Papers of the American Negro Academy Part 2
Lafayette M. Hershaw. The Status of the Free Negro Prior to 1860
The difficulty surrounding a proper understanding of any question consists in the fact that self-interest is more than likely to enter to darken the vision. It is seldom that men differ about matters or have a difficulty in understanding matters which do not affect their vanity, their pride, their ambition or their material belongings. The truth concerning any matter which is the subject of controversy can be reached with accuracy in proportion as it is free from these matters. A question of justice, opportunity and humane consideration for persons wholly or partly of African origin is influenced entirely by considerations of the kind just mentioned. If men were not obsessed by the phantom of race superiority and of local vanity and group consciousness, and more than all by the propensity to make gain out of the misfortunes and injustices of conditions, what is known as the Negro question would vanish into thin air. All forms of oppression, caste, proscription and distinction have their origin in the desire and purpose of a man or set of men to improve their condition at the expense of others. If it had not been believed and indeed demonstrated that the subjection of the black man would prove economically profitable to the white man or that he would gain some other fancied advantage from the degradation of the black man we should never have had African slavery together with its attendant chain of ills which afflict the body politic even unto this hour.
That oppression and tyranny wrong both those who practice them and those upon whom they are inflicted is proved by ill.u.s.trations taken both from the field of economics and the field of intellectual and moral consciousness. In all those parts of the world where all the people approach most nearly a common standard of economic, intellectual and moral excellence there we find the greatest advance in that which we call civilization, for the want of a better term to describe human progress and advance. Wherever we find any considerable group of people residing in the same or contiguous territory who do not enjoy equality of right and opportunity in those things which governments are inst.i.tuted to conserve, we find that the greater group which denies them these inalienable rights paralyzed in its economic, intellectual and moral growth. On no other ground can we account for the emphatic differences in achievement, in literature, art, science, invention, and economic progress between the white people of the North and the white people of the South. Reasoning from a.n.a.logy and from the examples which history gives of the achievement of the white race in the world it would be the most reasonable thing to expect that due to variety of soil, favorableness of climate, and the general beneficence of nature, that the white people living in the zone comprising what is commonly designated as the Southern States would excel their Northern brethren in all the arts and achievements of civilization. We should naturally expect to find there the poets, the painters, the sculptors, the inventors and the great organizers of enterprise. Elsewhere in the world in the midst of similar conditions of soil and climate, we find the white race excelling and leading the world in these particulars. The white people inhabiting the South are of the same ethnic type, and have in general the same group consciousness and aspiration. How else can we account for the fact that they have contributed less than their kinsmen in proportion to numbers to the sum of human knowledge, happiness and liberty, if not by the fact that they have suffered the inevitable handicap incident to an environment in which large numbers of human beings suffer inequality and subordination?
But for the difference which has been historically accentuated in North America between white and black which difference has inflicted much of suffering upon both races, it would not be necessary to consider such a subject as the citizenship status of the free Negro prior to 1860.
Before the Const.i.tution of the United States was amended by the addition thereto of the Fourteenth Amendment the statement that "The citizens of each State shall be ent.i.tled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States" was the only definite deliverance to be found in that instrument in relation to the subject of citizenship. In other words there was no national definition of citizenship, and up to the time of the deliverance of the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, there had been no comprehensive treatment of the subject in adjudications by the Supreme Court of the United States. The mention of the term "citizens" in the Const.i.tution in the quotation just given indicates that it had a meaning of such generally accepted significance that definition was not necessary. Presumably citizenship conveyed then, as it conveys now, an idea exactly the opposite of that conveyed by the term slavery. A slave everywhere in the world was understood to be a person who was absolved from allegiance, and was not due protection as that term is ordinarily understood, and who could not invoke ordinary legal process nor own property; a citizen was a person who owed allegiance, was ent.i.tled to protection, had the right to invoke all the processes of the law, could become the owner of property, and possibly, if not a woman or a child, exercise the right of the elective franchise.
