.[5] Moreover, the Statute of Tenures deals solely with tenure and not with status.
But what seems to have been taken for granted, namely that slavery, personal slavery, had never existed in England and that the only unfree person was the villein, who, by the way was real property, is certainly not correct. Slaves were known in England as mere personal goods and chattels, bought and sold, at least as late as the middle of the twelfth century.[6] However weak the reasons given for the decision, its authority has never been questioned and it is good law.
But it is good law for England, for even in the Somerset case it was admitted that a concurrence of unhappy circ.u.mstances had rendered slavery necessary[7] in the American colonies: and Parliament had recognized the right of property in slaves there.[8]
When Canada was conquered in 1760, slavery existed in that country.
There were not only Panis[9] or Indian Slaves, but also Negro slaves.
These were not enfranchised by the conqueror, but retained their servile status. When the united empire loyalists came to this northern land after the acknowledgment by Britain of the independence of the revolted colonies, some of them brought their slaves with them: and the Parliament of Great Britain in 1790 pa.s.sed an Act authorizing any "subject of ... the United States of America" to bring into Canada "any negroes" free of duty having first obtained a license from the Lieutenant Governor.[10]
An immense territory formerly Canada was erected into a Government or Province of Quebec by Royal Proclamation in 1763 and the limits of the province were extended by the Quebec Act in 1774.[11] This province was divided into two provinces, Upper Canada and Lower Canada in 1791.[12] At this time the whole country was under the French Canadian law in civil matters. The law of England had been introduced into the old Government of the Province of Quebec by the Royal Proclamation of 1763; but the former French Canadian law had been reintroduced in 1774 by the Quebec Act in matters of property and civil rights, leaving the English criminal law in full force. The law, civil and criminal, had been modified in certain details (not of importance here) by Ordinances of the Governor and Council of Quebec.
The very first act of the first Parliament of Upper Canada reintroduced the English civil law.[13] This did not destroy slavery, nor did it ameliorate the condition of the slave. Rather the reverse, for as the English law did not, like the civil law of Rome and the systems founded on it, recognize the status of the slave at all, when it was forced by grim fact to acknowledge slavery it had no room for the slave except as a mere piece of property. Instead of giving him rights like those of the "servus," he was deprived of all rights, marital, parental, proprietary, even the right to live. In the English law and systems founded on it, the slave had no rights which the master was bound to respect.[14]
The first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada was Col. John Graves Simcoe. He hated slavery and had spoken against it in the House of Commons in England. Arriving in Upper Canada in the summer of 1792, he was soon made fully aware that the horrors of slavery were not unknown in his new Province. The following is a report of a meeting of his Executive Council:
"At the Council Chamber, Navy Hall, in the County of Lincoln, Wednesday, March 21st, 1793.