A Social History of the American Negro by Benjamin BrawleyBeing a History of the Negro Problem in the United States. Including A History and Study of the Republic of Liberia (page 2)

THE REVOLUTIONARY ERA

1. _Sentiment in England and America_

The materialism of the eighteenth century, with all of its evils, at length produced a liberalism of thought that was to shake to their very foundations old systems of life in both Europe and America. The progress of the cause of the Negro in this period is to be explained by the general diffusion of ideas that made for the rights of man everywhere. Cowper wrote his humanitarian poems; in close association with the romanticism of the day the missionary movement in religion began to gather force; and the same impulse which in England began the agitation for a free press and for parliamentary reform, and which in France accounted for the French Revolution, in America led to the revolt from Great Britain. No patriot could come under the influence of any one of these movements without having his heart and his sense of justice stirred to some degree in behalf of the slave. At the same time it must be remembered that the contest of the Americans was primarily for the definite legal rights of Englishmen rather than for the more abstract rights of mankind which formed the platform of the French Revolution; hence arose the great inconsistency in the position of men who were engaged in a stern struggle for liberty at the same time that they themselves were holding human beings in bondage.

In England the new era was formally signalized by an epoch-making decision. In November, 1769, Charles Stewart, once a merchant in Norfolk and later receiver general of the customs of North America, took to England his Negro slave, James Somerset, who, being sick, was turned adrift by his master. Later Somerset recovered and Stewart seized him, intending to have him borne out of the country and sold in Jamaica. Somerset objected to this and in so doing raised the important legal question, Did a slave by being brought to England become free? The case received an extraordinary amount of attention, for everybody realized that the decision would be far-reaching in its consequences. After it was argued at three different sittings, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of England, in 1772 handed down from the Court of King’s Bench the judgment that as soon as ever any slave set his foot upon the soil of England he became free.

This decision may be taken as fairly representative of the general advance that the cause of the Negro was making in England at the time. Early in the century sentiment against the slave-trade had begun to develop, many pamphlets on the evils of slavery were circulated, and as early as 1776 a motion for the abolition of the trade was made in the House of Commons. John Wesley preached against the system, Adam Smith showed its ultimate expensiveness, and Burke declared that the slavery endured by the Negroes in the English settlements was worse than that ever suffered by any other people. Foremost in the work of protest were Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, the one being the leader in investigation and in the organization of the movement against slavery while the other was the parliamentary champion of the cause. For years, assisted by such debaters as Burke, Fox, and the younger Pitt, Wilberforce worked until on March 25, 1807, the bill for the abolition of the slave-trade received the royal assent, and still later until slavery itself was abolished in the English dominions (1833).

This high thought in England necessarily found some reflection in America, where the logic of the position of the patriots frequently forced them to take up the cause of the slave. As early as 1751 Benjamin Franklin, in his _Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind_, pointed out the evil effects of slavery upon population and the production of wealth; and in 1761 James Otis, in his argument against the Writs of Assistance, spoke so vigorously of the rights of black men as to leave no doubt as to his own position. To Patrick Henry slavery was a practice “totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and wrong,” and in 1777 he was interested in a plan for gradual emancipation received from his friend, Robert Pleasants. Washington desired nothing more than “to see some plan adopted by which slavery might be abolished by law”; while Joel Barlow in his _Columbiad_ gave significant warning to Columbia of the ills that she was heaping up for herself.

Two of the expressions of sentiment of the day, by reason of their deep yearning and philosophic calm, somehow stand apart from others. Thomas Jefferson in his _Notes on Virginia_ wrote: “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other…. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances…. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice can not sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.”[1] Henry Laurens, that fine patriot whose business sense was excelled only by his idealism, was harassed by the problem and wrote to his son, Colonel John Laurens, as follows: “You know, my dear son, I abhor slavery. I was born in a country where slavery had been established by British kings and parliaments, as well as by the laws of that country ages before my existence. I found the Christian religion and slavery growing under the same authority and cultivation. I nevertheless disliked it. In former days there was no combating the prejudices of men supported by interest; the day I hope is approaching when, from principles of gratitude as well as justice, every man will strive to be foremost in showing his readiness to comply with the golden rule. Not less than twenty thousand pounds sterling would all my Negroes produce if sold at public auction to-morrow. I am not the man who enslaved them; they are indebted to Englishmen for that favor; nevertheless I am devising means for manumitting many of them, and for cutting off the entail of slavery. Great powers oppose me–the laws and customs of my country, my own and the avarice of my countrymen. What will my children say if I deprive them of so much estate? These are difficulties, but not insuperable. I will do as much as I can in my time, and leave the rest to a better hand.”[2] Stronger than all else, however, were the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Within the years to come these words were to be denied and assailed as perhaps no others in the language; but in spite of all they were to stand firm and justify the faith of 1776 before Jefferson himself and others had become submerged in a gilded opportunism.

[Footnote 1: “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, issued under the auspices of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association,” 20 vols., Washington, 1903, II, 226-227.]

[Footnote 2: “A South Carolina Protest against Slavery (being a letter written from Henry Laurens, second president of the Continental Congress, to his son, Colonel John Laurens; dated Charleston, S.C., August 14th, 1776).” Reprinted by G.P. Putnam, New York, 1861.]

It is not to be supposed that such sentiments were by any means general; nevertheless these instances alone show that some men at least in the colonies were willing to carry their principles to their logical conclusion. Naturally opinion crystallized in formal resolutions or enactments. Unfortunately most of these were in one way or another rendered ineffectual after the war; nevertheless the main impulse that they represented continued to live. In 1769 Virginia declared that the discriminatory tax levied on free Negroes and mulattoes since 1668 was “derogatory to the rights of freeborn subjects” and accordingly should be repealed. In October, 1774, the First Continental Congress declared in its Articles of Association that the united colonies would “neither import nor purchase any slave imported after the first day of December next” and that they would “wholly discontinue the trade.” On April 16, 1776, the Congress further resolved that “no slaves be imported into any of the thirteen colonies”; and the first draft of the Declaration of Independence contained a strong passage censuring the King of England for bringing slaves into the country and then inciting them to rise against their masters. On April 14, 1775, the first abolition society in the country was organized in Pennsylvania; in 1778 Virginia once more passed an act prohibiting the slave-trade; and the Methodist Conference in Baltimore in 1780 strongly expressed its disapproval of slavery.

2. _The Negro in the War_

As in all the greater wars in which the country has engaged, the position of the Negro was generally improved by the American Revolution. It was not by reason of any definite plan that this was so, for in general the disposition of the government was to keep him out of the conflict. Nevertheless between the hesitating policy of America and the overtures of England the Negro made considerable advance.

The American cause in truth presented a strange and embarrassing dilemma, as we have remarked. In the war itself, moreover, began the stern cleavage between the North and the South. At the moment the rift was not clearly discerned, but afterwards it was to widen into a chasm. Massachusetts bore more than her share of the struggle, and in the South the combination of Tory sentiment and the aristocratic social system made enlistment especially difficult. In this latter section, moreover, there was always the lurking fear of an uprising of the slaves, and before the end of the war came South Carolina and Georgia were very nearly demoralized. In the course of the conflict South Carolina lost not less than 25,000 slaves,[1] about one-fifth of all she had. Georgia did not lose so many, but proportionally suffered even more. Some of the Negroes went into the British army, some went away with the loyalists, and some took advantage of the confusion and escaped to the Indians. In Virginia, until they were stopped at least, some slaves entered the Continental Army as free Negroes.

[Footnote 1: Historical Notes on the Employment of Negroes in the American Army of the Revolution, by G.H. Moore, New York, 1862, p. 15.]

Three or four facts are outstanding. The formal policy of Congress and of Washington and his officers was against the enlistment of Negroes and especially of slaves; nevertheless, while things were still uncertain, some Negroes entered the regular units. The inducements offered by the English, moreover, forced a modification of the American policy in actual operation; and before the war was over the colonists were so hard pressed that in more ways than one they were willing to receive the assistance of Negroes. Throughout the North Negroes served in the regular units; but while in the South especially there was much thought given to the training of slaves, in only one of all the colonies was there a distinctively Negro military organization, and that one was Rhode Island. In general it was understood that if a slave served in the war he was to be given his freedom, and it is worthy of note that many slaves served in the field instead of their masters.

In Massachusetts on May 29, 1775, the Committee of Safety passed an act against the enlistment of slaves as “inconsistent with the principles that are to be supported.” Another resolution of June 6 dealing with the same matter was laid on the table. Washington took command of the forces in and about Boston July 3, 1775, and on July 10 issued instructions to the recruiting officers in Massachusetts against the enlisting of Negroes. Toward the end of September there was a spirited debate in Congress over a letter to go to Washington, the Southern delegates, led by Rutledge of South Carolina, endeavoring to force instructions to the commander-in-chief to discharge all slaves and free Negroes in the army. A motion to this effect failed to win a majority; nevertheless, a council of Washington and his generals on October 8 “agreed unanimously to reject all slaves, and, by a great majority, to reject Negroes altogether,” and in his general orders of November 12 Washington acted on this understanding. Meanwhile, however, Lord Dunmore issued his proclamation declaring free those indentured servants and Negroes who would join the English army, and in great numbers the slaves in Virginia flocked to the British standard. Then on December 14–somewhat to the amusement of both the Negroes and the English–the Virginia Convention issued a proclamation offering pardon to those slaves who returned to their duty within ten days. On December 30 Washington gave instructions for the enlistment of free Negroes, promising later to lay the matter before Congress; and a congressional committee on January 16, 1776, reported that those free Negroes who had already served faithfully in the army at Cambridge might reenlist but no others, the debate in this connection having drawn very sharply the line between the North and the South. Henceforth for all practical purposes the matter was left in the hands of the individual colonies. Massachusetts on January 6, 1777, passed a resolution drafting every seventh man to complete her quota “without any exception, save the people called Quakers,” and this was as near as she came at any time in the war to the formal recognition of the Negro. The Rhode Island Assembly in 1778 resolved to raise a regiment of slaves, who were to be freed at enlistment, their owners in no case being paid more than L120. In the Battle of Rhode Island August 29, 1778, the Negro regiment under Colonel Greene distinguished itself by deeds of desperate valor, repelling three times the assaults of an overwhelming force of Hessian troops. A little later, when Greene was about to be murdered, some of these same soldiers had to be cut to pieces before he could be secured. Maryland employed Negroes as soldiers and sent them into regiments along with white men, and it is to be remembered that at the time the Negro population of Maryland was exceeded only by that of Virginia and South Carolina. For the far South there was the famous Laurens plan for the raising of Negro regiments.

In a letter to Washington of March 16, 1779, Henry Laurens suggested the raising and training of three thousand Negroes in South Carolina. Washington was rather conservative about the plan, having in mind the ever-present fear of the arming of Negroes and wondering about the effect on those slaves who were not given a chance for freedom. On June 30, 1779, however, Sir Henry Clinton issued a proclamation only less far-reaching than Dunmore’s, threatening Negroes if they joined the “rebel” army and offering them security if they came within the British lines. This was effective; assistance of any kind that the Continental Army could now get was acceptable; and the plan for the raising of several battalions of Negroes in the South was entrusted to Colonel John Laurens, a member of Washington’s staff. In his own way Colonel Laurens was a man of parts quite as well as his father; he was thoroughly devoted to the American cause and Washington said of him that his only fault was a courage that bordered on rashness. He eagerly pursued his favorite project; able-bodied slaves were to be paid for by Congress at the rate of $1,000 each, and one who served to the end of the war was to receive his freedom and $50 in addition. In South Carolina, however, Laurens received little encouragement, and in 1780 he was called upon to go to France on a patriotic mission. He had not forgotten the matter when he returned in 1782; but by that time Cornwallis had surrendered and the country had entered upon the critical period of adjustment to the new conditions. Washington now wrote to Laurens: “I must confess that I am not at all astonished at the failure of your plan. That spirit of freedom which, at the commencement of this contest, would have gladly sacrificed everything to the attainment of its object, has long since subsided, and every selfish passion has taken its place. It is not the public but private interest which influences the generality of mankind; nor can the Americans any longer boast an exception. Under these circumstances, it would rather have been surprising if you had succeeded; nor will you, I fear, have better success in Georgia.”[1]

[Footnote 1: Sparks’s _Washington_, VIII, 322-323.]