Such was the common understanding of the term citizen at the adoption of the Const.i.tution, and such is substantially the understanding of that term at the present date. However, due to the presence of the Negro in the body politic, the exigencies of the situation suggested an interpretation of the term citizen which might not otherwise have existed, but for the presence of the Negro. The exigency grew out of the fact that toward the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth there
grew into the minds of men the conception that slavery was a condition appertaining to black men alone, that color was an unmistakable proof of the condition of a slave, and that the fact that one was of African descent carried with it this inevitable social degradation. In the decisions of the courts of a number of the States we find this principle enunciated. In North Carolina the Supreme Court of that State, in 1828, decided that "The presumption of slavery arises from a black African complexion." In 1839, the Supreme Court of Indiana, in pa.s.sing upon the const.i.tutionality of the law ent.i.tled: "An act concerning free Negroes and Mulattoes and slaves," held that where a Negro laid claim to freedom the burden of proof was on him to show it inasmuch as persons of the African race were presumed to be slaves. In 1842, the Supreme Court of Ohio decided that under the law of that State "Color alone is sufficient to indicate a Negro's inability to testify against a white man. It has always been admitted that our political inst.i.tutions embrace the white population only. Persons of color were not recognized as having any political existence; they had no agency in our political organizations, and possessed no political rights under it. Two or three of the States form exceptions. The const.i.tutions of fourteen expressly exclude persons of color; and in the balance of the States they are excluded on the grounds that they were never recognized as part of the body politic."
(Thatcher vs. Hawk, 4th Ohio, Rep., 351.) While this opinion expressed a widely prevalent sentiment at that time I have been unable to find a decision of any court in any of the original thirteen States north of Maryland, except Connecticut, which expresses this view. In their moral and intellectual nature the inhabitants of Connecticut exhibit many wide differences from the inhabitants of the rest of New England. These citations show how thoroughly the conception of the difference arising from the difference of color was imbedded in the mind at that time. Such instances of judicial interpretation were to be found in all of the slave States, and in those States which were carved out of the northwest territory, which Virginia ceded to the general government in 1787. In this connection it is pertinent to observe that it is the most natural thing in the world that the States carved out of this northwest territory should have followed not only the legal system of the parent State, but should have adopted many of its practices and modes of thought, and pa.s.sed them on to succeeding generations.
From the quotations already made it can be seen that to be a colored person was to suffer from the presumption of being a slave, and that to be a free colored person was to be in a condition not of freedom, but of lessened servitude. To be a free colored person was not to possess the citizenship of the world any more than to be a Christian today is evidence that one is an imitator of Christ. In actual practice the term "free colored person" embraced the idea of freedom from personal service to a specified owner and little else, particularly in the slave-holding States. The att.i.tude of these States is well expressed in the following quotation from John C. Calhoun: "I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together the relation now existing in the slave-holding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good-a positive good. I fearlessly a.s.sert that the existing relations between the two races in the South forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political inst.i.tutions (Works of Calhoun, Vol. 2, p.
630)." Thus by legal enactment, judicial interpretation and orderly expressed public opinion, race if it be African was the badge of inferiority and slavery. This was generally true throughout the country and yet a careful and somewhat thorough examination of the statutes, legal decisions, and systematic treatises relating to the law of slavery will convince any fair-minded person that the term free colored person carried with it less of negation of right in the Northern States where slavery had ceased to exist than in the Southern States where it still flourished.