From this brief survey we may at least see something of the anomalous position occupied by the Negro in the American Revolution. Altogether not less than three thousand, and probably more, members of the race served in the Continental army. At the close of the conflict New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia freed their slave soldiers. In general, however, the system of slavery was not affected, and the English were bound by the treaty of peace not to carry away any Negroes. As late as 1786, it is nevertheless interesting to note, a band of Negroes calling themselves “The King of England’s soldiers” harassed and alarmed the people on both sides of the Savannah River.

Slavery remained; but people could not forget the valor of the Negro regiment in Rhode Island, or the courage of individual soldiers. They could not forget that it was a Negro, Crispus Attucks, who had been the patriot leader in the Boston Massacre, or the scene when he and one of his companions, Jonas Caldwell, lay in Faneuil Hall. Those who were at Bunker Hill could not fail to remember Peter Salem, who, when Major Pitcairn of the British army was exulting in his expected triumph, rushed forward, shot him in the breast, and killed him; or Samuel Poor, whose officers testified that he performed so many brave deeds that “to set forth particulars of his conduct would be tedious.” These and many more, some with very humble names, in a dark day worked for a better country. They died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off.

3. _The Northwest Territory and the Constitution_

The materialism and selfishness which rose in the course of the war to oppose the liberal tendencies of the period, and which Washington felt did so much to embarrass the government, became pronounced in the debates on the Northwest Territory and the Constitution. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War the region west of Pennsylvania, east of the Mississippi River, north of the Ohio River, and south of Canada, was claimed by Virginia, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. This territory afforded to these states a source of revenue not possessed by the others for the payment of debts incurred in the war, and Maryland and other seaboard states insisted that in order to equalize matters these claimants should cede their rights to the general government. The formal cessions were made and accepted in the years 1782-6. In April, 1784, after Virginia had made her cession, the most important, Congress adopted a temporary form of government drawn up by Thomas Jefferson for the territory south as well as north of the Ohio River. Jefferson’s most significant provision, however, was rejected. This declared that “after the year 1800 there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said states other than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty.” This early ordinance, although it did not go into effect, is interesting as an attempt to exclude slavery from the great West that was beginning to be opened up. On March 3, 1786, moreover, the Ohio Company was formed in Boston by a group of New England business men for the purpose of purchasing land in the West and promoting settlement; and early in June, 1787, Dr. Manasseh Cutler, one of the chief promoters of the company, appeared in New York, where the last Continental Congress was sitting, for the concrete purpose of buying land. He doubtless did much to hasten action by Congress, and on July 13 was passed “An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States, Northwest of the Ohio,” the Southern states not having ceded the area south of the river. It was declared that “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall be duly convicted.” To this was added the stipulation (soon afterwards embodied in the Federal Constitution) for the return of any person escaping into the territory from whom labor or service was “lawfully claimed in any one of the original states.” In this shape the ordinance was adopted, even South Carolina and Georgia concurring; and thus was paved the way for the first fugitive slave law.

Slavery, already looming up as a dominating issue, was the cause of two of the three great compromises that entered into the making of the Constitution of the United States (the third, which was the first made, being the concession to the smaller states of equal representation in the Senate). These were the first but not the last of the compromises that were to mark the history of the subject; and, as some clear-headed men of the time perceived, it would have been better and cheaper to settle the question at once on the high plane of right rather than to leave it indefinitely to the future. South Carolina, however, with able representation, largely controlled the thought of the convention, and she and Georgia made the most extreme demands, threatening not to accept the Constitution if there was not compliance with them. An important question was that of representation, the Southern states advocating representation according to numbers, slave and free, while the Northern states were in favor of the representation of free persons only. Williamson of North Carolina advocated the counting of three-fifths of the slaves, but this motion was at first defeated, and there was little real progress until Gouverneur Morris suggested that representation be according to the principle of wealth. Mason of Virginia pointed out practical difficulties which caused the resolution to be made to apply to direct taxation only, and in this form it began to be generally acceptable. By this time, however, the deeper feelings of the delegates on the subject of slavery had been stirred, and they began to speak plainly. Davie of North Carolina declared that his state would never enter the Union on any terms that did not provide for counting at least three-fifths of the slaves and that “if the Eastern states meant to exclude them altogether the business was at an end.” It was finally agreed to reckon three-fifths of the slaves in estimating taxes and to make taxation the basis of representation. The whole discussion was renewed, however, in connection with the question of importation. There were more threats from the far South, and some of the men from New England, prompted by commercial interest, even if they did not favor the sentiments expressed, were at least disposed to give them passive acquiescence. From Maryland and Virginia, however, came earnest protest. Luther Martin declared unqualifiedly that to have a clause in the Constitution permitting the importation of slaves was inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution and dishonorable to the American character, and George Mason could foresee only a future in which a just Providence would punish such a national sin as slavery by national calamities. Such utterances were not to dominate the convention, however; it was a day of expediency, not of morality. A bargain was made between the commercial interests of the North and the slave-holding interests of the South, the granting to Congress of unrestricted power to enact navigation laws being conceded in exchange for twenty years’ continuance of the slave-trade. The main agreements on the subject of slavery were thus finally expressed in the Constitution: “Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to servitude for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons” (Art. I, Sec. 2); “The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the congress prior to the year 1808; but a tax or duty may be imposed, not exceeding ten dollars on each person” (Art. I, Sec. 9); “No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due” (Art. IV, Sec. 2). With such provisions, though without the use of the question-begging word _slaves_, the institution of human bondage received formal recognition in the organic law of the new republic of the United States.

“Just what is the light in which we are to regard the slaves?” wondered James Wilson in the course of the debate. “Are they admitted as citizens?” he asked; “then why are they not admitted on an equality with white citizens? Are they admitted as property? then why is not other property admitted into the computation?” Such questions and others to which they gave rise were to trouble more heads than his in the course of the coming years, and all because a great nation did not have the courage to do the right thing at the right time.

4. Early Steps toward Abolition

In spite, however, of the power crystallized in the Constitution, the moral movement that had set in against slavery still held its ground, and it was destined never wholly to languish until slavery ceased altogether to exist in the United States. Throughout the century the Quakers continued their good work; in the generation before the war John Woolman of New Jersey traveled in the Southern colonies preaching that “the practice of continuing slavery is not right”; and Anthony Benezet opened in Philadelphia a school for Negroes which he himself taught without remuneration, and otherwise influenced Pennsylvania to begin the work of emancipation. In general the Quakers conducted their campaign along the lines on which they were most likely to succeed, attacking the slave-trade first of all but more and more making an appeal to the central government; and the first Abolition Society, organized in Pennsylvania in 1775 and consisting mainly of Quakers, had for its original object merely the relief of free Negroes unlawfully held in bondage.[1] The organization was forced to suspend its work in the course of the war, but in 1784 it renewed its meetings, and men of other denominations than the Quakers now joined in greater numbers. In 1787 the society was formally reorganized as “The Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, the Relief of Free Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the African Race.” Benjamin Franklin was elected president and there was adopted a constitution which was more and more to serve as a model for similar societies in the neighboring states.

[Footnote 1: Locke: _Anti-Slavery in America_, 97.]

Four years later, by 1791, there were in the country as many as twelve abolition societies, and these represented all the states from Massachusetts to Virginia, with the exception of New Jersey, where a society was formed the following year. That of New York, formed in 1785 with John Jay as president, took the name of the Manumission Society, limiting its aims at first to promoting manumission and protecting those Negroes who had already been set free. All of the societies had very clear ideas as to their mission. The prevalence of kidnaping made them emphasize “the relief of free Negroes unlawfully held in bondage,” and in general each one in addition to its executive committee had committees for inspection, advice, and protection; for the guardianship of children; for the superintending of education, and for employment. While the societies were originally formed to attend to local matters, their efforts naturally extended in course of time to national affairs, and on December 8, 1791, nine of them prepared petitions to Congress for the limitation of the slave-trade. These petitions were referred to a special committee and nothing more was heard of them at the time. After two years accordingly the organizations decided that a more vigorous plan of action was necessary, and on January 1, 1794, delegates from nine societies organized in Philadelphia the American Convention of Abolition Societies. The object of the Convention was twofold, “to increase the zeal and efficiency of the individual societies by its advice and encouragement … and to take upon itself the chief responsibility in regard to national affairs.” It prepared an address to the country and presented to Congress a memorial against the fitting out of vessels in the United States to engage in the slave-trade, and it had the satisfaction of seeing Congress in the same year pass a bill to this effect.

Some of the organizations were very active and one as far South as that in Maryland was at first very powerful. Always were they interested in suits in courts of law. In 1797 the New York Society reported 90 complaints, 36 persons freed, 21 cases still in suit, and 19 under consideration. The Pennsylvania Society reported simply that it had been instrumental in the liberation of “many hundreds” of persons. The different branches, however, did not rest with mere liberation; they endeavored generally to improve the condition of the Negroes in their respective communities, each one being expected to report to the Convention on the number of freedmen in its state and on their property, employment, and conduct. From time to time also the Convention prepared addresses to these people, and something of the spirit of its work and also of the social condition of the Negro at the time may be seen from the following address of 1796:

To the Free Africans and Other Free People of Color in the United States.

The Convention of Deputies from the Abolition Societies in the United States, assembled at Philadelphia, have undertaken to address you upon subjects highly interesting to your prosperity.

They wish to see you act worthily of the rank you have acquired as freemen, and thereby to do credit to yourselves, and to justify the friends and advocates of your color in the eyes of the world.

As the result of our united reflections, we have concluded to call your attention to the following articles of advice. We trust they are dictated by the purest regard for your welfare, for we view you as Friends and Brethren.

_In the first place_, We earnestly recommend to you, a regular attention to the important duty of public worship; by which means you will evince gratitude to your Creator, and, at the same time, promote knowledge, union, friendship, and proper conduct among yourselves.

_Secondly_, We advise such of you, as have not been taught reading, writing, and the first principles of arithmetic, to acquire them as early as possible. Carefully attend to the instruction of your children in the same simple and useful branches of education. Cause them, likewise, early and frequently to read the holy Scriptures; these contain, amongst other great discoveries, the precious record of the original equality of mankind, and of the obligations of universal justice and benevolence, which are derived from the relation of the human race to each other in a common Father.

_Thirdly_, Teach your children useful trades, or to labor with their hands in cultivating the earth. These employments are favorable to health and virtue. In the choice of masters, who are to instruct them in the above branches of business, prefer those who will work with them; by this means they will acquire habits of industry, and be better preserved from vice than if they worked alone, or under the eye of persons less interested in their welfare. In forming contracts, for yourselves or children, with masters, it may be useful to consult such persons as are capable of giving you the best advice, and who are known to be your friends, in order to prevent advantages being taken of your ignorance of the laws and customs of our country.

_Fourthly_, Be diligent in your respective callings, and faithful in all the relations you bear in society, whether as husbands, wives, fathers, children or hired servants. Be just in all your dealings. Be simple in your dress and furniture, and frugal in your family expenses. Thus you will act like Christians as well as freemen, and, by these means, you will provide for the distresses and wants of sickness and old age.

_Fifthly_, Refrain from the use of spirituous liquors; the experience of many thousands of the citizens of the United States has proved that these liquors are not necessary to lessen the fatigue of labor, nor to obviate the effects of heat or cold; nor can they, in any degree, add to the innocent pleasures of society.

_Sixthly_, Avoid frolicking, and amusements which lead to expense and idleness; they beget habits of dissipation and vice, and thus expose you to deserved reproach amongst your white neighbors.

_Seventhly_, We wish to impress upon your minds the moral and religious necessity of having your marriages legally performed; also to have exact registers preserved of all the births and deaths which occur in your respective families.

_Eighthly_, Endeavor to lay up as much as possible of your earnings for the benefit of your children, in case you should die before they are able to maintain themselves–your money will be safest and most beneficial when laid out in lots, houses, or small farms.

_Ninthly_, We recommend to you, at all times and upon all occasions, to behave yourselves to all persons in a civil and respectful manner, by which you may prevent contention and remove every just occasion of complaint. We beseech you to reflect, that it is by your good conduct alone that you can refute the objections which have been made against you as rational and moral creatures, and remove many of the difficulties which have occurred in the general emancipation of such of your brethren as are yet in bondage.

With hearts anxious for your welfare, we commend you to the guidance and protection of that _Being_ who is able to keep you from all evil, and who is the common Father and Friend of the whole family of mankind.

Theodore Foster, President. Philadelphia, January 6th, 1796. Thomas P. Cope, Secretary.

The general impulse for liberty which prompted the Revolution and the early Abolition societies naturally found some reflection in formal legislation. The declarations of the central government under the Confederation were not very effective, and for more definite enactments we have to turn to the individual states. The honor of being the first actually to prohibit and abolish slavery really belongs to Vermont, whose constitution, adopted in 1777, even before she had come into the Union, declared very positively against the system. In 1782 the old Virginia statute forbidding emancipation except for meritorious services was repealed. The repeal was in force ten years, and in this time manumissions were numerous. Maryland soon afterwards passed acts similar to those in Virginia prohibiting the further introduction of slaves and removing restraints on emancipation, and New York and New Jersey also prohibited the further introduction of slaves from Africa or from other states. In 1780, in spite of considerable opposition because of the course of the war, the Pennsylvania Assembly passed an act forbidding the further introduction of slaves and giving freedom to all persons thereafter born in the state. Similar provisions were enacted in Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784. Meanwhile Massachusetts was much agitated, and beginning in 1766 there were before the courts several cases in which Negroes sued for their freedom.[1] Their general argument was that the royal charter declared that all persons residing in the province were to be as free as the king’s subjects in Great Britain, that by Magna Carta no subject could be deprived of liberty except by the judgment of his peers, and that any laws that may have been passed in the province to mitigate or regulate the evil of slavery did not authorize it. Sometimes the decisions were favorable, but at the beginning of the Revolution Massachusetts still recognized the system by the decision that no slave could be enlisted in the army. In 1777, however, some slaves brought from Jamaica were ordered to be set at liberty, and it was finally decided in 1783 that the declaration in the Massachusetts Bill of Rights to the effect that “all men are born free and equal” prohibited slavery. In this same year New Hampshire incorporated in her constitution a prohibitive article. By the time the convention for the framing of the Constitution of the United States met in Philadelphia in 1787, two of the original thirteen states (Massachusetts and New Hampshire) had positively prohibited slavery, and in three others (Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Rhode Island) gradual abolition was in progress.

[Footnote 1: See Williams: _History of the Negro Race in America_, I, 228-236.]

The next decade was largely one of the settlement of new territory, and by its close the pendulum seemed to have swung decidedly backward. In 1799, however, after much effort and debating, New York at last declared for gradual abolition, and New Jersey did likewise in 1804. In general, gradual emancipation was the result of the work of people who were humane but also conservative and who questioned the wisdom of thrusting upon the social organism a large number of Negroes suddenly emancipated. Sometimes, however, a gradual emancipation act was later followed by one for immediate manumission, as in New York in 1817. At first those who favored gradual emancipation were numerous in the South as well as in the North, but in general after Gabriel’s insurrection in 1800, though some individuals were still outstanding, the South was quiescent. The character of the acts that were really put in force can hardly be better stated than has already been done by the specialist in the subject.[1] We read:

[Footnote 1: Locke, 124-126.]

Gradual emancipation is defined as the extinction of slavery by depriving it of its hereditary quality. In distinction from the clauses in the constitutions of Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, which directly or indirectly affected the condition of slavery as already existing, the gradual emancipation acts left this condition unchanged and affected only the children born after the passage of the act or after a fixed date. Most of these acts followed that of Pennsylvania in providing that the children of a slave mother should remain with her owner as servants until they reached a certain age, of from twenty-one to twenty-eight years, as stated in the various enactments. In Pennsylvania, however, they were to be regarded as free. In Connecticut, on the other hand, they were to be “held in servitude” until twenty-five years of age and after that to be free. The most liberal policy was that of Rhode Island, where the children were pronounced free but were to be supported by the town and educated in reading, writing, and arithmetic, morality and religion. The latter clauses, however, were repealed the following year, leaving the children to be supported by the owner of the mother until twenty-one years of age, and only if he abandoned his claims to the mother to become a charge to the town. In New York and New Jersey they were to remain as servants until a certain age, but were regarded as free, and liberal opportunities were given the master for the abandonment of his claims, the children in such cases to be supported at the common charge…. The manumission and emancipation acts were naturally followed, as in the case of the constitutional provision in Vermont, by the attempts of some of the slave-owners to dispose of their property outside the State. Amendments to the laws were found necessary, and the Abolition Societies found plenty of occasion for their exertions in protecting free blacks from seizure and illegal sale and in looking after the execution and amendment of the laws. The process of gradual emancipation was also unsatisfactory on account of the length of time it would require, and in Pennsylvania and Connecticut attempts were made to obtain acts for immediate emancipation.

5. _Beginning of Racial Consciousness_

Of supreme importance in this momentous period, more important perhaps in its ultimate effect than even the work of the Abolition Societies, was what the Negro was doing for himself. In the era of the Revolution began that racial consciousness on which almost all later effort for social betterment has been based.

By 1700 the only cooeperative effort on the part of the Negro was such as that in the isolated society to which Cotton Mather gave rules, or in a spasmodic insurrection, or a rather crude development of native African worship. As yet there was no genuine basis of racial self-respect. In one way or another, however, in the eighteenth century the idea of association developed, and especially in Boston about the time of the Revolution Negroes began definitely to work together; thus they assisted individuals in test cases in the courts, and when James Swan in his _Dissuasion from the Slave Trade_ made such a statement as that “no country can be called free where there is one slave,” it was “at the earnest desire of the Negroes in Boston” that the revised edition of the pamphlet was published.

From the very beginning the Christian Church was the race’s foremost form of social organization. It was but natural that the first distinctively Negro churches should belong to the democratic Baptist denomination. There has been much discussion as to which was the very first Negro Baptist church, and good claims have been put forth by the Harrison Street Baptist Church of Petersburg, Va., and for a church in Williamsburg, Va., organization in each case going back to 1776. A student of the subject, however, has shown that there was a Negro Baptist church at Silver Bluff, “on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River, in Aiken County, just twelve miles from Augusta, Ga.,” founded not earlier than 1773, not later than 1775.[1] In any case special interest attaches to the First Bryan Baptist Church, of Savannah, founded in January, 1788. The origin of this body goes back to George Liele, a Negro born in Virginia, who might justly lay claim to being America’s first foreign missionary. Converted by a Georgia Baptist minister, he was licensed as a probationer and was known to preach soon afterwards at a white quarterly meeting.[2] In 1783 he preached in the vicinity of Savannah, and one of those who came to hear him was Andrew Bryan, a slave of Jonathan Bryan. Liele then went to Jamaica and in 1784 began to preach in Kingston, where with four brethren from America he formed a church. At first he was subjected to persecution; nevertheless by 1791 he had baptized over four hundred persons. Eight or nine months after he left for Jamaica, Andrew Bryan began to preach, and at first he was permitted to use a building at Yamacraw, in the suburbs of Savannah. Of this, however, he was in course of time dispossessed, the place being a rendezvous for those Negroes who had been taken away from their homes by the British. Many of these men were taken before the magistrates from time to time, and some were whipped and others imprisoned. Bryan himself, having incurred the ire of the authorities, was twice imprisoned and once publicly whipped, being so cut that he “bled abundantly”; but he told his persecutors that he “would freely suffer death for the cause of Jesus Christ,” and after a while he was permitted to go on with his work. For some time he used a barn, being assisted by his brother Sampson; then for L50 he purchased his freedom, and afterwards he began to use for worship a house that Sampson had been permitted to erect. By 1791 his church had two hundred members, but over a hundred more had been received as converted members though they had not won their masters’ permission to be baptized. An interesting sidelight on these people is furnished by the statement that probably fifty of them could read though only three could write. Years afterwards, in 1832, when the church had grown to great numbers, a large part of the congregation left the Bryan Church and formed what is now the First African Baptist Church of Savannah. Both congregations, however, remembered their early leader as one “clear in the grand doctrines of the Gospel, truly pious, and the instrument of doing more good among the poor slaves than all the learned doctors in America.”

[Footnote 1: Walter H. Brooks: _The Silver Bluff Church_.]

[Footnote 2: See letters in Journal of Negro History, January, 1916, 69-97.]

While Bryan was working in Savannah, in Richmond, Va., rose Lott Cary, a man of massive and erect frame and of great personality. Born a slave in 1780, Cary worked for a number of years in a tobacco factory, leading a wicked life. Converted in 1807, he made rapid advance in education and he was licensed as a Baptist preacher. He purchased his own freedom and that of his children (his first wife having died), organized a missionary society, and then in 1821 himself went as a missionary to the new colony of Liberia, in whose interest he worked heroically until his death in 1828.

More clearly defined than the origin of Negro Baptist churches are the beginnings of African Methodism. Almost from the time of its introduction in the country Methodism made converts among the Negroes and in 1786 there were nearly two thousand Negroes in the regular churches of the denomination, which, like the Baptist denomination, it must be remembered, was before the Revolution largely overshadowed in official circles by the Protestant Episcopal Church. The general embarrassment of the Episcopal Church in America in connection with the war, and the departure of many loyalist ministers, gave opportunity to other denominations as well as to certain bodies of Negroes. The white members of St. George’s Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, however, determined to set apart its Negro membership and to segregate it in the gallery. Then in 1787 came a day when the Negroes, choosing not to be insulted, and led by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, left the edifice, and with these two men as overseers on April 17 organized the Free African Society. This was intended to be “without regard to religious tenets,” the members being banded together “to support one another in sickness and for the benefit of their widows and fatherless children.” The society was in the strictest sense fraternal, there being only eight charter members: Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Samuel Boston, Joseph Johnson, Cato Freeman, Caesar Cranchell, James Potter, and William White. By 1790 the society had on deposit in the Bank of North America L42 9s. id., and that it generally stood for racial enterprise may be seen from the fact that in 1788 an organization in Newport known as the Negro Union, in which Paul Cuffe was prominent, wrote proposing a general exodus of the Negroes to Africa. Nothing came of the suggestion at the time, but at least it shows that representative Negroes of the day were beginning to think together about matters of general policy.