At the close of the revolution, slavery existed in most of the colonies, if not all, and their statute books contained laws relating to that condition, and to the condition of "free persons of color." However, as time pa.s.sed and the inst.i.tution of slavery disappeared, we find these laws disappearing or becoming greatly modified or mitigated in their provisions. For instance, March 26, 1783, Ma.s.sachusetts pa.s.sed a law forbidding an African or Negro to tarry within the commonwealth for a longer time than two months unless such person could produce a certificate from the secretary of State of which such person claimed to be a citizen, showing that he was such, and that where such persons did not have the required certificate they should be ordered to depart from the State, and upon failure to do so be committed to any house of correction, and that such punishment should be repeated whenever and as often as the order to depart was disobeyed. This law was repealed, however, in 1786. It seems that slavery was abolished in Ma.s.sachusetts by operation of the const.i.tution of 1780, which declares that "All men are born free and equal." Harry St. George Tucker, president of the Virginia Court of Appeals, said in 1833, speaking of this const.i.tutional utterance, that "We should be disposed to take this declaration less as an abstraction than we regard that which is contained in our own bill of rights" (5th Leigh Rep., 622). By 1786, it appears that Ma.s.sachusetts had abolished all distinctions in law based on race except that in relation to marriage, which appears to have been repealed in 1843. In 1833, Connecticut enacted a law forbidding the setting up or establishment of any school, academy or literary inst.i.tution for the instruction or education of colored persons who were not inhabitants of the State. This law was repealed in 1838. The const.i.tution of Rhode Island of 1843, conferred the elective franchise on persons of the male s.e.x qualified by residence and property without distinction of color. In New Hampshire the const.i.tution of 1783 contains the principle that all men are born equally free, and no distinction on account of color is found in any of her statutes except in a law of 1792, which specified that enlistment in the militia should be confined to white people. In the law of 1857, relating to the subject of militia, color is not mentioned. Neither in the const.i.tution nor laws of Vermont does one find for this period any distinction based on color, so that in Vermont the term "free colored person" had no existence and consequently no meaning.
In Maine no distinctions based on color are to be found for the period under consideration either in the const.i.tution or the statutes. In Pennsylvania colored people exercised the elective franchise and enjoyed full citizenship with the whites up to 1838, when the elective franchise, by the const.i.tution of that year, was confined to whites.
Presumably free colored people exercised the suffrage in New Jersey up to 1844, as there appears no limitation of suffrage on account of color prior to its mention in the const.i.tution of that year. New York, in an act of the legislature of 1799, provided for gradual emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves, and by an act of 1811 it required "free colored people" to carry certificates of their freedom as proofs of their claim thereto. In 1814 the legislature of the State authorized the raising of two regiments of colored soldiers to be officered by white men. In 1823, Negroes who resided in the State three years and possessed a free-hold estate of the a.s.sessed value of two hundred and fifty dollars were ent.i.tled to exercise the elective franchise, a requirement not imposed upon white people.
It is interesting to note that up to 1723, free colored people appear to have exercised the elective franchise equally with the whites in Virginia. The colonial const.i.tution of that year limited its exercise to white people, and the free colored people never voted again until the adoption of the Underwood or reconstruction const.i.tution. Besides this, contrary to conditions above described in the Northern States the laws in relation to free colored people grew harsher and harsher until 1831, when we find a statute prohibiting meetings for teaching free Negroes or mulattoes reading or writing. In 1832, free Negroes were forbidden to preach the gospel. In 1834 free Negroes were forbidden to immigrate into the State. In 1838 free Negroes leaving the State to be educated were forbidden to return. In 1851, the const.i.tution of Virginia of that year, in Sec. 5, Art. 19, provided: That slaves hereafter emanc.i.p.ated shall forfeit their freedom by remaining in the commonwealth more than twelve months, and in 1856, the legislature of Virginia pa.s.sed an act providing that free Negroes might voluntarily make agreements to become slaves and that such agreement should be binding.
In North Carolina free colored people seem to have exercised most of the rights of white people including that of voting, until 1835, when the right to vote was confined to persons of the white race. In all of the slave States the free colored man was hampered by legislative provisions exactly like or very similar to those just cited as existing in Virginia. In none of these States could free colored people hold the legal t.i.tle to real property, in none of them did they have the right of public a.s.sembly, the right to bear arms or the right to carry on collectively the work of education. In few of them did they even have the right to preach the gospel, and where they did preach it was by favor and permission, and not by right. Of all these Southern slave-holding States Maryland ruled its free colored people with something suggestive of humanity.
It will be seen from this hasty and unsatisfactory review of a great ma.s.s of statutes, decisions, and treatises that the condition of the free colored man north of Mason and Dixon's line improved in the main from the close of the revolution to 1860, and that south of Mason and Dixon's line his condition grew worse from the close of the revolution down to 1860.
In the West, where new States were forming, there was, of course, the distinction of race. The settlers who went into these new communities went there to establish white communities and they pa.s.sed laws forbidding the immigration of free colored people into them. We find statutes in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Kansas, and Oregon, forbidding the immigration of free Negroes. It seems, however, that there was never a very strong public sentiment insisting upon the enforcement of these laws. As a matter of fact there was a small active and effective sentiment which practically nullified the existence of them, for in all of these States we find, especially after the enactment of the fugitive slave law of 1850, a most friendly sentiment toward the unfortunate colored man whether slave or free.
The study of the statutes and conditions of more than a half century ago is not only a matter of curiosity, but a matter of very practical concern, since in these latter days another body of laws, and legal decisions based upon distinction of race have come into existence, and yet others are threatened.
Arthur A. Schomburg. The Economic Contribution by the Negro to America
The services rendered by Negroes in America from the discovery of the islands beyond the Pillars of Hercules by Christopher Columbus to the end of the eighteenth century, make a chapter of history transcending in importance anything which has taken place in the old world. The quaint times and scarcity of willing men among the aboriginal Indians to help the Spaniards to despoil their lands in the rapacious quest of gold brought about the early ruin of flourishing communities of aboriginal tribes in the several islands. So alarming was this state of affairs that Father Las Casas, known as the Apostle of the Indians, interceded in their behalf at the Spanish court in order to ameliorate their unfortunate condition. He pleaded for Negroes to take their places as the blacks were a very hardy and robust race; to this plea the great and humanitarian Cardinal Ximenes was opposed; for he could not justify the subst.i.tution of one race for another in what was in itself a wrong. The Cardinal having been overruled, the Slave Trade was inst.i.tuted and the first Negroes were brought to Santo Domingo. They were not the untutored savages we are expected to believe from modern histories. There existed in Sevilla, Spain, as early as 1475, a large number of Negro slaves, who had been brought from the coasts of North Africa and Guinea, and their one-fifth tribute to the coffers of the state formed a very nice sum of money. This practice of importing Negroes, which had been in vogue during the Arab dominion of Spain, continued to increase to such an extent that when in the year of 1474 a royal decree still extant chronicles the appointment of a Negro known as Juan de Valladolid as mayor of the Negro colony situated in the outskirts of the said city.
From this colony of Negroes who could speak the Spanish language, and were familiar with their customs, came the first batch of slaves shipped to Santo Domingo. It must also be borne in mind that 45 years before, in 1370, King Henry of Portugal had commenced his explorations, the Catalans and Normans had frequented the coasts of Africa as far as the Tropic of Cancer, and according to Diego Ortiz de Zuniga, it is known that from the times of Archbishop Gonzalo de Mena (1400) there existed Negro slaves in Sevilla. There is no reason to doubt that a large number of their descendants had already been born in Europe prior to 1500, because the royal dispensations in that year state that the immigration of Negro slaves to Santo Domingo was prohibited except in case of those who were born while in possession of Christians. These historical facts induce us to believe that during that period there was in Europe a larger number of Negroes than we generally suppose or care to believe.
At the time that the slave trade had commenced to occupy the mind of the Hawkins malefactors and the British nation under Queen Elizabeth, Barbarossa had already subjected the mulatto King of Morocco to the payment of a tribute of $1,000,000 in gold dust-and 40 Negro merchants without any hesitation helped the king out of the dangers that confronted his people. When the Moor Zegri was humiliated by the Spanish Commander Cisneros in 1499 and the Arab books destroyed in Granada, Marmol states that less than 1,025,000 tomes on religion, politics, jurisprudence, ma.n.u.scripts illuminated and worked in silver and gold were consigned to the fires. There remained 3,000 Moorish soldiers under command of a Negro captain whose intrepid heroism and valor was shown by the charges and counter charges he was able to repel. When unable to prevent the utter annihilation of his band by superior forces under Cifuentes, the Negro captain refused to surrender and jumped headlong from a fort. (Alcatara's History, Granada, pp. 165-6.) And this happened seven years after the discovery of America by Columbus.