In course of time the Free African Society of Philadelphia resolved into an “African Church,” and this became affiliated with the Protestant Episcopal Church, whose bishop had exercised an interest in it. Out of this organization developed St. Thomas’s Episcopal Church, organized in 1791 and formally opened for service July 17, 1794. Allen was at first selected for ordination, but he decided to remain a Methodist and Jones was chosen in his stead and thus became the first Negro rector in the United States. Meanwhile, however, in 1791, Allen himself had purchased a lot at the corner of Sixth and Lombard Streets; he at once set about arranging for the building that became Bethel Church; and in 1794 he formally sold the lot to the church and the new house of worship was dedicated by Bishop Asbury of the Methodist Episcopal Church. With this general body Allen and his people for a number of years remained affiliated, but difficulties arose and separate churches having come into being in other places, a convention of Negro Methodists was at length called to meet in Philadelphia April 9, 1816. To this came sixteen delegates–Richard Allen, Jacob Tapsico, Clayton Durham, James Champion, Thomas Webster, of Philadelphia; Daniel Coker, Richard Williams, Henry Harden, Stephen Hill, Edward Williamson, Nicholas Gailliard, of Baltimore: Jacob Marsh, Edward Jackson, William Andrew, of Attleborough, Penn.; Peter Spencer, of Wilmington, Del., and Peter Cuffe, of Salem, N.J.–and these were the men who founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Coker, of whom we shall hear more in connection with Liberia, was elected bishop, but resigned in favor of Allen, who served until his death in 1831.

In 1796 a congregation in New York consisting of James Varick and others also withdrew from the main body of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in 1800 dedicated a house of worship. For a number of years it had the oversight of the older organization, but after preliminary steps in 1820, on June 21, 1821, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was formally organized. To the first conference came 19 preachers representing 6 churches and 1,426 members. Varick was elected district chairman, but soon afterwards was made bishop. The polity of this church from the first differed somewhat from that of the A.M.E. denomination in that representation of the laity was a prominent feature and there was no bar to the ordination of women.

Of denominations other than the Baptist and the Methodist, the most prominent in the earlier years was the Presbyterian, whose first Negro ministers were John Gloucester and John Chavis. Gloucester owed his training to the liberal tendencies that about 1800 were still strong in eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, and in 1810 took charge of the African Presbyterian Church which in 1807 had been established in Philadelphia. He was distinguished by a rich musical voice and the general dignity of his life, and he himself became the father of four Presbyterian ministers. Chavis had a very unusual career. After passing “through a regular course of academic studies” at Washington Academy, now Washington and Lee University, in 1801 he was commissioned by the General Assembly of the Presbyterians as a missionary to the Negroes. He worked with increasing reputation until Nat Turner’s insurrection caused the North Carolina legislature in 1832 to pass an act silencing all Negro preachers. Then in Wake County and elsewhere he conducted schools for white boys until his death in 1838. In these early years distinction also attaches to Lemuel Haynes, a Revolutionary patriot and the first Negro preacher of the Congregational denomination. In 1785 he became the pastor of a white congregation in Torrington, Conn., and in 1818 began to serve another in Manchester, N.H.

After the church the strongest organization among Negroes has undoubtedly been that of secret societies commonly known as “lodges.” The benefit societies were not necessarily secret and call for separate consideration. On March 6, 1775, an army lodge attached to one of the regiments stationed under General Gage in or near Boston initiated Prince Hall and fourteen other colored men into the mysteries of Freemasonry.[1] These fifteen men on March 2, 1784, applied to the Grand Lodge of England for a warrant. This was issued to “African Lodge, No. 459,” with Prince Hall as master, September 29, 1784. Various delays and misadventures befell the warrant, however, so that it was not actually received before April 29, 1787. The lodge was then duly organized May 6. From this beginning developed the idea of Masonry among the Negroes of America. As early as 1792 Hall was formally styled Grand Master, and in 1797 he issued a license to thirteen Negroes to “assemble and work” as a lodge in Philadelphia; and there was also at this time a lodge in Providence. Thus developed in 1808 the “African Grand Lodge” of Boston, afterwards known as “Prince Hall Lodge of Massachusetts”; the second Grand Lodge, called the “First Independent African Grand Lodge of North America in and for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” organized in 1815; and the “Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania.”

[Footnote 1: William H. Upton: Negro Masonry, Cambridge, 1899, 10.]

Something of the interest of the Masons in their people, and the calm judgment that characterized their procedure, may be seen from the words of their leader, Prince Hall.[1] Speaking in 1797, and having in mind the revolution in Hayti and recent indignities inflicted upon the race in Boston, he said:

[Footnote 1: “A Charge Delivered to the African Lodge, June 24, 1797, at Menotomy. By the Right Worshipful Prince Hall.” (Boston?) 1797.]

When we hear of the bloody wars which are now in the world, and thousands of our fellowmen slain; fathers and mothers bewailing the loss of their sons; wives for the loss of their husbands; towns and cities burnt and destroyed; what must be the heartfelt sorrow and distress of these poor and unhappy people! Though we can not help them, the distance being so great, yet we may sympathize with them in their troubles, and mingle a tear of sorrow with them, and do as we are exhorted to–weep with those that weep….

Now, my brethren, as we see and experience that all things here are frail and changeable and nothing here to be depended upon: Let us seek those things which are above, which are sure and steadfast, and unchangeable, and at the same time let us pray to Almighty God, while we remain in the tabernacle, that he would give us the grace and patience and strength to bear up under all our troubles, which at this day God knows we have our share. Patience I say, for were we not possessed of a great measure of it you could not bear up under the daily insults you meet with in the streets of Boston; much more on public days of recreation, how are you shamefully abused, and that at such a degree, that you may truly be said to carry your lives in your hands; and the arrows of death are flying about your heads; helpless old women have their clothes torn off their backs, even to the exposing of their nakedness; and by whom are these disgraceful and abusive actions committed? Not by the men born and bred in Boston, for they are better bred; but by a mob or horde of shameless, low-lived, envious, spiteful persons, some of them not long since, servants in gentlemen’s kitchens, scouring knives, tending horses, and driving chaise. ‘Twas said by a gentleman who saw that filthy behavior in the Common, that in all the places he had been in he never saw so cruel behavior in all his life, and that a slave in the West Indies, on Sundays or holidays, enjoys himself and friends without molestation. Not only this man, but many in town who have seen their behavior to you, and that without any provocations twenty or thirty cowards fall upon one man, have wondered at the patience of the blacks; ’tis not for want of courage in you, for they know that they dare not face you man for man, but in a mob, which we despise, and had rather suffer wrong than do wrong, to the disturbance of the community and the disgrace of our reputation; for every good citizen does honor to the laws of the State where he resides….

My brethren, let us not be cast down under these and many other abuses we at present labor under: for the darkest is before the break of day. My brethren, let us remember what a dark day it was with our African brethren six years ago, in the French West Indies. Nothing but the snap of the whip was heard from morning to evening; hanging, breaking on the wheel, burning, and all manner of tortures inflicted on those unhappy people, for nothing else but to gratify their masters’ pride, wantonness, and cruelty: but blessed be God, the scene is changed; they now confess that God hath no respect of persons, and therefore receive them as their friends, and treat them as brothers. Thus doth Ethiopia begin to stretch forth her hand, from a sink of slavery to freedom and equality.

An African Society was organized in New York in 1808 and chartered in 1810, and out of it grew in course of time three or four other organizations. Generally close to the social aim of the church and sometimes directly fathered by the secret societies were the benefit organizations, which even in the days of slavery existed for aid in sickness or at death; in fact, it was the hopelessness of the general situation coupled with the yearning for care when helpless that largely called these societies into being. Their origin has been explained somewhat as follows:

Although it was unlawful for Negroes to assemble without the presence of a white man, and so unlawful to allow a congregation of slaves on a plantation without the consent of the master, these organizations existed and held these meetings on the “lots” of some of the law-makers themselves. The general plan seems to have been to select some one who could read and write and make him the secretary. The meeting-place having been selected, the members would come by ones and twos, make their payments to the secretary, and quietly withdraw. The book of the secretary was often kept covered up on the bed. In many of the societies each member was known by number and in paying simply announced his number. The president of such a society was usually a privileged slave who had the confidence of his or her master and could go and come at will. Thus a form of communication could be kept up between all members. In event of death of a member, provision was made for decent burial, and all the members as far as possible obtained permits to attend the funeral. Here and again their plan of getting together was brought into play. In Richmond they would go to the church by ones and twos and there sit as near together as convenient. At the close of the service a line of march would be formed when sufficiently far from the church to make it safe to do so. It is reported that the members were faithful to each other and that every obligation was faithfully carried out. This was the first form of insurance known to the Negro from which his family received a benefit.[1]

[Footnote 1: Hampton Conference Report, No. 8]

All along of course a determining factor in the Negro’s social progress was the service that he was able to render to any community in which he found himself as well as to his own people. Sometimes he was called upon to do very hard work, sometimes very unpleasant or dangerous work; but if he answered the call of duty and met an actual human need, his service had to receive recognition. An example of such work was found in his conduct in the course of the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793. Knowing that fever in general was not quite as severe in its ravages upon Negroes as upon white people, the daily papers of Philadelphia called upon the colored people in the town to come forward and assist with the sick. The Negroes consented, and Absalom Jones and William Gray were appointed to superintend the operations, though as usual it was upon Richard Allen that much of the real responsibility fell. In September the fever increased and upon the Negroes devolved also the duty of removing corpses. In the course of their work they encountered much opposition; thus Jones said that a white man threatened to shoot him if he passed his house with a corpse. This man himself the Negroes had to bury three days afterwards. When the epidemic was over, under date January 23, 1794, Matthew Clarkson, the mayor, wrote the following testimonial: “Having, during the prevalence of the late malignant disorder, had almost daily opportunities of seeing the conduct of Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, and the people employed by them to bury the dead, I with cheerfulness give this testimony of my approbation of their proceedings, as far as the same came under my notice. Their diligence, attention, and decency of deportment, afforded me, at the time, much satisfaction.” After the lapse of years it is with something of the pathos of martyrdom that we are impressed by the service of these struggling people, who by their self-abnegation and patriotism endeavored to win and deserve the privileges of American citizenship.

All the while, in one way or another, the Negro was making advance in education. As early as 1704 we have seen that Neau opened a school in New York; there was Benezet’s school in Philadelphia before the Revolutionary War, and in 1798 one for Negroes was established in Boston. In the first part of the century, we remember also, some Negroes were apprenticed in Virginia under the oversight of the church. In 1764 the editor of a paper in Williamsburg, Va., established a school for Negroes, and we have seen that as many as one-sixth of the members of Andrew Bryan’s congregation in the far Southern city of Savannah could read by 1790. Exceptional men, like Gloucester and Chavis, of course availed themselves of such opportunities as came their way. All told, by 1800 the Negro had received much more education than is commonly supposed.

Two persons–one in science and one in literature–because of their unusual attainments attracted much attention. The first was Benjamin Banneker of Maryland, and the second Phillis Wheatley of Boston. Banneker in 1770 constructed the first clock striking the hours that was made in America, and from 1792 to 1806 published an almanac adapted to Maryland and the neighboring states. He was thoroughly scholarly in mathematics and astronomy, and by his achievements won a reputation for himself in Europe as well as in America. Phillis Wheatley, after a romantic girlhood of transition from Africa to a favorable environment in Boston, in 1773 published her _Poems on Various Subjects_, which volume she followed with several interesting occasional poems.[1] For the summer of this year she was the guest in England of the Countess of Huntingdon, whose patronage she had won by an elegiac poem on George Whitefield; in conversation even more than in verse-making she exhibited her refined taste and accomplishment, and presents were showered upon her, one of them being a copy of the magnificent 1770 Glasgow folio edition of _Paradise Lost_, which was given by Brook Watson, Lord Mayor of London, and which is now preserved in the library of Harvard University. In the earlier years of the next century her poems found their way into the common school readers. One of those in her representative volume was addressed to Scipio Moorhead, a young Negro of Boston who had shown some talent for painting. Thus even in a dark day there were those who were trying to struggle upward to the light.