The conditions of the new world were such that the Spaniards who had spent most of their wealth in the unprofitable civil and Arab wars, lost no time after hearing wonderful stories of untold wealth to requisition not only the Negroes of Seville, but to embark in the lucrative enterprise of human Negroes from the West Coast of Africa, and ships which were engaged in man-hunting poured their human freight into Hispaniola. It was not long after that the Spanish Negroes belonging to Diego Columbus, revolted, and the first insurrection, taking place among the very property of the discoverer's offspring, was suppressed by the military after killing the leaders. The prosperity of the colonies soon became apparent in the enormous number of Spanish ships with their precious cargoes arriving in the Spanish ports. The Spanish people were wild and in an ecstasy of joy to engage in the colonial enterprise, and as ships entered upon the perilous voyages of discovery the Africans were gathered to do the work for which no historian or economist has given them the credit which is their due for blazing the path of wealth into which the nations of Europe have ridden upon the lucrative backs of the Africans. The clearing of the forests from dangerous animals and poisonous insects, making with the awakening of each succeeding spring the virgin earth a paradise that has supported millions of European parasites; the working of the mines for precious metals that fed the envy of other powerful nations which questioned the right of the Spaniards to conquest under the banner of the Christian Church, and induced them to scramble and fight for their colonial honors.
No sooner than Santo Domingo was found to be a paradise of wealth than the other islands were made ready for the unwilling African. He was carried to the mainland of Panama, where Balboa was surprised to find a colony of Negroes whose origin has baffled the mind of the most learned men of that age. To this day no solution has been found for the problem of the coming of these Negroes of Quareca. Gomora says, "That Conquistador entered the Province of Quareca; he found no gold, but some blacks who were slaves of the lord of the place. He asked this lord whence he had received them, who replied that men of that color lived near the place, with whom they were constantly at war. "These Negroes,"
adds Gomora, "exactly resemble those of the Guinea; and no others have since been seen in America. It may be stated here that every hypothesis has been advanced to show that these men must have been people other than Negroes, but since the natives of the kingdoms of Congo and Guinea were known to have enjoyed friendly relations with each other and sailed the rivers in large oared boats, it is very probable that some of them crossed the Atlantic in like manner as the Caribs in their piraguas traveled from the islands to the mainland and vice versa. The nearest distance from Brazil to Africa is along the Tropic of Cancer, and any number of large boats may have lost their bearing in a storm and got ship-wrecked on the American mainland. This hypothesis is well within the range of probability in view of the fact that the trade winds blow from east to west and the Gulf Stream flows rapidly, and is noted for periodical variation in its course.
The Negroes that were originally carried into Santo Domingo from Spain became devoted to the early priests, for it must be conceded that the Jesuits were the friends who maintained a benevolent att.i.tude toward these outcast sons of men. One of these Negroes, known as Estevanico, was the discoverer of the Seven Cities of Cibola, and what is known as Arizona and New Mexico. Negroes were in Mexico with the vanguard of the Spaniards, and to that country must be credited one of the earliest Negro poets. He lived in Mexico City, and was, by trade, a carpenter and maker of artificial flowers, and was always sought by the elite, because of his ready wit and quickness to rhyme on any theme given him.
Wherever the English ruled we have had to combat a very prejudiced and arrogant system of oppression. In the Spanish and French colonies the rule was milder, in consequence of a system of judicial laws which predicated a better understanding as a solution of the complex relations between master and slave. The English have shown by their rule in the Island of Trinidad how much regard they have had for the rights of others guaranteed by treaty. For a case in point we may refer to the treaty of capitulation between the Spaniards and the English that took place February 18th, 1797. Article 12 of this treaty reads: "The colored people, who have been acknowledged as such by the laws of Spain, shall be protected in their liberty, persons and property, like other inhabitants; they taking the oath of allegiance, meaning themselves as becomes good and peaceable subjects of His Britanic Majesty" (16). The way the British respected this "Sc.r.a.p of Paper" is shown in a book written by a free mulatto, a graduate of the Edinburgh University, and printed in London in 1824. Says this anonymous author: "And even the Spanish governor saw his country about to be divested of a possession she had held ever since the third voyage of Columbus, he did not forget the faith she had plighted to the colored population, but exacted from the invaders security for the continuance of the equality of rights and privileges with the whites by the 12th article of the capitulation" (p.
16).
It would have been a glory to Britain to have emulated in those days the benevolent plan of France and Spain in improving the condition of their slaves; and to open a way for the admission of reason, religion, liberty and law among creatures of our kind who were deprived of every advantage, of every privilege, which as partakers of our common nature they were capable of and ent.i.tled to (Ramsay).
We have been instructed to look at the Negro as "idle, worthless, indolent and disloyal," but a careful examination of the West Indies and South America does not show this to be true. Many instances of advancement by hard industry can be noted in any of the many spots of the New World. There is not a single field of industrial activity in which the descendants of the African have not contributed their mite toward an improvement of the conditions which the gold seekers and pleasure hunters were wont to overlook. The commercial activities, the irrigation of fields, the working of the mines where the labor of Negro slaves and free men was paramount, the untold number of ships loaded down with merchandise and precious metals wending their way to Europe to support monarchies and provide pleasure for parasites, all this depended upon the unrequited toil of Negroes, which cannot be computed in dollars and cents because it would form a ladder, like Jacob's, which would reach to the very gates of Heaven.
Under the inst.i.tution of slavery which curbed the aspirations of the Negro, it was not possible to expect the race to have shown any capacity except for hard labor in the fields which the lash accelerated. In most islands there was nothing else but agriculture fields to be cleared and developed with religion to mitigate and console the workers. The profits which were uppermost in the minds of the masters were gathered regularly and yielded handsomely.
The African people have been one of the earliest acquainted with cotton.
A careful examination of available historical material shows that while Europe was still dressing in goat skins and gra.s.s goods the Negro peoples of Africa had been using cotton goods. Miss Kingsley relates that the cloth loom was invented by natives of the Eboe tribe, but many varieties of looms were common to the people of the Soudan. The prevailing color of the cloth from Guinea is blue and it is distinctly quaint, so enduring and pleasing that it has been handed down from the h.o.a.ry ages to the present day. The dyes of the natives obtained from vegetable matter and other unknown primitive processes, have always won the admiration of the appreciative world. Europeans have admired the quality and durability of these cloths. The work of African looms in their primitive frames can be seen in the Museums of Natural History in London, Paris, Berlin and New York. They are indeed fine specimens of African handiwork and authorities have said that they would do credit to any Manchester or Birmingham looms.
It is said that native cloth manufactured at Kano is not very old and that it probably came from the Songhay country, but according to El Bekri, the Arab historian, and other ancient geographers, the art of weaving was very flourishing on the Upper Nile, especially in the town of Silla from very ancient times and as early as the eleventh century, the cotton cloth was called in this region by the same name it bears to this day, namely, "shigge."
The English West Indies exported to Britain during the year 1760 9,535,010 pounds of cotton. By 1787 this amount had increased to 18,716,445 pounds; in 1801 to 42,090,765, and in 1811 it was 41,735,555, according to William Irving, Inspector General of the London Customhouse.
It has been stated that just before the war of American independence the slaves in the sugar colonies did not exceed the fortieth part of the inhabitants of the British Empire, yet they contributed in that neglected state perhaps a sixth part of the revenue. The British Isles contained a population of nearly 11,500,000; North America, 2,600,000 with 400,000 slaves, which made 3,000,000; the West Indies 82,000 freemen and 418,000 slaves.