[Footnote 1: For a full study see Chapter II of _The Negro in Literature and Art_.]

CHAPTER IV

THE NEW WEST, THE SOUTH, AND THE WEST INDIES

The twenty years of the administrations of the first three presidents of the United States–or, we might say, the three decades between 1790 and 1820–constitute what might be considered the “Dark Ages” of Negro history; and yet, as with most “Dark Ages,” at even a glance below the surface these years will be found to be throbbing with life, and we have already seen that in them the Negro was doing what he could on his own account to move forward. After the high moral stand of the Revolution, however, the period seems quiescent, and it was indeed a time of definite reaction. This was attributable to three great events: the opening of the Southwest with the consequent demand for slaves, the Haytian revolution beginning in 1791, and Gabriel’s insurrection in 1800.

In no way was the reaction to be seen more clearly than in the decline of the work of the American Convention of Delegates from the Abolition Societies. After 1798 neither Connecticut nor Rhode Island sent delegates; the Southern states all fell away by 1803; and while from New England came the excuse that local conditions hardly made aggressive effort any longer necessary, the lack of zeal in this section was also due to some extent to a growing question as to the wisdom of interfering with slavery in the South. In Virginia, that just a few years before had been so active, a statute was now passed imposing a penalty of one hundred dollars on any person who assisted a slave in asserting his freedom, provided he failed to establish the claim; and another provision enjoined that no member of an abolition society should serve as a juror in a freedom suit. Even the Pennsylvania society showed signs of faintheartedness, and in 1806 the Convention decided upon triennial rather than annual meetings. It did not again become really vigorous until after the War of 1812.

1. _The Cotton-Gin, the New Southwest, and the First Fugitive Slave Law_

Of incalculable significance in the history of the Negro in America was the series of inventions in England by Arkwright, Hargreaves, and Crompton in the years 1768-79. In the same period came the discovery of the power of steam by James Watt of Glasgow and its application to cotton manufacture, and improvements followed quickly in printing and bleaching. There yet remained one final invention of importance for the cultivation of cotton on a large scale. Eli Whitney, a graduate of Yale, went to Georgia and was employed as a teacher by the widow of General Greene on her plantation. Seeing the need of some machine for the more rapid separating of cotton-seed from the fiber, he labored until in 1793 he succeeded in making his cotton-gin of practical value. The tradition is persistent, however, that the real credit of the invention belongs to a Negro on the plantation. The cotton-gin created great excitement throughout the South and began to be utilized everywhere. The cultivation and exporting of the staple grew by leaps and bounds. In 1791 only thirty-eight bales of standard size were exported from the United States; in 1816, however, the cotton sent out of the country was worth $24,106,000 and was by far the most valuable article of export. The current price was 28 cents a pound. Thus at the very time that the Northern states were abolishing slavery, an industry that had slumbered became supreme, and the fate of hundreds of thousands of Negroes was sealed.

Meanwhile the opening of the West went forward, and from Maine and Massachusetts, Carolina and Georgia journeyed the pioneers to lay the foundations of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and Alabama and Mississippi. It was an eager, restless caravan that moved, and sometimes more than a hundred persons in a score of wagons were to be seen going from a single town in the East–“Baptists and Methodists and Democrats.” The careers of Boone and Sevier and those who went with them, and the story of their fights with the Indians, are now a part of the romance of American history. In 1790 a cluster of log huts on the Ohio River was named in honor of the Society of the Cincinnati. In 1792 Kentucky was admitted to the Union, the article on slavery in her constitution encouraging the system and discouraging emancipation, and Tennessee also entered as a slave state in 1796.

Of tremendous import to the Negro were the questions relating to the Mississippi Territory. After the Revolution Georgia laid claim to great tracts of land now comprising the states of Alabama and Mississippi, with the exception of the strip along the coast claimed by Spain in connection with Florida. This territory became a rich field for speculation, and its history in its entirety makes a complicated story. A series of sales to what were known as the Yazoo Companies, especially in that part of the present states whose northern boundary would be a line drawn from the mouth of the Yazoo to the Chattahoochee, resulted in conflicting claims, the last grant sale being made in 1795 by a corrupt legislature at the price of a cent and a half an acre. James Jackson now raised the cry of bribery and corruption, resigned from the United States Senate, secured a seat in the state legislature, and on February 13, 1796, carried through a bill rescinding the action of the previous year,[1] and the legislature burned the documents concerned with the Yazoo sale in token of its complete repudiation of them. The purchasers to whom the companies had sold lands now began to bombard Congress with petitions and President Adams helped to arrive at a settlement by which Georgia transferred the lands in question to the Federal Government, which undertook to form of them the Mississippi Territory and to pay any damages involved. In 1802 Georgia threw the whole burden upon the central government by transferring to it _all_ of her land beyond her present boundaries, though for this she exacted an article favorable to slavery. All was now made into the Mississippi Territory, to which Congress held out the promise that it would be admitted as a state as soon as its population numbered 60,000; but Alabama was separated from Mississippi in 1816. The old matter of claims was not finally disposed of until an act of 1814 appropriated $5,000,000 for the purpose. In the same year Andrew Jackson’s decisive victories over the Creeks at Talladega and Horseshoe Bend–of which more must be said–resulted in the cession of a vast tract of the land of that unhappy nation and thus finally opened for settlement three-fourths of the present state of Alabama.

[Footnote 1: Phillips in _The South in the Building of the Nation_, II, 154.]

It was in line with the advance that slavery was making in new territory that there was passed the first Fugitive Slave Act (1793). This grew out of the discussion incident to the seizure in 1791 at Washington, Penn., of a Negro named John, who was taken to Virginia, and the correspondence between the Governor of Pennsylvania and the Governor of Virginia with reference to the case. The important third section of the act read as follows:

_And be it also enacted_, That when a person held to labor in any of the United States, or in either of the territories on the northwest or south of the river Ohio, under the laws thereof, shall escape into any other of the said states or territory, the person to whom such labor or service may be due, his agent or attorney, is hereby empowered to seize or arrest such fugitive from labor, and to take him or her before any judge of the circuit or district courts of the United States, residing or being within the state, or before any magistrate of a county, city or town corporate, wherein such seizure or arrest shall be made, and upon proof to the satisfaction of such judge or magistrate, either by oral testimony or affidavit taken before and certified by a magistrate of any such state or territory, that the person so seized or arrested, doth, under the laws of the state or territory from which he or she fled, owe service or labor to the person claiming him or her, it shall be the duty of such judge or magistrate to give a certificate thereof to such claimant, his agent or attorney, which shall be sufficient warrant for removing the said fugitive from labor, to the state or territory from which he or she fled.

It will be observed that by the terms of this enactment a master had the right to recover a fugitive slave by proving his ownership before a magistrate without a jury or any other of the ordinary forms of law. A human being was thus placed at the disposal of the lowest of courts and subjected to such procedure as was not allowed even in petty property suits. A great field for the bribery of magistrates was opened up, and opportunity was given for committing to slavery Negro men about whose freedom there should have been no question.

By the close of the decade 1790-1800 the fear occasioned by the Haytian revolution had led to a general movement against the importation of Negroes, especially of those from the West Indies. Even Georgia in 1798 prohibited the importation of all slaves, and this provision, although very loosely enforced, was never repealed. In South Carolina, however, to the utter chagrin and dismay of the other states, importation, prohibited in 1787, was again legalized in 1803; and in the four years immediately following 39,075 Negroes were brought to Charleston, most of these going to the territories.[1] When in 1803 Ohio was carved out of the Northwest Territory as a free state, an attempt was made to claim the rest of the territory for slavery, but this failed. In the congressional session of 1804-5 the matter of slavery in the newly acquired territory of Louisiana was brought up, and slaves were allowed to be imported if they had come to the United States before 1798, the purpose of this provision being to guard against the consequences of South Carolina’s recent act, although such a clause never received rigid enforcement. The mention of Louisiana, however, brings us concretely to Toussaint L’Ouverture, the greatest Negro in the New World in the period and one of the greatest of all time.

[Footnote 1: DuBois: _Suppression of the Slave-Trade_, 90.]

_2. Toussaint L’Ouverture, Louisiana, and the Formal Closing of the Slave-Trade_

When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, it was not long before its general effects were felt in the West Indies. Of special importance was Santo Domingo because of the commercial interests centered there. The eastern end of the island was Spanish, but the western portion was French, and in this latter part was a population of 600,000, of which number 50,000 were French Creoles, 50,000 mulattoes, and 500,000 pure Negroes. All political and social privileges were monopolized by the Creoles, while the Negroes were agricultural laborers and slaves; and between the two groups floated the restless element of the free people of color.

When the General Assembly in France decreed equality of rights to all citizens, the mulattoes of Santo Domingo made a petition for the enjoyment of the same political privileges as the white people–to the unbounded consternation of the latter. They were rewarded with a decree which was so ambiguously worded that it was open to different interpretations and which simply heightened the animosity that for years had been smoldering. A new petition to the Assembly in 1791 primarily for an interpretation brought forth on May 15 the explicit decree that the people of color were to have all the rights and privileges of citizens, provided they had been born of free parents on both sides. The white people were enraged by the decision, turned royalist, and trampled the national cockade underfoot; and throughout the summer armed strife and conflagration were the rule. To add to the confusion the black slaves struck for freedom and on the night of August 23, 1791, drenched the island in blood. In the face of these events the Conventional Assembly rescinded its order, then announced that the original decree must be obeyed, and it sent three commissioners with troops to Santo Domingo, real authority being invested in Santhonax and Polverel.

On June 20, 1793, at Cape Francois trouble was renewed by a quarrel between a mulatto and a white officer in the marines. The seamen came ashore and loaned their assistance to the white people, and the Negroes now joined forces with the mulattoes. In the battle of two days that followed the arsenal was taken and plundered, thousands were killed in the streets, and more than half of the town was burned. The French commissioners were the unhappy witnesses of the scene, but they were practically helpless, having only about a thousand troops. Santhonax, however, issued a proclamation offering freedom to all slaves who were willing to range themselves under the banner of the Republic. This was the first proclamation for the freeing of slaves in Santo Domingo, and as a result of it many of the Negroes came in and were enfranchised.

Soon after this proclamation Polverel left his colleague at the Cape and went to Port au Prince, the capital of the West. Here things were quiet and the cultivation of the crops was going forward as usual. The slaves were soon unsettled, however, by the news of what was being done elsewhere, and Polverel was convinced that emancipation could not be delayed and that for the safety of the planters themselves it was necessary to extend it to the whole island. In September (1793) he set in circulation from Aux Cayes a proclamation to this effect, and at the same time he exhorted all the planters in the vicinity who concurred in his work to register their names. This almost all of them did, as they were convinced of the need of measures for their personal safety; and on February 4, 1794, the Conventional Assembly in Paris formally approved all that had been done by decreeing the abolition of slavery in all the colonies of France.

All the while the Spanish and the English had been looking on with interest and had even come to the French part of the island as if to aid in the restoration of order. Among the former, at first in charge of a little royalist band, was the Negro, Toussaint, later called L’Ouverture. He was then a man in the prime of life, forty-eight years old, and already his experience had given him the wisdom that was needed to bring peace in Santo Domingo. In April, 1794, impressed by the decree of the Assembly, he returned to the jurisdiction of France and took service under the Republic. In 1796 he became a general of brigade; in 1797 general-in-chief, with the military command of the whole colony.