The Negroes under the terrifying and debasing influence of slavery were able to improve their condition by that cheerful spirit which holds them together even in these days of dark clouds, with a silver lining. The cheerfulness of these sons of Africa has been their redeeming quality through all their privations and sufferings; their chants and songs, whether in the hearing of their masters or among themselves, were full of soul and feeling. They kept body and soul together after the arduous day's labor under the torrid rays of the sun. Whereas the Indians gave way under the milder system of slavery, the Negroes grew stronger under its despotism. They were able in the production of sugar cane to become experts in the tempering of the cane juice for the various degrees of sugar, which today require a.n.a.lytical chemists to supervise its improved manufacture and Negroes were in charge of this delicate branch of the industry on many plantations. In the distillation of rum they were proficient and many were excellent mechanics.
In the production of cocoa, in Venezuela, Suriname and Trinidad, the labor of Negroes gave it such an impetus and stability that the eminent Humboldt, in his travels through South America could not but speak in the highest terms of those plantations that devoted their time to the improvement of this industry.
Since the bringing of the Mocha coffee into Santo Domingo as an experiment, with the brawny arm of the black son of toil the production of coffee has reached the incredible amount of 100 millions of pounds, and, in Brazil, where to balance the supply and demand the government provides an excellent system which permits the exportation of only the amount necessary for the world's consumption each year.
The pearl fisheries of America lost their commercial importance with the wave of Emanc.i.p.ation by the nations whose souls were steeped in ignominious sin. But in the earliest days it was one of the most lucrative industries. The work was done exclusively by Negroes who were expert swimmers and divers, capable of holding their breath a long time in ten or fifteen fathoms of briny water, while searching for pearl-bearing sh.e.l.ls. There was always great danger from man-eating sharks and the octopus, which killed and mangled many expert divers. In numberless Spanish galleons were carried the riches which have been reported from time to time in official papers as having paid the fifths to the coffers of the state. For instance, Southey says that "a fleet that sailed from Hispaniola in 1526 carried to Spain 501,082 gold dollars, 350 marks of ordinary pearls, 183 Cubagua pearls and 5 gold stones."
In the field of arms there is no question whatever in the mind of the present generation whether the Negroes have added any glory to the respective nations under which they fought, or, when for their self-preservation it was necessary to fight against Spain, Holland, France and Britain. One of the earliest successful insurrections was that of Chief Araby in the year 16- and in 1772-7, before the American war of independence, the Negroes of Suriname took to the hills and fought the Hollanders tooth and nail for five consecutive years. The Spaniards in Santo Domingo were defeated, Great Britain was humiliated and obtained success only when she followed General Abercrombie and Sir John Moore's advice, and employed Negro troops under promises of manumission as is shown in the St. Lucia campaign. The first attempt to employ these troops brought about a fierce outcry of protest in which the several island legislatures, especially those of Barbadoes and Jamaica "poured forth the most prophetic declaration of innumerable evils to come if the British government persisted in its purpose to subst.i.tute even in part, black for white soldiers."
The formation of the First West India Regiment under the British was the aftermath of the Savannah war in 1779. "It was made up of white loyalists and Negro slaves" and "so well entertained that in the year 1816 there were eight regiments in existence. In Jamaica there were stationed the 2d Regiment, with 198 sergeants and 3,050 blacks, and the 5th Regiment was stationed at Bahamas with rank and file of 4,526 during the year 1816. Their formation was due to the ravages of disease among the European forces, for during the years 1796-1802 were lost 17,173 men of the original force of 19,676 under Major General Sir John Moore, which sailed from England to put down the Negro spirit that had its birth in Haiti.
But it was not only Haiti that was worrying the British. Jamaica with the Maroons was another problem without a radical solution until Major General Walpole promised them protection under a secret treaty which was moderate in its language, but painful in the method of its application, just as the British have always been when dealing with the Negro race.
It must be said in fairness to General Walpole that he was opposed to the cruelties practiced on the Maroons after they had surrendered their arms and confided in his good faith for a strict compliance with the terms of the treaty. Walpole said he "felt that a treaty even with savages should be observed" (p. 236). But notwithstanding the evil spirit towards the Maroons their uprising has brought about a better feeling and respect to the black people of Jamaica and, because of this material spirit, it must be admitted they enjoy to this day a larger measure of freedom and economic privileges than the other West Indian islands under the British rule.