He at once compelled the surrender of the English who had invaded his country. With the aid of a commercial agreement with the United States, he next starved out the garrison of his rival, the mulatto Rigaud, whom he forced to consent to leave the country. He then imprisoned Roume, the agent of the Directory, and assumed civil as well as military authority. He also seized the Spanish part of the island, which had been ceded to France some years before but had not been actually surrendered. He then, in May, 1801, gave to Santo Domingo a constitution by which he not only assumed power for life but gave to himself the right of naming his successor; and all the while he was awakening the admiration of the world by his bravery, his moderation, and his genuine instinct for government.

Across the ocean, however, a jealous man was watching with interest the career of the “gilded African.” None knew better than Napoleon that it was because he did not trust France that Toussaint had sought the friendship of the United States, and none read better than he the logic of events. As Adams says, “Bonaparte’s acts as well as his professions showed that he was bent on crushing democratic ideas, and that he regarded St. Domingo as an outpost of American republicanism, although Toussaint had made a rule as arbitrary as that of Bonaparte himself…. By a strange confusion of events, Toussaint L’Ouverture, because he was a Negro, became the champion of republican principles, with which he had nothing but the instinct of personal freedom in common. Toussaint’s government was less republican than that of Bonaparte; he was doing by necessity in St. Domingo what Bonaparte was doing by choice in France.”[1]

[Footnote 1: _History of the United States_, I, 391-392.]

This was the man to whom the United States ultimately owes the purchase of Louisiana. On October 1, 1801, Bonaparte gave orders to General Le Clerc for a great expedition against Santo Domingo. In January, 1802, Le Clerc appeared and war followed. In the course of this, Toussaint–who was ordinarily so wise and who certainly knew that from Napoleon he had most to fear–made the great mistake of his life and permitted himself to be led into a conference on a French vessel. He was betrayed and taken to France, where within the year he died of pneumonia in the dungeon of Joux. Immediately there was a proclamation annulling the decree of 1794 giving freedom to the slaves. Bonaparte, however, had not estimated the force of Toussaint’s work, and to assist the Negroes in their struggle now came a stalwart ally, yellow fever. By the end of the summer only one-seventh of Le Clerc’s army remained, and he himself died in November. At once Bonaparte planned a new expedition. While he was arranging for the leadership of this, however, the European war broke out again. Meanwhile the treaty for the retrocession of the territory of Louisiana had not yet received the signature of the Spanish king, because Godoy, the Spanish representative, would not permit the signature to be affixed until all the conditions were fulfilled; and toward the end of 1802 the civil officer at New Orleans closed the Mississippi to the United States. Jefferson, at length moved by the plea of the South, sent a special envoy, no less a man than James Monroe, to France to negotiate the purchase; Bonaparte, disgusted by the failure of his Egyptian expedition and his project for reaching India, and especially by his failure in Santo Domingo, in need also of ready money, listened to the offer; and the people of the United States–who within the last few years have witnessed the spoliation of Hayti–have not yet realized how much they owe to the courage of 500,000 Haytian Negroes who refused to be slaves.

The slavery question in the new territory was a critical one. It was on account of it that the Federalists had opposed the acquisition; the American Convention endeavored to secure a provision like that of the Northwest Ordinance; and the Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends in Philadelphia in 1805 prayed “that effectual measures may be adopted by Congress to prevent the introduction of slavery into any of the territories of the United States.” Nevertheless the whole territory without regard to latitude was thrown open to the system March 2, 1805.

In spite of this victory for slavery, however, the general force of the events in Hayti was such as to make more certain the formal closing of the slave-trade at the end of the twenty-year period for which the Constitution had permitted it to run. The conscience of the North had been profoundly stirred, and in the far South was the ever-present fear of a reproduction of the events in Hayti. The agitation in England moreover was at last about to bear fruit in the act of 1807 forbidding the slave-trade. In America it seems from the first to have been an understood thing, especially by the Southern representatives, that even if such an act passed it would be only irregularly enforced, and the debates were concerned rather with the disposal of illegally imported Africans and with the punishment of those concerned in the importation than with the proper limitation of the traffic by water.[1] On March 2, 1807, the act was passed forbidding the slave-trade after the close of the year. In course of time it came very near to being a dead letter, as may be seen from presidential messages, reports of cabinet officers, letters of collectors of revenue, letters of district attorneys, reports of committees of Congress, reports of naval commanders, statements on the floor of Congress, the testimony of eye-witnesses, and the complaints of home and foreign anti-slavery societies. Fernandina and Galveston were only two of the most notorious ports for smuggling. A regular chain of posts was established from the head of St. Mary’s River to the upper country, and through the Indian nation, by means of which the Negroes were transferred to every part of the country.[2] If dealers wished to form a caravan they would give an Indian alarm, so that the woods might be less frequented, and if pursued in Georgia they would escape into Florida. One small schooner contained one hundred and thirty souls. “They were almost packed into a small space, between a floor laid over the water-casks and the deck–not near three feet–insufficient for them to sit upright–and so close that chafing against each other their bones pierced the skin and became galled and ulcerated by the motion of the vessel.” Many American vessels were engaged in the trade under Spanish colors, and the traffic to Africa was pursued with uncommon vigor at Havana, the crews of vessels being made up of men of all nations, who were tempted by the high wages to be earned. Evidently officials were negligent in the discharge of their duty, but even if offenders were apprehended it did not necessarily follow that they would receive effective punishment. President Madison in his message of December 5, 1810, said, “It appears that American citizens are instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in violation of the laws of humanity, and in defiance of those of their own country”; and on January 7, 1819, the Register of the Treasury made to the House the amazing report that “it doth not appear, from an examination of the records of this office, and particularly of the accounts (to the date of their last settlement) of the collectors of the customs, and of the several marshals of the United States, that any forfeitures had been incurred under the said act.” A supplementary and compromising and ineffective act of 1818 sought to concentrate efforts against smuggling by encouraging informers; and one of the following year that authorized the President to “make such regulations and arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe keeping, support, and removal beyond the limits of the United States” of recaptured Africans, and that bore somewhat more fruit, was in large measure due to the colonization movement and of importance in connection with the founding of Liberia.

[Footnote 1: See DuBois, 95, ff.]

[Footnote 2: Niles’s _Register_, XIV, 176 (May 2, 1818).]

Thus, while the formal closing of the slave-trade might seem to be a great step forward, the laxness with which the decree was enforced places it definitely in the period of reaction.

3. _Gabriel’s Insurrection and the Rise of the Negro Problem_

Gabriel’s insurrection of 1800 was by no means the most formidable revolt that the Southern states witnessed. In design it certainly did not surpass the scope of the plot of Denmark Vesey twenty-two years later, and in actual achievement it was insignificant when compared not only with Nat Turner’s insurrection but even with the uprisings sixty years before. At the last moment in fact a great storm that came up made the attempt to execute the plan a miserable failure. Nevertheless coming as it did so soon after the revolution in Hayti, and giving evidence of young and unselfish leadership, the plot was regarded as of extraordinary significance.

Gabriel himself[1] was an intelligent slave only twenty-four years old, and his chief assistant was Jack Bowler, aged twenty-eight. Throughout the summer of 1800 he matured his plan, holding meetings at which a brother named Martin interpreted various texts from Scripture as bearing on the situation of the Negroes. His insurrection was finally set for the first day of September. It was well planned. The rendezvous was to be a brook six miles from Richmond. Under cover of night the force of 1,100 was to march in three columns on the city, then a town of 8,000 inhabitants, the right wing to seize the penitentiary building which had just been converted into an arsenal, while the left took possession of the powder-house. These two columns were to be armed with clubs, and while they were doing their work the central force, armed with muskets, knives, and pikes, was to begin the carnage, none being spared except the French, whom it is significant that the Negroes favored. In Richmond at the time there were not more than four or five hundred men with about thirty muskets; but in the arsenal were several thousand guns, and the powder-house was well stocked. Seizure of the mills was to guarantee the insurrectionists a food supply; and meanwhile in the country districts were the new harvests of corn, and flocks and herds were fat in the fields.

[Footnote 1: His full name was Gabriel Prosser.]

On the day appointed for the uprising Virginia witnessed such a storm as she had not seen in years. Bridges were carried away, and roads and plantations completely submerged. Brook Swamp, the strategic point for the Negroes, was inundated; and the country Negroes could not get into the city, nor could those in the city get out to the place of rendezvous. The force of more than a thousand dwindled to three hundred, and these, almost paralyzed by fear and superstition, were dismissed. Meanwhile a slave who did not wish to see his master killed divulged the plot, and all Richmond was soon in arms.

A troop of United States cavalry was ordered to the city and arrests followed quickly. Three hundred dollars was offered by Governor Monroe for the arrest of Gabriel, and as much more for Jack Bowler. Bowler surrendered, but it took weeks to find Gabriel. Six men were convicted and condemned to be executed on September 12, and five more on September 18. Gabriel was finally captured on September 24 at Norfolk on a vessel that had come from Richmond; he was convicted on October 3 and executed on October 7. He showed no disposition to dissemble as to his own plan; at the same time he said not one word that incriminated anybody else. After him twenty-four more men were executed; then it began to appear that some “mistakes” had been made and the killing ceased. About the time of this uprising some Negroes were also assembled for an outbreak in Suffolk County; there were alarms in Petersburg and in the country near Edenton, N.C.; and as far away as Charleston the excitement was intense.

There were at least three other Negro insurrections of importance in the period 1790-1820. When news came of the uprising of the slaves in Santo Domingo in 1791, the Negroes in Louisiana planned a similar effort.[1] They might have succeeded better if they had not disagreed as to the hour of the outbreak, when one of them informed the commandant. As a punishment twenty-three of the slaves were hanged along the banks of the river and their corpses left dangling for days; but three white men who assisted them and who were really the most guilty of all, were simply sent out of the colony. In Camden, S. C, on July 4, 1816, some other Negroes risked all for independence.[2] On various pretexts men from the country districts were invited to the town on the appointed night, and different commands were assigned, all except that of commander-in-chief, which position was to be given to him who first forced the gates of the arsenal. Again the plot was divulged by “a favorite and confidential slave,” of whom we are told that the state legislature purchased the freedom, settling upon him a pension for life. About six of the leaders were executed. On or about May 1, 1819, there was a plot to destroy the city of Augusta, Ga.[3] The insurrectionists were to assemble at Beach Island, proceed to Augusta, set fire to the place, and then destroy the inhabitants. Guards were posted, and a white man who did not answer when hailed was shot and fatally wounded. A Negro named Coot was tried as being at the head of the conspiracy and sentenced to be executed a few days later. Other trials followed his. Not a muscle moved when the verdict was pronounced upon him.

[Footnote 1: Gayarre: _History of Louisiana_, III, 355.]

[Footnote 2: Holland: _Refutation of Calumnies_.]

[Footnote 3: Niles’s _Register_, XVI, 213 (May 22, 1819).]

The deeper meaning of such events as these could not escape the discerning. More than one patriot had to wonder just whither the country was drifting. Already it was evident that the ultimate problem transcended the mere question of slavery, and many knew that human beings could not always be confined to an artificial status. Throughout the period the slave-trade seemed to flourish without any real check, and it was even accentuated by the return to power of the old royalist houses of Europe after the fall of Napoleon. Meanwhile it was observed that slave labor was driving out of the South the white man of small means, and antagonism between the men of the “up-country” and the seaboard capitalists was brewing. The ordinary social life of the Negro in the South left much to be desired, and conditions were not improved by the rapid increase. As for slavery itself, no one could tell when or where or how the system would end; all only knew that it was developing apace: and meanwhile there was the sinister possibility of the alliance of the Negro and the Indian. Sincere plans of gradual abolition were advanced in the South as well as the North, but in the lower section they seldom got more than a respectful hearing. In his “Dissertation on Slavery, with a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia,” St. George Tucker, a professor of law in the University of William and Mary, and one of the judges of the General Court of Virginia, in 1796 advanced a plan by which he figured that after sixty years there would be only one-third as many slaves as at first. At this distance his proposal seems extremely conservative; at the time, however, it was laid on the table by the Virginia House of Delegates, and from the Senate the author received merely “a civil acknowledgment.”

Two men of the period–widely different in temper and tone, but both earnest seekers after truth–looked forward to the future with foreboding, one with the eye of the scientist, the other with the vision of the seer. Hezekiah Niles had full sympathy with the groping and striving of the South; but he insisted that slavery must ultimately be abolished throughout the country, that the minds of the slaves should be exalted, and that reasonable encouragement should be given free Negroes.[1] Said he: “_We are ashamed of the thing we practice_;… there is no attribute of heaven that takes part with us, and _we know it_. And in the contest that must come and _will come_, there will be a heap of sorrows such as the world has rarely seen.”[2]

[Footnote 1: _Register_, XVI, 177 (May 8, 1819).]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., XVI, 213 (May 22, 1819).]

On the other hand rose Lorenzo Dow, the foremost itinerant preacher of the time, the first Protestant who expounded the gospel in Alabama and Mississippi, and a reformer who at the very moment that cotton was beginning to be supreme, presumed to tell the South that slavery was wrong.[1] Everywhere he arrested attention–with his long hair, his harsh voice, and his wild gesticulation startling all conservative hearers. But he was made in the mold of heroes. In his lifetime he traveled not less than two hundred thousand miles, preaching to more people than any other man of his time. Several times he went to Canada, once to the West Indies, and three times to England, everywhere drawing great crowds about him. In _A Cry from the Wilderness_ he more than once clothed his thought in enigmatic garb, but the meaning was always ultimately clear. At this distance, when slavery and the Civil War are alike viewed in the perspective, the words of the oracle are almost uncanny: “In the rest of the Southern states the influence of these Foreigners will be known and felt in its time, and the seeds from the HORY ALLIANCE and the DECAPIGANDI, who have a hand in those grades of Generals, from the Inquisitor to the Vicar General and down…!!! The STRUGGLE will be DREADFUL! the CUP will be BITTER! and when the agony is over, those who survive may see better days! FAREWELL!”

[Footnote 1: For full study see article “Lorenzo Dow,” in _Methodist Review_ and _Journal of Negro History_, July, 1916, the same being included in _Africa and the War_, New York, 1918.]

CHAPTER V

INDIAN AND NEGRO

It is not the purpose of the present chapter to give a history of the Seminole Wars, or even to trace fully the connection of the Negro with these contests. We do hope to show at least, however, that the Negro was more important than anything else as an immediate cause of controversy, though the general pressure of the white man upon the Indian would in time of course have made trouble in any case. Strange parallels constantly present themselves, and incidentally it may be seen that the policy of the Government in force in other and even later years with reference to the Negro was at this time also very largely applied in the case of the Indian.

1. _Creek, Seminole, and Negro to 1817: The War of 1812_

On August 7, 1786, the Continental Congress by a definite and far-reaching ordinance sought to regulate for the future the whole conduct of Indian affairs. Two great districts were formed, one including the territory north of the Ohio and west of the Hudson, and the other including that south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi; and for anything pertaining to the Indian in each of these two great tracts a superintendent was appointed. As affecting the Negro the southern district was naturally of vastly more importance than the northern. In the eastern portion of this, mainly in what are now Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and eastern Alabama, were the Cherokees and the great confederacy of the Creeks, while toward the west, in the present Mississippi and western Alabama, were the Chickasaws and the Choctaws. Of Muskhogean stock, and originally a part of the Creeks, were the Seminoles (“runaways”), who about 1750, under the leadership of a great chieftain, Secoffee, separated from the main confederacy, which had its center in southwest Georgia just a little south of Columbus, and overran the peninsula of Florida. In 1808 came another band under Micco Hadjo to the present site of Tallahassee. The Mickasukie tribe was already on the ground in the vicinity of this town, and at first its members objected to the newcomers, who threatened to take their lands from them; but at length all abode peaceably together under the general name of Seminoles. About 1810 these people had twenty towns, the chief ones being Mikasuki and Tallahassee. From the very first they had received occasional additions from the Yemassee, who had been driven out of South Carolina, and of fugitive Negroes.

By the close of the eighteenth century all along the frontier the Indian had begun to feel keenly the pressure of the white man, and in his struggle with the invader he recognized in the oppressed Negro a natural ally. Those Negroes who by any chance became free were welcomed by the Indians, fugitives from bondage found refuge with them, and while Indian chiefs commonly owned slaves, the variety of servitude was very different from that under the white man. The Negroes were comparatively free, and intermarriage was frequent; thus a mulatto woman who fled from bondage married a chief and became the mother of a daughter who in course of time became the wife of the famous Osceola. This very close connection of the Negro with the family life of the Indian was the determining factor in the resistance of the Seminoles to the demands of the agents of the United States, and a reason, stronger even than his love for his old hunting-ground, for his objection to removal to new lands beyond the Mississippi. Very frequently the Indian could not give up his Negroes without seeing his own wife and children led away into bondage; and thus to native courage and pride was added the instinct of a father for the preservation of his own.

In the two wars between the Americans and the English it was but natural that the Indian should side with the English, and it was in some measure but a part of the game that he should receive little consideration at the hands of the victor. In the politics played by the English and the French, the English and the Spaniards, and finally between the Americans and all Europeans, the Indian was ever the loser. In the very early years of the Carolina colonies, some effort was made to enslave the Indians; but such servants soon made their way to the Indian country, and it was not long before they taught the Negroes to do likewise. This constant escape of slaves, with its attendant difficulties, largely accounted for the establishing of the free colony of Georgia between South Carolina and the Spanish possession, Florida. It was soon evident, however, that the problem had been aggravated rather than settled. When Congress met in 1776 it received from Georgia a communication setting forth the need of “preventing slaves from deserting their masters”; and as soon as the Federal Government was organized in 1789 it received also from Georgia an urgent request for protection from the Creeks, who were charged with various ravages, and among other documents presented was a list of one hundred and ten Negroes who were said to have left their masters during the Revolution and to have found refuge among the Creeks. Meanwhile by various treaties, written and unwritten, the Creeks were being forced toward the western line of the state, and in any agreement the outstanding stipulation was always for the return of fugitive slaves. For a number of years the Creeks retreated without definitely organized resistance. In the course of the War of 1812, however, moved by the English and by a visit from Tecumseh, they suddenly rose, and on August 30, 1813, under the leadership of Weathersford, they attacked Fort Mims, a stockade thirty-five miles north of Mobile. The five hundred and fifty-three men, women, and children in this place were almost completely massacred. Only fifteen white persons escaped by hiding in the woods, a number of Negroes being taken prisoner. This occurrence spurred the whole Southwest to action. Volunteers were called for, and the Tennessee legislature resolved to exterminate the whole tribe. Andrew Jackson with Colonel Coffee administered decisive defeats at Talladega and Tohopeka or Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River, and the Creeks were forced to sue for peace. By the treaty of Fort Jackson (August 9, 1814) the future president, now a major general in the regular army and in command at Mobile, demanded that the unhappy nation give up more than half of its land as indemnity for the cost of the war, that it hold no communication with a Spanish garrison or town, that it permit the necessary roads to be made or forts to be built in any part of the territory, and that it surrender the prophets who had instigated the war. This last demand was ridiculous, or only for moral effect, for the so-called prophets had already been left dead on the field of battle. The Creeks were quite broken, however, and Jackson passed on to fame and destiny at the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. In April of this year he was made commander-in-chief of the Southern Division.[1] It soon developed that his chief task in this capacity was to reckon with the Seminoles.

[Footnote 1: In his official capacity Jackson issued two addresses which have an important place in the history of the Negro soldier. From his headquarters at Mobile, September 21, 1814, he issued an appeal “To the Free Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana,” offering them an honorable part in the war, and this was later followed by a “Proclamation to the Free People of Color” congratulating them on their achievement. Both addresses are accessible in many books.]

On the Appalachicola River the British had rebuilt an old fort, calling it the British Post on the Appalachicola. Early in the summer of 1815 the commander, Nicholls, had occasion to go to London, and he took with him his troops, the chief Francis, and several Creeks, leaving in the fort seven hundred and sixty-three barrels of cannon powder, twenty-five hundred muskets, and numerous pistols and other weapons of war. The Negroes from Georgia who had come to the vicinity, who numbered not less than a thousand, and who had some well kept farms up and down the banks of the river, now took charge of the fort and made it their headquarters. They were joined by some Creeks, and the so-called Negro Fort soon caused itself to be greatly feared by any white people who happened to live near. Demands on the Spanish governor for its suppression were followed by threats of the use of the soldiery of the United States; and General Gaines, under orders in the section, wrote to Jackson asking authority to build near the boundary another post that might be used as the base for any movement that had as its aim to overawe the Negroes. Jackson readily complied with the request, saying, “I have no doubt that this fort has been established by some villains for the purpose of murder, rapine, and plunder, and that it ought to be blown up regardless of the ground it stands on. If you have come to the same conclusion, destroy it, and restore the stolen Negroes and property to their rightful owners.” Gaines accordingly built Fort Scott not far from where the Flint and the Chattahoochee join to form the Appalachicola. It was necessary for Gaines to pass the Negro Fort in bringing supplies to his own men; and on July 17, 1816, the boats of the Americans were within range of the fort and opened fire. There was some preliminary shooting, and then, since the walls were too stubborn to be battered down by a light fire, “a ball made red-hot in the cook’s galley was put in the gun and sent screaming over the wall and into the magazine. The roar, the shock, the scene that followed, may be imagined, but not described. Seven hundred barrels of gunpowder tore the earth, the fort, and all the wretched creatures in it to fragments. Two hundred and seventy men, women, and children died on the spot. Of sixty-four taken out alive, the greater number died soon after.”[1]

[Footnote 1: McMaster, IV, 431.]

The Seminoles–in the West more and more identified with the Creeks–were angered by their failure to recover the lands lost by the treaty of Fort Jackson and also by the building of Fort Scott. One settlement, Fowltown, fifteen miles east of Fort Scott, was especially excited and in the fall of 1817 sent a warning to the Americans “not to cross or cut a stick of timber on the east side of the Flint.” The warning was regarded as a challenge; Fowltown was taken on a morning in November, and the Seminole Wars had begun.

2. _First Seminole War and the Treaties of Indian Spring and Fort Moultrie_

In the course of the First Seminole War (1817-18) Jackson ruthlessly laid waste the towns of the Indians; he also took Pensacola, and he awakened international difficulties by his rather summary execution of two British subjects, Arbuthnot and Ambrister, who were traders to the Indians and sustained generally pleasant relations with them. For his conduct, especially in this last instance, he was severely criticized in Congress, but it is significant of his rising popularity that no formal vote of censure could pass against him. On the cession of Florida to the United States he was appointed territorial governor; but he served for a brief term only. As early as 1822 he was nominated for the presidency by the legislature of Tennessee, and in 1823 he was sent to the United States Senate.