The name of Haiti will always stimulate us to revere the memory of men who have stamped their names on the scroll of time, for not only did that island strike the first effective blow for the liberation of the black slave, but, having accomplished this purpose, the Haitians aided in the liberation of all America from the yoke of Europe. The service rendered by President Petion to Simon Bolivar in making possible the freedom and independence of South America is splendidly shown in the granite and bronze monument which adorns the square in Caracas dedicated to the memory of the ablest Haitian president by the people of Venezuela.
Music found expression in the vibrating chord tempered with the dull thumping of drums in their characteristic rhythm which could be heard for miles during the night and in the peculiar songs and chants of the Negroes. To the white man who could not understand their customs it was barbaric and rude and was treated with indifference and at times with contempt. But it has been shown by Mrs. Kemble, who was a keen observer during her residence in Georgia, that the Negro songs had merit and that there was something mystic which could not easily open itself-its peculiar musical charm-to the white man. This music and chants were common to every part of America where the sons of Africa had been carried by the slave hunters, and even to this day musical instruments, peculiar to the original tribes, are extant in many of the islands beyond the seas.
During the evening slave seances took place when the master thought everything was silent and calm, because the field work had been satisfactorily performed and the harvest had been gathered and there was a profit which would carry him to Europe to squander it in riotous living. But at night, like the firefly, the Negro was recreated and refreshed in song his soul, and dreamed of a future freedom from the involuntary thraldom of which he was a victim.
The story tellers gathered a motley crowd around them and the hours of eventide were spent in instructive recitals of the Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit and other folk-lore stories, the heritage of African minds. These stories are known in every vale and dale of joy and tears in America; they have soothed the hours of toil and consoled the broken-hearted.
"They have been called the traditional literature of Africa. Some of the Uncle Remus stories would form no bad addition to the fairy stories of the world. But the race of old mammies or nurses who used to tell them to delighted youthful audiences is fast pa.s.sing away"-in fact, have pa.s.sed away-and we are satisfied, not knowing any better, to read them in the modern reconstructed form as given by Joel Chandler Harris and other poor imitators who have won fame and honor in the field of literature without incurring the onerous charge of imitation. Bosman refers to the Old Mammy or Anancy stories in his work on Africa, and it is said that in Accra "there are men who have a repertoire almost as copious as the Arabian Nights, and to which Europeans listen with curiosity and wonder, if not with admiration." Richard Burton was a great man and a distinguished writer, who agrees with Koelle, who says, "I was amongst them in their native land, on the soil which the feet of their fathers have trod, and heard them deliver in their own native tongue stirring extempore speeches, adorned with beautiful imagery, of half an hour or an hour's duration; or when I was writing from their dictation, sometimes two hours in succession, without having to correct a word or alter a construction in twenty or thirty pages; or when in Sierre Leone I attended examinations of the sons of liberated slaves (from America) in algebra, geometry, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, etc.-then, I confess, any other idea never entered my mind but that I had to do with _real men_". (Wit and Wisdom from West Africa.")
In Brazil, the Negro chieftain, Henrique Diaz, is revered for the able a.s.sistance which he rendered in checking the incursions of the Dutch, and Koster in his travels through that country speaks of Negro and mulatto regiments known as the Henrique regiments in memory of so worthy and capable a leader.
In the city of Paramaribo the Negro Gramman Quacy had the good fortune in 1730 to discover the valuable properties of the root known by the name of Quacie bitter. In 1761 it was made known to Linnaeus by d'Ahlbergand, the Swedish naturalist who had written a treatise upon it.
During the years 1811-12 the British government had reports from their various possessions in America exclusive of Jamaica, showing a slave population of 343,859 and 27,259 free men of color, so that about eight per cent of the total colored population were free. When we consider the handicap that slaves had under English law with its intricate and involved questions of entail we can appreciate the efforts of these reputed savages to have been able not only to achieve their freedom but to succeed in becoming an integral part of the country, with an eagle's foothold in agriculture.