Of special importance in the history of the Creeks about this time was the treaty of Indian Spring, of January 8, 1821, an iniquitous agreement in the signing of which bribery and firewater were more than usually present. By this the Creeks ceded to the United States, for the benefit of Georgia, five million acres of their most valuable land. In cash they were to receive $200,000, in payments extending over fourteen years. The United States Government moreover was to hold $250,000 as a fund from which the citizens of Georgia were to be reimbursed for any “claims” (for runaway slaves of course) that the citizens of the state had against the Creeks prior to the year 1802.[1] In the actual execution of this agreement a slave was frequently estimated at two or three times his real value, and the Creeks were expected to pay whether the fugitive was with them or not. All possible claims, however, amounted to $101,000. This left $149,000 of the money in the hands of the Government. This sum was not turned over to the Indians, as one might have expected, but retained until 1834, when the Georgia citizens interested petitioned for a division. The request was referred to the Commission on Indian Affairs, and the chairman, Gilmer of Georgia, was in favor of dividing the money among the petitioners as compensation for “the offspring which the slaves would have borne had they remained in bondage.” This suggestion was rejected at the time, but afterwards the division was made nevertheless; and history records few more flagrant violations of all principles of honor and justice.

[Footnote 1: See J.R. Giddings: _The Exiles of Florida_, 63-66; also speech in House of Representatives February 9, 1841.]

The First Seminole War, while in some ways disastrous to the Indians, was in fact not much more than the preliminary skirmish of a conflict that was not to cease until 1842. In general the Indians, mindful of the ravages of the War of 1812, did not fully commit themselves and bided their time. They were in fact so much under cover that they led the Americans to underestimate their real numbers. When the cession of Florida was formally completed, however (July 17, 1821), they were found to be on the very best spots of land in the territory. On May 20, 1822, Colonel Gad Humphreys was appointed agent to them, William P. Duval as governor of the territory being ex-officio superintendent of Indian affairs. Altogether the Indians at this time, according to the official count, numbered 1,594 men, 1,357 women, and 993 children, a total of 3,944, with 150 Negro men and 650 Negro women and children.[1] In the interest of these people Humphreys labored faithfully for eight years, and not a little of the comparative quiet in his period of service is to be credited to his own sympathy, good sense, and patience.

[Footnote 1: Sprague, 19.]

In the spring of 1823 the Indians were surprised by the suggestion of a treaty that would definitely limit their boundaries and outline their future relations with the white man. The representative chiefs had no desire for a conference, were exceedingly reluctant to meet the commissioners, and finally came to the meeting prompted only by the hope that such terms might be arrived at as would permanently guarantee them in the peaceable possession of their homes. Over the very strong protest of some of them a treaty was signed at Fort Moultrie, on the coast five miles below St. Augustine, September 18, 1823, William P. Duval, James Gadsden, and Bernard Segui being the representatives of the United States. By this treaty we learn that the Indians, in view of the fact that they have “thrown themselves on, and have promised to continue under, the protection of the United States, and of no other nation, power, or sovereignty; and in consideration of the promises and stipulations hereinafter made, do cede and relinquish all claim or title which they have to the whole territory of Florida, with the exception of such district of country as shall herein be allotted to them.” They are to have restricted boundaries, the extreme point of which is nowhere to be nearer than fifteen miles to the Gulf of Mexico. The United States promises to distribute, as soon as the Indians are settled on their new land, under the direction of their agent, “implements of husbandry, and stock of cattle and hogs to the amount of six thousand dollars, and an annual sum of five thousand dollars a year for twenty successive years”; and “to restrain and prevent all white persons from hunting, settling, or otherwise intruding” upon the land set apart for the Indians, though any American citizen, lawfully authorized, is to pass and repass within the said district and navigate the waters thereof “without any hindrance, toll or exactions from said tribes.” For facilitating removal and as compensation for any losses or inconvenience sustained, the United States is to furnish rations of corn, meat, and salt for twelve months, with a special appropriation of $4,500 for those who have made improvements, and $2,000 more for the facilitating of transportation. The agent, sub-agent, and interpreter are to reside within the Indian boundary “to watch over the interests of said tribes”; and the United States further undertake “as an evidence of their humane policy towards said tribes” to allow $1,000 a year for twenty years for the establishment of a school and $1,000 a year for the same period for the support of a gun- and blacksmith. Of supreme importance is Article 7: “The chiefs and warriors aforesaid, for themselves and tribes, stipulate to be active and vigilant in the preventing the retreating to, or passing through, the district of country assigned them, of any absconding slaves, or fugitives from justice; and further agree to use all necessary exertions to apprehend and deliver the same to the agent, who shall receive orders to compensate them agreeably to the trouble and expense incurred.” We have dwelt at length upon the provisions of this treaty because it contained all the seeds of future trouble between the white man and the Indian. Six prominent chiefs–Nea Mathla, John Blunt, Tuski Hajo, Mulatto King, Emathlochee, and Econchattimico–refused absolutely to sign, and their marks were not won until each was given a special reservation of from two to four square miles outside the Seminole boundaries. Old Nea Mathla in fact never did accept the treaty in good faith, and when the time came for the execution of the agreement he summoned his warriors to resistance. Governor Duval broke in upon his war council, deposed the war leaders, and elevated those who favored peaceful removal. The Seminoles now retired to their new lands, but Nea Mathla was driven into practical exile. He retired to the Creeks, by whom he was raised to the dignity of a chief. It was soon realized by the Seminoles that they had been restricted to some pine woods by no means as fertile as their old lands, nor were matters made better by one or two seasons of drought. To allay their discontent twenty square miles more, to the north, was given them, but to offset this new cession their rations were immediately reduced.

3. _From the Treaty of Fort Moultrie to the Treaty of Payne’s Landing_

Now succeeded ten years of trespassing, of insult, and of increasing enmity. Kidnapers constantly lurked near the Indian possessions, and instances of injury unredressed increased the bitterness and rancor. Under date May 20, 1825, Humphreys[1] wrote to the Indian Bureau that the white settlers were already thronging to the vicinity of the Indian reservation and were likely to become troublesome. As to some recent disturbances, writing from St. Augustine February 9, 1825, he said: “From all I can learn here there is little doubt that the disturbances near Tallahassee, which have of late occasioned so much clamor, were brought about by a course of unjustifiable conduct on the part of the whites, similar to that which it appears to be the object of the territorial legislature to legalize. In fact, it is stated that one Indian had been so severely whipped by the head of the family which was destroyed in these disturbances, as to cause his death; if such be the fact, the subsequent act of the Indians, however lamentable, must be considered as one of retaliation, and I can not but think it is to be deplored that they were afterwards ‘hunted’ with so unrelenting a revenge.” The word _hunted_ was used advisedly by Humphreys, for, as we shall see later, when war was renewed one of the common means of fighting employed by the American officers was the use of bloodhounds. Sometimes guns were taken from the Indians so that they had nothing with which to pursue the chase. On one occasion, when some Indians were being marched to headquarters, a woman far advanced in pregnancy was forced onward with such precipitancy as to produce a premature delivery, which almost terminated her life. More far-reaching than anything else, however, was the constant denial of the rights of the Indian in court in cases involving white men. As Humphreys said, the great disadvantage under which the Seminoles labored as witnesses “destroyed everything like equality of rights.” Some of the Negroes that they had, had been born among them, and some others had been purchased from white men and duly paid for. No receipts were given, however, and efforts were frequently made to recapture the Negroes by force. The Indian, conscious of his rights, protested earnestly against such attempts and naturally determined to resist all efforts to wrest from him his rightfully acquired property.

[Footnote 1: The correspondence is readily accessible in Sprague, 30-37.]

By 1827, however, the territorial legislature had begun to memorialize Congress and to ask for the complete removal of the Indians. Meanwhile the Negro question was becoming more prominent, and orders from the Department of War, increasingly peremptory, were made on Humphreys for the return of definite Negroes. For Duval and Humphreys, however, who had actually to execute the commissions, the task was not always so easy. Under date March 20, 1827, the former wrote to the latter: “Many of the slaves belonging to the whites are now in the possession of the white people; these slaves can not be obtained for their Indian owners without a lawsuit, and I see no reason why the Indians shall be compelled to surrender all slaves claimed by our citizens when this surrender is not mutual.” Meanwhile the annuity began to be withheld from the Indians in order to force them to return Negroes, and a friendly chief, Hicks, constantly waited upon Humphreys only to find the agent little more powerful than himself. Thus matters continued through 1829 and 1830. In violation of all legal procedure, the Indians were constantly _required to relinquish beforehand property in their possession to settle a question of claim_. On March 21, 1830, Humphreys was informed that he was no longer agent for the Indians. He had been honestly devoted to the interest of these people, but his efforts were not in harmony with the policy of the new administration.

Just what that policy was may be seen from Jackson’s special message on Indian affairs of February 22, 1831. The Senate had asked for information as to the conduct of the Government in connection with the act of March 30, 1802, “to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes and to preserve peace on the frontiers.” The Nullification controversy was in everybody’s mind, and already friction had arisen between the new President and the abolitionists. In spite of Jackson’s attitude toward South Carolina, his message in the present instance was a careful defense of the whole theory of state rights. Nothing in the conduct of the Federal Government toward the Indian tribes, he insisted, had ever been intended to attack or even to call in question the rights of a sovereign state. In one way the Southern states had seemed to be an exception. “As early as 1784 the settlements within the limits of North Carolina were advanced farther to the west than the authority of the state to enforce an obedience of its laws.” After the Revolution the tribes desolated the frontiers. “Under these circumstances the first treaties, in 1785 and 1790, with the Cherokees, were concluded by the Government of the United States.” Nothing of all this, said Jackson, had in any way affected the relation of any Indians to the state in which they happened to reside, and he concluded as follows: “Toward this race of people I entertain the kindest feelings, and am not sensible that the views which I have taken of their true interests are less favorable to them than those which oppose their emigration to the West. Years since I stated to them my belief that if the States chose to extend their laws over them it would not be in the power of the Federal Government to prevent it. My opinion remains the same, and I can see no alternative for them but that of their removal to the West or a quiet submission to the state laws. If they prefer to remove, the United States agree to defray their expenses, to supply them the means of transportation and a year’s support after they reach their new homes–a provision too liberal and kind to bear the stamp of injustice. Either course promises them peace and happiness, whilst an obstinate perseverance in the effort to maintain their possessions independent of the state authority can not fail to render their condition still more helpless and miserable. Such an effort ought, therefore, to be discountenanced by all who sincerely sympathize in the fortunes of this peculiar people, and especially by the political bodies of the Union, as calculated to disturb the harmony of the two Governments and to endanger the safety of the many blessings which they enable us to enjoy.”

The policy thus formally enunciated was already in practical operation. In the closing days of the administration of John Quincy Adams a delegation came to Washington to present to the administration the grievances of the Cherokee nation. The formal reception of the delegation fell to the lot of Eaton, the new Secretary of War. The Cherokees asserted that not only did they have no rights in the Georgia courts in cases involving white men, but that they had been notified by Georgia that all laws, usages, and agreements in force in the Indian country would be null and void after June 1, 1830; and naturally they wanted the interposition of the Federal Government. Eaton replied at great length, reminding the Cherokees that they had taken sides with England in the War of 1812, that they were now on American soil only by sufferance, and that the central government could not violate the rights of the state of Georgia; and he strongly advised immediate removal to the West. The Cherokees, quite broken, acted in accord with this advice; and so in 1832 did the Creeks, to whom Jackson had sent a special talk urging removal as the only basis of Federal protection.

To the Seminoles as early as 1827 overtures for removal had been made; but before the treaty of Fort Moultrie had really become effective they had been intruded upon and they in turn had become more slow about returning runaway slaves. From some of the clauses in the treaty of Fort Moultrie, as some of the chiefs were quick to point out, the