DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FRIENDS OF DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF James Cannon III Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from Duke University Libraries https://archive.org/details/historyofcolored01 alex - ■ • v - ^ISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. CONTAINING ALSO THEIR ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA, MODES OF LIVING, EMPLOYMENTS, CUSTOMS, HABITS, SOCIAL LIFE, ETC. THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVERY IN THE OLD WORLD, AND ITS INTRODUCTION ON THE AMERICAN CONTINENT ; THE SLAVE TRADE ; SLAVERY AND ITS ABOLITION IN EUROPE AND AMERICA. THE CIVIL WAR, EMANCIPATION, t EDUCATION AND ADVANCEMENT OF THE COLORED RACE, THEIR CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS. PREPARED AND ARRANGED BY WM. T. ALEXANDER, A.M. “And God said; ‘Let there be Light," and there was Light' Issued by subscription only , and not /or sale in the book stores. Residents of any State desir iug a copy should address the Publishing Co., and an agent 'will call upon them . EIGHTH REVISED EDITION. KANSAS CITY, MO.: Hudson-Kimberry Publishing Company, 1897. TO THE MILLIONS OF OUR COLORED CITIZENS WHOSE PAST HISTORY GIVES PROMISE OF FUTURE GREATNESS, IS THIS WORK MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. Entered according to Act of Oongress, in the year 1887, hy The Palmetto Pub- lishing Co., in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 3 PREFACE. In presenting this history to the Colored Race in America, the author does so with an earnest desire that it will be the means of acquainting them to a fuller extent with the history of their race and their civil and political liberties, Which have been secured to them through civil strife and on fields of carnage, dedicated and consecrated as they are by the blood and tears of the Nation. We believe that they will fully realize the importance and necessity of a work of this char- acter, teaching and tracing as it does t'hedr early history through the dark and gloomy ages of the past, and bringing it forward out of that darkness into the glorious light of rational liberty. Nor can the importance of the subject be overestimated. The present condition of the colored people demands that they should be informed of their history and learn of those causes which held them in bondage; the introduction of slavery on the American Continent, and of the great social revolution in this country, which operated under Providence to break their shackles and release them from a hideous and debasing thraldom. They must awake to the new destinies which await them, made necessary by the growth and development of the times. Their freedom they have, but of what avail is physical emanci- pation if the mind be permitted to grope in darkness or dwell in the region of ignorance? The liberty yet to be extended to the colored people is liberty not political, but intellectual, that which gives them to know and tounderstand the nature of those a L, $ i 3 r 9 . H 62 C- PREFACE. rights, to obtain which so much has been sacrificed. To keep in ignorance the masses has ever been the rubric of oppression. The advancement of the times, and the changes in their social condition, make it absolutely necessary that the colored people should fully understand all matters relating, as they do, directly to them, and more especially does this apply to the younger generation, who must meet upon that plane of social condition their white brother, to which the advancement of the times is so rapidly pressing, or fall behind in the race and sink into degradation. To the parent, therefore, the study and acquaintance of his history becomes doubly important, since rt is for him to impart that knowledge to his children, the tender objects of his affec- tion and care. Should the parent neglect this important duty, whom then could he blame? The subjects embraced in this work are of vast importance and need careful attention. It is only by a thorough knowl- edge of the past history of the race that the colored people will be better able to avail themselves of the blessings the future has in store for them. Slavery is extinct, and on its tombstone is written, with bayonet dipped in blood, “Dead, never to be resurrected in America.” But there are some abuses still in existence, and will ever so continue until the colored man fits himself for the duties of life, and steps forth into the political arena to do battle for himself. CONTENTS OE HISTORY. CHAPTER I. Race Characteristics — Varieties of the Human Race — One Origin — Color a Law of Nature — Rise of Whites among the Negroes — Modifying Agencies — Unity of the Human Race — All of One Blood — Mungo Park — -Journey to the Interior — Manners and Cus- toms of the People — Interesting Narratives 21 CHAPTER II. Thrilling Adventures — Physical Appearance of the Country — Enters the Kingdom of Bambarra — A Beautiful Country — Hospitality of the Natives— Civilization and Agriculture — In the Lion Country — Descends the Niger — Customs of the People — The Return Jour- ney — The Slave Merchant — Back to Africa — Killed in Descending the Niger 46 CHAPTER III. Rev. Robert Moffat — Goes to Africa— Converses with a Native — A Peculiar Climate — Africaner — Conversion of Africaner— Dawarra Land and Its Inhabitants — Taken for a Ghost — Their Amusement at European Customs — Discusses Theology — Method of Burial— The Rain-maker and His Art — Peculiar Ideas — The Tree Dwellers. . 66 CHAPTER IV. Frederic CaiHiaud — The March into the Desert — The Caravan — -Petri- fied Forests — Curious Superstitions — The Palm Groves of Siwah — - Ruins of Ombeydah — The Mountain of the Dead — The Temple of Soleb— Battle of Kilgou — Desperate Fighting — Capture of Ne- groes — Battle of Agaro — Ruins of Ancient Cities— Searching for Gold — Religion of the Negroes — Ruins of Mount Berkel 91 CHAPTER V. Slavery and the Slave Trade — Ancient Slavery — The Brutality of Slavery — Christianity against Slavery — Law of Ethnolqgy — How Slavery may be Introduced — Early Slavery in the Old World — Columbus in the Slave Trade — Washington and His Slaves 119 62 2 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. CHAPTER VI. Slavery in America — Established by Custom — Rapid Increase of Slaves in the South — Decrease in the North — The Effect of Slavery on the South — Black Codes and Black Laws — Insurrections 132 CHAPTER VII. Slavery in the Territories and New States — How Introduced — Sec- tional Opinions — Ordinance of 1787 — Congressional Acts Con- cerning Slavery — Not Recognized by the Mexican Government — Declaration of the Kentucky Constitution — Results of Establish- ing the Custom by Law 160 CHAPTER VIII. First Direct Importation of Slaves from Africa — Decisions of English Courts — Opinion on the Legality of Slavery — Ingratitude of the Puritans — Georgia a Free Colony — Afterward Becomes a Slave Colony — Influence of the Declaration of Independence — Perni- cious Effects of Slavery upon Patriotism — Slave Census of 1790 — Results of the Invention of the Cotton Gin and Purchase of Louis- iana — Horrors of Slavery — Slavery in the Revolution — Slavery in the Convention — The Slave Trade in the Convention . . 166 CHAPTER IX. The Missouri Compromise — Slavery Recognized by the French and Spanish Law — The Talmadge Proviso— Missouri Admitted as a State — Equalization of Free and Slave States — Jefferson’s Letter — Effects of the Compromise 186 CHAPTER X. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill — Its Object — Its Effect on the Missouri Compromise — Sumner’s Amendment — Results of the Bill — Its Effect on the Political Parties — Sectional Influence of the Bill. . . 195 CHAPTER XI. The Fugitive Slave Law — Mr. Butler’s Measure — Becomes a Law — North Carolina Convention — Governor Seward’s Speech — Objec- tionable to the Free States — Its Provisions — Cruelty of the Act — Arrest of Fugitive Slaves — Decision of State and United States Supreme Courts— Kidnappers at Work — Singular Judicial De- cisions — Anthony Burns and Others 199 CHAPTER XII. The Dred Scott Case — Brings Suit for Freedom — Decision of the Local Court — Appeals to the Supreme Court of Missouri— Opinion of the Court — Brings Suit in the United States Circuit Court — An Adverse Decision —Appeals to the Supreme Court of the United States — Individual Opinions of the Court — The Case Dismissed — Effect of the Decision on the Nation 213 CONTENTS OF HISTORY. a CHAPTER XIII. The Kansas Border Trouble — Border Ruffians — Murder and Arson — Minions of the Slave Power — The Fight at Lawrence — John Brown and the Battle of Black Jack — Burning of Osawatomie — Skir- mishes at Leavenworth — Outrages on Northern Emigrants 230 CHAPTER XIV. The Civil War — Causes That Produced It— The Attack on Fort Sumter — The Surrender— Lincoln Calls for 75,000 Volunteers — Riot at Baltimore — Battle at Bethel Church — Lee Defeated at Cheat Mountain. 235 CHAPTER XV. Battle of Bull Ru-n — Centerville — The Union Commanders — The Union Plan of Attack — Division Commanders — Strength of the Union Army — Forward Movement of the Union Army — A Magnificent Pageant — Masked Batteries — Fierce Fighting — Bravery of the Enemy — Beauregard’s Tactics — Confederate Reinforcements— Terrible Onslaught by the Mississippians— A Panic in the Union Army — Shameful Retreat of the Federals — The Losses — The War Continued 245 CHAPTER XVI. The Battle of Shiloh — Gen. Grant Commands the Union Forces — The Sunday Morning Attack — Flight of Ohio Regiments — An Awful Carnage — The Hornet’s Nest — Bayonet Charges — Capture of Prentiss — Union Army Driven Back — Result of the First Day’s Fight — Arrival of Gen. Buel — The Second Day’s Fight — Retreat of the Confederate Army — Continuation of the War 259 CHAPTER XVII. Battle of Missionary Ridge — Grant Orders an Attack — Gallant Charge of the Union Army — Sheridan’s Advance — The Enemy Routed — Sheridan’s Pursuit — The Confederate and Union Loss — The War at Other Places — Battle of Fredericksburg — Battle of Gettysburg — Pickett’s Charge — Draft Riots in New York — Burning of the Colored Orphan Asylum — The Massacre at Fort Pillow — Sher- man’s March to the Sea — Sinking of the Alabama 283 CHAPTER XVIII. Battle in the Wilderness — Gen. Lee’s Battle Ground — Grant’s Bold Movement — Bloody Fighting — Hancock’s Attack — General Lee’s Bravery — Charge of the Texans — The Losses — Grant’s Next Movement 307 4 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. CHAPTER XIX. Battle of Spottsylvania — Grant’s Assault — His Heavy and Determined Attacks— The Bloody Angle — Terrible Fighting — A Hand-to-Hand Contest — The Dead and Wounded — Lee's Retreat — Scenes on the Battlefield — Confederate and Union Loss — Battle of Cold Harbo'r — Grant Repulsed — Lee Invades Maryland — Sheridan Defeats Early — Sheridan’s Famous Ride — Early’s Army Destroyed — The War in Virginia — Surrender of Gen. Lee at Appomattox 315 CHAPTER XX. Colored Men as Soldiers — Gallantry in the Revolution — Loyalists Appeal to Slaves for Help — The British Government Enlists Colored Troops — Negroes in the War of 1812 — Organization of Colored Troops in the Civil War — Recruiting Negro Soldiers — Use of Negroes in Aid of the Rebellion — Mr. Lincoln on Protect- ing Negro Soldiers — Number Engaged in the Union Army — Their Bravery — Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation — Military- Academy at West Point 330 CHAPTER XXI. Abraham Lincoln — His Early Life and Training — Lincoln as a Law- yer — Enters the Political Arena — Debates with Douglas — Elected to Congress — Extracts from His Great Cooper Institute Speech — Is Elected President — His Inaugural — Re-elected to the Presidency — Second Inaugural — His Entry into Richmond — The Assassina- tion — National Grief 354 CHAPTER XXII. Frederick Douglass — His Early Life — Hardship and Privations — Plantation Life — The Horrors of Slavery— Food and Clothing of the Slaves — Is Sent to Baltimore— His Thirst for Knowledge — Learns a Trade — Runs Away — Meets Garrison — English Friends Purchase His Freedom — Edits a Paper — Lectures against Slavery. 389 CHAPTER XXIII. John Brown — His Birthplace — Removes to Kansas — Settles near Har- per’s Ferry — Seizes the United States Arsenal — Battle with United States Troops — His Capture — Tried and Convicted— His Firm- ness and Bravery — The Execution 4C8 CHAPTER XXIV. Rev. E. P- Lovejoy — Edits a Paper — Hostility to Slavery — Burning of a Colored Man — Mob Destroys His Press — His Speeches in Court — Press Again Destroyed — Obtains New Press — The Fight at the Warehouse— Murder of Lovejoy — Acquittal of His Murderers.. . . 413 CONTENTS OF HISTORY. 5 CHAPTER XXV. Other Noted Anti-Slavery Agitators— Solon — William Wilberforce — Wm. Lloyd Garrison — Wm.H. Seward — -Charles Sumner— Horace Greeley — Wendell Phillips — Lucretia Mott — Harriet Beecher Stowe — Thaddeus Stevens 434 CHAPTER XXVI. Reconstruction of the Southern States — Lincoln’s Policy — General Plan — Various Conventions — Congressional Action — President Johnson — Suffrage Denied the Colored People — Unjust and Op- pressive Laws — The Amendments to the Constitution — Recon- struction Completed 446 CHAPTER XXVII. The Republic of Liberia — Its Location — Its Founders — Early Wars — Its First General Agent — Form of Government — Revenues and Religion — Products — Education — Emigration 457 CHAPTER XXVIII. Advancement of the Colored Race — Early Efforts Made for Them — Effects of the Lesson of Labor — Necessity of Owning Property — Various Pursuits — An Address by Frederick Douglass — Resources of the Southern States — Extracts from Henry W. Grady’s Address 462 CHAPTER XXIX. Education of Colored Race — The Old and the New — Lincoln and the Constitutional Amendments — The Freedmen’s Bureau — Work of Various Benevolent Institutions — The Hampton Normal and Industrial Institute — Aid for Education — Wonderful Advancement — Colored Teachers — Various Schools and Universities — Prudence Crandall — Phillis Wheatley — Noted Colored Men — Colored Churches and Church Work— Slavery in Brazil 480 CHAPTER XXX. Civil and Political Rights — Principles of the Declaration of Inde- pendence — Historical and Analytical Exposition of the Constitu- tion — The Senate— The House of Representatives — Declaration of War — Army and Navy — Amendments to the Constitution — The Supreme Law, etc., etc 535 APPENDIX. Woman’s Higher Education 592 institutions may crumble and Governments fall, but It is only that they may renew a better youth, and mount upward like the eagle; the petals of the flower wither, that fruit may form. The desire of protection, springing always from moral power, rules even the sword, and escapes unharmed even from the field of carnage; giving to battles all they can have of luster, and to warriors their only glory ; surviving martyrdoms, and safe amid the wreck of States. On the banks of the stream of time, not a monument has been raised to a hero or Nation, but tells a tale and renews the hope of improvement. Each people that has disappeared, every institution that has passed away, has been hut a step in the ladder by which humanity ascends toward the perfecting of nature. George Bancroft. INTRODUCTORY. The history of the Colored Race presents to us a theme of profound study and careful consideration. It is as ancient as that of the Egyptians, and as worthy of perusal as that of the Jews, to which in some respects it is similar. We find in them those characteristics that the wise and just of all time love and worship — loyalty, devotion and truth; and it is with the hope that the colored people may, by tracing the history of their race through the long years of servitude and oppression, to the dawn of lasting freedom, education, and American citizenship, be able to better understand the position they occupy in the annals of civilized nations — whence they came, and whither they are drifting, that this work has been arranged; and we trust it may meet with careful study by the reader. We have in Chapter I. devoted a short space to the early history of mankind, in which we have endeavored to make clear, in the space allotted, that there is no difference by nature between any two races of mankind. Research into the early history of mankind has developed the fact that they all had one common origin, and the reason that one people are white and another black is simply the workings of a law in nature, which, although we cannot well understand, we see going on every day around us. By the closest analysis of the blood of one of each race the slightest difference cannot be detected; and so, in the aspirations of the mind, or the impulses of the heart, we are all one common family, with nothing but the development of the mind through the channel of education to raise one man, or one people, above another. It is the opinion of the writer, from extended observation and dealings with the Southern people, that, so far as noble characteristics are concerned, the Colored Race possess those traits to fully as great a degree as do the white. 8 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. We have also considered the ancient history of the race. We give the story of Atlantis, which, though not based on history, is probable; but whether the race came from Atlantis or Southern Asia, we must admit their great antiquity. Modern travelers in Africa have discovered vast ruins of temples, palaces and cities; everything goes to prove that the vast ruins of Mount Berkel are of the city of Napata, the ancient capital of Ethiopia; and what may yet be brought to light to reveal the wonders of this ancient people, or their advancement in science, art and civilization, no tongue can tell. The Colored Race in America are direct descendants from the ancient Ethiopians, who were civilized, built cities, and whose armies invaded Egypt and Nubia many centuries before the Christian Era. Egypt was peopled by the Hamitic Race, who founded two kingdoms, afterwards united. Here, social, political and industrial institutions developed very early in great strength. Their language — the pictorial representation of their social, political and religious affairs — and the grand and gloomy majesty of their works of art, im- ply a long period of growth before they reached the maturity in which we find them when written history commences. Their institutions, even in the earliest historic times, showed signs of the decrepitude and decay of age. The vast- ness and the grim maturity of their monuments and language seem to lend much support to their claim of an immense antiq- uity. The future study of their remains of art and literature will settle some important problems in the chronology of the human race. The children of Ham were clearly the first to lead off in the march of civilization. What trials, bloody wars and fierce revolutions this ancient people passed through, which has reduced them to the condi- tion in which we now find them, God only knows. Their ancient history truly gives promise of future greatness, and it is not at all improbable that they will soon over-run all of Africa, and plant the standard of civilization once more in Ethiopia and the land of the Pharaohs. INTRODUCTORY. 9 The chapter relating to the more recent travels in the Dark Continent give many interesting accounts of the people as we now find them. As a whole, they may not be considered as a barbarous race, but the contrary. They treated our travelers with the utmost kindness, and had it not been for the raids made amongst them to capture, as slaves, and carry them away captive into America and other countries, they would have shown no antagonism whatever. The white man's influence among them has been bad; taking them away as slaves has taught them to enslave one another, until “slavery in Africa,” as Livingstone says, “has become the open sore of the -world.” Until the invasion of the white man, they were true children of nature. In their native land they were brave, and fought desperately for liberty, as the account of the battle of Kilgou, with Ismail Pasha and his army of slave-hunters, clearly shows. “Breathes there a man with soul so dead, That never to himself hath said. This is my own, my native land.’” Then comes the world’s disgrace — the dark pages in its history — the long years of slavery. Though other races have been enslaved, the burden of this sin fell upon the African Race. The first recorded instance of slavery was during the famine in Egypt, when the Egyptians came to Joseph, saying: “There is not aught left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies and our lands. Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our lands will become servants to Pharaoh.” It is, however, true that “Slavery is as ancient as war, and war as human nature,” or as human nature engrossed by the love of gain, without which it is not natural. Fred Douglass relates, touchingly, that he never knew a boy who did not sympathize with him, “and hoped he would soon be free.” Slavery was introduced into America by Colonists from the Old World, who brought their slaves with them. But the first direct importation from Africa was August, 1610, one year before the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock. The early history of slavery represents more the patriarchal 10 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. system, and was comparatively free from the barbarous and cruel practices adopted after the invention of the Cotton Gin, which made the cultivation of cotton extremely profitable. Then came the reign of the slave-driver, and more cruel and tyranni- cal measures than, were ever practiced by uncivilized nations, a stigma and lasting disgrace upon the fair name of the Amer- ican Republic. Half clad and half fed, they worked early and late, in fear of the slave-drivers’ lash, and with no hope of re- ward. The slave trade again flourished, and “grew like a green bay tree.” It filled the coffers of Kings, Potentates, and of the unprincipled for many centuries. It reigned in America without serious opposition for about 240 years. At last the cloud of deliverance appeared on the horizon, at first no larger than a man’s hand, but it grew, until it bids fair to cover the whole world. The names, Wilberforce, Garrison, Beecher, Sumner, Greeley, Lincoln, and others, will be held in tender remembrance by the colored peojde as the deliverers of their race, and will be re- vered by lovers of liberty through all time. Though dead, their deeds live after them. They did their work well. Deliverance at last came, and the race were free, but the struggles to retain the institution of slavery were terrible in the extreme, and engaged the American people in the bloodiest war the world had ever witnessed, costing the lives of nearly a million men, and taking the light and life from as many loving hearts and happy homes. The just retribution that works in the law of nature “paid back”’ as Lincoln said, “every drop of blood drawn by the sword for ono drawn by the lash.” Every heart made desolate by the divisions of families on the auction block, paid, by homes and hearts made desolate by war. The war was the direct result of slavery. The South desired to extend the slave territory, the North to restrict it. The South clearly saw that it must be extended if the institution lived. The opposition to its extension as well as its existence was strong, and for every new State whose soil was free, the South demanded a new slave State; and when the election of Lincoln proclaimed INTRODUCTORY. 11 to the South that their political prestige was gone, they sought redress in arms and waged a deadly and desperate war- fare. Having foreseen the impending struggle, the South had in a measure prepared for it, and for the fii;st two years the tide seem to turn in their favor. After that, the North were victorious in every important battle, and Lee surrendered at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, and the so-called “Confederate States of America” became a thing of the past. Then came the rejoicing of peace, the return of the victo- rious armies who marched in review before the President at Washington. Dr. Talmage’s description of this review is daz- zling; he says: “The grandest day I ever saw. The like was never witnessed in this world and never will be again. God knew that the day was stupendous, and He cleared the heavens of clouds and mist and chill, and strung the blue sky as a tri- umphal arch for the returning warriors to pass under. From Arlington Heights the spring foliage shook out its welcome as the hosts came over the hills, and the sparkling waters of the Potomac tossed their gold to meet the battalions as they came over the Long Bridge in almost interminable lines. The Cap- itol never seemed so majestic as that morning, snowy white, looking upon the tide of men that came surging down billow after billow, passing in silence, yet I heard in every step those conflicts through which they had waded and seemed to see dripping from their smoky flags the blood of our country’s martyrs. “For the best part of two days;we stood and watched the filing on of the same endless battalions, brigade after brigade, division after division, host after host, ever moving, ever passing, marching, marching ! Tramp, tramp, tramp ! Thousands after thousands! Battery front! Arms shouldered! Column solid! Shoulder to shoulder ! Wheel to wheel ! Charger to charger ! Commanders on horses with their reins entwined with roses, their necks enchained with garlands — hundreds of thousands of heroes marching on!” And now as we look back over those days of blood and car- nage, we feel to thank God that no more we see serried ranks 12 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. in battle array, nor hear the tramp of marching armies. No more we hear the cries of the wounded and dying, nor see the brave dead that covered the battle-fields “thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa.” Old issues are being forgotten, and the long-desired friendly feeling once more established between the two sections. The action of the women of Columbus, Mississippi, is commendable as acting those ever memorable words of Grant, “Let us have peace.” On Decoration day they strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and National Soldiers, both equally brave and gallant, and who fought for a principle as they understood it. “By the flow of the inland river, Whence the fleets of iron have fled, Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver, Asleep on the ranks of the dead: — Under the sod and the dew. Waiting the judgment day; Under the one, the Blue, Under the other, the Gray. “From the silence of sorrowful hours, The desolate mourners go, Lovingly ladened with flowers, Alike for the friend and the foe:— Under the sod and the dew. Waiting the judgment day; Under the roses, the Blue, Under the lilies, the Gray. “Sadly, but not with upbraiding. The generous deed was done; In the storm of years that are fading, No braver battle was won: — Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Under the blossoms, the Blue, Under the garlands, the Gray. “These in the robing of glory, Those in the gloom of defeat. All with the battle-blood gory. In the dusk of eternity meet:— Under the sod and the dew, Waiting the judgment day; Under the laurel, the Blue, Under the willow, the Gray. “No more shall the war-cry sever. Or the winding rivers be red; They banish our anger forever When they laurel the graves of our dead! INTRODUCTORY. 13 Under the sod and the dew, W aiting the judgment day; Bove and tears for the Blue, Tears and love for the Gray. We have given a sketch of the life of Abraham Lincoln, the author of the Emancipation Proclamation, who, with one stroke of his pen, struck the shackles from four millions of slaves. He was a representative American, who in his great heart could sympathize with the bearer of every wrong. We cannot do better in this connection than to quote the words of editor Grady, in his address to the New England Society. He said; “Great types, like valuable plants, are slow to flower and fruit. But from the union of these Colonists, Puritans and Cavaliers, from the strengthening of their purposes and the crossing of their blood, slow perfecting, through a century, came he who stands as the first typical American; the first who comprehended within himself all the majesty and grace of this Republic — Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier, for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults of both were lost. He was greater than Puritan, greater than Cavalier, in that he was American; and that in his homely form were first gathered the vast and thrilling forces of his ideal Government — charging it with such tremendous meaning and so elevating it above human suffering, that martyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as a fitting crowm to a life con- secrated from the cradle to human liberty.” We have said that the race were free. How little can those who never knew by experience the dreadful meaning of “slavery ” appreciate what freedom means. It is said that at first the colored people did not seem to realize its importance: a reality, a dream, or a vision of the fancy. They saw the slave whip burnt to ashes, their chains melted, saw a bondage which had, as Douglass says, “resisted the humanity of ages, defied earth and heaven, ended.” The manifestations of their joy and gratitude knew no bounds, and sought expression in the loudest and wildest possible forms. No wonder they ran 14 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. about, and danced, and sang. They gazed into the blue sky and thanked the Giver of every blessing; they prayed and shouted; they laughed and wept for joy. A race of people had been born in a day. The news of Emancipation was not proportionately less gratifying to the Anti-Slavery Society in the North, who through long years of earnest working now beheld the answer to their prayers, and all civilized Nations rejoiced. “When a deed is done for freedom, Through the broad earth’s aching breast Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, Trembling on from East to West.’’ We have gathered some facts relative to the colored man as a soldier. Their loyalty and devotion to a principle are among their chief characteristics, which are also those required for a soldier. The record of Revolutionary times places this race as among the patriots who by their blood secured liberty to the Colonies. They are recorded as being brave and daring, and we find no instance where they deserted or betrayed their country. They also rendered valuable service in the war of 1812. General Jackson, at New Orleans, found it necessary to call upon the colored people to assist in its defence against England. Abraham Lincoln called upon them to defend the Union against Rebellion, to which they gallantly responded. Lincoln praises the action of the true and patriotic blacks, as compared with the treacherous action of the whites, in plain terms. There were as many as 200,000 engaged in the war, on the side of the Union, who always proved worthy and efficient sol- diers. The Southern leaders made efforts to enlist them in their cause, with some success, under the promise of freedom. In that they were not generally used in actual engage- ments on either side, we can see the ruling of God in not allowing them to be shot down, to, atone for sins they never committed. We have also considered the advancement and education of the Colored Race. INTRODUCTORY. 15 In 18G3, we find four millions of this race turned out, largely dependent upon the charities of the Southern people; a people whom the ordeal of war had reduced to poverty, so that those who would, could give them but little help. During the period of Reconstruction, they suffered untold hardships, and in many sections their littlp property and their lives were sacrificed by 'those whom war had embittered, and prejudice to this people had driven to desperation. The action of the Ku-Klux clan and White Leagues look back on the pages of United States history, and Reconstruction was retarded much, and confidence in the good intentions of the Southern people was shaken by the depredations of these societies. But all of this has passed away, and we now see the Colored Race advancing step by step in spite of all the opposition, the insult, and race prejudice that has beset their pathway; and when the question is asked, “Are the Colored Race capable of the highest education known to man?” we answer, yes. That which Avas possible once may be accomplished again. The builders of the Pyramids and the Obelisks sat at the feet of the Ethiopians to learn architecture, philosophy, letters and religion. From the Colored Race, Egypt obtained its civiliza- tion, and a visit to the twenty-two Universities and Colleges in our own land that are educating young colored men and women for the highest walks in life will convince the most skeptical that in an educational sense there are no impossibilities in the way of their receiving the highest education, of which they are truly susceptible. We find they control and own 150 neAvspapers, have 20,000 public schools, attended by 1,000,000 pupils. They produce now 150,000,000 pounds cereals annually, and 3,000,000,000 pounds cotton, and they pay taxes on about $120,000,000 worth of property. This is amazing when we realize that in 1863 they had nothing, and but few could read or write. We have given in substance the decision in the case of Dred Scott. There was a time in this country when all bowed to a decision of the Supreme Court. It was unquestioned. It was regarded as “a voice from on high.” The people heard 16 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. and they obeyed. The Dred Scott decision destroyed that illu- sion forever. From that day to this, the people have claimed the privilege of putting the decisions of the Supreme Court in the crucible of reason. Our Supreme Court, which is the highest tribunal in our land, never was, nor is now infallible. We have to make Judges out of men, and by being made Judges their prejudices are not diminished and their intelli- gence is not increased. No matter whether a man wears a crown, or a robe, or a rag. Under the emblem of power and the emblem of poverty, the man alike resides. But now, after the institution of slavery has been destroyed in our country, and prejudice is rapidly dying out, we look at the celebrated decision on Dred Scott with amazement, and wonder how those so learned (?) could have taken so narrow and so biased a view of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution. The Fugitive Slave Law also appears to us now like a relic of the dark ages. The act was clearly unconstitutional, and yet the Supreme Court of the United States found no difficulty in upholding it. “Any person in any State interfering with the Master, who was endeavoring to steal the person he called his slave, was liable to indictment, and hundreds and thousands were indicted, and hundreds languished in prison because they were noble enough to hold in infinite contempt such infamous laws and such infamous decisions. The best men in the Uni- ted States — the noblest spirits under the flag — were imprisoned because they were charitable, because they were just, because they showed the hunted slave the path to freedom, and taught him where to find amid the glittering host of heaven the blessed Northern Star.” We have also considered the social and political rights of the Colored Race, which, by the Amendments to the Constitu- tion, have become the same as those of any other citizen, with- out regard to color or class. Says a celebrated writer : “The Thirteenth Amendment made all free. It broke the chains, pulled up the whipping-posts, overturned the auction- blocks, gave the colored mother her child, put the shield of the INTRODUCTORY. 17 Constitution over the cradle, destroyed all forms of involuntary servitude, and in the azure heaven of our flag it put the North- ern Star. “The Fourteenth Amendment made us all citizens. It is a contract between the Republic and each individual — a contract by which the Nation agrees to protect the citizen, and the citi- zen agrees to defend the Nation. This Amendment places the crown of sovereignty on every brow. “The Fifteenth Amendment secured the citizen in his right to vote, in his right to make and execute the laws, and put these rights above the power of any State. This Amendment placed the ballot — the sceptre of authority— in every sovereign’s hand. “The moment the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted, the slaves became freemen. The distinction between ‘white’ and ‘color’ vanished. The Colored Race became as though they had never been slaves — as though they had always been free — as though they had been white. They became citizens — they became a part of ‘ the people’ of the State in which they lived. “The Thirteenth Amendment not only destroyed, but it built. It destroyed the slave-pen, and on its site created the temple of Liberty. It did not simply free slaves — it made citizens. It repealed every statute that upheld slavery. It erased every report, every decision against freedom. It took the word ‘white’ from every law, and blotted from the Constitution all clauses acknowledging property in man. “The Thirteenth Amendment did away with slavery not only, and with involuntary servitude, but with every badge and brand and stain and mark of slavery. It abolished forever dis- tinctions on account of race and color. “From the moment of the adoption of that Amendment, the law became color blind. All distinctions on account of com- plexion vanished. It took the whip from the hand of the white man, and put the Nation’s flag above the Negro’s hut. It gave horizon, scope and power to the lowliest life. It stretched a sky studded with the Stars of Hope above the humblest head. 18 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. “Much has been said by the prejudiced and generally uned- ucated whites since the time the colored person became a citi- zen, on the subject of ‘Social Equality.’ There are thou- sands of people in deadly fear on this subject. They are will- ing that the colored women shall prepare their food — that colored waiters shall bring it to them — willing to ride in the same cars with the porters, and to be shown to their seats in theatres by colored ushers — willing to be nursed in sickness by colored servants. They see nothing dangerous in any of these relations — but the idea of riding in the same car, stop- ping at the same hotel, fills them with fear — fear for the future of our race! Such people can be described only in the lan- guage of Walt. Whitman: ‘They are the immutable, granitic pudding-heads of the world!’ “The Federal soldiers who escaped from Libby and Ander- sonville, and who in swamps, in storms, and darkness were rescued and fed by the slave, had no scruples about eating with a Negro. They were willing to sit beneath the same tree and eat with them the food he brought. The white soldier was then willing to find rest and slumber beneath the Negro's roof. Charity has no color. It is neither white nor black. Justice and patriotism are the same. Even the Confederate soldier was willing to leave his wife and children under the protection of a man whom he was fighting to enslave. “The cry about social equality is born of the spirit of caste — the most fiendish of all things. It is worse than slavery. Slavery is at least justified by avarice — by a desire to get somethng for nothing — by a desire to live in idleness upon the labor of others— but the spirit of caste is the offspring of natural cruelty and meanness. “In all social relations we should have the utmost liberty — but public duties should be discharged and public rights should be recognized, without the slightest discrimination on account of race or color. Riding in the same cars, stopping at the same inns, sitting in the same theatres, no more involve a social question, or social equality, than speaking the same language, reading the same books, hearing the same music, INTRODUCTORY. 19 traveling on the same highway, eating the same food, breath- ing the same air, warming by the same sun, shivering in the same cold, defending the same flag, loving the same country, or living in the same world. “Liberty is not a social question. Civil equality is not social equality. We are equal only in rights. No two per- sons are of equal weight or height. There are no two leaves in all the forests of earth alike — no two blades of grass — no two grains of sand — no two hairs. No two anythings in the physical world are precisely alike. Neither mental nor physical equality can be created by law, but law recognizes the fact that all men have been clothed with equal rights by Nature, the mother of us all “The man who hates the black man because he is black, has the same spirit as he who hates the poor man because he is poor. It is the spirit of caste. The proud useless despises the honest useful. The parasite, idleness, scorns the great oak of labor on which it feeds and that lifts it to the light. “We are the inferior of any men whose rights we trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart, the best brain. Superiority is born of honesty, of virtue, of charity, and above all, of the love of liberty. The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenceless. He stands erect, by bending over the fallen. He rises, by lifting others. “The advancement made by the colored people in the past has been wonderful, and we trust they will use every possible effort to secure education for themselves and their children. They can rest assured the best white people are their friends. The humane, the civilized, the just, the most intelligent, the grandest, are on their side. The sympathies of the noblest are with them. Their enemies are also the enemies of liberty, of progress and of justice. The white men who make the white race honorable believe in equal rights for all. The noblest living are, the noblest dead were, their friends.” 20 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. These things should inspire them to renewed exertion, the possibilities for them, as a race, are boundless. Time will erase the memory of their wrongs, and by continued earnest endeavor they will soon reach the position for which God designed them — an intelligent and noble people. CHAPTER I. ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; Another race the following spring supplies ; They fall successive, and successive rise : So, generations in their course decay ; So flourish these when those have passed away. HE human race is known to consist of different nations 1 displaying considerable differences of external form and color, and speaking, in general, different languages. This has been the case since the commencement of written record. It is also ascertained that the external peculiarities of particular nations do not rapidly change. There is rather a tendency to a persistency of type in all lines of descent, in so much that a subordinate admixture of various types is usually obliterated in a few generations. Numerous as the varieties are, they have all been found classified under five leading ones: 1. The Caucasian or Indo-European, which extends from India into Europe and Northern Africa; 2. The Mongolian, which occu- pies Northern and Eastern Asia; 3. The Malayan, which extends from the Ultra-Gangetic Peninsula into the numerous Islands of the South Sea and Pacific; 4. The Negro, chiefly confined to Africa; 5. The Aboriginal American. Each of these is distinguished by certain general features of so marked a kind as to give rise to a supposition that they have had distinct or independent origins. Of these peculiar- ities, color is the most conspicuous; the Caucasians are genei’- ally white, the Mongolians yellow, the Negroes black, and the Americans red. The opposition of two of these in particular, white and black, is so striking, that of them, at least, it seems almost necessary to suppose separate origins. Of late years, however, the whole of this question has been subjected to a .rigorous investigation, and it has been successfully shown that 22 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. the human race might have had one origin from anything that can be inferred from external peculiarities. It appears from this inquiry,* that color and other physio- logical characters are of a more superficial and accidental nature than was at one time supposed. One fact is at the very first extremely startling: that there are nations, such as the inhab- itants of Hindostan, known to be one in descent, which never- theless contain groups of people of almost all shades and color. Some other facts, which I may state in brief terms, are scarcely less remarkable. In Africa there are Negro nations — that is, nations of intensely black complexion, as the Jolofs, Mandingoes, and Kafirs — whose features and limbs are as elegant as those of the best European nations. While we have no proof of Negro races becoming white in the course of generations, the converse may be held as established, for there are Arab and Jewish familes of ancient settlement in Northern Africa who have become as black as the other inhabitants. There are also facts which seem to show the possibility of a natural transition by generation from the black to the white complexion, and from the white to the black. True whites (apart from Albinoes) are not unfrequently born among Negroes, and the tendency to this singularity is transmitted in families. There is at least one authentic instance of a set of perfectly black children being born to an Arab couple in whose ancestry no such blood had intermingled. This occurred in the valley of the Jordan, where it is remarkable that the Arab population in general have flatter features, darker skins, and coarser hair than any other tribes of the same nation. It was Mr. Lawrence’s opinion that a pair in which both parties were so distinguished as were the children of the Arab family in the valley of the Jordan might be the progenitors of a new variety of the race, who would be thus marked in all future time. It is not easy to surmise the causes which operate in pro- ducing such varieties. Perhaps they are simply types in *'See Dr. Prichard’s Researches into the Physical History of Man. » ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA . 23 nature, possible to be realized under certain appropriate con- ditions , but which conditions are such as altogether to elude notice. I might cite, as examples of such possible types, the rise of whites amongst the Negroes, the occurrence of the family of black children in the valley of the Jordan, and the comparatively frequent birth of red-haired children amongst not only Mongolian and Malayan families, but amongst the Negroes. We are ignorant of the laws of variety production; but we see it going on as a principle in nature, and it is obvi- ously favorable to the supposition that all the great families of men are of one stock. The same conclusion must be arrived at when we study the human figure, which differs much in the different races of mankind. We will mention here only one of the many causes that might be ascribed to the modification of the physical characteristics of these races; the style of living, which is ascertained to have a powerful effect in modifying the human figure in the course of generations — and this even in its osse- ous structure. About two hundred years ago a number of people were driven by a barbarous policy from the counties of Antrim and Down, in Ireland, towards the sea coast, where they have ever since been settled, but in unusually miserable circumstances, even for Ireland; and the consequence is, that they exhibit peculiar features of the most repulsive kind — projecting jaws with large, open mouths, high cheek bones and bow legs, with an extremely diminutive stature. These, with an abnormal slenderness of the limbs, are the outward marks of a low and barbarous condition all over the world; it is particularly seen in the Australian aborigines. On the other hand, the beauty of the higher ranks in England is very remarkable, being in the main as clearly a result of good external conditions. “Coarse, unwholesome and ill-prepared food.’’ says Buffon, “makes the human race degenerate.” Some of the Negro nations of Africa, as the Jolofs, Mandin- goes and Kafirs, as we have said, have features and limbs as elegant as any of the European nations, largely caused by the luxuries abundant in that tropical and prolific country. 24 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. These are modifying agencies. There is, as has been said, a remarkable persistency in national features and forms, inso- much that a single individual, thrown into a family different from himself, is absorbed in it, and all trace of him lost after a few generations. And if true in individuals, might it not be true as to a race of people, the weaker being lost in the stronger, or dominant race? The Colored Race in America might in time, other things being equal, be absorbed by the white race, especially if they were scattered evenly over the whole country; and even now we may detect the workings of this law in the modifying influence the commingling of the races has wrought. The traces of a common origin in all languages afford also a ground for presumption for the unity of the human race; but we cannot digress. A careful study of the early history of mankind conclusively shows that of one origin and one blood sprang all the nations of the earth. Plato tells us that in prehistoric time a great and mighty people existed upon a continent in the Atlantic Ocean, and gathered his information thus: Solon, who was considered in Plato’s time the wisest and greatest of the seven sages, left Athens for the period of ten years, and sojourned in Egypt, as fully explained by Plutarch, an Athenian philosopher. Solon dwelt, so Plutarch tells us: “ On the Canopian shore, by Nile’s deep mouth.” That there he conversed on points of philosophy and his- tory with the most learned of the Egyptian priests. Plato says: “Solon was a relative and friend of my great-grand- father, Dropidas, as he himself says in several of his poems; and Dropidas told Cretias, my grandfather, who remembered and told us, that there were of old great and marvelous actions of the Athenians, which have pased into oblivion through time and the destruction of the human race. According to the tale, Atlantis, a great island in the Atlantic Ocean, comprising an area as great as Europe and Asia, existed in its glory about ten thousand years before the Christian Era. This vast em- ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 25 pire, which controlled the world at that time, in commerce, agriculture and mining, as well as in the glory of its military and naval power, was destroyed in one day by sesmic disturb- ances, and an earthquake sank the continent to the depth of the sea. However, many escaped on the ships (whose masts represented a forest, as they lay quietly anchored in their great harbors), and became scattered over the world. As we have stated, they were a great commercial people and traded with and migrated to all parts of the world. We find among the races that inhabited this lost continent, the African type; and the Colored Race in Africa are in all prob- ability emigrants from Atlantis. As to the evidence that such a continent once existed, there is to all intelligent people, who have closely studied the matter, no reasonable doubt, and it has became to such, a theory developed into a fact. We can not, nor would it be proper in this woi’k, to enter into a discussion of this kind, as it would take volumes to describe the nicely woven evidence; the discoveries that Geology has wrought; the Mythology and traditions of the ancients; the evidences which discovery has brought to light, and the analysis of the races of mankind. The reader, through research, must form his own views as to the existence of Atlantis. It is probable that in time the Negro race spread over all of Africa, and for aught we know, constituted the aboriginal inhabitants of that country. In a very remote time these peo- ple were driven out of Egypt, and subdued by bands of emi- grants from Asia, and settled in Ethiopia, and gradually re- lapsed into semi-barbarism, in which state we find by recent discoveries that some of the tribes exist. The ancient history of this people is shrouded in obscurity. Only here and there we get a glimpse of their ancient greatness. The great loss to mankind by the burning of the Library at Alexandria, contain- ing 700,000 volumes, can never be i a eplaced, for by it is lost all history that antedated that of the Jews. Africa, like Europe and America, evidences a commingling of different stocks: the blacks are not all black, nor all woolly- haired ; the Africans pass through all shades, from that of the 26 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. light Berber, no darker than the Spaniard, to the deep black Jolofs, between Senegal and Gambia. But the general consent of mankind points to the region of Central Asia as having been the original seat from which the human race dispersed itself over the globe; and accord- ingly it is this region, and especially the western portion of it, which we find to have been the theatre of the earliest recorded transactions. In short, it was in Central Asia that the first large mass of ripened humanity was accumulated — a great central nucleus of human life, so to speak, constantly enlarg- ing, and from which emissaries streamed out over the globe in all directions. In process of time, this great central mass, hav- ing swollen out till it filled Asia and Africa, broke up into three fragments— thus giving parentage to the three leading varieties into which ethnographers divide the human species — the Caucasian, the Mongolian, and the Ethiopian or Negro — the Caucasians overspreading southern and western Asia; the Mongolians overspreading northern and eastern Asia ; and the Ethiopians overspreading Africa. From these three sources streamed forth branches which, intermingling in various pro- portions, have constituted the various nations of the earth. Differing from each other in physiological characteristics, the three great varieties of human species have also differed widely in their historical career. The germs of a grand pro- gressive development seem to have been implanted specially in the Caucasian variety, the parent stock of all the great civil- ized nations of ancient and modern times. History, therefore, has hitherto concerned itself chiefly with this variety; in the evolution of whose destinies the true thread of human progress is to be found. But as it is not the author’s purpose to record the early development of this highly endowed variety of our species in the nations of antiquity, our observations are con fined to the Ethiopian who began the race of life along with the Caucasian, and whose destiny, doubtless, whatever may have been his historical function hitherto, is involved in some pro found and beautiful manner with the bearing of the race as a whole. ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 27 The early Greek historians and poets were familiar with the cities and people of Ethiopia, and it is from them that we deduce their ancient history. Herodotus and Strabo both make mention of Meroe; by the former it is said to be still an exist- ing city, and by the latter to be a formerly existing seat of royalty and centre of the Ethiopian reilgion and civilization. Ephorus, too (B. C. 405), seems to have had a very great impression of the Ethiopians, as he mentions them among the most mighty and numerous people of the known earth. Already in Strabo’s time, however, their ancient powers had been gone for an indefinite period, and the Negro States found themselves, after Meroe had ceased to be a religious capital, almost in the same situation as that in which they still continue. But a thorough insight into the history of the Ethiopian race can only be fully elucidated when the interpretation of the inscriptions onEgyp- tian monuments shall have been farther advanced. Herodotus expressly says that a great portion of the Egyptians of his time had black skins and woolly hair. Not this notice only, but the express testimony also of the Hebrew annals, shows Egypt to have contained an abundance of Negroes, and men- tions a conquering King invading it at the head of a Negro host, and governing it for a considerable time. Some years ago a traveler, Mr. G. A. Hoskins, visited the site of the capital State of ancient Ethiopia, an island, if it may be so called, about 300 miles long, enclosed within two forking branches of the Nile. He found in it several distinct groups of magnificent pyramidal structures. Of one ruin he says: “Never were my feelings more ardently excited than in approaching, after so tedious a journey, to this magnificent necropolis. The appear- ance of the pyramids in the distance announced their import- ance; but I was gratified beyond my most sanguine expecta- tions when I found myself in the midst of them. The pyramids of Gizeh are magnificent, wonderful, from their stupendous magnitude; but for picturesque effect and elegance of archi- tectural design, I infinitely prefer those of Meroe. I expected to find few such remains here, and certainly nothing so impos- ing, so interesting as these sepulchres, doubtless of the Kings 28 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. and Queens of Ethiopia. I stood for some time lost in admira- tion. This, then, was the necropolis, or city of the dead! But where was the city itself, Meroe, its temples and palaces? A large space, about 2000 feet in length, and the same distance from the river, strewed with burnt brick and some fragments of walls and stones, similar to those used in the erection of the pyramids, formed, doubtless, part of that celebrated site. The idea that this is the exact situation of the city is strengthened by the remark of Strabo, that the walls of the habitations were built of bricks. These indicate, without doubt, the site of that cradle of the arts which distinguished a civilized from a barbar- ous society. Of the birth-place of the arts and sciences, the wild natives of the adjacent villages have made a miserable burying-place; of the city of the learned — ‘its cloud-capped towers/ its ‘gorgeous palaces/ its ‘solemn temples’ — there is ‘left not a rack behind.’ The sepulchres alone of her departed Kings have fulfilled their destination of surviving the habitations which their philosophy taught them to consider inns, and are now fast mouldering into dust, and scarcely a trace of a palace or a temple is to be seen.” The foregoing observations may be summed up in this proposition : That in the most remote antiquity Africa was overspread by the Negro variety of the human species; that in those parts of the Continent to which the knowledge of the ancient geographers did not extend — namely, all South of Egypt and the Great Desert — the Negro race dispersed into tribes, kingdoms, etc., constituted a great savage system within its own torrid abode, similar to that which, even now, we are vainly attempting to penetrate; while the pure Ethiopian himself retired from his- toric view into Central Africa, where he lay concealed, fill again in modern times he was dragged forth to become the slave of the Caucasian.* * Had historians heen able to pursue the Negro race into their Central African jungles and deserts, they would no doubt have found the general Ethi- opic mass breaking up there under the operation of causes connected with climate, soil, food, etc., into vast sections or subdivisions, and marked differ- ences from each other. ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 29 Mungo Park explored the Niger and was lost or killed in descending the river inlSOfi. Then began a series of explora- tions toward the source of the Nile, which gradually brought to light the hidden mysteries of that country. Central Africa has been aptly termed the heart of the Dark Continent, as it has only been of recent years that any intelligible account of its natural characteristics have been presented to the public. Adventuresome explorers have one after another endeavored to fathom the mysteries of the almost impenetrable region, in their laudable desire to add to the knowledge of mankind. But one after another have been baffled when almost within reach of the goal they so dearly coveted. The great Nile, which sends its volume of water down from the great equatorial region, where all was supposed to be a sterile wilderness, became a great puzzle to scientists. Dr. Livingstone was the first to make an exploration of the Zambesi, and found a labyrinthine network of rivers lying between the 10th and 20th parallel. From this his attention was directed further west, and the great water courses and water sheds of the equatorial region will forever link his name with history. Speke, Baker and Bur- ton played their important part in unraveling the mysteries of the unexplored region. Livingstone verified and added to their discoveries, and, later on, the American journalist, Stanley, traversed the region never before familiar to white men, and traced the Congo to its source. One of the first and bravest of men who have devoted them- selves to an exploration of a great portion of Africa was a Scotchman named Mungo Park, who was born on the 10th of September, 1771, in an obscure little village on the banks of the Yarrow river in Scotland. The occupation of his father was that of a farmer, and although he was blessed with thirteen other children, he was able to give young Mungo an average education, and to apprentice him to a surgeon in his fifteenth year. After his time expired, he entered the University of Edinburgh, and made rapid progress in the higher studies. His summer vacations were devoted to a study of botany in the Scotch Highlands. 30 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. His education being completed, he moved to London, intend- ing to establish himself in that great city of four millions, as a surgeon. Through his brother-in-law he had the good fortune to become acquainted with a gentleman by the name of Banks, the patron of so many travelers, and through whose recommendation he was appointed surgeon to an East Indiaman ship. In this capacity he made a voyage to Sumatra, and on his return wrote a description of eight new fishes of that island. About this time an African exploring association, of which Mr. Banks was a very active and zealous member, was desirous of engaging a person to go to Africa, who could stand the climate, and conciliate and make progress with the natives. Park at once offered his services, which, after mature delib- eration, were accepted, and the association fitted him for his perilous journey in the most liberal manner. In the latter part of May, 1795, he departed from England in a swift sailing vessel. On his arrival in Africa he was directed to pass on to the river Niger, by such route as should be found most con- venient, and that he should ascertain the course, and, if possi- ble, the rise and termination of the river; that he should use his utmost exertions to visit the principal towns and cities in its neighborhood ; and that he should afterward be at liberty to return to Europe, by such route as under all then existing circumstances of his situation and prospects should appear to him to be the most advisable. After a voyage of thirty days he arrived at a little town on the northern bank of the Gambia river in the kingdom of Barra, Africa. After remaining at this place two days he pro- ceeded up the river, in the waters of which were found immense numbers of fish, of unknown species, together with alligators and hippopotami, whose teeth furnish excellent ivory. Park, having quitted the ship, proceeded on his journey by land, until he reached the King of Yam’s dominions, where he found an English doctor by the name of Laidley, at whose home he took up his residence, until he should be able to prose cute his journey into the interior. ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 31 His first care was to render himself master of the Mandingo language, which in the western part of Africa is in general use, and to collect from every source within his power informa- tion respecting the unknown and unexplored countries he was about to visit. In learning the strange Mandingo language his progress depended on his own application; but he soon found that little or no reliance could be placed on accounts of the interior by the natives of the King of Yam’s land, who, on the most material points, were frequently in direct contradiction with each other. Park’s anxiety to examine and judge for him- self all about the strange land beyond was therefore greatly increased; but all of a sudden the rainy season now commenced, thereby rendering traveling impossible; and another equally efficient bar to the prosecution of his journey presented itself: in observing an eclipse of the moon he imprudently exposed himself to the night dew, and the next day he found himself attacked by fever and delirium, the commencement of an ill- ness that with a very trifling intermission confined him during two months within doors. Having been disappointed in his expectations of proceed- ing with a slave caravan toward Bambarra, Park departed from the King of Yam’s land on December 2d, 1795. He had been provided with an intelligent colored servant named John- son, who had been many years in Great Britain, and under- stood both the English and Mandingo languages; a colored boy named Demba also accompanied him. This boy was the property of Doctor Laidley, who promised Demba his freedom upon his return, if his behavior was of the proper character. Besides these, Park was accompanied by four other colored men, furnished by the King of Yam, who, though entirely independent of his control, were made to understand by the King that their safe return to his dominions would depend upon the white traveler’s preservation. Park’s equipment was by no means magnificent. A horse for himself, tw T o mules for his servants, provisions for two days, a small assortment of beads, amber and tobacco, a fe - ^ changes of linen and other apparel, an umbrella, a pocket 32 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. astronomical instrument, a magnetic compass, a thermometer, two guns, two pair of pistols, and some other small articles. His friends in the King of Yam’s land accompanied him dur- ing the first ten days, and then, dismissing him on his way, took their leave, secretly persuaded that they would never see him more. After journeying all day through a wild and picturesque region, toward evening they found themselves in a heavy w r oods, when suddenly a body of colored people presented themselves in a clamorous manner before him, demanding custom dues, in default of which they threatened to carry him before their King. It immediately occurred to Park that he was now across the boundary line of another kingdom, and that extreme caution was necessary in dealing with the new people. To escape from the honor of being taken before their King, which might have proved a very costly one, Park kindly presented them with a little tobacco, upon which they were contented, and willingly allowed him to proceed. After proceeding further he ascertained he had reached the kingdom of Woolli, and that the capital was named Medina, and in it resided the King. He therefore determined to pro- ceed to the capital, and that it would be prudent to present himself to the King, as he was about to hold a reception. The benevolent old chief received the white stranger and his guides with great courtesy, and not only gave him permission to traverse his dominions, but assured him that he would offer up prayers for his safety, partly to secure which, he furnished him with a trusty guide. Having bade the King at Medina an affectionate farewell, he next safely reached the frontiers of the Woolli dominions. Park dismissed the guide which the Woolli King so kindly furnished him; and being about to enter a new and strange land interspersed with deserts, in which water is frequently not to be procured, he hired three experienced colored ele- phant hunters, who were at once to serve as guides and water bearers. The three elephant hunters with great agility immediately ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 33 proceeded to fill their calabashes with water, which work being accomplished, the entire party struck off into the wilder- ness just as the sun was appearing above the horizon. After crossing the first desert they reached the kingdom of Boudon, of which Tulika and Fatteconda were the principal towns. As the King resided in Fatteconda, Park determined to pay him a visit. Accordingly he employed a kind of custom house officer to accompany him to Fatteconda, the residence of the King. On his arrival at the King’s palace he was received by the colored chief with much apparent kindness, although he had heard in his passage through the country that this same King was of a ferocious and warlike disposition. The good, old chief, however, was so completely captivated by Park's best blue coat and gilt buttons that he could not resist the temptation to ask for it. It was cheerfully given to him; but he endeavored in some measure to remunerate the white stranger for his loss by a present of five drachms of gold, and by altogether abstain- ing from examining his baggage, or exacting any other present than what was willingly bestowed. The territory of these African chiefs, who are properly denominated kings, is exceeding limited in extent. Your road conducts you to-day through one kingdom, to morrow through another, and the next day through a third, which, of all those circumstances that obstruct the movements of the traveler in Africa, is perhaps the most vexatious, and the most difficult to overcome, for the different kingdoms that lie in his way deprive him of passing through them all on equal terms, owing to the peculiar nature and laws of the community and of the rulers over them. Late in December the explorers left Fatteconda, but in that afternoon Park was informed that he was about out of the kingdom of Boudon, and was entering into a new country called Kajaaga, a very dangerous country for travelers, and that it would be necessary to continue the journey by night until they would reach a part of the country where the people were kind and hospitable. He agreed to the proposal and hired two men as guides through the woods, and as soon as it was 34 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. dark they set out. The moon now rose in magnificent splen- dor and cast a flood of golden glory over a wild and wonderful country. The stillness of the soft air, the dreadful howling of the wild beasts and the deep solitude of the majestic forest, made the scene solemn, weird and impressive. Not a word was uttered by any one of them but in a whisper; all -were attentive, and every one anxious to show his sagacity by pointing out to the white traveler the wolves and hyenas as they glided like shadows from one thicket to another. Toward morning they arrived at a village called Kirnmoo, when their guides awakened one of their acquaintance, and the explorers stopped to give their mules some corn and roast themselves afew ground nuts, and partake of the wild fruit. The journey being resumed, the strangers arrived at Joag in the afternoon, it being the chief town in the kingdom of Kajaaga. On arriving at Joag our explorer, who had taken up his residence at the house of the chief man of the town, was favored with an opportunity of observing the genuine character of the colored man of this part of Africa. The same evening, says he, “Madiboo, one of the colored guides who had accom- panied me from the King of Yam's dominions, went to pay a visit to his aged father and mother, who dwelt in a neighbor- ing town called Dramauet. He was joined by my other attend- ant, who had learned the trade of blacksmith before leaving with me, and as soon as it was dark I was invited to see the sports of the inhabitants, it being the custom, on the arrival of strangers, to welcome them by diversions of different kinds. I found a great crowd surrounding a party who were dancing gracefully by the light of some large fires to the music of four drums, which were beat with astonishing exactness and uniformity.” At Joag, while preparing to advance further into Africa, he was honored with a visit from the King’s son, accompanied by a troop of splendidly equipped horsemen. As they all spoke the Mandingo language fluently, they made many inquires about England and Europe in general, and of the beautiful but far-off land across the sea, meaning America, and if the AXCIEXT AXD MODERN LIFE IX AFRICA. 35 people in those far-off countries had the same complexion as the white brother. Before leaving the little party, however, the King's son. in behalf of that Monarch, urged Park and his guides to visit his father’s palace at Kajaaga, but, owing to its great distance, our explorer reluctantly declined the high honor conferred. The King’s son now embraced each member of the exploring party and bade them adieu, and mounting his horse, richly bedecked with ostrich feathers, waved his hat to his men, and in a few moments they disappeared from sight, moving in the direction of Kimnioo. The party now took up their journey, and at the end of the day Joag was far in the distance. They had all this time been passing through a wild, monotonous country, with blit an occasional solitary village and few inhabitants. Toward even- ing their supply of food was almost exhausted and water was nowhere to be found. In this extremity they reached a little village consisting of three huts, a few women and a band of goats. Here they discovered they were entirely out of food and would have to wait some opportunity of purchasing or begging provisions. At this moment, while Park was sitting down chewing straws, an old woman, who observed him in passing by, was moved with compassion and presented him with a quantity of ground nuts and goat’s milk, w’hich he divided among his guides, which was a very seasonable supply. Scarcely had the old woman left him before he received information that the nephew of the King of Kasson, who had been sent by his uncle on an embassy to the King of Kajaaga, and was now returning to his own country, was about to pay him a visit. He came accordingly, and upon Park’s repre- senting to him his situation and distress, kindly offered to be his guide and protector as far as Kasson. With him, there- fore, our traveler now continued his route to the banks of the Senegal, upon crossing which, his royal guide, w T ho, like other guides, required a present for his services, informed him they were in his uncle’s dominions and in complete safety. Safe or not safe, however, Park soon found that the stranger and the traveler were nowhere beyond the reach of extortion. 36 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. Half of the little property that had not been touched by the kind Kajaaga people was here taken from him. He was then permitted to depart. Among the honest colored guides with whom he had set out on his journey from the King of Yam’s dominions, there was a blacksmith from the interior, who, having amassed some little money upon the coast, was now returning to spend the remainder of his days in his native land. Shortly after quitting a village called Teesee, the last place where our traveler had submitted to legal robbery, he and his companions came within sight of the blacksmith’s village. The news of his return had, it seems, preceded him; his brother, accompanied by a singing man, came forth to: welcome the wanderer home, and brought along with him a horse, that, the blacksmith “might enter his native town in a dignified man- ner.” Park and his companions were desired to put a good charge of powder into their guns. The singing man led the way ; the two brothers followed ; and the cavalcade was quickly joined by a considerable number of the inhabitants, who, by extravagant gestures and songs of triumph, testified their joy at the return of their townsman. Park says : “When we arrived at the blacksmith’s place of residence, we dismounted and fired our muskets. The meeting between him and his relations was very tender; for these rude children of nature, freed from restraint, displayed their emotions in the strongest and most expressive manner. Amid these transports the blacksmith’s aged mother was brought forth leaning upon a staff. “Every one made way for her; and she stretched out her hands to bid her son welcome. Being totally blind, she stroked his hands, and arms, and' face with great care, and seemed highly delighted that her latter days were blessed by his return, and that her ears once more heard the music of his voice. From this affectionate interview I was convinced that what- ever difference there is between an African and Caucasian in the conformation of the nose, and the color of their skin, there is none whatever in genuine sympathies and characteristic feelings of our common nature. ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 37 “During the tumult of these congratulations, I had seated myself apart, by the side of one of the huts, being unwilling to interrupt the flow of filial and parental tenderness; and the attention of the company was so entirely taken up with the blacksmith, that I believe that none of his friends had observed me. When all the people present had seated themselves, the blacksmith was desired by his father to give some account of his adventures; and silence being commanded, he began, and after repeatedly thanking God for the success that had attended him, related every material occurrence that had happened to him from his leaving Kasson to his arrival at the Gambia river; his employment and success in those parts, and the dangers he had escaped in returning to his native country. In the latter part of his narration he had frequent occasion to mention me; and after many strong expressions concerning my kindness to him, he pointed to the place where I was, and exclaimed, speaking in the Mandingo language, ‘Affille ibi siring, ’ which translated into English means, ‘See him sitting there.’ In a moment all eyes were turned towards the little hut where I sat; I appeared like a being dropped from the clouds; every one was surprised that they had not observed me before, and a few women and children expressed great uneasiness at being so near a man of uncommon appearance, as I was the first white man they ever beheld. By degrees, however, their appre- hensions subsided, and when the blacksmith assured them that I was perfectly inoffensive, some of them ventured so far as to examine the texture of my clothes, but many of them were still very suspicious, and when by accident I happened to move myself, or look at the young children, their mothers would scamper off with them with the greatest precipitation. In the course of a few hours, however, they all became recon- ciled to me.” With those kind and honest people Park remained during the whole of that day and the next, and then, accompanied by the worthy blacksmith, who declared that he would not quit him during his stay in that part of the country, set forward toward Kooniakary. On his arrival at this city, he obtained 38 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. an audience of the King, a fine old man, who, for his conduct, both in peace and war, was greatly beloved by his subjects. His behavior toward the white stranger was not inconsistent with his character. He informed him, with apparent regret, that the direct route to Bambarra was about to be closed by war; but, after vainly advising his guest to retrace his footsteps, added that there yet remained some hopes of peace, respecting the validity of which he should be able to pronounce an opinion in the course of four or five days. In the meantime he invited Park to remain in the neighborhood. On the first of February, 1796, the King’s messenger returned from the adjacent Kingdom of Kaarta, bringing intelligence that the Bambarra army had not yet entered the country, and that it was possible the traveler might be enabled to traverse it before the invasion took place. Accordingly, being provided with two guides by the King, Park took leave of his friend, the blacksmith, and set forward on his dangerous journey. The country, at all times thickly peopled, now swarmed with fugitives, whom the fear of the Bambarrans had terrified from their homes. The scenery in many places was romantically wild. “On coming in sight of the mountains of Footado, we traveled,” says Park, “with great difficulty down a stony and abrupt precipice, and continued our way in the bed of a dried river course, where the trees meeting over our heads made the place dark and cool. In a little time we reached the bottom of this romantic glen, and about ten o’clock emerged from between two rocky hills and found ourselves on the level and sandy plains of Kaarta. At noon we arrived at a korree, or watering place, where for a few strings of beads I purchased as much milk and corn meal as we could eat, and which are here so cheap and the shepherds live in such affluence that they seldom ask any pay for what refreshment a traveler receives from them.” From this place, having prevailed upon his landlord, an intelligent African, to accompany him as a guide to Kimmoo, Park set forward on the 11th of February. He gives the fol- lowing narrative: “We had no sooner got into a dark and ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 39 lonely part of the first wood, than he made a sign for us to stop; and taking hold of a hollow piece of bamboo that hung as an amulet round his neck, whistled very loud three times. I confess I was somewhat startled, thinking it was a signal for some of his companions to come and attack us, but he assured me it was done merely with a view to ascertain what success we were likely to meet with on our present journey. He then dismounted, laid his spear across the road, and said a number of short prayers, concluding with three loud whistles; after which he listened for some time, as if in expectation of an answer, and receiving none, told us "we might proceed without fear, for there was no danger.” Adventures now appeared to come thick upon the party. The country through which their road lay being thickly sprinkled with wild fruit trees, they amused themselves, as they rode slowly along, with picking and eating the fruit. “In this pursuit,” says Park, “I had wandered a little from my people, and being uncertain whether they were before or behind me, I hastened to a rising ground to look about me. As I was proceeding toward this eminence, two African horse- men, armed with guns, came galloping from among the bushes. On seeing them, I made a full stop; the horsemen did the same; and all three of us seemed equally surprised and con- founded at this interview. As I approached them, and seeing that I was white, their fears increased, and one of them, after casting a look of horror on me, rode off at full speed; the other, in a panic of fear, put his hand over his eyes, and con- tinued muttering prayers until his horse, seemingly without his rider’s knowledge, conveyed him slowly after his companion. About a mile to the westward they fell in with my attendants, to whom they related a frightful story. It seems their fears had dressed me in flowing robes of a tremendous white spirit; and one of them affirmed that when I made my appearance, a cold blast of wind came pouring down upon him from the sky like so much cold water.” Shortly after this they arrived at Kaarta, where he was an object of such extraordinary curiosity to the populace — the 40 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. majority of whom had never seen a white man — that they burst forcibly into his hut, crowd after crowd. Those who beheld the white monster gave way to those who had not, until, as he observes, the hut was filled and emptied thirteen different times. Here he found out that the war with Bambarra had actually commenced; that all communication between the countries had consequently ceased; and that, if it was his determination to persevere, it would be necessary to take a circuitous route through the kingdom of Ludamar. The people of Kaarta belonged to the Mohammedan church, but instead of the fine sonorous voice of the Muezzin, by which the members of that faith are summoned to their devotions else- where, the hour of prayer was here announced by the beating of drums, and blowing through large elephants’ teeth hollowed out in such a manner as to resemble bugle horns. The sound of these horns Park thought melodious, and approach- ing nearer to the human voice than any other artificial sound. Being very desirous to depart from the seat of war, he pre- sented his horse pistols and holsters to the King; and on pressing to be dismissed, received in return an escort of eight horsemen to conduct him to Jarra. Three of the King’s sons, with two hundred horsemen, kindly undertook to accompany him a little way on his journey. On his arrival at Jarra, in the Kingdom of Ludamar, he dispatched a messenger to the King, who was then encamped near Benowm, soliciting permission to pass unmolested through his territories; and having waited fourteen days for his reply, a slave at length arrived from the chief, affirming that he had been instructed to conduct the traveler in safety as far as Goomba. His faithful and intelligent colored man, Johnson, who had accompanied him thus far from the King of Yam’s land, here refused to follow him any further, and signified his intention of pushing back without delay to the Gambia river, upon which Park, fearful of the success of his enterprise, intrusted him with a copy of his journal, reserving another for himself, directing him to deliver the papers to the English on the coast. A portion of his baggage and apparel he committed ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 41 to the care of a slave merchant at Jarra, who was known to Dr. Laidley. He then departed with his slave boy, accompanied by the King's messenger. On the road he was robbed by coloredMohainmedans, who added insult to violence; and when he was nearly famishing from thirst, they beat away his faithful slave from the wells without permitting him to draw a particle of water. How r ever, after much fatigue and extraordinary privations, they arrived in the King’s camp at Benowm, when Park was immediately surrounded by crowds of fanatical colored men; all belonging to the Mohammedan church, attracted partly by curiosity to see a white man, and partly from a desire to vent their fierce zeal against a Christian. “My arrival at Benowm,” says he, “was no sooner observed than the people who drew water at the wells threw down their buckets; those in the tents mounted their horses, and men, women and children came running or galloping toward me. I soon found myself surrounded by such a crowd that I could scarcely move; one pulled my clothes, another took off my hat; a third stopped me to examine my waistcoat buttons, and a fourth called out, ‘La Mali il allali, Mohammed rossool allah’ (‘There is no god but God, and Mohammed is His prophet’), and signified in a threatening manner that I must repeat those words. “We reached at length the King’s tent, where we found a great number of people, men, women and children, assembled. The King was sitting on a black leathern cushion, clipping a few hairs from his upper lip, a female attendant holding up a looking-glass before him. He appeared to be an old man, with long -white beard, and he had a sullen and indignant aspect. He surveyed me with attention, and enquired of his people if I could speak their language; he appeared much sur- prised, and continued silent. The surrounding attendants, and particularly the ladies, were abundantly more inquisitive; they asked a thousand questions, inspected every part of my apparel, searched my pockets, and compelled me to unbutton my waist- coat and display the whiteness of my skin; they even counted 42 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. my toes and fingers, as if they doubted whether I was in I ml b a human being.” The King now, with the base idea of insulting an unprotected Christian stranger, ordered a wild boar to be brought in, which he signified his desire that Park should kill and eat. This, well knowing their religious prejudices, he, of course, refused to do; upon which the boys who led in the boar were commanded to let it loose upon him, the colored Mohammedans supposing that there exists an inveterate feud between pigs and Christians, and that it would immediately run upon and gore him. The boar, however, was not such a fool. Scorning to attack a defenseless stranger, he no sooner found himself at liberty, than, brandishing his tusks at the natives, he rushed at them indiscriminately, and then, to complete their consterna- tion, took shelter under the very couch upon which the tyrant was sitting. This bold proceeding of the unclean beast dissolved the assembly, and the traveler was led away to the tent of a slave, in front of which, not being permitted to enter, he received a little food. Here he likewise passed the night, lying on the sand, surrounded by the curious multitude. Next day, a hut, constructed with corn stalks, was given to him, but the boar, which had been recaptured, was tied to a stake in the end of it, as his fittest companion. By degrees, however, these fanatics began to conceive that the white Christian might, in one way or another, be rendered useful, but could think of no better employment for him than that of a barber. In this capacity he made his first attempt, in the presence of the King, on the head of the young Prince of Ludamar. This dignified office he had no desire to monopo- lize, and his unskillfulness in performing the operation, for he almost at the outset made an incision in the young Prince’s head, causing royal blood to flow, which quickly reduced him once more to the rank of a common mortal. The King, however, seemed by no means desirous of dispens- ing altogether with his services, wishing, perhaps, to preserve him from the same motives which induce us to preserve a wild ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 43 beast; and, therefore, to render his escape the more impracti- cable, took possession of the whole of his baggage, including his gold, amber, watch, and one of his pocket compasses; the other he had fortunately buried in the sand composing the floor of his hut. “The gold and the amber were highly gratifying to the King's avarice, but the pocket compass soon became an object of superstitious curiosity. The old King was very desirous to be informed why that small piece of iron, the needle, always pointed to the Great African Desert, and I found myself some- what puzzled to answer the question. To have pleaded my ignorance would have created a suspicion that I wished to conceal the real truth from him; I therefore told him that my mother resided far beyond the sands of the Great Desert, and that while she was alive the piece of iron would always point that way, and serve as a guide to conduct me to her; and that if she was dead it would point to her grave. The King now examined the compass with redoubled amazement, turned it round and round repeatedly, but observing that it always pointed the same way, he took it up with great caution and returned it to me, manifesting that he thought there was some- thing of magic in it, and that he was afraid of keeping so dan- gerous an instrument in his possession.” It now began to be debated between the King and his advisers what should be done with the prisoner. Their decisions were very dissimilar. Some were of the opinion the white man should be put to death; others that he should merely lose his right hand, while a third party thought that his eyes ought to be put out. The King himself, however, determined that mat- ters should remain as they were until his queen Fatima, then in the north, had seen him. Meanwhile all these reports were related to our traveler, and tended not a little to distress and agitate his mind. His demand to be permitted to depart was formally refused. The accumulated horror of his situation, united with the want of food and sleep, at length brought on a fever, by which his life was endangered. But his persecution from the fanatical 44 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. colored Mohammedans did not therefore cease. They plucked his coat from him, they overwhelmed him with insults, they tortured him like some ferocious animal, for their amusement, and when, to escape from this detested thraldom, he crawled away a short distance from the camp, he was forced back by menaces and violence. At length, after more than a month’s detention at Benowm, he was commanded to follow the King to the northern encamp- ment of Bubaker, on the skirts of the Great Desert, and on the way endured the extremity of hunger, thirst, and fatigue. Upon arriving at Bubaker, he was shown as a strange white animal to Queen Fatima, who, though far from being exempt from the Mohammedan prejudices against a Christian, or in any remarkable degree disposed to humanity, still treated him with somewhat greater lenity than the rest of the colored fanatics; and upon the departure of her husband for Jarra, not only obtained him permission to join the party, but pre- vailed upon her hard-hearted husband to restore him his horse, saddle, and bridle, together with a part of his clothing. The faithful colored boy Demba, furnished him by Dr. Laidley, at the time he took his departure from the King of Yam’s land, was here taken from him, notwithstanding Park’s animated remonstrances to the King, who, upon pressing the point rather warmly, only replied, that if he did not instantly mount his horse and depart he should share the fate of Demba. “There is something in the frown of a tyrant,” says Park, “which rouses the most secret emotions of the heart; I could not suppress my feelings, and for once entertained an indignant wish to rid the world of such a monster. Poor, faithful Demba was not less affected than myself; he had formed a strong attachment toward me, and had a cheerfulness of disposition which often beguiled the tedious hours of captivity. He had likewise learned to speak the Bambarra language fluently, and promised on that account to be of great assistance to me in the future. But it was in vain to expect anything favorable to humanity from a people who are strangers to its dictates. So having shaken hands with this unfortunate boy, and blended ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 45 my tears with his, assuring him, however, I would do my best to redeem him from the colored Mohammedans, I saw him led off in chains by three of the King’s slaves toward the camp of Eubaker.” 46 BISTORT OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. CHAPTER II. ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. “ And he who ’s doom’d o’er waves to roam, Or wander on a foreign strand, Will sigh whene’er he thinks of home. And better love his native land.” . U PON liis arrival at Jarra, where he was shortly afterward transferred by the King to tyrants of a lower grade, his condition, far from being improved, was only rendered the more intolerable. The city itself, moreover, was in a state of the utmost confusion. Malcontents from Kaarta, having taken refuge there, had recently made an incursion into their native country, carried off a large quantity of plunder, and thus drawn the vengeance of their King against the city. All those who had occasion to dread his resentment were now, therefore, preparing to flee into Bambarra; and Park, whose route lay in the same direction, became exceedingly desirous of effecting his escape from the colored Mohammedans, and that he might seize upon this fortunate occasion of fulfilling the object of his mission. “Their departure,” says he, speaking of the colored fugitives, “was very affecting: the women and children crying, the men sullen and dejected, and all of them looking back with regret on their native town, and on the walls and rocks beyond which their ambition had never tempted them to stray, and where they had laid all their plans of future happi- ness, all of which they were now forced to abandon, and to seek shelter among strangers.” Hoping to escape in this confused throng, he mounted his horse, and taking a bag of corn before him, rode slowly off along with the townspeople. On their arrival at a village at no great distance from the city, Park began to flatter himself that he had really eluded the vigilance of his persecutors, but before the agreeable idea had got a firm footing in his mind, he saw the King’s chief slave, accompanied by four colored ANCIENT AND. MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 47 Mohammedans, arrive and take up their lodgings with the chief. The colored man (mentioned in the preceding pages) Johnson, Park’s interpreter, who had been captured by the King’s men before he could escape from Jarra, suspecting the design of this visit, sent two boys to overhear their conver- sation, by which means he learned that it was their intention to make a prisoner of Park, and carry him back to Bubaker. Upon learning this, he at once came to the desperate resolu- tion to effect that very night his deliverance from his pursuers, or to perish in the attempt. Johnson, who applauded this determination, but wanted the courage to imitate it, was never- theless exceedingly well disposed to aid in effecting his master’s escape. He therefore undertook to keep watch upon the move- ments of the enemy, while Park was preparing for flight. About midnight he got all his clothing in readiness, which consisted of two shirts, two pair of trousers, two pocket hand- kerchiefs, an upper and under waistcoat, a hat, a pair of half boots, and a cloak. Besides these things he had not in his possession a single bead or any other article with which to purchase food for himself or provender for his horse. “About daybreak, Johnson, who had been listening to the colored Mohammedans all night, came,” says he, “and whispered to me that they were all asleep. The awful crisis was now arrived when I was again either to taste the blessings of freedom, or languish out my days in bondage.” “A cold sweat moistened my forehead as I thought of the dreadful alternative, and reflected that, one wav or the other, my fate must be decided in the course of the ensuing day. But to deliberate was to lose the only chance of escaping. So taking up my bundle, I stepped gently over my colored pursuers, who were sleeping in the open air, and having mounted my horse, I bade Johnson farewell, desiring him to take particular care of my papers I had entrusted him with, and inform my friends on the Gambia that he had left me in good health on my way to Bambarra. I proceeded with great caution, sur- veying each bush, and frequently listening and looking behind me for the colored horsemen, until I was about a mile from the 48 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. town, when I was surprised to find myself in the neighborhood of a korree, belonging to colored Mohammedans. The shep- herds followed me for about a mile, hooting and throwing stones after me; and when I was out of their reach, and began to indulge the pleasing hope of escaping, I was again greatly alarmed to hear some one halloo behind me, and looking back, I saw three colored fanatics on horseback coming after me at full speed, whooping and brandishing their double-barreled guns. I knew it was in vain to think of escaping, and there- fore turned back and met them, when two of them caught hold of my bridle, one on each side, and the third, presenting his gun, told me I must go back to the King. “It soon appeared, however, that these three horsemen were merely private robbers who were fearful that their master, the King, had not sufficiently pillaged the stranger; for, after examining my bundle and robbing me of my cloak, they bade me begone, and follow them no further.” Too happy to be rid of the villains at any rate, Park immediately struck into the woods and continued his journey. His joy at thus escaping from the colored Mohammedans was quickly damped by the consideration that he must soon be in want of both food and water, neither of which could he procure without approaching villages or wells, where he would almost inevitably encounter his old enemies. He therefore pushed on with all the vigor of which he was possessed, in the hope of reaching some town or village of the kingdom of Bambarra. But he already began to experience the tortures of thirst; his mouth was parched and inflamed; a sudden dim- ness, accompanied by symptoms of fainting, would frequently come over his eyes; and as his horse also was exceedingly fatigued, he began to apprehend that he should perish of thirst. Some shrubs, the leaves of which he chewed to relieve the burning pain in his mouth and throat, were all found to be too bitter and of no service. “A little before sunset, having reached the top of a gentle eminence,” says Park, “I climbed a high tree, from the topmost branches of which I cast a melancholy look ANCIENT AND. MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 49 over the barren wilderness, but without discovering the most distanttrace of a human dwelling. The same dismal uniformity of shrubs and sand everywhere presented itself, and the horizon was level and uninterrupted as that of the sea. “Descending from the tree, I found my horse devouring the stubble and brushwood with great avidity; and as I was now too faint to attempt walking, and my horse too much fatigued to carry me, I thought it but an act of humanity, and perhaps the last I should ever have it in my power to perform, to take off his bridle and let him shift for himself; in doing which I was affected with sickness and giddiness; and falling upon the sand, felt as if the hour of death was fast approaching. Here then, I reflected, after a short, but ineffectual struggle, termi- nate all my hopes of being useful in my day and generation — - here must the short span of my life come to an end. I cast, as I believed, a last look on the surrounding scene, and while I thought on the awful change that was about to take place, this world and its enjoyments seemed to vanish from my recollection. Nature, however, at length resumed its func- tions, and on recovering my senses, I found myself stretched upon the sand, with the bridle still in my hand, and the sun still sinking behind the trees. I now summoned all my resolution and determined to make another effort to prolong my existence; and as the evening was somewhat cool, I resolved to travel as far as my limbs would carry me, to the only thing that would save me, a watering place. “With this view I put the bridle upon my horse, and driving him before me, went slowly along for about an hour, when I perceived some lightning from the northeast — a most delightful sight, for it promised rain. The darkness and lightning increased very rapidly, and in less than an hour, I heard the wind roaring behind the bushes. I had already opened my mouth to receive the refreshing drops which I expected; but I was instantly covered with a cloud of sand, driven with such force by the wind as to give a very disagreeable sensation to my face and arms, and I was obliged to mount my horse and stop under a bush to prevent being suffocated. The sand con- 50 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. tinued to fly for nearly an hour in amazing quantities, after which I again set forward, and traveled with difficulty until ten o’clock. About this time I was agreeably surprised 1 by some very vivid flashes of lightning, followed by a few heavy drops of rain. In a little time the sand ceased to fly, and I alighted and spread out all my clean clothes to collect the rain, which at length I saw certainly would fall. For more than an hour it rained plentifully, and I quenched my thirst by wringing and sucking my clothes. “There being no moon, it was remarkably dark; so that I was obliged to lead my horse, and direct my way by the com- pass, which the lightning enabled me to observe. In this man- ner I traveled with tolerable expedition till midnight; when the lightning became more distant, and I was under the neces- sity of groping along, to the no small danger of my hands and eyes. About two o’clock my horse started at something; and looking around, I was not a little surprised to see a tight at a short distance among the trees, and supposing it to be a town, I groped along the sand in hopes of finding corn stalks, cotton, or other appearances of cultivation, but found none. As I approached, I perceived a number of other lights in dif- ferent places, and began to suspect that I had fallen upon a party of colored Mohammedans. However, in my present situation, I was resolved to see who they were, if I could do it with safety. “I accordingly led my horse cautiously toward the light, and heard, by the lowing of the cattle and the clamorous tongues of the herdsmen, that it was a watering-place, and most likely belonged to the colored Mohammedans. Delightful as the sound of the human voice was to me, I resolved once more to strike into the woods, and rather run the risk of perishing with hunger than trust myself again in their hands; but being still thirsty, and dreading the approach of the burning day, I thought it prudent to search for the wells, which I expected to find at no great distance. In this pursuit I inadvertently approached so near one of the tents as to be perceived by a woman, who immediately screamed out. The people came ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 51 running to her assistance from some of the neighboring tents, and passed so very near me that I thought I was discovereu, and hastened again into the woods. “About a mile from this place, I heard a loud and confused noise, somewhere to the right of my course, and in a short time was happy to find it was the croaking of frogs, which was heavenly music to my ears. I followed the sound and at day- break arrived at some shallow, muddy pools, so full of frogs that it was difficult to discern the water. The noise they made frightened my horse, and I was obliged to keep them quiet by beating the water with a branch until he had drunk. Having here quenched my thirst, I ascended a tree, and the morning being clear, I soon perceived the smoke of the watering place which I had passed in the night, and observed another pillar of smoke, east, southeast, distant twelve or fourteen miles.” Toward this column of smoke, which, as he was informed, arose from a Foulah village, he now directed his course; but on arriving at the place, was inhospitably driven from every door, except that of an old colored woman, who kindly received him into her dwelling, and furnished him with food for him- self and with provender for his horse. Even here, however, the evil influence of the old King pursued him like his evil genius. The people who had collected round him while he was eating, began, as he clearly discovered from their expres- sions, to form the design of carrying him back once more to Bubaker or Benowm. He, therefore, hastened his departure, and having wandered among the woods all day, passed the night under a tree. In this way he continued his journey, sometimes meeting with hospitality, but more frequently avoiding the dwellings of man, and subsisting upon the wild produce of the woods and the water of a few pools, to which the croaking of the frogs directed him. At length he entered the kingdom of Bambarra, where he found the people more hospitable in proportion as they were more opulent than their neighbors. Cultivation was here carried on in a spirited manner, and on an extensive scale, and 52 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. “hunger,” as the natives expressed it, “was never known.” The country itself was beautiful, intersected on all sides by rivulets, which, after a rain storm, were swelled into rapid streams. Park’s horse was now so attenuated by fatigue that it appeared like a mere skeleton, which the traveler, fearing to mount, drove before him, as if to scare away the crows. Tho| Bambarrans, whose hospitable disposition was accom- panied by but little delicacy, were infinitely amused at this droll spectacle. Taking him for a missionary, they supposed from his appearance that he must be one of those religious mendi- cants, who, having performed the pilgrimage to the holy cities, thenceforward consider themselves fully entitled to subsist upon the labors of their industrious co-religionists. “He has been at Mecca,” said one, “you may see that by his clothes.” “Another asked if my horse was sick, and a third one wished to buy it. So that I believe the very slaves were ashamed to be seen in my company.” However, in spite of all this ridicule and laughter, he pro- ceeded on his way, and at length had the satisfaction to be informed that on the morrow he should see the Niger, denomi- nated the Joliba, or the “Great Water,” by the natives. Next morning, the 21st of July, after passing through several large villages, he saw the smoke ascend over Sego, the capital of Bambarra, and felt thrilled with joy at the thought of drawing near so important an object of his mission. “As we approached the town,” says Park, “I was fortunate enough to overtake the fugitive Kaartans, to whose kindness I was so much indebted in my journey through Bambarra. They readily agreed to introduce me to the King, and we rode together through some marshy ground, where, as I anxiously looked around for the river, one of them called out, ‘Geo afplliV (‘See the water!’) and looking forward, I saw with infinite pleasure the great object of my mission — the long-sought-for majestic Niger, glittering in the splendor of the morning sun, as broad as the Thames at Westminster, England, and flowing slowly to the eastward. I hastened to the brink, and, having drunk of the water, lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the Great Ruler ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 53 of all things for having thus far crowned my endeavors with success.” Sego, the capital of Bambarra, consisted of four distinct towns, two on the northern, and two on the southern bank of the Niger. The King, at this period, resided on the southern bank, while Park had arrived on the opposite side. The com- munication between the different quarters of the city was kept up by means of large canoes, which were constantly passing and repassing; notwithstanding which, so great was the pres- sure of passengers, that Park was compelled to wait upward of two hours before he could even obtain a chance of being ferried across the Niger. Meanwhile the prospect before him was novel and striking in the highest degree. “The view of this extensive city,” he observes, “the numerous canoes on tike river, the crowded popu- lation and the cultivated state of the surrounding country, formed all together a prospect of civilization and magnificence which I little expected to find in the bosom of Africa.” While he was thus waiting for a passage, the news was conveyed to King Mansong that a white man was on the banks of the river, coming to see him. The King was dreadfully alarmed at this intelligence, and immediately dispatched a messenger, who was directed to inform the stranger that he would not be admitted into the royal presence until the pur- port of his mission was made known; and that in the mean- while he was prohibited from passing the river. He was like- wise told that the King desired to seek lodgings in one of the villages in the vicinity of the capital. As there was no alternative, he at once set out for the village, where, to his great mortification, he found that no person would admit him into a house. “I was regarded with astonishment and fear,” he observes, “and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a tree, and the night threatened to be very uncomfortable, for the wind rose and there was a great appear- ance of a heavy rain; and the wild beasts were so very numerous in the neighborhood that I should have been under the neces- sity of climbing up a tree and resting among the branches. 64 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. About sunset, however, as I was preparing to pass the night in this manner, and had turned my horse loose that he might graze at liberty, a woman, returning from the labors of the field, stopped to observe me, and perceiving that I was weary and dejected, inquired into my situation, which I briefly explained to her; whereupon, with looks of great compassion, she took up my saddle and bridle, and told me to follow her “Having conducted me into her hut, she lighted up a lamp, spread a mat upon the floor, and told me I might remain there for the night. Finding that I was very hungry, she said 1 she would procure me something to eat; she accordingly went out and returned in a short time with a very fine fish, which, having caused it to be half broiled upon some embers, s'he gave me for supper. The rites of hospitality being thus performed towards a stranger in distress, my worthy benefactress, point- ing to the mat, and 1 telling me I might sleep there without apprehension, called to the female part of her family, who had stood gazing on me all the while in. fixed astonishment, to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves a great part of the night. They light- ened their labor by songs, one of which was composed on the occasion for me, as I was the subject of it; it was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words literally translated were these: “ The winds came and the rains fell ; The poor white man, faint and weary, Came and sat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk, No wife to grind bis corn.” Chorus— “Let us pity the white man; No mother has he to bring him milk, No wife to grind his corn. “This story may appear trifling to the reader, but to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in tin* highest degree. I was so oppressed by such unexpected kind- ness that sleep fled my eyes. In the morning I presented my compassionate landlady with two of the four brass buttons ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 55 which remained on mj waistcoat, the only recompense I could make her.” Although Mansong refused to admit the traveler into his presence, and seemed at first to neglect him, it soon appeared that his conduct did not arise from any churlish or inhospita- ble feelings; for while he persisted in his refusal to see him, and signified his pleasure that he should forthwith depart from the city, he sent him a present of five thousand cowries, and a guide to Sansanding. Park immediately obeyed the royal command, and learned from the conversation of his guide on the way that the King’s motives for thus dismissing him with- out an audience were at once prudent and liberal, since he feared that by the least show of favor he should excite the jealousy of the colored Mohammedan people, from whose invet- erate malice he might be unable to protect him. With his guide he proceeded to Sansanding, where he was hospitably received by the King, and would, as his stranger, have enjoyed much quiet and consideration, had. he not the misfortune to meet some of his old enemies, the colored Moham- medans, who insisted on conducting him to their church and converting him into a Mohammedan at once. However, the King, by exerting his authority, freed him from these fanatics, and ordered a sheep to be killed and part of it dressed for his supper. “About midnight, when the fanatics left me,” says Park, “he paid me a visit, and with muc'h earnestness desired me to write him a saphie, which means charm. ‘If a colored man’s saphie is good,’ said this 'hospitable old man, ‘a white man’s must needs be better.’ I readily furnished him with one possessed of all the virtues I could concentrate, for it contained the Lord’s prayer. The pen with which it was written was made of a reed, a little charcoal and gain water made a very tolerable ink, and a thin board answered the purpose of paper.” From Sansanding he departed early in the morning, before his enemies were stirring. Tlhe road now lay through deep and dark woods, and the guide, who understood the dangers of the way, moved forward with the greatest circumspection, 56 BISTORT OF THE COLORED RACE IB AMERICA. frequently stopping and looking under the bushes. Upon observing this, Park inquired the reason, and was told that the lions were very plentiful in that part of the country, and often attacked travelers in the woods. While they were con- versing on this subject, Park discovered a giraffe at a little distance. “Shortly after this,” says he, “as we were crossing a large open plain, where there were a few scattered bushes, my guide, who was a little way before me, wheeled his horse round in a moment, calling out something in the Foulah lan- guage, which I did not understand. “I inquired in Mandingo what he meant. l Wara billi 1)1111,’ said he, meaning, ‘A very large lion,’ and made signs for me to ride away. But my horse was too much fatigued, so we rode slowly past the bush from which the animal had given us the alarm. Not seeing anything myself, however, I thought my guide had been mistaken, when he suddenly put his hand to his mouth, exclaiming, ‘God protect us!’ and to my great sur- prise I then perceived a large red lion at a short distance from the bush, with his head couched between his fore paws. I expected he would instantly spring upon me, and instinctively pulled my feet from my stirrups to throw myself on the ground, that my horse might become the victim rather than myself. But it is probable the lion was not hungry, for he quietly allowed us to pass, though we were fairly in his reach.” About sunset they arrived at Modiloo, a delightful village on the banks of the Niger, commanding a view of the river for many miles, both to the east and west. “The small green islands, the peaceful retreat of the industrious colored peasants, whose cattle were here secure from the attack of wild beasts, and the majestic breadth of the river, which is here much larger than at Sego, render the situation one of the most enchanting in the world.” Park was now so worn out with fatigue and suf- fering that his landlord, fearing he might die in his house, hurried him away, though he was scarcely able to walk, and his horse less able to carry him. In fact, they had not pro- ceeded far before the animal fell down and could no more rise; so that, taking off his saddle and bridle, our traveler with ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 57 extreme reluctance abandoned him to his fate, and began to toil along on foot after h’s guide. In this way they reached Rea, a small fishing village on the Niger, where Park embarked in a fisiherman’s canoe, which was going down the stream, while the guide returned to Sego. In this canoe he reached Moorzan, whence he was con- veyed across the river to Silla, a large town on the opposite shore. It was with great difficulty that he here obtained admission into the stranger’s room of the King’s house, a damp, uncom- fortable place, where he had a severe paroxysm of fever during the night. Here his resolution and energy, of which no traveler possessed a greater share, began at length to fail. No hope of success remained. He therefore, with extreme sorrow and anguish of mind, determined on returning. His own simple and manly, account of the matter cannot fail to impress even the most insensible with veneration for a degree of courage and intrepidity amount- ing to heroism. “Worn down by sickness, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, half naked, and without any article of value by which I might procure provisions, clothes, or lodg- ing, I began,” says Park, “to reflect seriously on my situation. I was now convinced by painful experience that the obstacles to my further progress were insurmountable. The tropical rains had already set in with all their violence; the rice grounds and swamps were already overflowed; and in a few days more traveling of every kind, except by water, would be completely obstructed. The cowries (money) which remained of the King of Bambarra’s present were not sufficient to hire a canoe for any great distance; and I had but little hopes of subsisting by charity in a country where the colored Moham- medans have such influence. But, above all, I perceived I was advancing more and more within the power of these mem- less fanatics; and from my reception, both at Sego and San- sanding, I was apprehensive that, in attempting to reach even Jenne — unless under the protection of some man of conse- quence among them, which I had no means of obtaining — I 58 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. should sacrifice 1113’ life to no purpose; for m3’ discoveries would perish with me. ‘‘The prospect either way was gloomy. In returning to the Gambia, a journey on foot of many hundred miles presented itself to my contemplation, through regions and countries unknown. Nevertheless, this seemed to me the only alterna- tive, for I saw inevitable destruction in attempting to proceed to the eastward. With this conviction on my mind, I hope my readers will acknowledge I did right in going no further. I had made every exertion to execute my mission in the fullest extent which prudence could justify. Had there been the most distant prospect of a successful termination, neither the unavoidable hardships of the journey nor the clangers of a second captivity should have forced me to desist. This, how- ever, necessity compelled me to do.” When he had come to this resolution, he thought it incum- bent upon him, before he left Silla,to collect whatever infor- mation might be within his reach respecting the further course of the Niger, and the situation and extent of the various king- doms in its vicinity. Subsequent travelers have salved the problem, the honor of explaining which was denied to Park. We now know that this great river, after flowing to a consider- able distance eastward of Timbuctoo, makes a bend to the south, and after pursuing a southwesterly course, empties into the Atlantic Ocean on the east of Benin. On the 30 th of July he commenced his return westward by the same route through which he had reached Silla. In a few days he recovered his horse, which had in some measure regained its strength, though it was still too weak to be ridden. The rainy season having now set in, the whole of the plain country was quickty inundated; so that he was often in danger of losing his way while traversing savannahs many miles in extent, knee deep in water. In several places he waded breast deep across the swamps. The huts of the villages in which he passed the. night, being undermined or softened by the rain, often fell in; and the noise of their fall sometimes kept him awake, expecting that his own might be the next. His ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 59 situation, was now even worse than during his progress east- ward. A report had been widely circulated that he was a spy, in consequence of which ‘he was in some places civilly refused admittance into the towns, in others driven from the gates with violence; so that 'he now appeared inevitably doomed to perish with hunger. However, when the fatal hour seemed at hand, some charitable being always appeared with a poor, but seasonable, supply; such, perhaps, as a little raw corn, which prolonged his life, and supplied him with strength to achieve his memorable journey. “On the evening of the 15tli of August,” says Park, “I arrived at a small village called Song, the surly inhabitants of which would not receive me, nor so much as permit me to enter the gate; but as the lions were very numerous in this neigh- borhood, and I had frequently, in tllie course of the day, seen the impression of their feet upon the road, I resolved to stay in the vicinity of the village. Having collected some grass for my horse, I accordingly lay down under a tree by the gate. About ten o’clock I heard the hollow roar of a lion at no great distance, and attempted to open the gate, but the people within told me that no person must attempt to enter without the King's permission. I begged them to inform the King that a lion was approaching the village, and I hoped he would allow me to come within the gate. I waited for an answer to this message with great anxiety; for the lion kept prowling round the village, and once advanced so near me that I heard him rustling among the grass, whereupon I climbed a tree for safety. “About midnight the King with some of his people opened the gate, and desired me to come in. They were convinced, they said, I was not a colored Mohammedan, for none of those people ever waited so long at the gate of a village without cursing the inhabitants.” The history of bis journey now becomes nothing more than a repetition of similar sufferings. Hunger, fatigue, and depres- sion of spirits attack the traveler by turns. Nothing, however, subdues his courage. Obstacle after obstacle yields to his 60 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. persevering intrepidity, and the indomitable explorer pushes forward with invincible ardor toward the coast. In one place, at the request of a native who had grown opulent by indus- trious application to commerce, he wrote charms for a good supper; and finding the contrivance productive, continued the practice next day for small presents of various kinds. On other occasions, where superstition did not come to his aid, humanity interposed and snatched him from starvation. At Bammakoohe was hospitably treated, even by a colored Moham- medan, who, having been in a Christian country, had conversed with them, and conceived a favorable idea of their character. Finding that a singing man was about to proceed by this road to Sibidooloo, our traveler placed himself under his guid- ance, and quitted Bammakoo. He had not proceeded far, how- ever, before his companion, finding that he had taken the wrong path, escaped among the rocks, and left him to find his way as he best might. He soon arrived at a village, where he was entertained with hospitality, and where he passed the night. Next day as he was quietly pursuing his course, a troop of peasants presented themselves, whom he at first took for elephant hunters, but who very shortly proved themselves to be robbers. Pretending to arrest him in the name of their King, they commanded him to follow them, until they reached a dark, lonely part of the wood, when one of them exclaimed in the Mandingo language: “This place will do!” and immediately snatched his hat from his head. “Though I was by no means free from apprehension,” says Park, “yet I was resolved to show as few signs of fear as possible; and therefore told them that unless my hat was returned to me I should proceed no further. But before I had time to receive an answer another drew a knife, and seizing upon a metal button which remained upon my waistcoat, cut it off and put it into his pocket. Their inten- tions were now obvious; and I thought that the easier they were permitted to rob me of everything, the less I had to fear; I therefore allowed them to search my pockets without resist- ance, and examine every part of my apparel, which they did with the most scrupulous exactness. But, observing that I had ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 61 one waistcoat under another, they insisted that I should cast them both off; and at last, to make sure work, stripped me quite naked. Even my half-boots, though the sole of one of them was tied on to my foot with a broken bridle-rein, were minutely inspected. While they were examining the plunder, I begged them with great earnestness to return my pocket compass; but when I pointed it out to them, one of the robbers, thinking I was about to pick it up, cocked his gun, and swore he would shoot me dead upon the spot if I dared to put my hand upon it. After this, some of them went away with my horse, and the remainder stood considering whether they should leave me quite naked, or allow me something to shelter me from the sun. Humanity at last prevailed; they returned me the most of two shirts and a pair of trousers; and as they went away, one of them threw back my hat, in the crown of which I kept my memorandums, and this is probably the reason why they did not wish to keep it.” This was the most terrible misfortune which had hitherto befallen him, and at first his mind appeared to sink under the united influence of grief and terror. For a while he sat in sullen dejection, half persuaded that he had no alternative but to lie down and perisih. Presently, however, reliance upon Providence succeeded this extreme dejection, and his mind gradually regained its tone. “I was, indeed, a stranger,” he thought, “in a strange land; yet I was still under the protect- ing eye of that Providence who has condescended to call him- self the stranger’s friend. At this moment, painful as my reflections were, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss irresistibly caught my eye. • I mention this to sfhow from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consola- tion; for though the whole part was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate con- formation of its roots, leaves and capsular without admiration, ‘Can that Being,’ thought I, ‘who planted, watered and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after His own 32 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. image? Surely not!’ Reflections like these would not allow me to despair; I started up, and disregarding both danger and fatigue, traveled forward, assured that relief was at hand, and I was not disappointed.” On arriving at Sibidooloo, Park related to the Mausa or Chief of the town the misfortune which had befallen him. This humane and excellent man, having heard him patiently to the end, took the pipe from his mouth, and turning up the sleeve of his coat with an indignant air, ‘-'Sit down,” said he; you shall have everything restored to you; I have sworn it.” He then took the necessary measures for the recovery of the traveler’s property, and invited him to partake of his hospitable fare until this should have been effected. After spending a few days at this place, without hearing any news of his horse or other property, our traveler removed to a distant village, where he remained until the whole was discovered and restored to him, with the exception of his pocket compass, which had been broken to pieces. Having nothing else to bestow upon his hospitable land- lords, he gave his horse to one and his saddle and bridle to the other, and then taking his leave, proceeded on foot to Kamalia, where he arrived on the 16th of September. At this town, romantically situated at the foot of a lofty mountain, he found a slave merchant, who, intending to descend to the coast with a small caravan in the beginning of the dry season, offered the traveler an asylum until he should set out. Conceiving that it would be impossible to proceed during the rains, Park accepted his kind proposal, and promised in return to give him the price of a slave upon their arrival on the coast. Here a fever, which had for some time menaced him, manifested itself with great violence, and continued to torment him during the whole season of the rains. His landlord, meanwhile, exerted himself to keep up his hopes, and having by some means or another obtained possession of an English common prayer book, he communicated the use of it to Park, who was thus enabled to beguile the gloomy hours of his solitude and sickness. At length the rains became less frequent, and the fever abated, so CARAVAN APPROACHING TIMBUCTOO. ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 63 that he could move out and enjoy the fresh air in the fields. On the 19th of April, after Park had remained seven months at Kamalia, Kaarfa, the slave merchant, having collected his slaves, and completed all necessary preparations, set out toward the coast, taking the traveler, to w'hom his behavior had always been marked by the greatest kindness, along with him. Their road led them across the Jallonka wilderness, where the sufferings of every member of the caravan, and more particularly of the slaves, were most acute; but affliction was far from having taught them commiseration, for a fine young female slave, fainting from fatigue, had no sooner signi- fied her inability to go on, than the universal cry of the caravan was, “Cut her throat! cut her throat!” By the interposition of Kaarfa her life was spared, but she was abandoned on the road, where she w r as, no doubt, soon devoured by wild beasts. At length, after a long, toilsome journey, Kaarfa succeeded in fulfilling his promise, and con- ducted Park safely back to the King of Yam’s land, whieh he reached on the 10th of June, and where the good old man was overwhelmed with the gratitude of his guest. Park now took his passage in an American vessel, and on arriving in the West Indies, quitted this ship for a packet bound for an English port, where he arrived on the 22d of December, 1797, after an absenee of two years and seven months. Immediately on his landing, he hastened to London, where he arrived before daylight on the morning of Christmas day. It being too early an hour to call on his brother-in-law, he strolled about for some time in the neighboring streets. At length, finding one of the entrances into the gardens of the British Museum accidentally open, he went in and w'alked about there for some time. It happened that Mr. Dickson, who had the care of these gardens, went there early that morning on some trifling business. What must have been his emotions on beholding, at that extraordinary time and place, the vision, as it must at first have appeared, of his long-lost friend, the object of so many anxious reflections, and whom he had long numbered with the dead. 64 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IX AMERICA. He was now received with distinguished honor by the African Association, and the various literary men whom he met with in London. In the meantime his travels, which the Association permitted him to publish on his own account, were commenced; and both during his stay in London and the visit which he paid to his friends in Scotland, all his leisure hours were devoted to the compiling and arranging of the materials for the work. It appeared in the spring of 1799, and imme- diately acquired that degree of popularity which it has ever since maintained. Soon after the publication of his travels, Park returned to Scotland, where he married and lived for two years on a farm with his mother and one of his brothers. He then removed to town, where he resumed the practice of his profession, and in a short time acquired most of the business of the place. His kindness and charity greatly endeared him to the poor of the district. He soon began to tire, however, of the obscure life of a country surgeon; the fascination of Africa was upon him, and he longed to return to the scenes of his dangers and suf- ferings. At the close of the year 1S04, Park again entered Africa, and after many exciting adventures, reached the Niger, and from the brow of a hill had once more the satisfaction to behold it, rolling its immense stream along the plain. Our traveler now proposed following the course of the river to its termination, whether that should prove to be in some great lake or inland sea, or, as he rather believed, in the Atlantic Ocean. In a letter to a person of high rank with whom he was in correspondence in England, he says: “With the assistance of one of the soldiers, I have changed a large canoe into a tolerably good schooner, on board which I this day hoisted the English flag, and shall set sail to the East, with the fixed resolution to discover the termination of the Niger, or perish in the attempt. I have heard nothing that I can depend on respecting the course of this mighty stream ; but I am more and more inclined to think that it can end nowhere but in the sea.” Mr. Park was never seen again by any of his friends, after ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 65 embarking- on the Niger, and the theory is that he was mur- dered by some of the wild tribes who infest its banks, or drowned in descending its waters. It should be remem- bered that the Africans who were questioned by subsequent explorers on this subject seemed all exceedingly desirous of exculpating their countrymen, perhaps their own friends and relations, of the charge of having murdered Park and his com- panions; according to one narrator, the canoe was caught between two rocks, where the river, being obstructed in its course, rushed through its narrow channel with prodigious fury. Here the travelers, in attempting to disembark, were drowned in sight of an immense multitude, who had assembled to see them pass, and were too timid to attack or assist them. This melancholy event appears to have occurred about March 1st, 1806. Park possessed in a high degree the qualities necessary for a successful traveler — intrepidity, enthusiasm, perseverance, veracity and prudence — -all of which were admirably illustrated by his first journey, as few men ever passed through circum- stances so trying with equal nerve and self-possession. In person he was tall, being about six feet high, and per- fectly well proportioned. His countenance and whole appear- ance were highly interesting; his frame, active and robust, fitted for great exertions and extreme hardships. His consti- tution had suffered considerably from the effects of his first journey into Africa, but seems afterward to have been restored to its original vigor, of which his last expedition afforded the most abundant proofs. In all the relations of private life he appears to have been highly exemplary. To the more gentle and amiable parts of his character the most certain of all testimo- nies may be found in the warm attachment of his friends, and in the fond and affectionate recollections of every branch of his family. 60 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. CHAPTER III. LIFE IN SOUTHERN AFRICA. ’ “ I am aa free as Nature’s flrst-made man. Ere the base laws of servitude began, When unrestrained in woods the noblest native ran." I N the year 1817, the Rev. Robert Moffat was sent to South Africa as an agent of the London Missionary Society. As he was not, strictly speaking, an explorer, and his work is a series of observations and reflections, rather than a connected narrative, it will be sufficient to extract those portions which best describe the country and its inhabitants. In 1842 he published in London an account of his experience, entitled “Missionary Labors and Scenes in South Africa.” On arriving in Africa, he immediately entered on the duties of his office with zeal, courage and alacrity, departing from Cape Town, soon after his arrival, into a country of colored people, called the Bechuanas, where he remained many years, enduring the rude life of one of the humblest varieties of the human race, encountering many dangers and difficulties, but sustained through all by a truly Christian patience and humanity. He labored in the field until 1840 — a period of twenty-three years — during which time he became familiar with the character and habits of nearly all the wild colored tribes between the English settlements and the mountains of Bamanguato, far beyond the Orange river, on the borders of the unknown coun try recently explored by Livingstone and Stanley. The following is the account of the region where so many years of Mr. Moffat’s life were spent. “Great Namaqualand, as it is usually called, lies north of the Orange river, on the western coast of Africa, between the twenty -third and twenty-eighth degrees of south latitude; bounded on the north by the Damaras, and on the east by the ANCIENT AiND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 67 extensive sand desert, called the Southern Zara, Zahara. Meeting with an individual, on my journey thither, who had spent years in that country, I asked what was its character and physical appearance? ‘Sir,’ he replied, ‘you will find plenty of sand and stones, a thinly scattered population, always suf- fering from want of water, on plains and hills, roasted like a burned leaf, under the rays of a cloudless sun.’ Of the truth of this description I soon had ample demonstration. It is intersected by the Fish and Oup rivers, with their numberless tributary streams, if such tlheir dry and often glowing beds may be termed. Sometimes, for years together, they are not known to run; when, after stagnant pools are dried up, the natives congregate to their beds and dig holes, or wells, in some instances to the depth of twenty feet, from which they draw water, generally of a very inferior quality. They place branches of trees in the excavation, and with great labor, under a hot sun, hand the water in a wooden vessel, and pour it into an artificial trough, to which the panting, lowing herds approach, partially to satiate their thirst. Thunder storms are eagerly anticipated, for by these only rain falls; and frequently these storms will pass over with tremendous violence, striking the inhabitants with awe, while not a single drop of rain descends to cool and fructify the parched waste. “When the heavens do let down their watery treasures, it is generally in a partial strip of country which the electric cloud has traversed; so that the traveler will frequently pass, almost instantaneously, from ground on wthic'h there is not a blade of grass, into tracts of luxuriant green, sprung up after a passing storm. Fountains are indeed few and far between, the best very inconsiderable, frequently very salt, and some of them but springs; while the soil contiguous is generally so impregnated with saltpeter as to crackle under the feet like hoar frost, and it is with great difficulty that any vegetable can be made to grow. Much of the country is hard and stony, interspersed with plains of deep sand. There is much granite; and quartz is so abundantly scattered, reflecting such a glare of light from the rays of the sun, that the traveler, if exposed 68 UISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. at noonday, can scarcely allow bis eyelids to be sufficiently open to enable him to keep the course he wishes to pursue. ‘‘The inhabitants are a tribe or tribes of Hottentots, distin- guished by all the singular characteristics of that nation, which includes Hottentots, Curannas, Namaquas and Bushmen. Their peculiar clicking language is so similar, that it is witlh little difficulty they converse with the two former. In their native state the aborigines, though deeply sunk in ignorance, and disgusting in their manners and mien, were neither very bloody nor warlike in their disposition. The enervating influence of climate and scanty sustenance seemed to have deprived them of that bold martial spirit which distinguishes the tribes who live in other parts of the interior, which, in comparison with Namaqualand, may be said to ‘flow with milk and honey.’ With the exception of the solitary traveler whose objects were entirely of a scientific character, those white men who ventured into the interior carried on a system of cupidity, and perpetrated deeds calculated to make the worst impression upon the mindis of the natives, and influence them to view white men, and others described from them, as an ‘angry’ race of human beings, fit only to be classed with the lions which war for their prey in their native wilds. Inter- course with such visitors in the southern districts, and dis- graceful acts of deceit and oppression, committed by sailors from ships which visited Angra Piquena, and other places on the western coast, had, as may easily be conceived, the most baneful influence on the native tribes, and nurtured in their heathen minds, naturally suspicious, a savage disgust for all intercourse with white men — alas! professedly Christian. It was to such a people, and to such a country, that the mission- aries directed their course, to lead a life of the greatest self- denial and privation.” The Rev. J. Campbell, on his first visit to Africa, crossed the interior to Namaqualand. During his journey he found every village in terror of a chief whom they called Africaner. The chief’s tribe had removed farther and farther from the home of their fathers, as the Dutch settlers encroached on ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 69 their territory, until at length they became subject to one of the pursuers. Here Africaner lived several years with his diminished tribe, serving his master faithfully until the cruel- ties to which his people were subjected at length awakened his resentment and aroused him to vengeance. His master was slain, and he led the remnant of his party to the Orange river, beyond the reach of their pursuers. In their attempts to get rid of him the colonists bribed other chiefs, and a long series of bloody conflicts ensued between the family of Africaner and the Chief Berend and his associates, in which neither con- quered. Africaner frequently visited the boundaries of the colony and harassed the settlers. Some, whom he knew to be engaged in a plot against him, fell victims to his fury, and their cattle and other property were carried off. He thus became a scourge to the colonists on the south and the tribes on the north ; and mutual provocations and retaliations became common. He paid back the aggressions with large interest, and his name carried dismay even to the remote deserts. On reaching a place called Pella, Mr. Campbell wrote a concilia- tory letter to Africaner, and continued his journey. The chief sent a favorable reply, and soon afterward another missionary, by the name of Ebner, was sent out from Pella. It required no little circumspection and decision to gain an influence over apeople whose hand had been against every one, but Mr. Ebner's labors were blessed, and in a short time Africaner and his two brothers, and a number of others, were baptized. Mr. Ebner visited Cape Town for supplies in 1817, where he met with Mr. Moffat, who hailed him with delight as his companion and guide in his future labors, upon which he was now entering. After traveling awhile together, Mr. Moffat proceeded to Bysondermeid, in Little Namaqualand. “As I approached the boundaries of the colony,” he writes, “it was evident to me that the farmers, who, of course, had not one good word to say of Africaner, were skeptical to the last degree about his reported conversion, and most unceremoniously pre- dicted my destruction. “One said he would set me up as a mark for his boys to 70 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. shoot at; and another, that he would strip off mj skin and make a drum of it to dance to; another most consoling predic- tion was, that he would make a drinking cup of my skull. I believed they were serious, and especially a kind, motherly lady, who, wiping the tears from her eyes, bade me farewell, saying: ‘Had you been an old man it would have been nothing, for you would soon have died, whether or no; but you are young, and going to become a prey to that monster.’ ” After spending a month at Bysondermeid, he proceeded, by way of Pella, to Africaner’s kraal, or village, where he arrived on the 26th of January, 1818, and was kindly received by Mr. Ebner. The natives, however, seemed reserved, and it was some time before Africaner, the chief, came to welcome him. It appeared, as Mr. Moffat afterward learned, that some unpleasant feeling existed between the missionary and the people. “After remaining an hour or more in this situation,” he continues, “Christian Africaner made his appearance, and after the usual salutation, inquired if I was the missionary appointed by the directors in London; to which I replied in the affirmative. This seemed to afford him much pleasure; and he added that as I was young, he hoped I would live long with him and his people. He then ordered a number of women to come. I was rather puzzled to know what he intended by sending for women, till they arrived bearing bun- dles of native mats and long sticks, like fishing rods. Afri- caner, pointing to a spot of ground, said, ‘There you must build a house for the missionary.’ A circle was instantly formed, and the women, evidently delighted with the job, fixed the poles, tied them down in the hemispheric form and covered them with the mats, all ready for habitation in the course of little more than half an hour. “Since that time I have seen houses built of all descriptions, and assisted in the construction of a good many myself; but I confess I never witnessed such expedition. The houses of the Carannas, Hottentots, Namaquas and Bushmen, for such they may be called, are at best not very stylish nor comfortable. I lived nearly six months in this native hut, which 1 very fre- ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 71 quentlv required tightening and fastening after a storm. When the sun shone it was unbearably hot; when the rain fell. I came in for a share of it; when the wind blew, I had frequently to decamp to escape the dust; and in addition to these little inconveniences, any hungry cur of a dog that wished a night’s lodging would force itself through the frail wall, and not unfrequently deprive me of my anticipated meal for the coming day; and I have more than once found a poisonous serpent snugly coiled up in a corner. Nor were these all the contin- gencies of such a dwelling, for as the cattle belonging to the village had no fold, but strolled about, I have been compelled to start up from a sound sleep and try to defend myself and my dwelling from being crushed to pieces by the rage of two furi- ous bulls which had met to fight a nocturnal duel.” Mr. Moffat soon afterward entered upon his labors, and was cheered by the interest which Africaner manifested in his instructions. He learned to read and became a constant reader of the Scriptures, and loved to converse on religious subjects, and at the same time greatly assisted in the labors of the mis- sion. “During the whole period I lived there,” continues Mr. Moffat, “I do not remember having occasion to be grieved with him, or to complain of any part of his conduct; his very faults seemed to lean to virtue’s side. One day, when seated together, I happened, in absence of mind, to be gazing steadfastly on him. It arrested his attention, and he modestly inquired the cause. I replied, ‘I was trying to picture to myself your carrying fire and sword through the country, and I could not think how eyes like yours could smile at human woe.’ He answered not, but shed a flood of tears. He zealously seconded my efforts to improve the people in cleanliness and industry; and it would have made any one smile to have seen Christian Africaner and myself superintending the school childdren, now about one hundred and twenty, washing themselves at the fountain. He was a man of peace; and though I could not expound to him that the ‘sword of the magistrate’ implied that he was calmly to sit at home and see the Bushmen or marauders carry off his cattle and slay his servants, yet so fully did he 72 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IE AMERICA. understand and appreciate the principles of the gospel of peace, that nothing could grieve him more than to hear of individuals, or villagers, contending with one another.” As the spot on which they lived was not suitable for a permanent missionary station, it was determined to take a journey northward and examine the country bordering on Dawarraland, where it was reported that water abounded. On the route they occasionally met with Namaqua villages, whose inhabitants were exceedingly ignorant, though not so stupid as some travelers have reported these people to be. In this connection Mr. Moffat, speaking of the liability of travelers to be led astray, refers to a traveler, who, having asked his guide the name of a place, was proceeding to write down the answer “Na Reng,” when told by Mr. Moffat that the guide merely asked what he said. In another instance “mountains” was the reply, instead of the name of the mountain. “And in reference to points of faith or extent of knowledge,” continues he, “the traveler may be completely duped, as I was in the present journey. At an isolated village, far in the wilds of Namaqua- land, I met an individual who appeared somewhat more intel- ligent than the rest; to him I put a number of questions, to ascertain if there was any tradition in the country respecting the deluge, of which vestiges are to be found in almost every part of the known world. I had made many inquiries before, but all to no purpose. Discovering that he possessed some knowledge on the subject, and being an utter stranger to any of the party, and to all appearances a child of the desert, I very promptly took up my pen and wrote, thinking myself a lucky discoverer. I was perfectly astonished at some of his first sentences, and, afraid lest I should lose one word, I appointed two interpreters; but by the time I reached the end of his story, I began to suspect it bore the impress of the Bible. On questioning him as to the source of his information, he posi- tively asserted that he had received it from his forefathers, and that he never saw or heard of a missionary. I secretly instituted inquiries into his history, but could elicit nothing. I folded up my paper and put it into my trunk, very much ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 73 puzzled, and resolving to leave the statement in wiser hands than mine. On our return this man accompanied us some days southward, towards the Karas mountains, where we halted at a village; and meeting a person who had been at Bethany, lying northwest of us and which was occupied by a missionary named Schmelen, 1 entreated him to guide us thither, as I was anxious to visit the place. He could not, being worn out with the journey; but pointing to the deluge narrator, he said: ‘There is a man that knows the road to Bethany, for I have seen him there.' The mystery of the tradition was in a moment unraveled, and the man decamped, on my seeing that the forefather who told him the story was our missionary Schmelen. Stories of a similar kind originally obtained at a missionary station, or from some pious traveler, get, in course of time, so mixed up and metamorphosed by heathen ideas that they look exceedingly like native traditions.” Finding the natives unfriendly, they returned unsuccessful. Once, when they had been a day and night without water, they drew near some bushes which seemed to skirt on a ravine, and hastened forward with joy. “On reaching the spot,” says Mr. Moffat, “we beheld an object of heart-rending distress. It was a venerable-looking old woman, a living skeleton, sitting with her head leaning on her knees. She appeared terrified at our presence, and especially at me. She tried to rise, but, trembling with weakness, sank again to the earth. I addressed her by the name which sounds sweet in every clime, and charms even the savage ear: ‘My mother, fear not; we are friends, and will do you no harm.’ I put several questions to her, but she appeared either speechless or afraid to open her lips. I again repeated, ‘Pray, mother, who are you, and how do you come to be in this situation?’ To which she replied: ‘I am a woman; I have been here four days; my children have left me here to die.’ ‘Your children!’ I exclaimed. ‘Yes,’ said she, raising her trembling hand to her withered bosom, ‘my own children; three sons and two daughters. They are gone,’ pointing with her finger to yonder blue mountains, ‘and have left me to die.’ ‘And pray why did they leave you?’ I 74 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. inquired. Spreading out her hands: ‘I am old. you see, and I am no longer able to serve them; when they kill game I am too feeble to help in carrying home the flesh; I am not able to gather wood to make fire; and cannot carry other chil- dren on my back as I used to do.’ This last sentence was more than I could bear; and though my tongue was cleaving to the roof of my mouth for want of water, this reply opened a fountain of tears. I remarked that I was surprised that she had escaped the lions which seemed to abound, and to have approached very near the spot where she was. She took hold of the skin of her left arm with her fingers, and, raising it up as one would do a loose linen, she added, ‘I fear the lions? There is nothing on me they would eat; I have no flesh on me for them to scent.’ “At this moment the wagon drove near, which greatly alarmed her, for she supposed it was a huge animal. Assuring her that it would do her no harm, I said that, as I could not stay, I would put her in the wagon and take her with me. At this remark she became convulsed with terror. Others addressed her, but all to no effect. She replied, that if we took her, and left her at another village, they would only do the same thing again. ‘It is our custom; I am nearly dead; I do not want to die again.’ The sun was now piercingly hot; the oxen were raging in the yoke, and we ourselves nearly delirious. Finding it impossible to influence the woman to move, without running the risk of her dying convulsed in our hands, we collected a quantity of fuel, gave her a good supply of dry meat, some tobacco and a knife, with some other arti- cles, telling her we should return in two days and stop the night, when she would be able to go with us; only she must keep up a good fire at night as the lions would smell the dried flesh, if they did not scent her. We then pursued our course; and after a long ride, passing a rocky ridge of hills, we came to a stagnant pool, into which men and oxen rushed precipitately, though the water was almost too muddy to go down our throats.’’ After this journey, which lasted a few weeks, Mr. Moffat ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 75 lived an itinerating missionary life for several months, and then undertook a journey at the request of Africaner, to the Griqua country, east of the desert, to inspect a situation offered to him and his pepole. The journey was long and difficult, but the result was satisfactory to Africaner. Meanwhile the want of intercourse with the colony made it necessary for Mr. Moffat to visit Cape Town, and he proposed that Africaner should accompany him. The chief was startled at this propo- sition, and asked if he did not know that a thousand rix dollars were offered for his head. Others also made objections, but finally all difficulties were removed, and they set forward. They spent a few days at Pella, while the subject of getting Africaner safely through the territories of the colonists to the Cape was discussed. Many thought the step hazardous, but it was arranged that, although he was a chief, he should pass for one of Mr. Moffat’s servants. As they proceeded, the peo- ple often expressed wonder that Mr. Moffat had escaped from such a monster of cruelty, and it sometimes afforded no little entertainment to Africaner and the Namaquas to hear a farmer denounce this supposed irreclaimable savage. A novel scene which occurred atone farm is thus described: “On approaching the house, which was on an eminence, I directed my men to take the wagon to the valley below, while I walked toward the house. The farmer, seeing a stranger, came slow'ly down the descent to meet me. When within a few yards, I addressed him in the usual way, and stretching out my hand, expressed my pleasure at seeing him again. He put his hand behind him and asked me rather mildly, who I was. I replied that I was Moffat, expressing my wonder that he should have forgotten me. ‘Moffat!’ he rejoined in a fal- tering voice; ‘it is your ghost!’ and moved some steps backward. ‘I am no ghost.’ ‘Don’t come near me!’ he exclaimed, ‘you have been long murdered by Africaner.’ ‘ But I am no ghost’ I said, feeling my hands, as if to convince him and myself, too, of my materiality; but his alarm only increased. ‘Everyobdy says you were murdered ; and a man told me he had seen your bones;’ and he continued to gaze at me, to the no small aston- 76 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. ishment of the good wife and children, who were standing at the door, as also to that of my people, who were looking on from the wagon below. At length he extended his trembling hand, saying, ‘When did you rise from the dead?’ As he feared my presence would frighten his wife, we bent our steps toward ■the wagon, and Africaner was the subject of our conversation. I ga\e him in a few words my view of his present character, saying, ‘He is now a truly good man,’ to which he replied, ‘I can believe almost anything you say, but that I cannot credit.’ By this time we were standing with Africaner at our feet, on whose countenance sat a smile, well knowing the prejudices of some of the farmers. The farmer closed the conversation by saying with much earnestness, ‘Well, if what you assert be true respecting that man, I have only one wish, and that is to see him before I die; and when you return, as sure as the sun is over our heads, I will go with you to see him, though he killed my own uncle.’ I was not before aware of this fact, and now felt some hesitation whether to discover to him the object of his wonder; but knowing the sincerity of the farmer, and the goodness of his disposition, I said, ‘This, then, is Africaner!’ He started back, looking intently at the man, as if he had just dropped from the clouds. ‘Are you Africaner?’ he exclaimed. The dreaded chief arose, doffed his old hat, and making a polite bow, answered, ‘I am.’ The farmer seemed thunder-struck; but when, by a few questions, he had assured himself of the fact that the former bugbear of the border stood before him, meek and lamb-like in his whole deportment, he lifted up his eyes and exclaimed, ‘O God, what a miracle of Thy power! What can not Thy grace accomplish!’ The kind farmer, and his no less hospitable wife, now abundantly supplied our wants; but we hastened our departure, lest the intelligence might get abroad that Africaner was with me, and bring unpleasant visitors. “On arriving at Oape Town, I waited on his excellency, the Governor, Lord Somerset, who appeared to receive with consid- erable skepticism my testimony that I had brought the far- famed Africaner on a visit to his excellency. The following CHIEF AFRICANER. ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 77 day was appointed for an interview, when the chief was re- ceived by Lord Charles with great affability and kindness; and he expressed his pleasure at seeing thus before him one who had formerly been the scourge of the country and the terror of the border colonists. ‘‘His excellency was evidently much struck with this result of missionary enterprise, the benefit of which he had some- times doubted. Whatever he might think of his former views, his excellency was now convinced that a most important point had been gained; and, as a testimony of his good feeling, he presented Africaner with an excellent wagon, valued at eighty pounds sterling, nearly four hundred dollars.” Africaner’s appearance in Cape Town excited considerable attention, as his name and exploits had been familiar to many of its inhabitants for more than twenty years. Many were struck with the unexpected mildness and gentleness of his demeanor, and others with his piety and accurate knowledge of the Scriptures. After spending some time at Griqua Town, Mr. Moffat joined the mission at the Kuruman, in May, 1821. Here he had to labor with a people ignorant in the extreme, and utterly destitute of a system of religion to which he could appeal, or of ideas kindred to those he wished to impart. To tell them of a creator, or of the immortality of the soul, was to speak of what was fabulous and extravagant. “A wily rain maker,” continues Mr. Moffat, “who was the oracle of the village in which he dwelt, once remarked, after hearing me enlarge on the subject of creation, ‘If you verily believe that the great Being created all men, then, according to reason, you must also believe that in making white people he has improved on his work; he tried his hand on Bushmen first, and did not like them, because they were so ugly, and their language like that of frogs. He then tried his hand on the Hottentots, but these did not please him either. He then exercised his power and skill and made the Beehuanas, which was a great improve- ment; and at last he made the white people; therefore [exulting with an air of triumph at the discovery] the white people 78 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. are so much wiser than we are in making walking houses [meaning wagons], teaching the oxen to draw them over hill and dale, and instructing them also to plow the gardens instead of making their wives do it, like the Bechuanas.’ His discov- ery received the applause of the people, while the poor mission- ary’s arguments, drawn from the source of Divine truth, were thrown into the shade. “With all their concessions, they would, with little cere- mony, pronounce our customs clumsy, awkward, and trouble- some. They could not account for our putting our legs, feet, and arms into bags, and using buttons for the purpose of fast- ening bandages round our bodies, instead of suspending them as ornaments from the neck or hair of the head. Washing the body, instead of lubricating it with grease and red ocher, was a disgusting custom, and cleanliness about our food, house, and bedding contributed to their amusement in no small degree. A native, who was engaged in roasting a piece of fat zebra flesh for me on the coals, was told that he had better turn it with a stick or fork, instead of his hands, which he invariably rubbed on his dirty body for the sake of the precious fat. This suggestion of mine made him and his companions laugh extravagantly, and they were wont to repeat it as an interest- ing joke wherever they came. “Among the Becliuana tribes, the name adopted by the missionaries for God is Morimo. This has the advantage of the names used by the Kafirs and Hottentots, being more definite, as its derivation at once determines its meaning. Mo is a personal prefix and rimo is from gorimo, signifying “above.” From the same root legorimo , “heaven,” and ils plural, magorimo , are derived. The genius of the Becliuana language warrants us to expect a correspondence between the name and the thing designated; but in this instance the order is reversed. Morimo, to those who know anything about it, had been represented by rain makers and sorcerers as a malev- olent sclo, or thing, which the natives in the south described as existing in a hole, and which, like the fairies in the High- lands of Scotland, sometimes came out and inflicted diseases ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 79 on men and cattle, and even caused death. This Morimo served the purposes of a bugbear, by which the rain-maker might constrain the chiefs to yield to his suggestions when he wished for a slaughter ox, without which he pretended he could not make rain.” The mission among the Bedhuanas had now been estab- lished five years, but the natives had become indifferent to all instruction, except when it was followed by some temporal benefit. The time of the missionaries was much occupied in building and in attending to the wants of daily life. The light, sandy soil required constant irrigation for the produc- tion of any kind of crops, and a water ditch some miles in length had been led from the Kuruman river, and passed in its course through the gardens of the natives. The native women, seeing the fertilizing effects of the water in the gardens of the mission, took the liberty of cutting open the ditch, often leaving the mission without a drop of water even for culinary purposes. The missionaries were often obliged to go three miles with a spade in the hottest part of the day to close up these outlets and obtain moisture for their burnt-up vegetables. As soon as they had left the women would open the outlets again, and thus they were sometimes many days without water, except what was carried from a distant fountain, under a cloud- less sky, when the thermometer at noon would frequently rise to one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade. “The following is a brief sketch of the ceremony of bury- ing the dead, as practiced among the tribes of South Africa. When they see any indications of approaching dissolution in fainting fits or convulsive throes, they throw a net over the body and hold it in a sitting posture, with the knees brought in contact with the chin, till life is gone. The grave, which is frequently made in the fence surrounding the cattle fold, or in the fold itself, if for a man, is about three feet in diameter . and six feet deep. The body is not conveyed through the door of the fore-yard or court connected with each house, but an opening is made in the fence for that purpose. It is 80 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. carried to the grave, having the head covered with a skin, and is placed in a sitting posture. Much time is spent in order to fix the corpse exactly facing the north; and though they have no compass, they manage, after some consultation, to place it very nearly in the required position. “Portions of an ant-hill are placed about the feet, when the net which held the body is gradually withdrawn; as the grave is tilled up, the earth is handed in with bowls, while two men stand in the hole and tread it down round the body, great care being taken to pick out everything like a root or pebble. When the earth reaches the height of the mouth, a small twig or branch of an acacia is thrown in, and on the top of the head a few roots of grass are placed; and when the grave is nearly filled, another root of grass is fixed imme- diately above the head, part of which stands above ground. When finished, the men and women stoop, and with their hands scrape the loose soil around on to the little mound. A large bowl of water, with an infusion of bulbs, is then brought, when the men and women wash their hands and the upper part of their feet, shouting ‘Pula! pula!’ (‘Rain! rain!’) An old woman, probably a relative, will then bring his weapons, bows, arrows, war-ax and spears, also grain and garden seeds of vari- ous kinds, and even the bones of an old pack-ox, with other things, and address the grave, saying, ‘These are all your articles.’ These are then taken away, and bowls of water are poured on the grave, when all retire, the women wailing ‘Yo! yo! yo. r with some doleful dirge, sorrowing without hope. These ceremonies vary in different localities, and according to the rank of the individual who is committed to the dust. “Years of drought had been severely felt, and the natives, tenacious of their faith in the potency of a man, held a council, and passed resolutions to send for a rain maker of renown from the Bahurutsi tribe, two hundred miles northeast of the Kuru- nmn station. Rain makers have always most honor among a strange people, and therefore they are generally foreigners. The heavens had been as brass, scarcely a cloud had been seen for months, even on the distant horizon. Suddenly a shout ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 81 was raised, and the whole town was in motion. The rain maker was approaching. Every voice was raised to the highest pitch with acclamations of enthusiastic joy. He had sent a harbin- ger to announce his approach, with peremptory orders for all the inhabitants to wash their feet. Every one seemed to fly in swiftest obedience to the adjoining river. Noble and ignoble, even the girl who attended to our kitchen fire, ran; old and young ran. All the world could not have stopped them. By this time the clouds began to gather, and a crowd went out to welcome the mighty man. who, as they imagined, was now col- lecting in the heavens his stores of rain. “Just as he was descending the height into the town, the immense concourse danced and shouted, so that the very earth rang, and at the same time the lightnings darted, and the thunders roared in awful grandeur. A few heavy drops fell, which produced the most thrilling ecstasy on the deluded multitude, whose shouting baffled all description. Faith hung upon the lips of the impostor, while he proclaimed aloud that this year the women must cultivate gardens on the hills, and not in the valleys, for these would be deluged. After the din had somewhat subsided, a few individuals came to our dwell- ings to treat us and our doctrines with derision. ‘Where is your God?’ one asked with a sneer. We were silent, because the wicked were before us. ‘Have you not heard with your ears, his voice in the clouds?’ adding with an interjection of supreme disgust, ‘You talk of Jehovah, and Jesus, what can they do?’ Never in my life do I remember a text being brought home with such power as the words of the Psalmist, ‘Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen.’ “The rain-maker found the clouds in our country rather harder to manage than those he had left. He complained that secret rogues were disobeying his proclamations. When urged to make repeated trial, he would reply, ‘You only give me sheep and goats to kill, therefore I can only make goat rain; give me fat slaughter oxen, and I shall let you see ox rain.’ One day, as he was taking a sound sleep a shower fell, on which 82 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. one of his principal men entered his house to congratulate him, but to his utter amazement found him totally insensible to what was transpiring. ‘Held, ka rare! (Halloo, my father!) I thought you were making rain,’ said the intruder. When arising from his slumbers, and seeing his wife sitting on the floor shaking a milk-sack, in order to obtain a little butter to anoint her hair, he replied, pointing to the operation of churning, ‘Do you not see my wife churning rain as fast as she can?’ This reply gave entire satisfaction, and it presently spread through the length and breadth of the town, that the rain-maker had churned the shower out of a milk-sack. The moisture caused by this shower was dried up by a scorching sun, and many long weeks followed without a single cloud, and when these did appear they might sometimes be seen, to the great mortification of the conjurer, to discharge their watery treasures at an immense distance. “The rain maker had recourse to numerous expedients and stratagems, and continued his performances for many weeks. All his efforts, however, proved unsuccessful. He kept him- self very secluded for a fortnight, and, after cogitating how lie could make his own cause good, he appeared in the public fold, and proclaimed that he had discovered the cause of the drought. All were now eagerly listening; he dilated some time, till he had raised their expectation to the highest pitch, when he revealed the mystery. ‘Do you not see, when clouds come over us, that Mr. Moffat looks at them?’ This ques- tion receiving a hearty and unanimous affirmation, he added, that my white face frightened away the clouds, and they need not expect rain so long as there were any missionaries in the country. This was a home stroke, and it was an easy matter for all missionaries to calculate what the influence of such a charge would be on the public mind. We were very soon informed of the evil of our conduct, to which we plead guilty, promising that, as we were not aware that we were doing wrong, being as anxious as any of them for rain, we would willingly look to our chins, or the ground, all the day long, if it would serve their purpose. It was rather remarkable that ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 83 as much as they admired my long, black beard, they thought that in this ease it was most to blame. However, this season of trial passed over, to our great comfort, though it was followed for some time with many indications of suspicion and distrust.” In October, 1S23, Mr. Moffat having occasion to visit Cape Town with his family, he writes: “As Mothibi (the chief) was anxious that his son should see the country of the white people, he sent him with us, and appointed Taisho, one of his principal chiefs, to accompany him. The kind recep- tion they met with from his excellency, the Governor, and the friends in Cape Town, and the sights they saw, produced strange emotions in their minds. They were delighted with everything they beheld, and were in raptures when they met again their old friend named Thompson, and who showed them much kindness. “It was with some difficulty that they were prevailed upon to go on board one of the ships in the bay; nor would they enter the boat until I had preceded them. They were per- fectly astounded when hoisted on the deck, with the enormous size erf the hull, and the height of the masts; and when they saw a boy mount the rigging and ascend to the very masthead, they were speechless with amazement. Taisho whispered to the young prince, ‘A ga si kliatla?’ (‘Is it not an ape?’) When the}- entered the splendid cabin, and looked into the deep hold, they could scarcely be convinced that the vessel was not rest- ing on the bottom of the ocean. ‘Do these water houses [ships] unload, like wagon oxen, every night?’ they inquired. ‘Do they graze in the sea to keep them alive?’ A ship in full sail approaching the roads, they were asked what they thought of that. ‘We have no thoughts here; we hope to think again when we get to the shore,’ was their reply. They would go anywhere with me or Mr. Thompson, for whom they enter- tained a kindly feeling, but they would trust no one else.” After his return, Mr. Moffat, accompanied by some Griquas, set out on the first of July, 1824, to visit Makaba, the chief of the Buangketsi. A few days afterwards, they were joined by 84 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. another party, under the chief Berend. Before reaching the town, the train was met by the messengers of Makaba, who welcomed them, and when they came near, Makaba desired them to conduct the wagons through the principal street, but as it was a narrow path, winding among a number of houses, Mr. Moffat pronounced the thing impossible without seriously injuring the fences. “Never mind that,” says Makaba, “only let me see the wagons go through my town;” and on they went, while the chieftain stood on an eminence before his door, look- ing with inexpressible delight on the wagons, which were breaking down corners of fences, while the good wives within were so much amazed at the oxen, and what appeared to them ponderous vehicles, that they hardly found time to scold, though a few did not fail to express their displeasure. They found a dense population of the Buangketsi; and early next morning they were surrounded by thousands, so that it was difficult to pass from one wagon to another. “The country of the Buangketsi is hilly, and even mountainous toward the north and east. The soil in general is very rich; but water is rather scarce, and though I believe rains are pretty abundant, yet, from what I could learn, irrigation would be absolutely necessary to raise European vegetables and grain. The countries to the north and east abound with rivers, and are very fruitful and populous. The mountains are adorned to their very summits with stately trees and shrubs, unknown in the southern parts of the continent, which give the country a pic- turesque and inspiring appearance.” On their return they were attacked by a party of Barolongs, who were repulsed only after a fierce encounter and the loss of several lives. Some of Berend’s people likewise captured several hundred of the ene- my’s cattle “At the close of the year 1826, having removed into our new habitation, and the state of the country being somewhat more tranquil, a journey was resolved on to the Barolongs, near the Molapo, in order to attend exclusively to the language, which hitherto it had not been possible to do, owing to the succession of manual labor connected with commencing a new ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 85 station, when the missionaries must be at the beginning, mid- dle and end of everything. Mr. Hamilton, who felt that his advanced age was a serious barrier to his acquisition of the language, was anxious for my progress, and cheerfully under- took the entire labors of the station for a short season, preach- ing to the Batlopes in the neighborhood, and keeping up public service for the few on the station. Two attempts had been previously made for this very purpose, but I had not long left the place before, in both instances, I was recalled on account of threatened attacks.” Arrived at the village of BogaChu, ruled by a Barolong chief, Mr. Moffat spent ten weeks there, attending to tbe language. He writes: ‘‘The people, to please me, would assemble on the Sabbath, and our attendance at public worship would vary from forty to fifty. In the course of my sermon I told them I could not be happy without telling them about their souls and another world. One day, while describing the day of judgment, several of my hearers expressed great concern at the idea of all their cattle being destroyed, together with their ornaments. They never for one moment allowed their thoughts to dwell on death, which, according to their views, is nothing less than annihi- lation. Their supreme happiness consits in having an abun- dance of meat. Asking a man who was more grave and thoughtful than his companions, what was the finest sight he could desire, he instantly replied, ‘A great fire covered with pots full of meat;’ adding, ‘How ugly the fire looks without a pot!’ “A custom prevails among all the Bec'huanas whom I have visited, of removing to a distance from the towns and villages persons who have been wounded. Two young men, who had been wounded by the poisoned arrows of the Bushmen, were thus removed from the Kuruman. Having visited them, to administer relief, I made inquiries, but could learn no reason, except that it was a custom. This unnatural practice exposed the often helpless invalid to a great danger; for, if not well attended during the night, his paltry little hut, or rather shade from the sun and wind, would be assailed by the hyena or 86 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. lion. A catastrophe of this kind occurred a short time before my arrival among the Barolongs. The son of one of the principal chiefs, a fine young man, had been wounded by a buffalo; he was, according to custom, placed on the outside of the building till he should recover; a portion of food was daily sent, and a person appointed to make his fire for the evening. The fire went out; and the helpless man, notwithstanding his piteous cries, was carried off by a lion and devoured. Some might think that this practice originated in the treatment of infectious diseases, such as leprosy; but the only individual I ever saw thus affected was not separated. This disease, though often found among slaves in the colony, is unknown among the tribes in the interior, and therefore they have no name for it. “Although, as has been stated, ‘the savages,’ when applied to Bechuanas, must be understood in a restricted sense, there was nothing either very comely or comfortable in the dress of either sex; yet such was their attachment to it, that any one deviating from it was considered a clown. The child is car- ried in a skin on its mother’s back, with its chest lying close to her person; when it requires to be moved from that position, it is often wet with perspiration; and from being thus exposed to cold wind, lung complaints are not infreqeutnly brought on. As soon as a baby is born, its head is shaved, leaving a small tuft on the imperfectly ossified part of the skull; and when but a few weeks old, the little head may be seen hanging over the skin in which it is carried, shining with grease, and exposed to the rays of an almost vertical sun; yet sunstroke is not of frequent occurrence, either in infants or adults. The natives, however, are far from admiring a hot sun, and it is not uncommon to hear them say, ‘Letmtsi utluega yang ?’ (‘How does the sun feel?') and this exclamation is not to be wondered at, for I have known the action of the sun’s rays so powerful on the masses of green and black shining ocher on the head, as to cause it to run down their necks and blister the skin. They are therefore often found carrying a parasol made of black ostrich feathers, and in the absence of these will hold a small bunch over their heads. I have frequently ob- ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 87 served the Matobele warriors carrying their shields over their heads for the same purpose. “For a long period, when a man was seen to make a pair of trousers for himself, or a woman a gown, it was a sure intima- tion that we might expect additions to our inquirers. Aban- doning the custom of painting the body, and beginning to wash with water, was with them what cutting off the hair was among the South Sea Islanders, a public renunciation of heathenism. In the progress of improvement during the year which fol- lowed, and by which many individuals who made no profession of the Gospel were influenced, we were frequently much amused. A man might be seen in a jacket with but one sleeve, because the other was not finished, or he lacked material to complete it. Another in a leathern or doffed jacket, with the sleeves of different colors, or of fine printed cotton. Gowns were seen like Joseph’s coat, of many colors, and dresses of such fantastic shapes as were calculated to excite a smile in the gravest of us. It was somewhat entertaining to wit- ness the various applications made to Mrs. Moffat, who was the only European female on the station, for assistance in the fabrication of dress, nor were these confined to female applicants. “Our congregation now became a variegated mass, includ- ing all descriptions, from the lubricated wild man of the des- ert, to the clean, comfortable and well-dressed believer. The same spirit diffused itself through all the routine of household economy. Formerly a chest, a chair, a candle, or a table were things unknown, and supposed to be only the superfluous accompaniments of beings of another order. Although they never disputed the superiority of our attainments, in being able to manufacture these superfluities, they would, however, ques- tion our common sense in taking so much trouble about them. They thought us particularly extravagant in burning fat in the form of candles, instead of rubbing it on the body, or depositing it in our stomachs. Hitherto when they had milked their cows, they retired to their houses and yards to sit moping over a few cinders, seldom affording sufficient light to see what they were 88 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. eating, or even each other; at night, spreading the dry hide of some animal on the floor, they would lie down in their skin- cloaks, making a blanket of what had been their mantles all day. They soon found that to read in the evening or by night required a more steady light than that afforded by a flickering flame from a bit of wood. Candle-molds and rags for wick were now in requisition, and tallow carefully preserved, when bunches of candles were shortly to be seen suspended from the wall, a spectacle far more gratifying to us than the most charming picture, an indication of the superior light which had entered their abodes.” In the latter part of the year 1829, Mr. Moffat accom- panied two messengers of Moselkatse, a king of a division of Zulus, called Matobele, on their return home. “Having traveled one hundred miles,” he writes, “five days after leaving Mosega, we came to the first cattle outposts of the Matobele, when we halted by a fine rivulet. My attention was arrested by a beautiful and gigantic tree standing in a defile leading to an extensive and woody ravine, between a high range of mountains. Seeing some individuals employed on the ground under its shade, and the conical points of what looked like houses in miniature protruding through its evergreen foliage, I proceeded thither, and found that the tree was inhabited by several families of Bakones, the aborigines of the country. I ascended by the notched trunk, and found, to my amazement, no less than seventeen of these aerial abodes, and three others unfinished. On reaching the topmost hut, about thirty feet from the ground, I entered and sat down. Its only furniture was the hay which covered the floor, a spear, a spoon, and a bowl full of locusts. Not having eaten anything that day, and from the novelty of my situation, not wishing to return imme- diately to the wagons, I asked a woman, who sat at the door with a babe at her breast, permission to eat. This she granted with pleasure, and soon brought me some in a powdered state. Several more females came from the neighboring roosts, step- ping from branch to branch, to see the stranger, who was to them as great a curiosity as the tree was to him. I then vis- ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 89 ited tlie different abodes, which were on several principal branches. The structure of these houses was very simple. An oblong scaffold, about seven feet wide, is formed of straight sticks; on one end of the platform a small cone is formed, also of straight sticks, and thatched with grass. A person can nearly stand upright in it; the diameter of the floor is about six feet. The house stands on the end of the oblong, so as to leave a little square space before the door. On the day pre- vious I had passed several villages, some containing forty houses, all built on poles, about seven or eight feet from the ground, in the form of a circle; the ascent and descent is by a knotty branch of a tree placed in front of the house. In the center of the circle there is always a heap of the bones of the game they have killed. Such were the domiciles of the im- poverished thousands of the aborigines of the country, who, having been scattered and robbed by Moselkatse, had neither herd nor stall, but subsisted on locusts, roots and the chase. They adopted this mode of architecture to escape the lions which abound in that country. We cannot refrain from admiring the ingenuity and wisdom of these primitive tribes, in thus completely foiling savage beasts of prey, for, as they were without firearms, their comfortable homes in the trees afforded them sufficient protection from ferocious animals.” The King, received the missionaries with kindness, and during a long visit Mr. Moffat had frequent intercourse with his majesty, who fully listened to his instructions. On his return, Moselkatse accompanied him in his wagon, a long day’s journey. Mr. Moffat concludes the story of his long labors in the fol- lowing words: “Before closing the account of the Bechuana Mission, it will be proper to state, that during the years 1837, 1838, a rich blessing descended on the labors of the brethren at home, at the out stations, and, indeed, at every place where the Gospel was read and preached. Large additions of Bech- uanas at Griqua Town have already been noticed ; and in 1838 great accessions were made to that of the Kuruman. Under the very efficient and assiduous superintendence of Mr. 90 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. Edwards, the number of readers connected with the mission had increased in equal ratio; while the infant school, com- menced and carried on by Mrs. Edwards, with t'he assistance of a native girl, gave the highest satisfaction. The people made rapid advance in civilization; some purchasing wagons, and breaking in their oxen for those labors which formerly devolved on the female sex. The use of clothing became so general, that the want of a merchant was greatly felt, to supply the demands of English commodities. This induced us to invite Mr. D. Hume, in whom we placed implicit con- fidence, who had already traded much with the natives, and traveled a great distance into the interior, to take up his constant abode on the station for that purpose. He built him- self a mercantile house, and the measure has succeeded beyond our expectations.” ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 91 CHAPTER IV. TRAVELS AND EXPLORATIONS IN AFRICA. “ There is a temple in ruin stands,” Fashioned by long-forgotten hands; Two or three columns, and many a stone. Marble and granite, with grass o’er grown! T HE first modern traveler who made a complete exploration of the ruins of Ethiopia was a French gentleman, by the name of Frederic Cailliaud, a native of Nantes. His taste for archeology and for the natural sciences led him to travel, and on visiting Africa, he found so much to interest and fascinate him that he remained four years. Early in 1816 he ascended the Nile river to the second cataract. He also visited the Great Oasis in the Libyan Desert, west of Thebes, and then crossed the Nile to the Red Sea, where he discovered ruins of ancient cities. Returning to France in February, 1819, after an absence of years, he immediately applied to the French government to be returned to Egypt for the purpose of making more exten- sive explorations. His application was warmly seconded by the French Institute, and in twm months he received the ap- pointment, and hisinstructions from the Minister of the Interior. Embarking on the 10th of September, he landed at Alexan- dria, accompanied by a cadet of the French navy. His plan was to first penetrate to the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon, in the Libyan Desert,- a spot which few travelers had ever reached, and which none had ever thoroughly explored. Ascending the Nile a short distance, Cailliaud proceeded to the district of the Fyoom, lying a day’s journey to the west, and was so fortunate as to find the governor, who had just returned from a successful foray among some rebellious desert tribes. The latter sent for an Arab chief, named Koroom, and an inhabitant of Siwah, named Youssef, who happened to be in 92 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. the Fyoom, and requested them to conduct Cailliaud to the Oasis. They made serious objections to the plan, but finally yielded, on conditions that the travelers would neither write nor draw, clothe themselves as Egyptians, and assume the character of natives of Cairo. The governor of the Fyoom gave Cailliaud a letter to the chiefs of Siwah, in which he declared that the traveler was sent by Mohammed Ali, and should be treated with the same respect which they owed to the Pasha. The camels were brought, and. after halting two days at the encampment of Koroom, they commenced their march into the desert. “The two eldest daughters of Sheik Koroom,” says Cailliaud, “went with us for half a league, wishing us all sorts of benedictions for the success of our jour- ney. I saw them collect the dust from the places where the feet of the Arabs, who accompanied us, had left their imprint; this dust they placed in a takia. or small Arab cup, which they held in the hand. I -was told that this was done to preserve us from accidents; that they were required to collect some dust from the steps of each man and each camel; that, on returning to their tent, they would make a little hole in the top of the cup, and suspend it in the manner of an 'hour-glass; and that they would consult it every day to notice the duration of our absence, and calculate the time of our return.” At a village on the border of the desert, they were joined by a caravan of inhabitants of the Fyoom, with one hundred camels, bound for Siwah. Some of the native merchants refused to go, through the fear of being compromised by the presence of Cailliaud’s party. The travelers were obliged to relinquish the idea of taking meridian altitudes, and could not make the least observation, even by the barometer, except by stealth. They were also exceedingly circumspect in their conversation, taking care to make no remark which might excite the suspi- cion of the Arabs. In two days they arrived at a mountain, at the foot of which, in a little valley, they found a curious well. “The principal spring is a funnel-shaped hole, two feet in diameter at the bottom. The Sheik descended into this hole, and plunged into the center a short piece of wood, which he ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 93 moved around in the clay, opening a passage for the water, which instantly began to rise. The Sheik then placed his legs in the orifice, and by twisting himself succeeded in thrust- ing his body down to the arm-pits. Another man mounted on his shoulders to retain him there, and when the latter quit his hold, the Sheik was thrown out of the water by the force of the spring, which is very abundant. The Arabs have the habit of crying aloud during this operation, which appears to them miraculous. The pretend that, without doing so, the water would not come.” The caravan continued its march over plains and sand, alternating with hard tracts covered with agates, and occasion- ally the remains of petrified forests, among which Cailliaud found the trunk of a sycamore eleven feet in circumference and fifteen feet in length. As they approached Siwah the earth became covered with a crystallization of salt, forming vast incrusted plains. Finally, on the fifteenth day, they saw in the distance a valley fertile in palms and acacias, in the midst of which was a village tributary to Siwah, and distant from it about twenty leagues. The village was built on the summit of a steep rock, and appeared to consist partly of the remains of ancient edifices. A curious superstition prevails in this place. A former chief predicted that the inhabitants of the village — men, women, and children — wnld never exceed forty. The people declared that the number had sometimes exceeded that limit, but the balance was always speedily restored by the death of the surplus population. When a child is born, they expect a death among the older inhabitants to make room for it. Cailliaud was not allowed to enter the village on the first day, and on climbing the rock the next morning the people shouted “Christian!” — whence he knew that some of the Arabs of the caravan had betrayed his true character. Youssef of Siwah finally declared that the traveler would instantly write to Mohammed Ali, who was his friend, if they did not admit him, whereupon they allowed him to enter, and presented him with some fine dates. “On the night of December 8th,” says Cailliaud, “several chiefs came into my 94 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. tent and said, with a very mysterious air, that now was the moment to make use of my sorcery in order to moderate the anger of the people of Siwah. ‘I had several occasions,’ said one of the chiefs, ‘of knowing how experienced are the Chris- tians in this art. A Christian whom I conducted to the little Oasis, finding himself annoyed by the inhabitants and by a caravan of Siwah which opposed his research, suddenly began to write mysterious notes; and immediately those who designed to injure him humiliated themselves before him and kissed his hands, which proved his great power.’ I was at first tempted to convince him of his error, but I reflected that in order to encourage him to serve me, I ought, on the contrary, to assure him that I was as skillful as other Christians, and he might depend on the success of my magical arts.” On the evening of the 9th they discovered in the west the palm groves of Siwah, and encamped near an old well. Yous- sef set out by night to announce their approach to the chiefs at Koroom, and Cailliaud was so excited that he found it impossible to sleep. “After marching three hours the next morning, we reached the first grove of date palms, and the Arabs fired a volley to signify our approach. Youssef came to me crying with joy that we had obtained permis- sion to enter the Oasis. We proceeded onward by paths shaded by numerous palm groves; olive, pomegranate, peach, apricot, and fig trees enriched the landscape. The fresh- ness of the verdure is preserved by tanks and abundant springs; brooks flow in all directions. These gardens ap- peared to us delicious, and the happiness of having been able to penetrate into this district, separated from the world by three hundred miles of sand, enchanted me. Every step brought me nearer to a spot almost unknown, and perhaps to the long-sought temple of Jupiter Ammon. Youssef presented me to three chiefs, who saluted me after the manner of the country. They made us encamp in a court under the walls of the town, near a place where dates were exposed for sale. The windows of the houses were crowded with women curious to see us. The people came in crowds around our tents; there ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 95 was an excitement in all Siwah. In order to disperse the crowds, the chiefs were obliged to prohibit the inhabitants of the place, Youssef excepted, from approaching us, under pen- alty of a fine of one hundred and sixty baskets of dates. A much more severe fine was imposed on those who addressed insulting remarks to us. This circumstance gave me an opportunity of judging of the power of the chiefs over the people, for the later retired suddenly, and we remained entirely isolated.” Soon afterward Cailliaud was called before a grand council of the chiefs and people, and asked by what authority he came. He replied that he was sent by Mohammed Ali. They then demanded the passport, which he had not been able to procure, as the Pasha was absent in Nubia; but he had an old passport, given to him for the purpose of visiting Souakin, on the Bed Sea, which he presented. The only chief who could read understood “Souakin” to mean “Siwah,” and ridiculed the secretaries of Cairo, who could not spell the name correctly. The final decision of the council was that the traveler should be permitted to see the antiquities of the Oasis, and on the third day he was furnished with a guide. He was first con- duted to the Mountain of the Dead, a small hill of limestone, hollowed out with the sepulchers of the ancient inhabitants. Six miles west of the town he found the remains of a building, apparently of the Lower Empire, another hill of catacombs, and a beautiful little Roman temple, of the Doric order, in a good state of preservation. Cailliaud now solicited the chiefs to allow him to visit the ruins of Om Bevdah, the most important of all, which he con- jectured to be those of the temple of J upiter Ammon. He tried both entreaties and presents, but they refused, giving as a rea- son that the presence of a Christian there would cause the great fountain to dry up. They stated that immediately after the visit of two white men to Om Beydah, the fountain became dry. The inhabitants were struck with terror, and attributed the circumstances to the fact of the Christian having gazed upon it. The next day, on ascending the mountain of Beryk, 96 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. Cailliaud overlooked all the province of Siwah, and by the aid of a good telescope, saw the ruins of Om Beydah rising above the tufted palms. They appeared to him of gigantic size, and the desire to visit them became stronger than ever. “The sun was on the horizon; my guides had descended, I followed them, but at a distance, feeling myself unable to converse with them. I pondered in my mind what stratagem I could devise in order to visit the temple. I let them all pass on, guides, Arabs, interpreter, and remained in the rear. Reflecting that I was but a few miles from the spot, I determined to make an effort to reach it. Enveloping myself in my cloak, I approached the palm grove, but, seeing I was watched by the spies, I felt the impossibility of accomplishing my object, and returned.” During his short stay at the Oasis, Cailliaud collected some information regarding the place and people. The principal trade is in dates, which are produced in great numbers, and of excellent quality. The government consists of twelve chiefs, six of whom are elected for life, and the remaining six from year to year. Their deliberations are public, and the people all take part in them. Theft and other minor offenses are pun- ished by a fine of dates; those who are not able to pay are con- ducted out of the town, placed upon the ground face downward, and flogged on the naked loins. If a murderer is taken, he is given into the hands of the relatives of his victim, to whom he belongs. According to their caprice, they may kill him, torture him, or set him free. The amount received in fines is appro- priated to keeping the temple in repair, to supporting the saints or holy men, and to assist strangers who have been robbed in the desert. In spite of their mistrust, obstinacy, and supersti- tion, the inhabitants of Siwah are very hospitable. The poor or strangers may go to the date market and eat all they desire; each one leaves his goods exposed in public with the perfect assurance that no one will touch them. At last, by means of presents judiciously distributed, Chief Ali was induced to favor Cailliaud’s application to visit Om Beydah ; but some of the other chiefs and people still refused, until, on the evening of the 21st, the traveler offered to be ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 97 conducted to the temple with his eyes bandaged, seeing neither the country nor the great fountain. In the evening Chief Ali came with the permission to visit Om Beydah, but counseled the traveler to act with prudence ,and to depart with Koroom immediately afterward. These were also his inten- tions, and the next morning at daylight, accompanied by the cadet and four of the chiefs of Siwah mounted on asses, he set out. Threading the woods of date-palms watered by little brooks, for half an hour, they emerged from the shade at the foot of the temple. The temple consisted of a mass of ruins about three hundred and sixty feet in length by three hundred in breadth. The walls were not more than eighteen feet and the roof, a portion of which remained, was composed of blocks twenty-six feet long. “The ruin, although not extensive, appeared to me imposing from its grand masses, constructed in the Egyptian style. The remembrance of the voyage of Alexander caused me to approach it with a sort of religious aspect. My attention was directed to the walls of the temple; I looked for some vestiges of the presence of the Macedonian hero; but I found no inscription, no word in his language; all was mute; his name was even unknown to the inhabitants and buried in profound oblivion.” After having measured and inspected these ruins, Cailliaud began to make a sketch of them. The chiefs of Siwah, who aeeompaned him, approached in order to discover what he was doing; but as they saw he drew nothing but stones, omitting the fountains and date-trees, they allowed him to proceed. After traveling toward the east until January 10th, they reached a village where there were numerous catacombs, and the remains of an old Coptic village, but Cailliaud failed to discover anything of special interest. There was also a warm spring, mistaken by several travelers for the Fountain of the Sun, as our traveler supposed the oasis he visited to contain the temple of Jupiter Ammon. Cailliaud’s contract with Koroom being at an end, he asked the chief of the village to procure him camels for his further journey, and, in the meantime, employed himself in making a 98 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. topographical plan of the Oasis. In this he was soon embar- rassed by the inhabitants in the same manner employed by the natives of the Libyan Desert, at the time he was in Siwah. The people here declared that he was putting their country upon paper, in order to show it to the Pasha, and thereby increase their tribute; while others declared it to be a work of Christian magic which would cause their springs to dry up. In spite of the passport of Mohammed Ali, which the chief read aloud, publicly, the opposition was so great that the travelers were obliged to make their observations secretly, but as they were detained several weeks, waiting for camels, they finally succeeded in making a very fine map. On the second of February, however, a complaint was made before the Cadi, and the principal inhabitants of the village assembled around Cailliaud’s house. The travelers were for- mally arraigned before the judge, and the most profound silence ensued, when an Arab stepped into the circle to denounce them. “I have seen that man,’ said he, pointing to Cailliaud, “stop at a fountain and plunge therein an instrument of glass and of silver. After having withdrawn it, he immediately be- gan to write.” These magical proceedings, he said, were made to alarm the inhabitants. There was then a general demand to behold the instrument of sorcery. The thermometer was pro- duced, and Cailliaud endeavored, but in vain, to explain its properties. When he made the column of mercury rise or fall, by applying or withdrawing the ball of his thumb, they looked on with terror, calling the Prophet to their aid. He then showed them a telescope and repeating watch, and exploded some fulminating silver; all of which the more firmly con- vinced them of his magical powers. He directed the cadet to take a telescope and point it to the sun; the interpreter made the people sit on the ground and observe profound silence. After the magical operation was finished the chiefs were allowed to look through the telescope, and they cried out in astonishment at seeing the sun through the colored lens, as a ball of purple fire. They appointed a man to watch him day and night, but the spy found the sorcerer’s table ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 99 so much better than his own that he soon became a firm friend. Meanwhile the inhabitants busied themselves in pro- curing camels, in order that the dangerous visitor might be enabled to leave the country as soon as possible. Cailliaud next proceeded to Cairo, and from thence to Thebes, where he arrived on the 14th of May, designing to occupy himself with archaeological studies during his stay. He had a temporary dwelling made from the stones of a ruined temple, at the foot of the mountain of Gorneh; the roof was composed of the lids of mummy coffins. Here he occupied him- self in copying the representations in the adjoining tombs; and finishing this work, he decided to return to Cairo, and make an excursion to the ruins of Cyrene on the Libyan coast. In consequence of this, he departed from Thebes on the Gtli of June, and arrived at Cairo after a voyage of twenty days. Here he visited Ismail Pasha, who renewed to him the promise of his assistance and protection, but added that he intended to set out in fifteen days at the head of a military expedition against Dongola. Cailliaud's voyage was therefore useless, and, after visiting the petrified forests near Cairo, he started on his return to Upper Egypt on the 27th of July. After a tedious voyage of twenty-two days, he again reached Thebes, but continued his journey without halt, except to purchase four camels at Darou, proceeding to Assouan, where Ismail Pasha was then encamped, on the left bank of the Nile. “The shores were crowded with barks, and covered with troops, tents, camels, cavalry, baggage, ammunition, and artillery; everything announced the war which was soon to be carried on in Nubia. These preparations had an important aspect; the cries of the animals, the acclamations of the people, the songs of the Albanians, the music of the cymbals and flutes, and the roll of the drums — all contributed to excite the imagination. The camp presented a picture of mirth; each one gave himself up to joy; the soldiers saw pillage in perspective; the Pasha flattered himself with the idea of capturing forty thousand Negroes; the Europeans were ambitious of reaching Meroe, 100 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. and, in that ambition, exposed themselves to the dangers and chances of an unjust war.” Failing to make arrangements, by which he cou'ld accom- pany the army of Ismail, Cailliaud left Assouan on the 25th of November, with a caravan of eight persons, for Dongola. On the 3d of January, 1821, they reached the temple of Soleb, the most beautiful of the Egyptian monuments in Nubia, above the second cataract of the Nile, and remained several days to examine it. Cailliaud considered it of similar style to the Memnonium at Thebes; he gives its length at three hundred and fifty feet, and counted the remains of more than ninety columns some of which, thirty-two feet high, are still standing on their pedestals. The temple of Soleb, 'situated in the midst of a landscape which presents the most enchanting forms, stands in a little bay of verdure, inclosed on three sides by the rocks of the desert. Whether the traveler approaches it from north or south, it appears unexpectedly, and the surprise of its first views tends to heighten the impression of its symmetry and majesty. On the 11th of January, the litfle caravan reached the frontier of Dongo'la. “Our route was bordered by a grove of tufted acacias, which hid from our view the opposite bank of the river. At a quarter of a league to the west, we saw other acacias, with cultivated fields and the habitations of the Arabs. There, only, I felt that I had quitted Egypt. In Lower Nubia, as in Egypt, the monotonous aspect of the palms, the burning rocks, the sands which threaten to engulf the valley of the Nile, occasion a profound feeling of melancholy; but the region I had reached presented a very different aspect — 'the palms were there replaced by thick woods of acacias and of nebbuks. The verdure recalled France to my mind, and I felt the liveliest emotion in traversing this smiling country. We were obliged to traverse plains covered with thick woods, where it was often necessary to descend from our horses, in order to penetrate the little paths bordered with acacia and arbutus. The charm of these delicious paths made us disregard the obstacles we en- countered. Vegetation, on this island, breathes of freshness ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 101 and life, the trees which have dried up by age, or choked by the violent embraces of the parasitic vines, still present the appearance of vigor and youth, under the tissue of verdure, with which these gigantic plants embrace them, forming arbors which no art can imitate.” The next day Cailliaud set out to visit Ismail Pasha, whose camp he reached after a march of five hours. He was received with all the political cunning of the Turkish race, and it was decided this time that he should be allowed to accompany the expedition. Ismail’s army at that time consisted of four thousand men, of whom one thousand eight hundred were cavalry, besides two thousand servants, and three thousand camels. There were also twenty-four pieces of artillery. The Pasha had a body-guard of twenty Mamelukes. The diplomatic functions were exercised by three Ulemas, who made great efforts to subjugate the Negroes by moral suasion, and to avoid the effusion of blood. They often succeeded in this humane intent, and were rewarded with robes of honor and a sum equal to about one thousand two hundred dollars each. The camp was broken up on the 21st of February, and after a march of a few days, worn out with fatigue, they reached the river. “Like the rest,” says the traveler, “I rendered homage to him in quenching my thirst. In the twinkling of an eye the banks were covered with soldiers; all desired to drink the water of the river, or to plunge into it. The army appeared to have regained a new existence. The Nile, in fact, gives life to everything which breathes or vegetates in these countries, and the Egyptian who is afar from its creative waters seems to have lost the essential part of his vitality.” Cailliaud now learned that extensive ruins existed at a place called Sobah, on the Blue Nile. He therefore applied to the Pasha for a boat to ascend the river, while the cadet followed the army with the camels and baggage. After a few days’ travel, Sobah was reached, but the only object which gave any evidence of the ancient character of the place was a muti- lated ram-headed sphinx, about five feet in length. During the following week the wind was adverse, and the 102 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. voyage was very slow and tiresome, but the desire of ascertain- ing the points of junction of two tributaries of the Blue Nile induced Cailliaud to continue his journey by water. After passing the mouth of the Rahad, the first tributary, Cailliaud on the 12th, reached the village of Kourdkeyleh, where the scenery began to assume a very different aspect. “At the dawn of day,” says he, “I endeavored to enter the forest of Kourdkeyleh to surprise some wild animals. I saw there many monkeys, the fresh tracks of the elephant, guinea fowls, and birds of brilliant plumage, which uttered harsh cries. Since the Pharaohs, perhaps, no bark had spread its sail on the river which I navigated, and it was not without a keen satisfaction that I saw mine advancing before all others, fight- ing with the winds in quarters where the gaze of a European had never before penetrated. I felt an involuntary emotion in contemplating those trees, conquerors of Time, which age had not bent; those thick woods, whose eternal foliage never spread for the traveler a protecting shade against the burning sun; those inaccessible thickets where the shepherd never led his flocks. Savage Nature alone breathed amid this constantly renewed vegetation; the acacias, the nebbuks, the dead trees themselves were enlaced in the inextricable convolutions of the parasitic vines, thus forming a compact mass of verdure, through which a few almost impracticable paths allowed the light to enter. The shock of our oars and the sound of the water against our bark alarmed the inhabitants of the flood; the crocodiles forsook the solitary shores, and the frightened hippopotami, swimming in herds around us, seemed by their bellowings to reproach us for having invaded their domain. The river was bordered with the bamboo, the ebony, and other new and precious woods; we saw trees, plants, insects, and shells of unknown kinds, and rejoiced in the distinctive, yet hitherto unknown, physiognomy of this virgin soil.” The traveler passed the mouth of the river Dendar, the second tributary, and continued slowly to advance until the 21st, when, having arrived within nine miles of Sennaar, he finished the journey by land. The army had already been ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 103 encamped there eight days. The cadet and the rest of the party weie comfortably established. The Pasha left Sennaar, with his army, on the 7th, and com- menced his march up the western bank of the Blue Nile. “All the villages which we saw,” says Oailliaud, ‘were mercilessly plundered by the troops, and I was obliged to follow their example in order to obtain a little dourra, some fowls, the fruit of the baobab, and the fresh pods of the tamarind — the only things left behind by the inhabitants, who fled at our approach.” On the 17th, after passing through a region abounding in wild elephants and giraffes, they reached a village called El- Kerebeen, a dependency of Sennaar, situated at the commence- ment of the mountains. The village is built in a group of granite hills, from six to eight hundred feet high. Ibrahim Pasha was at this time encamped four or five miles further to the west. Gailliaud, who went to visit him. found him labor- ing under an attack of dysentery, and very much dejected. He said to his brother Ismail, who was present, that if he did not find himself better in a few days he would return to Egypt. “Thus was dissipated, as I could plainly see, the splendid plan of a voyage up the White Nile, and into the interior of Africa. In the evening I returned to my tent with Prince Ismail, who obliged me to drive with him every day. I was the only stran- ger who had accompanied him in his last campaign; I only could write, and make known his exploits in Europe; and 1 could see he was ambitious of glory, as are the Turks ordi- narily.” On the same day, envoys arrived from the King of Faz-ogl, to announce that he was ready to give his submission. There then only remained the pagan Negroes to be conquered, whom the Pasha designed to capture and carry off for slaves. As the army approached Fazogl, the country became more densely wooded, and it was a mater of great difficulty to pass through the forests of thorny mimosas. After two days they reached a group of mountains called Agady, on the summit of one of which was a Negro village. Many of the inhabitants had fled during the night; the remainder were called upon to 104 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. pay tribute, which they refused, sayiug the Pasha might do what he pleased with them. The troops were eager for an attack, and the order was at once given. Three hundred men mounted to the village, which became the scene of fire, slaugh- ter, and pillage. One hundred and seventy Negroes, mostly women, were taken prisoners, and conducted to the rear of the Pasha’s tents, with yokes of wood around their necks. On the 22d, after a difficult march of eight hours through the woods, the expedition reached the mountains of Kilgou, where there was another large Negro village. “Ismail ordered the advance guard to march rapidly upon the place, surprise the inhabitants, and prevent their flight. This order was promptly executed; the rocks were scaled, and a large body of Negroes surrounded, who, nevertheless, defended themselves with unexpected obstinacy. The troops had spread their lines in climbing the hill, in order to surround as large a number as possible, but soon the difficulties of the ground broke up the order of march; they could not keep their footing on the masses of slippery granite which barred their path. Finally, taking off their slippers, which they stuck into their belts, they reached the first huts, where they found several women, who refused to follow them and were killed. The men on the summit of the mountains rolled down masses of stone and logs of wood upon their enemies. They dashed hither and thither with surprising agility. The Turks compared them to birds, for their feet hardly seemed to touch the surface of the rocks. Many of them hurled their lances from behind trees or masses of granite, and pierced the first troops who ascended the hill. Meanwhile the Pasha, tired of the prolonged resist- ance, mounted the hill with seven of his Mamelukes and some Albanians, but soon had reason to repent his imprudence. The Negroes suddenly sallied out of their retreat, and hurled their lances, killing one of the Mamelukes. After firing a volley into them, the Pasha returned to the camp. By this time the Negroes had cast away all their lances and sought safety in flight. One-fourth of them escaped, and the rest were captured. In this battle the Pasha had twelve men killed SLAVES CAPTURED AT KILGOU. ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 105 and forty wounded; of the Negroes one hundred and eighty were killed and five hundred and seventy-five taken prisoners. The latter had crisp hair, thick lips, and prominent cheek bones; a few of them had flat noses. The men wore only a piece of goat skin tied around their loins, and the women a piece of cotton which reached to the middle of the thigh. There were none among them who understood Arabic. The Pasha allowed me to take two who appeared intelligent and good-tempered, and an Arab of Fazogl, who knew a little of their language, served me as interpreter.” After a rest of three days, the army resumed its march. On the 26 th it entered a narrow, rocky valley, on either side of which were many deserted villages. The Pasha determined to put himself at the head of the expedition, and asked Cailliaud to accompany him. The latter excused himself on account of his fatigued dromedary, but the offer of a horse obliged him to accept, and, having armed himself to the teeth, he followed the commander. “We entered a little valley inclosed between two chains of high hills and overlooked by a mountain which we proposed to scale, in the hope of surprising the Negroes on the opposite side. It was necessary to break a passage through the mimosas and the nebbuks, the thorny branches of which tore our clothes into shreds. The Pasha had recommended me for my own safety to keep close to him, but this benevo- lent consideration nearly proved fatal to me. After two hours’ march, we had made two-thirds of the mountain which was the aim of our expedition. We advanced up a rough and uneven path with the brink of a precipice on the right, while the peaked summit of the mountain arose on the left. A part of the troops were in advance; the Pasha followed them, having behind him one of his slaves, who carried his narghileli; I came immediately after, so near that the head of my horse touched his, and the Mamelukes after me, for the path was so narrow that we were obliged to march in single file. All at once a rock three feet in diameter fell between Ismail and myself, hurling down the precipice the slave who separated us. Without doubt the blow was intended for the Pasha, who was 106 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. distinguished by his rich costume; but one step more, and I should have received it! Ismail turned immediately, and I could perceive his fright in the pallor of his countenance; I confess, however, that he cduld justly have made the same remark concerning me. We dismounted, in order to avoid more readily the rocks and pieces of wood which the Negroes continued to hurl down upon us. We descended the mountain much faster than we went up, and, having reached the level spot, the Pasha played a piece of cannon against the summit; but the balls passing beyond, almost reached the troops com- manded by his physician, who returned in great fear, without having achieved any more valorous exploits than ourselves.” During the next day’s march they saw several enormous baobab trees, one of which measured sixty-two feet in circum- ference. The country became more open, but a new range of mountains appeared in the south. Although he knew that his army was surrounded by a body of five or six thousand Negroes, the Pasha neglected to place any sentinels around his camp that night. Favored by this carelessness, the Negroes cau- tiously descended from the mountains: the thickness of the foliage, the darkness of the night, and the color of their skins even, contributed to conceal their march. They were but a pistol shot distant when, owing, no doubt, to a custom of theirs on attacking, they began to utter loud cries, hurling their lances at the same time. The alarm and confusion was general ; no one knew from which side the attack came. The soldiers hurrying out of their tents supposed that the Negroes were already masters of the camp. A few dis- charges of musketry sufficed to drive off the foe, and the tumult finally ceased. During the confusion several cannon were fired, but so much at random that one of the balls passed over Cailliaud’s tent, and another struck the earth about fifteen paces off. Seeing that little was to be accomplished against the Negroes, in a country where every mountain or forest was an almost impregnable fortress, the Pasha determined to return to Kil- gou. and take the direct route to Fazogl. The way was very ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 107 laborious and difficult; there was no water, except some ponds which were corrupt and stagnant; deep, rocky ravines crossed the path, and the army was beginning to suffer greatly from thirst, when a little water was obtained by digging in the dry bed of the torrent. “Having passed these dry water-courses,” says Cailliaud, “we made our painful way through a dense thicket of gigantic bushes, acacias and nebbuks; our faces, our hands and feet were scarred with severe and inevitable scratches, and our clothes were hanging in shreds. At last, towards evening, we found ourselves all at once on the banks of the Nile. The sight of the water restored quiet to the troops, who were becoming discontented and mutinous.” On the 1st of January, 1822, they set out for the great mountain of Fazogl, which they saw in the southeast. The country was covered with thick woods; here and there grew tamarinds and down-palms of much grander proportions than those of Egypt. “This day was for us a day of misfortune. At first I abandoned one of my camels, which died on the route; toward evening two others fell into a ravine, and it was neces- sary to unload and reload, which consumed much time, besides obliging me to throw away part of our dourra. Meanwhile the night came and we were enveloped in gloom. We ceased to hear the footsteps of some stragglers who hurried on to reach Fazogl; the whole army was in advance and we sought vainly in the obscurity to find a trace of its path. My cadet, M. Letor- zec, and myself were greatly fatigued and depressed. I went to take a drink of water, but alas! the water-skin had been burst by the fall of the camel. It seemed now that we must pass the night in the woods exposed to the danger of being attacked by wild beasts, or by the Negroes, in case we should light a fire to frighten away the former. Such was our per- plexity, when our Arab said to me that he perceived a light in the distance; we looked, but discovered nothing, but finally it increased and we saw it also. “This sight revived our courage. We hastened toward it, but cautiously, not knowing whether we were approaching friends or foes. I sent the Arab in advance to make a stealthy 108 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. inspection, and in a short time we were agreeably startled by his cries of joy. At the same time several soldiers, lost like ourselves, approached begging us for water. A single bottle of wine, which I had always preserved in case of misfortune, could not be better employed: we drank the half of it, and then resigned ourselves to pass the night with our companions in misfortune. This was the time when the cadet was seized with a fever which lasted several months. Early the next morning we set out to rejoin the army, which we found at two hours’ distance, on the banks of the Nile, near the village of Yara, a dependency of Fazogl, where we remained several days.” On approaching the village of Fazogl, the Pasha was received by Hassan, king of the province, who went in advance, accompanied by his ministers, mounted on fine Abyssinian horses, and surrounded by a guard of a hundred men, armed with lances. They met Ismail at five leagues’ distance; the King and his ministers dismounted when they perceived him, advanced on foot and prostrated themselves before him. Hassan presented him with two splendid horses; the guards approaching, arranged themselves in a line, knelt and reversed the points of their lances in token of submission. Ismail pro- hibited his troops from passing through the villages, in order that they might not be devastated; for it was not always in his power to preserve good order. On the 5th, the expedition advanced to a village called Tourmoga. Having learned that King Hassan was there, Cailliaud paid him a visit. “I entered into an ordinary hut, where I found the King sitting cross-legged upon a mat. He was a handsome man, young and of an agreeable figure. His costume was similar to that of the kings of Sennaar, but I remarked with surprise that his sandals terminated in curved points, exactly similar to those represented in the tombs of the kings at Thebes. On his knees he held his sword, in which seemed to consist all his magnificence. The scabbard and hilt were of silver; several heavy silver rings adorned his fingers, and around his neck he wore little leather cases containing verses from the Koran.” ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 109 The amount of tribute to be paid by Fazogl was at last fixed at one thousand ounces of gold and two thousand male slaves, and the Pasha set out on the 12th for the gold mines of Kas- san, lying two or three days’ journey to the southwest. To Cail- liaud, whose camels were nearly exhausted, he gave a horse, and to the cadet a mule, which enabled them to travel with more ease and rapidity. On approaching the mountain of Agaro, the road was crossed by a precipitous gully thirty-five feet deep, in passing which many of the camels were hurled to the bottom with their riders, and perished. The next forenoon the army reached the foot of the mountain, and encamped. The Negroes, full of audacity on account of their numbers and the strength of their position, had sent word to Ismail, before he left Fazogl, that if he came into their mountains they would break his legs. But, at the sight of the army and its cannon, they began to change their tune; they sent word to him that they would submit and pay tribute to him. Ismail entered into negotiations with them, in order to gain time until his troops had surrounded the mountain. When the Negroes per- ceived this design, they took to flight. The signal was then given for attack, and after a short struggle the soldiers reached the top of the mountain, when they at once set fire to the village. The inhabitants numbered about three thousand, of whom only about a hundred, mostly women, were taken, at a cost of fifteen lives. The Pasha then determined to make another assault on the eastern part of the mountain, with eight hundred men and a piece of a cannon. ‘‘This time,” says Cailliaud, “I was tempted to accompany him. The troops dispersed themselves over the mountain in the hope of stockading the village, and arrived there without trouble or resistance. It was deserted. In an instant the torch was applied, and five hundred huts were reduced to ashes. Old persons of both sexes, whom age or infirmity prevented from flying, were buried under their blaz- ing roofs; others were conducted to the Pasha, who, not know- ing what to do with them, allowed them freely to behold the horrible lesson which a more civilized people than they came to 110 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. teach them.” On the 16th the army crossed a river called the To u mat, continuing its course in a southwesterly direction, and reached the mountains of Kbasinkaro, when a deputation of Negroes came to meet the Pasha. They said that if he would continue his journey without doing them any harm, they would be able to pay him a tribute on his return. But the suspicious Turk placed little faith in their promises, and, as he was impa- tient to reach the gold mines, agreed to what they asked. Following the course of the Toumat, which furnished an ample supply of water, the expedition skirted the mountain of Kassan on the 18th. The inhabitants of a large village on its summit promised the Pasha five hundred male slaves, as their tribute. Soon afterward they entered the territory of Gfamamyl, and discovered in the west a long chain of mountains, called Obeh. The road here was continually Grossed by small affluents of the Toumat, which had worn for themselves deep beds in the soil, making the traveling more difficult than any which the army had yet encountered. “The passage of these ravines,” says Cailliaud, “was fatal to the camels; the route was strewn with abandoned animals and baggage. The Pasha himself had but a single good horse remaining. We were constrained to leave behind us a camel, part of its load, and the mule of the cadet, who then mounted the dromedary which carried my papers and drawings; but the poor animal, exhausted with fatigue, lay down. In vain did we employ every means to raise it; we could not succeed. That part of the forest in which we were was full of small dead trees and dry brushwood, v^hich was imprudently set on fire by the soldiers at a short distance from us. Soon the flames were ready to envelop us: I resolved to loose the dromedary, but I wished to save its load, which contained all my papers. We had nothing at hand to cut the cords and straps which bound it, and in our anxiety made useless efforts to untie them. All was over: the fruit of so much trouble and peril was about to be destroyed by the flames. They cried out to us to save ourselves, but I could not resign myself to sacrifice my treasures. Already the heat scorched us, we felt the approach of the fire; we must leave — ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. Ill I uttered a cry of despair. Meanwhile our camel, feeling the approach of the flames, rose, darted forward a little distance, and fell again. We ran to it, tore away the precious load, and placed it on my horse, which I led by the bridle, while my cadet urged it in the rear. But the wind drove the flames toward us; they advanced nearer and nearer; we were almost overcome with terror, when, oh, joy! the trees became scat- tering, and we issued from the woods.” The situation of the Egyptian army was now very critical. There was a general league among all the Negro tribes, to repel the invaders. The ammunition was almost exhausted; provisions were rapidly diminishing, and the latest news from Sennaar stated that the people, persuaded that the Pasha and his troops would perish among the mountains, were already beginning to foment a rebellion against the Egyptian race. The Pasha at last made up his mind to submit to circum- stances and order a retreat. ‘‘The next day,” says Cailliaud, “February 11th, was fixed for our departure. Before quitting Singue, I wished to overlook, as least as far as my vision might reach, the regions which an inexorable fate prevented us from traversing. I climbed a hill, and there, arrived with a tele- scope, I sought to discover the regions where my imagination had placed the source of the White Nile. Vain effort! I only convinced myself anew how limited is the space on the earth’s surface which the human eye can embrace, ceasing to gaze at a horizon which exhibited only vapory and confused outlines. I carved deeply on the rock the name of France, and trans- ported myself, in thought, to that beloved land. The army slowly debouched from the labyrinth of hills which surrounded Singue, cutting for itself a path to the west of that which it had followed in coming. We were still surrounded with enemies, and observed an order of march more regular than usual. This retrograde movement inspired all the men with new energy; even the animals seemed to understand that we were returning, and marched more firmly and rapidly. Joy was painted on the faces of all; the Bedouins and Alba- nians manifested theirs by songs; the remembrance of past 112 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. hardships was banished from memory, and all hopes were turned toward Egypt.” After a tiresome march of four days, the army reached Adassy on the Nile. Here the Pasha kindly furnished Cail- liaud with his own barque, and he proceeded down the river to Sennaar, from there intending to return to Egypt. Before leaving forever, Cailliaud desired to visit the ruins of Naga near Djebel Arden, and those of Mesowurat. His companion, although convalescent, was not able to support the fatigue. It was, therefore, agreed that he should leave for Egypt in a few days, and journey by short stages until overtaken by Cailliaud. The latter set out on the 22d, accompanied by two guides and two servants. After journeying all day down a long valley extending to the south, he reached the extremity of the moun- tains where the ruins were said to exist. “It was already night,” he writes, “and my guides did not consider it prudent' to go further, for fear of meeting with the Shukorees, who were in open revolt. We unloaded our camels cautiously, and lay down under the acacias which surrounded us. Wrapped in a quilt, with my head on a bundle of papers, I slept soundly, my Arabs watching by turns through the night. I awoke at dawn, and, finding everything quiet, advanced through the trees toward the ruins, which I discovered near at hand. The first object which I saw was a temple covered with Egyptian sculptures, with its pylon, and a portico of Greco-Roman architecture with Egyptian ornaments. Still further were the ruins of another grand temple, with finely sculptured decora- tions, and preceded by an avenue of sphinxes; the substructions of several other edifices, and those of a public tank. I recog- nized here the ruins of an ancient city, the importance of which was attested by the nature of the remains which still existed, and by the extent of territory which they occupied. My guides arrived, and, in order that we might not be seen by the rebel Arabs, we established our residence in the western temple. I then began, assisted by my two servants, to make a more careful examination of the monuments.” Cailliaud found the largest temple to be two hundred and AN ANCIENT AFRICAN CITY. ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 113 seventy feet in length, including the pylon and avenue of sphinxes. The sculptures of the interior are almost entirely destroyed. This state of degradation is owing, I suppose, to the insignificant height of the walls and the action of the trop- ical rains. The figures are without the indication of a beard so common in the sculptures of Egyptian temples. The peculiar character of their costume, and the embonpoint of their figures, give evidence of a people quite distinct from the ancient Egyptians, but who, nevertheless, appear to have had the same symbolic writing and the same religious ideas. For three days and a half the traveler remained among these ruins, sketching by day and writing by night, but his supply of water getting low, and the desire of examining El-Mesowurat before return- ing, obliged him to leave. The ruins of Mesowurat are about six hours’ travel north- east of Naga. “I was struck with astonishment,” writes Cailliaud, “on approaching the immense ruins which were ex- hibited to my gaze. I wandered from court to court, from temple to temple, from one chamber to another, traversing the corridors and galleries which connect the different structures. In this rapid survey I counted eight temples or sanctuaries, forty-one chambers, twenty-four courts and three galleries, all surrounded with walls, and occupying a space two thousand five hundred feet in circumference. On returning to my guides, I discovered that we had only water enough for twenty-four hours. My intention was to remain here five or six days. I proposed to the men to go to the Nile and replenish the stock, but was obliged to pay them extravagantly before they would consent. I mounted on the most elevated wall of the central edifice, where my eye overlooked all the ruins. There — care- fully studying the distribution of the different edifices around me — I became convinced that they formerly belonged to a col- lege. Were these silent solitudes, I asked to myself, ever animated by the boisterous sports of youth? Have these ruins ever resounded with the voices of the professors? Yes, these rude figures of birds and animals traced on the walls are the work of childish hands; these names engraved in Ethiopian 114 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. characters are those of students; and these others, in Greek, are, without doubt, those of strangers, whom the celebrity of the institution has attracted. “However extensive are these ruins of Mesowurat, nothing had led me to conjecture that the place could ever have been the site of a city. I found neither tombs nor any great number of ordinary habitations. A matter of notice is the small size of the stones employed in the construction of the temples. Taking into consideration this want of strength and solidity in the materials, in a climate where the rain falls for three months in a year, one is led to believe that the ruins which remain have not, like those of Thebes, resisted the injuries of time during a long course of ages. They evidently do not possess a very great antiquity. The tradition of the country is that the name of El-Mesowurat was that of the ancient fakeers who inhabited these rare edifices. This tradi- tion confirms the opinion that the place was devoted to education.” Having escaped this danger, the travelers found that they had lost their way, and were almost in equal peril, until they encountered several straggling soldiers. On reaching the camp, Cailliaud found that his baggage had not arrived, and was indebted to the charity of some soldiers for a cake of dourra, after eating which he slept upon his saddle-cloth, in the open air. The place where they were encamped was called Abkoul- gui, situated, according to Cailliaud’s observations, in latitude 10° 38' north. “The village consisted of a few scattered habitations on an elevated slope, whence the view extends over several other hills more or less wooded, and covered with iso- lated habitations. In the south one sees the distant mountains of Mafis, and in the west the long blue ridge of Obeh. Ab- koulgui appears to be the central point of the province of Gam- amyl, which is two days’ journey in extent. It. is watered by the Toumat and a great quantity of its tributary torrents; the soil is a clay, full of sand and pebbles, and showing everywhere traces of oxyd of iron. This province is reputed to be the richest in auriferous substances, where the Negroes have been most successful in collecting gold-dust.” ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 115 The Pasha, impatient to test the value of the gold-washings, sent Cailliaud the next day to examine them. The Negroes had sunk pits eighteen or twenty feet in the bed and banks of the river and washed out in wooded bowls the earth which they took from these places. The traveler succeeded in getting a few very small grains of fine gold, after washing for some time, but the result was very unsatisfactory to the Pasha, who next day sent him to another gold-washing, with several miners and an escort of thirty men. Here he opened new pits, and care- fully washed the earth, but the gold was found in quantities so small as scarcely to repay the labor. Finally, in the hope that the natives knew of rich deposits, Ismail sent an expedi- tion to take some prisoners. Among those captured was a chief, who informed him that during the rainy season the floods sometimes washed down pieces of gold as large as beans, but that at the present time it was only found in dust and small grains. He indicated several of the most favorable places in the country, and offered to conduct the Pasha to them. Two or three excursions were made in different directions, under a strong armed escort, and the washing carried on vig- orously for several days, but with no better success. The Pasha finally became disgusted and gave up the search entirely. Meanwhile his situation was becoming insecure. The Gal- las, who had overrun all the southwestern part of Abyssinia, and who are also enemies of the wild Negro tribes, were only five or six hours distant from him; the Negroes were collecting for a new assault, and he received word that a convoy of powder and other ammunition had been taken by the natives near Fazogl, and an escort of twenty-five of his men killed. How- ever, being reinforced by a company of four hundred men who arrived from Sennaar, he continued to send out parties against the neighboring villages for the purpose of increasing his har- vest of slaves. All this region has the general name of Bertat; the inhabitants are of pure Negro blood, and wholly uncivilized in their character and lnsbits. Their only religion consists in the worship of large trees, especially the baobab, under which 116 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. they sometimes sacrifice sheep and goats. Their clothing is scarcely sufficient for description; their bodies long, and nimble rather than athletic, and they are not wanting in courage, as the Egyptian troops had already learned. “Seventeen days,” says Cailliaud, “had elapsed since our arrival at Gamamyl. I had undergone many fatigues, and yet my health had improved. I mounted my horse to go on the hunt of auriferous sands. We multiplied our trials, weighed the earth, calculated the proportion of the quantity of gold, but never attained any result which could give us the least hope. Those mountains of gold, upon which the Pasha counted so strongly, vanished like smoke; the thirty thousand Negroes which he intended to capture diminished to a few hundreds. It became necessary to try our luck elsewhere, and he gave the order for our departure. From the want of camels I was obliged to leave behind a fine collection of minerals which I had gathered together. M. Letorzec (the cadet), weighed down by fever, remained in bed during our stay; his strength visibly diminishing in the meantime. When he learned that we were about to set out for the purpose of penetrating still further southward, his chagrin increased his illness, and he was haunted by the idea that he would never see his native country again. We set out on the 5th of February. Most of the soldiers could not restrain their surprise at seeing that we were still marching to the south. The Shygeans had made a manikin resembling a man and dressed in the fashion of their tribe; it is an established custom with them to inter a similar manikin at the extreme limit which their hostile expeditions reach in an enemy’s country. Some of them walked in order to allow this ridiculous figure to ride on a camel; at which the Turks were greatly amused.” The army encamped near the village of Singue, which was inhabited by Mussulmans. Moussa, their chief, had sent word that he was disposed to pay a tribute, in consequence of which the Pasha prevented his troops from approaching the village, fearing they might commit depredations. Cailliaud visited the place next morning, and found it to consist of five or six ANCIENT AND. MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA. 117 hundred houses, scattered along a ridge three or four miles in length. It was almost deserted, and the traveler did not judge it prudent to remain long. The village was sacked by the troops the same day. On the afternoon of the 7th, while the greater part of the Turkish soldiers were asleep, according to their custom, a body of about a thousand Negroes descended from the hills to the westward. They were finally perceived, and the Pasha and his artillerymen aroused; but before the guns could be brought to bear on them, they had advanced near enough to kill some straggling soldiers. The fear of the cannon caused them to retreat precipitately to the mountains. Five hundred men were sent after them, but not being able to reach them, burned their houses. The Negroes renewed their attacks next day, and succeeded in carrying off eight of the Pasha’s fine horses. One of the savage chiefs, who had been taken prisoner, was offered his liberty if he would obtain the animals and restore them; this he swore by the Koran to do, and was accordingly liberated, but neither chief nor horses were ever seen again. Leaving the ruins, he overtook the cadet at Elkab, and from thence proceeded toward Mount Berkel, which he reached in eight days, and remained there more than two weeks in order to make a complete survey of its ruins. “Every morning at sunrise,” he says, “I repaired to the ruins, and I did not leave them until night. In the middle of the day I occupied myself in drawing the interior sculptures of the typhonium, and the sanctuaries of the pyramids, where I sought shelter against the excessive heat, which was often 105° in the shade. Mount Berkel, isolated on the desert plain, is a mass of sandstone about four thousand feet in circumference. Its southern base is a naked precipice two hundred feet high, at the base of which are the temples, all facing the river. “Among the sculptures are two cartouches, which, accord- ing to Champollion, contain the name of Tirhaka, the first king of the Ethiopian dynasty, who invaded Egypt eight hundred years before the Christian Era. “The style of the figures and ornaments is the pure style of 118 BISTORT OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. the monuments of Egypt and lower Nubia. That part of the temple which is excavated in the mountain is in a good state of preservation. East of the typhonium there are many remains of walls and fragments of columns, extending for some dis- tance. Among these I discovered two lions of rose-colored granite, of Egyptian style and beautiful form. Everything goes to prove that the vast ruins of Mount Berkel are those of the city of Napata, the ancient capital of Ethiopia, of which the pyramids of Noori were the necropolis.” Proceeding to Thebes, Cailliaud remained there some time, employing himself in copying the sculptures on the walls of Memnon’s tomb. Leaving Thebes, finally with his companion they reached Alexandria, and embarked for France, and on the 11th of December anchored in the harbor of Marseilles. Cail- liaud’s account of his journey, in four octavo volumes, with an accompanying folio containing maps, plans and engravings, was published in Paris, in 1826. It is from this work, now in the Academy of Science, that the abridged narrative has been prepared. SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE. 119 CHAPTER V. SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. Enslave a man and you destroy his ambition, his enterprise, his capacity. In the constitution of human nature the desire of bettering one’s condition is the mainspring of effort. The first touch of slavery snaps this spring .— Horace Mann. S LAVERY : “The right of property of one man in another man, in his family, in his posterity, and in the products of his labor.” There is no injustice more revolting than slavery, and yet there is no fact so widespread in history. In antiquity the system of labor was everywhere slavery. It was found in Rome, in Greece, in Egypt, in Austria, in Gaul, among the Germans, and it is said even among the Scythians. It was recruited by war, by voluntary sale, by captivity for debt, and then by inheritance. It was not everywhere cruel, and in patriarchal life it was scarcely distinguishable from domestic service; in some countries, however, it approached the service of beasts of burden. The brutal insensibility with which Aris- totle and Varro spoke- of slaves is revolting; and the manner in which they were treated by the laws is even more so. These men, who were of the same race, who had the same intel- lect and the same color as their owners, were declared incapa- ble of holding property, of appealing to the law, of defending themselves; in a word, of conducting themselves like men in any of the circumstances of life. Only the law of the Hebrew people tempered servitude by humanity. Doubtless we might quote certain words of Euripides or Terence, of Epictetus or of Seneca, colored with a more tender pity and evincing some heart. We find also both in Greek and Roman laws, on the monuments, and in the inscriptions and epitaphs which our contemporaries have so carefully studied, the proof that the granting of freedom to slaves, in individual cases, was fre- quent, and that it was inspired, especially at the moment of death, by religious motives. 120 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. But the brutal fact of slavery is incontestable. The evil outweighed the good in an enormous measure; servitude remained from century to century, from country to country, during all antiquity, the universal fact, and the legitimateness of servitude, the universal doctrine. To the rare and barren protests of a few noble souls, Christianity finally added the power of its mighty voice. The brotherhood of men, the dig- nity of labor, the absolute duty of perfection: with these three principles, clothed with tlhe authority of God himself, the human race entered a new phase, commenced the great battle of good against evil, and, little by little, forced back the scourges winch, in the past, had reigned with undivided supremacy. Servitude was destined to be among the vanquished, but it was not without a long and grievous combat, which, at the present time, is not entirely terminated. The learned labors of M. Edouard Biot and M. Janoski warrant the affirmation that servitude had almost entirely disappeared in Christian Europe from the tenth to the thirteenth century; but it is only too well known that, after the discovery of the New World, the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed the reestablishment of this odious institution in all the colonial possessions of the nations of Europe. As we will hereafter see, the most Chris- tian kings of France, Spain and England did not blush to place their signatures at the bottom of treaties intended to assure to them the monopoly of the sale and transportation of millions of human beings. An entire continent — Africa — became like a mine to be worked, furnishing the other continents with the living merchandise, to enrich and fill the coffers of potentates, kings and nations. To the nineteenth century belongs the honor of waging against servitude a war, which is not yet ended, but which has been distinguislhed, however, by remarkable victories. The revolution is complete as far as ideas are concerned. Morality spoke first, and all the sciences, little by little, came to agree with it. Philosophy gives to all slaves a soul equal to our own, which Aristotle, perhaps, refused to them. Physiology declares SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE. 121 blacks and whites, despite important differences, to be members of the same family. History no longer discovers between slave-owners and slaves the trace of any legitimate conquest. The law does not recognize any validity of a pretended contract which has not title, the object of which is illicit, and one of the parties to which is not a free agent, and the other party to which is without good faith. Ethnology lifts to the dignity of a beautiful law the radical difference which places in the first rank the races which labor like the European, and in the last rank the races who make others work for them, like the Turks. Political economy affirms the superiority of free labor to forced labor, and it condemns everything whic'h deprives man of the family. Politics and charity, from different points of view, accept the same conclusion: Charity, more tender, detests slavery, because it oppresses the inferior race; politics, more lofty, condemns it above all, because it corrupts the superior race. Thus the revolution above referred to, complete in the order of ideas, is not complete in the order of facts, as we will hereafter sqe. History cannot penetrate the depths of antiquity sufficiently to ascertain the origin of human slavery, for it is older than history itself, older than civilization, a vice conceived in dark- ness and cradled in obscurity. It probably had its origin in war — in the captivity of the vanquished. “Woe to the con- quered!” is the primary rule of savage and barbarian warfare, and the victor soon learns by experience that the gratification of killing his prisoner is transient, while sparing him for servi- tude he will reap an enduring profit, and thus in the misty annals of time we read how, not merely the vanquished war- riors, but their wives and children, their dependents and sub- jects, were considered the legitimate spoils of victory, together with their houses, land, flocks, herds, goods and chattels. We can see in the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, the destruction by Borne of Capua, of Carthage, and of other cities which had provoked her special enmity, that nations which regarded themselves as far advanced in civilization were no more merciful than savages when enraged by fear and hate. L22 H1XTVK¥ OF THU COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. The fruit of war is devastation and waste, the soil furrowed with cannon balls yields uncertain harvests. Rapacity as well as destruction seem almost inseparable from war. The soldier compelled to destroy for his chief's or his country’s sake, soon learns to appropriate for his own. The rights and value of property and the distinction between “thine and mine” become confused, if not altogether obliterated from his mind. He con- siders it an act of humanity to enslave rather than kill; a kind act, rather than one of injustice and wrong. Hence the war- like conquering races of antiquity universally rejoiced, when at their acme of power and greatness, in the possession of in- numerable slaves. Slavery of a mild and gentle type may, even in the absence of war, have grown insensibly. The broad acres and comfort- able cabins (of the land-owner) became the refuge of the unfor- tunate and destitute from an uncharitable world. The crippled and infirm, the abandoned wife, the unwedded mother, the ten- der orphan, the outworn prodigal, all betake themselves to his lodge to solicit food and shelter as a compensation for services. Some are accepted from motives of thrift, others under the impulse of charity, and the greater portion of either class, exult- ing in their escape from cold, hunger and starvation, gladly remain through life. Marriages are formed among them and children born, who grow up contented with their station, and ignorant of the world outside of his possessions. If his cir- cumstances require a military force, he organizes it from ser- vants born in his own household. His possessions steadily increase, and he becomes in time a feudal chieftain, ruling over vassals proud of his eminence, and docile to his will. Thus it is that the conditions of slavery precede the laws by which they are ultimately regulated, and it is to some extent plausible that its exponents have contended for it as a natural form of society — a moral development of the necessary association of capital with labor in man’s progress from rude ignorance and want to abundance, refinement and luxury. He who imbibes or conceives the fatal delusion that it is more advantageous to him, or to any human being, to procure SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE. 123 whatever his necessities or his appetites required, by address and scheming than by honest work — by the unrequited, rather thau the fairly and faithfully recompensed toil of his fellow- creatures — was in essence and in heart a slave-holder, and only awaited an opportunity to become one in deed and in practice; and this single truth, operating upon the infinite vari- eties of human capacity and culture, suffices to account for the universality of slave-holding in the ante-Christian ages, for its tenacity of life, and for the extreme difficulty of even its partial eradication. The ancients, while they apprehended, perhaps adequately, the bitterness of bondage, which many of them had experi- enced, do not seem to have perceived so vividly the cor- responding evils of slave-holding. They saw that end of the chain which encircled the ankle of the bondman; they do not seem to have so clearly perceived that the other lay heavily across the throat of his sleeping master. Homer says: “Jove fixed it certain, that whatever day Makes man a slave, takes half his worth awav.” but lie appears to have overlooked the truth that the slave- holding relation effected an equal discount on the value of the master. The mandate of scripture, that “by the sweat of thy brow shall thy bread be eaten,” has all along the ages borne the imprint of wisdom; and just in proportion as this injunction has been unheeded, so have peoples and nations been divided and scattered, for it is true that ancient civilization in its vari- ous national developments was corrupted, debauched, and ulti- mately ruined by slavery, which rendered labor dishonorable, and divided society into a small caste of the wealthy, educated, refined and independent, and a vast hungry, sensual, thriftless and worthless populace, rendering impossible the preservation of republican liberty and of legalized equality even among the nominally free. Diogenes with his lantern might have looked for many a long day among the followers of Marius, or Catiline, 124 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. or Caesar, in vain, for a poor but virtuous and relf-respecting Roman citizen of the days of Cincinnatus, or even Regulus. The slavery of antiquity survived the religions, the ideas, the politics, and even the empires in which it had its origin, and even upon the accession of the Church to supremacy over the Roman world it was not abolished as it should have been, for the simple and sublime teaching of Christ and of His apos- tles had been grievously corrupted and perverted. The subtle- ties of Greek speculation, the pomp and pride of imperial Rome, had already commenced drawing the Church further and further away from its divine source. A robed and mitered ecclesiasticism, treacherous to humanity and truckling to power, had usurped the place of that austere, intrepid spirit which openly rebuked the guilt of regal, voluptuous Herod, and made courtly Felix tremble. The Church 'had become an estate above the people, and their just complaints of the op- pressions and inhumanities of the powerful were seldom breathed into its reluctant oars. Slavery of the white race gradually wore out, or faded out, but it was not grappled wiith and crushed as it should have been. The Dark Ages, justly so called, are still quite dark enough; but sufficient light has been shed upon them to assure us that the accord of priest and noble was complete, and that serf and peasant groaned and suffered beneath their iron sway. The invention of printing, the discovery of America, the Protestant Reformation, the decline and fall of feudalism, grad- ually changed the condition and brightened the prospects of the masses. Ancient slavery was dead, modern serfdom exerted her sway only in cold and barbarous Russia. But African slavery — the slavery of Negroes — had been revived or re-introduced on the northern coast of the Mediterranean by Moorish traders, about the tenth century, and began to make its way among Spanish and Portuguese Christians somewhere near the middle of the fifteenth. Bancroft tells us that in the year 990 Moorish merchants from the Barbary coast first reached the cities of Nigritia and established an uninterrupted exchange of Saracen and European luxuries for the gold and „ r.A '£’• i -v*/ +>(i CLv (Uhl . SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE. 125 slaves of Central Afriea. The Portuguese are next in the market. Antonio Gingabe, who bad brought some Moorish slaves into Portugal, was commanded to release them. He did so; and the Moors gave him as their ransom, not gold, but black Moors i&ith curled hair. Thus Negro slaves came into Europe. In 1444 Spain also took part in the traffic. The historian of her maritime discoveries even claims for her the unenviable distinction of having anticipated the Portuguese in introducing Negroes into Europe. Within two years after the discovery of America, before Columbus had set foot on the Continent, he was concerned in seizing some scores of natives, carrying them to Spain and selling them there as slaves. Thus is the great name of Columbus indelibly stained by his undeniable and conspicuous implication in the enslavement of the aborigines of this Conti- nent, termed Indians. Others extensively followed his ex- ample. The fierce lust for gold which inflamed the early ad- venturers on his track incited the most reckless, shameless disregard of the rights and happiness of a harmless and guile- less people, whose very helplessness should have been their defence. Bancroft tells us that, “In 1500 the generous Isa- bella commanded the liberation of the Indians held in bondage in her European possessions. Yet her native benevolence extended not to the Moors, whose valor had been punished by slavery, nor to the Africans; and even her compassion for the new world was but a transient feeling which relieves the miser- able who are in sight, not the deliberation of a just principle.” After the liberation by death or royal decree of the rem- nant who survived intolerable suffering, the western coast of Africa was thrown open to replace them by a race more indurated to hardship and toil. Religion was invoked to cover this new atrocity with her broad mantle, under the plea of relieving the Indians from a servitude which the larger part had already escaped through the gate of death. Even the voluptuous Leo X. declared that not the Christian religion alone, but nature itself would rise up against the institution of Slavery, and Paul III., in two separate briefs, imprecated a 126 BISTORT OF TEE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. curse on the Europeans who would enslave their fellow-men. Upon the suggestion of Las Casas in favor of Negroes for American slaves, in contradistinction to the Indians, Negroes began to be poured into the West Indies. Spanish slave- holders, as they immigrated, were accompanied by their Negroes. It was also proposed to allow four for each emi- grant. Deliberate calculation fixed the number esteemed necessary at four thousand, and Bancroft tells that the very year in which Charles V. sailed with a powerful expedition against Tunis to attack the pirates of the Barbary States, and to emancipate Christian slaves in Africa, he gave an open legal sanction to the African slave trade. Negro slavery, once intro- duced, rapidly, though thinly, overspread the whole vast area of Spanish and Portuguese America, with Dutch and French Guiana and the West India Islands; and the slave trade was for two or three centuries the most lucrative, though most abhorrent, traffic pursued by, or known to, mankind. Profits on the nefarious business were greedily shared by philosophers, statesmen and kings. We read in Holmes’ “Annals of Amer- ica” that a Flemish favorite of Charles V., having obtained of this king a patent containing an exclusive right of importing four thousand Negroes annually to the West Indies, sold it for 25,000 ducats to some Genoese merchants, who first brought into regular form the commerce for slaves between Africa and America. Also that in 1563 the English began to import Negroes into the West Indies. Their first slave trade was opened the preceding year on the coast of Guinea. John Hankins, in the prospect of a great gain, resolved to make trial of this inhuman traffic. Communicating the design to several gentlemen in London, who became liberal contributors and adventurers, three good ships were immediately provided; and with these, and one hundred men, Hankins sailed to the coast of Guinea, where, by money, treachery and force, he procured at least three hundred Negroes, and now sold them at Hispanola. According to Bancroft, “Upon the establishment of the Asciento in 1713, creating a company for the prosecution of the SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE. 15,7 African slave trade, one-quarter of the stock was taken by Philip of Spain; Queen Anne reserved for herself another quarter, and the remaining moiety was to be divided among her subjects. Thus did the sovereigns of England and Spain become the largest slave merchants in the world.” When in 1607 the first abiding English colony was founded upon the Atlantic coast of America, Negro slavery, based on the African slave trade, was more than a century old throughout Spanish and Portuguese America, and had already acquired the stability of an institution. It was nearly half a century old in the British West Indies. Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish and British vessels vied with each other for the gains to be speedily acquired by the purchasing or kidnapping of young Negroes on the coast of Guinea and selling them in the Amer- ican colonies of their own and other nations. At the beginning of the present century, England possessed nearly 800,000 slaves, scattered among nineteen colonies, to- wit: More than 300,000 in Jamaica; 80,000 in the Barbadoes; 80,000 in Guiana; more than 60,000 in Mauritius; and the rest in the little colonies of Trinidad, Grenada, Antigua, St. Vincent, etc. France, in her colonies of the Antilles, Bourbon, Guiana and Senegal, had 250,000 slaves. There were 27,000 in the little colonies of Denmark, and about 600 in the island of St. Bartholomew, belonging to Sweden. Holland, which knew how to avoid servile labor in Java, preserved more than 50,000 slaves at Surinam and Curagoa; but these figures are trifling, compared to the number of enslaved population of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, which amounted to at least 600,000 slaves, and in Brazil more than 2,000,000, and the United States, before the American civil war, had over 4,000,000 slaves. France was the first to give the signal for the liberation of slaves — a liberation which, unfortunately, was sudden, violent, and did not last. In 1790-91 the Constituent Assembly, after much hesitation, admitted free people of color in the colonies to the rights of citizenship. The whites resisted, and when the convention tried to have the decree executed, the conflict between the blacks and wliites led to the massacres which have 128 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. been so falsely attributed to the emancipation of the slaves, proclaimed only at tbe end of 1793, and confirmed by the de- cree of February 4, 1794, by which the convention decreed, with enthusiasm, the abolition of slavery in all French colonies. Emancipation in England was commenced with more wis- dom and conducted with more perseverance, naturally tri- umphed more promptly than in France. In 1102 a council held in the city of London, under the presidency of St. Anselm, for- bade the slave trade. In 1763 an odious treaty assured to Eng- land, on the the other hand, the monopoly of the traffic. In 1773 a generous Christian, William Wilberforce, first wrote against this public scandal. In 1780 Thomas Clarkson pro- posed its abolition to Parliament, and in 1787 Wilberforce re- newed the proposition, which, having been seven times pre- sented and seven times rejected, finally triumphed in 1806 and became, at the Congress of Vienna, a solemn engagement of all the European powers, which was followed by laws promul- gated by each of these nations. May 15, 1823, Mr. Burton proposed the abolition of slavery in all the English colonies. After long hesitation, the act of abolition presented in 1833, in the name of the government, by Lord Stanley, was promulgated August 28, 1833. This memorable law, which devoted £500,000,000 to the ransom of 800,000 men, did not, however, accord to them liberty until after an apprenticeship, which was to last from August 1, 1834, to August 1, 1840; but this uncertain system could not be maintained. Lord Brougham proposed its abolition in 1838, and the colonial legislators spontaneously decreed complete emancipation in the years 1838 and 1839. At the same time, 1838, M. Passy proposed to the French Chambers a bill with the same end in view, and in 1840 a com- mission was charged, under the presidency of the Duke de Brog- lie, to prepare the way for the abolition of slavery in the French colonies. At the same time, also, 1839, Pope Gregory XVI. published a bull, condemning slavery and the slave trade. The report of M. de Broglie is celebrated: we may call it a judgment by a court of last resort, which for the most SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE. 129 elevated, decisive and practical reasons condemned slavery forever However, the sentence was not executed on account of the hesitation of the government and the resistance of the colonies. Slavery was not abolished in the colonies of France until after the revolution of February, by the decree of March 4, 1848, which M. Schoelcher had the honor of proposing. The result of the emancipation in the French colonies was the liberation of the slaves in the Danish colonies, proclaimed July 3, 1848. Sweden had set the example of liberation as early as 1846. The economic results of emancipation in the colonies of England and in those of France have proven most satisfactory, and under the new plan of labor, these four conditions of eco- nomic progress are fast being realized: the perfection of proc- esses, abundance of hands, facility for credit, and the widen- ing of the market. As far as the moral order is concerned, all the results of the English experiment may be summed up in the words of Lord Stanley, in 1842, which were substantially as follows: “There has been progress in industrious habits, improvement in the social and religious system, and development in individuals of those qualities of heart and mind which are more necessary to happiness than the material goods of life. The colored people are happy and contented, they devote themselves to labor, they have bettered their way of living, increased their well-being, and, while crime has diminished, mural habits have become better. The number of marriages has increased under the influence of the ministers of religion, education has become more widespread. In short, the result of the great experiment of emancipation tried upon the whole of the population of the West Indies has surpassed the most ardent hopes.” In the French colonies, 40,000 marriages, 20,000 legitimate children, 30,000 acknowledged children; the population resum- ing a regular course and increase, the churches filled, the schools attended; at Guadeloupe and Martinique, 20,000 adults attend night schools; at Rinnion, 23 societies of mutual aid, 130 BISTORT OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. and among the freedmen, crimes against the person dimin- ished, justice and the clergy improved, peace maintained with garrisons less strong than in 1848: such are the gifts presented to French colonial society by the emancipation of its slaves. It would be too long to show in detail, year by year, the economic and moral results of emancipation, since they became complicated by the reason of the effect of political events and attempts at commercial liberty in France. Let it suffice to affirm that civilization has gained much, that wealth has lost little, that its losses have been repaid, and more than repaid, at least in all the colonies in which the new reign has been ac- cepted in good faith. Finally, that the call of a million men to liberty in distant lands did not cause the tenth part of the trouble occasioned in the more civilized nations of Europe by the least important political question. European nations quickly understood that the slave trade would never be completely abolished unless slavery itself was suppressed. Unfortunately, the United States of America did not understand this as quickly. The illustrious founders of the Union, fearing a dissolution of it at the very moment of its formation, and hoping that to suppress the evil it would be sufficient to dry up its source, limited themselves to inserting in the constitution that the slave trade should be prohibited, beginning with the year 1808. As far as slavery was concerned, they had the weakness not even to mention its name, leaving to each State the task of ridding itself of the institution of slavery, which, at that period, was very little developed. In Washington’s time there were scarcely 700,000 slaves within the whole extent of the United States. Washington freed his own slaves by will, and we know from his correspondence with Lafayette that he busied himself with plans of emancipation. Many of the Northern States successively freed their slaves, but the progress of the cultiva- tion of cotton, the cession of Louisiana, the purchase of Florida and the conquest of Texas had not been foreseen. Sixty years after Washington’s time, the American Republic had advanced with giant steps, slavery had grown with it, and the Southern SLAVERY AND SLAVE TRADE. 131 States contained 4,000,000 colored slaves. A fact so enormous, so abnormal, produced in the bosom of the Union a profound perturbation. Not only did honor and morality suffer there- from, but a terrible division took place between the North, which controlled the commerce, the shipping and the tariff of the Union, and the South, which, previous to the American civil war, controlled politics, the Congress and the laws of the Union. This division culminated in the War of the Rebellion, and the abolition of slavery in the United States. Slavery having disappeared from North America, its foundations were necessarily shaken in South America. The republics separated from Spain have abolished it. Holland delivered its American colonies from slavery, by a law of August 8, 1862, and a law, December, 1871, paved the way for its suppression in Brazil. This rapid review is confined to Christian countries. In Mohammedan and pagan countries slavery exists almost every- where; here more patriarchal, there more barbarous; main- tained in the bosom of Africa by perpetual wars and a pitiless traffic. A Mohammedan sovereign, the Bey of Tunis, however, abolished slavery in his states, even before France, in 1847; but the scourge of slavery will evidently never disappear from pagan nations, except from contact with, and the example of, Christian nations. We may hope that the nineteenth century will see servitude disappear; this would be its principal glory. The condition precedent to the disappearance of slavery is the persevering accord of all opinions, of all creeds, of all nations, that it should be abolished, and this accord is now an accomplished fact. 132 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. CHAPTER VI. SLAVERY IN AMERICA. "Ne'er more shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls her waves." I T may be laid down as a fundamental proposition that African slavery in the colonies never existed, nor was origi- nally established by law, but that it rested wholly upon custom. The dictum so often quoted, that slavery, being a breach of natural right, can be valid only by positive law, is not true. It is rather true that slavery, where it existed, being the creature of custom, required positive law to abolish or control it. In Great Britain in 1772 custom had made slavery so odious that the Sonnnersett case justly held that positive law was necessary for the establishment of slavery there in any form; but the exact contrary of this rule, of course, held good in common- wealths where custom made slavery not odious, but legal. In these cases the laws which were passed in regard to slavery were only declaratory of a custom already established, and cannot be said to have established slavery. The whole slavery struggle is therefore the history of a custom at first universal in the colonies, then peacefully circumscribed by the rise of a moral feeling opposed to it, but suddenly so fortified in its remaining territory by the rise of an enormous material in- terest as to make the final struggle one of force. When English colonization in North America began, Indian and African slavery was already firmly established in the neighboring Spanish colonies; and from there, particularly from the West Indies, African slavery was naturally and un- consciously introduced into the English colonies, the Barbadoes being the stepping-stone for most of them. Nevertheless, the first authentic case of introduction was from an entirely differ- ent source — that of Virginia, in 1619. This is the only colony SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 133 in which a first case can be found. Everywhere else we find slavery, when first casually mentioned, an institution so long established as to have lost its novelty. In each of them there are three points to be noted: the first mention of slavery, its first regulation by law, and the establishment by custom or positive law of the civil law rule* of making children take the condition of the mother, instead of the father. The latter rule, making children take the condition of the father, was the nat- ural rule for English colonists, and would have made African slavery more tolerable, and would have established a constant agent for its ultimate extinction, since a union of a slave father and a free mother has been comparatively rare. The former rule, that the children should take the condition of the mother, which was everywhere adopted by custom from the beginning, not only relieved the system from check, but even gave it an added horror, of which the variations in color among the Colored Race are mute but indelible certificates. In summarizing the introduction of slavery with the origi- nal thirteen States, we will begin at Mason and Dixon’s line, going first southward, thence northward, and will afterward consider its introduction, or attempt to introduce it, into the Territories. In Virginia the acts passed were, at first, for the mere reg- ulation of servants, the legal distinction being between servants for a term of years (white emigrants under indentures) and servants for life — slaves. December 14, 1662, the civil law rule, Partus sequitur ventrem, was adopted by statute. October 3, 1670, servants, not Christians, imported by shipping, were de- clared slaves for their lives. Slavery was thus fully legalized in the colony. In Maryland slaves are first mentioned, “slaves only ex- cepted,” in the proposed law of 1638. In 1663 the civil law rule was fully adopted by a provision that “Africans, or rather slaves,” then in the province or thereafter imported, should serve through life, and their children also. * Partus sequitur ventrem Instead of partus sequitur patrem. 134 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. In Delaware the Swedes at first prohibited slavery, but it was introduced by the Dutch. It was in existence probably in 1636, but its first legal recognition was in 1721, in an act pro- viding for the trial of slaves, by two justices and six free- holders. With this exception, the system rested wholly on ^custom in Delaware. In Carolina, under the first union of the two provinces, the Locke constitution provided practically for white slavery; the “leetmen,” or tenants of ten acres, were to be fixed to the soil under the jurisdiction of their lord, without appeal; and the children of leetmen w T ere to be leetmen, “and so on to all gen- erations.” This provision, like most of the others, was never respected or obeyed. The 110th article provided that every freeman should have “absolute power and authority over his colored slaves, of whatever opinion or religion so ever.” This met with more respect, and became the fundamental law of North Carolina, without anything further than statutes for police regulation. In South Carolina the first slavery legislation, an act of February 7, 1690, “for the better ordering of slaves,” took place before the separation. Slaves are said to have been introduced by Governor Yeamans, about 1670. June 7, 1712, slavery was formally legalized by an act, declaring all Africans and Indians heretofore sold, or thereafter to be sold, and their children, “slaves to all intents and purposes.” The civil law rule, already referred to, was made law May 10, 1740. The police regulations of this colony were filled with cruel provisions, as to the treatment of male slaves who should run away for the fourth time; and yet an act was passed in 1704, and re-enacted in 1708, for enlisting and arming colored troops. In Georgia, as hereafter noticed, slavery was prohibited at the establishment of the colony in 1732. In 1749, after re- peated petitions from the colonists, the trustees obtained from Parliament the repeal of the prohibition. In 1755 the legisla- ture passed an act, regulating the conduct of slaves; and in 1765, and subsequent years, the laws of South Carolina were re-enacted by Georgia. SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 135 In Pennsylvania slavery is first heard of in 1688, when Francis Daniel Pastorius drew up a memorial against the practice, for the Germantown Quakers. It was not until 1696 that the Quaker yearly meeting was prepared to act favorably on the memorial. In 1700 the legislature forbade the selling of slaves out of the province without their consent. The other slavery legislation of the colony consisted of efforts, more or less successful, to check or abolish the slave trade; but as soon as independence was fairly attained, arrangements were made for gradual abolition. So late as 1795, however, the State Supreme Court decided that slavery was not inconsistent with the State Constitution. In New Jersey slavery was introduced by the Dutch, but was not recognized by law until the “concessions” of 1661, in which the word “slaves” occurs. In East Jersey slaves were given trial by jury in 1691; and in West Jersey the word “slave” w T as omitted from the law T s. Acts for regulating the conduct of slaves began with the junction of the province with New York, in 1702; but these were never harsh, and the con- dition of the slave was more tolerable than in any other colony where the system w r as really established. In New York slavery came in with the Dutch at an uncertain period, the Dutch West India companies employing the slaves. So early as 1628 the inhabitants were made nervous by the mutinous behavior of some of the slaves, but there was no legal recognition of slavery until 1665, when the Duke of York’s laws forbade “slavery of Christians”; thus by implication allowing slavery of heathen. Full recognition w T as given by a proviso in the Naturalization Act of 1638, that it should not operate to free those held as slaves, and by an act of 1706, to allow baptism of slaves without freeing them. In Connecticut slavery was never directly established by statute, and the time of its introduction is uncertain. In 1680 the governor informed the board of trade that, “as for blacks, there come sometimes three or four in a year from Barbadoes, and they are sold usually at the rate of £22 apiece.” They ^were considered as servants rather than as chattels; could sue 136 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. their masters for ill-treatment, or deprivation of property, and the only legal recognition of slavery was in such police regu- lations as that of 1690 to check the wandering and running away of “purchased colored servants.” Rhode Island passed the first act for the abolition of slavery in our history, May 19, 1652, in order to check the “common course practiced among Englishmen to buy Afri- cans.” The act freed all slaves brought into the province after ten years’ service. Unfortunately, the act was never obeyed; custom was too strong for statute law, and existed without law, until the final abolition. The only legal recogni- tion of the law was in the series of acts beginning January 4, 1703, to control the wandering of Indian and African slaves and servants, and another beginning in April, 1708, in which the slave trade was indirectly legalized by being taxed. In Massachusetts an African is mentioned in 1633 as an estray conducted to his master. In 1636 a Salem ship began the importation of African slaves from the West Indies, and thereafter Pequot slaves were constantly exchanged for Bar- badoes serfs. In 1641 the fundamental laws forbade slavery, with the following cautious proviso: “Unless it be lawful cap- tives taken in just wars [Pequots] and such strangers as willingly sell themselves [probably indentured white immi- grants] or are sold to us [Africans].” The explanations inserted will show that this was the first legal recognition of slavery in any colony. Under it slavery grew slowly, and the rule of Partus sequitur ventrem was established by custom and court decisions. Public sentiment, after the year 1700, was slowly developed against the system. In December, 1766, a jury gave a colored woman £4 damages against her master for restraining her of her liberty. John Adams notes at the time that this was the first case of the kind he had known, though he heard there had been many. In 1768 another case was decided for the master, and thereafter the decisions of juries varied to every point of the compass for twenty years; but it is known that many of the cases in which the slaves were successful were gained by connivance of the masters in SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 137 order to relieve themselves of the care of aged or infirm slaves. John Quincy Adams gives 1787 as the year in which the State Supreme Court finally decided that under the Constitu- tion of 1780 a man could not be sold in Massachusetts. ^ In New Hampshire there were but two legal recognitions of slavery: An act of 1714 to regulate the conduct of “Indian, African and mulatto servants and slaves,” and another in 1718 to regulate the conduct of masters. There were but few slaves Jn the colony, and slavery had but a nominal existence. Vermont never recognized slavery. From all the cases it will be seen that slavery was but the creation of custom. The only exceptions are a peculiar pro- vision in the laws of Maryland, 1663, and Pennsylvania, 1725-26, making the children of freeborn mothers and slave fathers slaves of their father’s master until the age of thirty; and the laws in a few States re-enslaving freed men who re- fused or neglected to leave the State. This later provision was the law of Virginia from 1705, and was put into the State Con- stitution in 1850; and laws fully equivalent were passed during their State existence by North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. In the white heat of the anti-slavery struggle, laws were passed by Virginia in 1856, by Louisiana in 1859, and by Maryland in 1860, provid- ing for the voluntary enslavement of free colored persons — but these were exceptional. Milder provisions, to the same general effect, to punish by fine or sale the coming or remaining of free colored people in the State, were inserted in the Constitu- tion of Missouri in 1820, of Texas in 1836 (as a Republic), of Florida in 1838, of Kentucky in 1850, of Indiana in 1851, and of Oregon in 1857. The most troublesome to the Northern States were the reg- ulations of the seaboard slave States, under which colored sea- men of Northern vessels were frequently imprisoned and sometimes sold. In 1844 Massachusetts sent Samuel Hoar to Charleston to bring an amicable suit there for the purpose of testing the con- 138 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. stitutionality of the South Carolina act. He was received in a very unfriendly fashion. The legislature passed resolutions requesting the governor to expel him from the State, and an act making any such mission a high misdemeanor punishable by fine and banishment. Finally, on receiving unequivocal assurance of personal violence if he remained, Mr. Hoar left Charleston without fulfilling his mission. However strongly custom may have established slavery in the colonies, it has been suggested that the validity of the system was at least made doubtful by the Sommersett case in England. In that country in 1677 the court held colored slaves to be property, as being usually bought and sold among merchants, as merchandise, and also being infidels. In 1750 custom had so far changed that the law was again in doubt. In 1771 Charles Stewart, of Boston, took his slave, James Sommersett, to London, where the latter fell sick and was sent adrift by his master. Stewart, after finding Sommersett re- covered, reclaimed him and put him on a ship in the Thames bound for Jamaica. Lord Mansfield issued a writ of habeas corpus, and decided, June 22, 1772, that the master could not compel his slave to leave England, “whose laws did not recognize so high an act of dominion.” If the colonies, by charter and otherwise, were forbidden to pass laws contrary to the laws of England, and if the laws of England did not recognize slavery, was slavery legal in the col- onies? It must be remembered that the Sommersett decision was not that the laws of England forbade slavery, but that there was no law in England establishing slavery. There was no attempt to make an English custom override an American custom, and we cannot draw any attack on the American sys- tem of slavery out of the Sommersett case. The colonies then began their forcible struggle against the mother country, with a system of Negro slavery, recog- nized everywhere by law, moribund in the North, but full of vigor in the South. In the North there was a general consciousness that slavery was doomed, the slaves were gener- SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 1S9 ally regarded as servants for life, as persons whose personality was under suspension. In the South they were regularly regarded by the law and by private opinion as things, as chattels, with no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the government might choose to grant them, with all the consequences arising from the fact that they had not come to America voluntarily, as persons, but involun- tarily, as property. In so far the Dred Scott decision correctly stated the feeling of our forefathers. But the feeling was in great measure a consequence of the unfortunate adoption of the rule, Partus sequitur ventrem ; a race to which the rule was applied could be no other than animal, and a people among whom the rule prevailed could never be emancipated from the feeling. For this reason the Revolutionary Congress made no attempt to interfere with slavery, except in regard to the slave trade. The state of war itself did little real harm to the system. In Virginia, November 7, 1775, Lord Dunmore proclaimed free- dom to all slaves who would fight for the king, and colored sol- diers were enlisted by Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. South Carolina refused to follow the recom- mendation of Congress in 1779, to enlist 3,000 colored troops. A return of the Continental army, August 24, 1778, shows 755 col- ored soldiers, not including the New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut or New York troops. At the end of the war, New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia freed their colored soldiers, but the system remained as before. The treaty of peace bound the British not to carry away any “Africans or other property of the American inhabitants,” and this collocation of terms is repeated in the treaty of Ghent in 1814. All through the period of the Confederation, slavery received no detriment except in the action of individual States, and in its exclusion from the Northwest Territory, to be referred to hereafter. The States and the nation began their course under the Constitu- tion with the same general system as before, but with three modifications: the appointment of representatives to three- 140 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. fifths of the slaves; the power of Congress to prohibit the slave trade after 1808; and the fugitive slave laws. The first of these made the system of slavery itself a political factor, represented in the government; the third offered a tempting and dangerous weapon to use against an opposing section; and the second was the death-warrant of the whole system in the double event of the acquisition of foreign territory and the development of antagonistic sections. Until this time the difference in the slave system of the North and of the South had been a difference of degree rather than of kind. The basis and the general laws were nominally the same everywhere, and there was a general agreement that the system was evil in itself, and that it was desirable to rid the country of it by gradual abolition. But from the begin- ning the masterful white race had found in the colder North that it was easier to do work for itself than to compel work from the black race, and in the warmer South that it was easier to compel work from the black race than to do the work for itself. In both sections the ruling race followed naturally the line of least resistance, and African slavery increased in the South, and decreased in the North. The process may be seen in the number of slaves in the colonies north and south of Mason and Dixon’s line, as estimated by the Royal Governors in 1715, as estimated by Congress in 1775, and as ascertained by the first census in 1790, as follows: North, (1715) 10,900, (1775) 46,102, (1790) 40,370; South, (1715) 47,950, (1775) 455,000, (1790) 657,527. Before 1790 the two sections had begun to show the contrasting results of pushing self-interested labor on the one hand, and unwilling slave labor on the other. Gouverneur Morris, in the convention of 1787, thus spoke of slavery at the time: ‘‘It was the curse of Heaven on the States where it prevailed. Travel through the whole continent, and you behold the prospect continually varying with the appearance or disappearance of slavery. The moment you leave the Eastern States and enter New York, the effects of the institution become visible. Passing through the Jerseys and entering Pennsylvania, every criterion of superior improve- SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 141 ment witnesses the change. Proceed southwardly, and every step you take through the great regions of slaves presents a desert increasing with the increasing proportion of these wretched beings.” Nor was the assertion denied by the South- erners who hear it. George Mason, of Virginia, said: “Sla- very discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the emigration of whites, who enrich and strengthen a country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this, by an inevitable chain of causes and effects. Providence punishes national sins by national calamities.” Jefferson, in the same year, after detail- ing the evils of slavery, added, “Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice can not sleep forever.” But this substantial agreement in sentiment was very soon to be broken by an event which en- tirely altered the paths of the two sections. Few influences have so colored the history of the United States or of slavery as the inventions of 1775-93 in England and America. In 1775 Crompton’s invention of the mule jenny superseded Hargreave’s spinning machine; in 1783 Watts’ steam engine was adapted to the spinning and carding of cotton at Manchester; in 1785 cylinder printing of cottons was invented; and in 1786-8 the use of acid in bleaching was begun. All the machinery of the cotton manufactory was thus standing ready for material. Very little had thus far come from the United States, for a slave could clean but five or six pounds a day for market. In 1784 an American ship, which brought eight bags of cotton to Liverpool, was seized, on the ground that so much of the article could not be the produce of the United States; and Jay’s treaty at first consented that no cotton should be exported from America. In 1793 Eli Whitney, of Connecticut, then residing in Georgia, changed the history of the country by his invention of the saw gin, by which one slave could cleanse one thousand pounds of cotton 142 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. from its seeds in a day. He was robbed of bis invention, which the excited planters instantly appropriated; and slavery ceased to be a passive, patriarchal institution, and became a means of gain, to be upheld and extended by its beneficiaries. The export of cotton, which had fallen from 189,316 pounds in 1791 to 138,328 in 1792, rose to 487,600 pounds in 1793, to 1,601,760 in 1794, to 6,276,300 in 1795, and to 38,118,041 in 1804. Within five years after Whitney’s invention cotton had displaced indigo as the great Southern staple and the slave States had become the great cotton field of the world. In 1859 the export was 1,386,468,562 pounds, valued at $161,434,923, and the next largest export (tobacco) was valued at but .$21,074,038. Was it wonderful that Southerners should say and believe that cotton is king, and that secession could never be attacked by blockade, since the great commercial nations — even the free States themselves — would not thus allow them- selves to be deprived of the raw material of manufacture. The reader may judge the reasonableness of the belief, and the magnitude of the temptations to English intervention, by the value of the English imports of cotton from the United States and elsewhere, 1861-3, and the coincident rise in price: Imports from the United States, (1861) $132,851,995, (1862) $6,106,385, (1863) $2,300,000; from other countries, (1861) $65,034,990, (1862) $148,358,840, (1863) $213,700,000; price per pound, (1861) 7c, (1862) 13fc, (1863) 27£c. From a purely agricultural and commercial venture the cotton cul- ture has taken a different aspect. Those who controlled it felt very much the same importance as a man might feel who had gained control of the magazine of a man-of-war, and could threaten to blow up the whole ship if he was interfered with in any way. This development of the culture of cotton was pregnant with consequences to both sections. In the North manufactures and commerce were developed, and the remnants of slavery slid to extinction down a steeper and smoother descent. In the South the price of slaves was steadily increasing, and the in- creased profit thus indicated was steadily stamping labor itself SLAVERY IX AMERICA. 143 as slavery. It is not in financial matters alone that bad money drives out good: wherever slave labor was extended, it tended constantly to expel free labor from the market. Immigration shunned slave soil as if by instinct, and it was not long before the whole population of the slave States was divided into three classes: the rich whites, who did no work; the poor whites, who knew not how to work; and the slaves, who only worked when compelled to do so. The result on the economical development of the country may easily be imagined. No one was under any special incen- tive to work, to invent, or to surpass his neighbors; slaves, the only working class, could not be trusted to engage in any labor requiring care or thought; success in anything higher than the culture of cotton, tobacco or sugar meant the inevitable freedom of the laborer; and long before 1850 “Southern shift- lessness” had become chronic, hopeless and proverbial, even in the South. Even on the culture of the soil the influence of the slave sys- tem was for evil. Only free labor can get large profits from a small surface, and the unwilling labor of slaves required so much larger area for its exercise that in 1850 there were to the square mile only 18.93 inhabitants in the Southern States, to 45.8 in the Northern States. Slavery, like Tacitus’ Germans, demanded empty acres all around it. This constant necessity of elbow-room for slave labor was the ground reason for its constant effort to stretch out after a new territory. A planter's policy was to take up as much land as possible, scratch the surface until his slaves could or would extract no more from it, and then search for virgin soil, for it was cheaper to pass the Mississippi, or invade Texas, than to cultivate a worn-out plantation with slave labor. Scientific agriculture, or the re- vivification of so-called worn-out farms, were never attempted until the overthrow of slavery; and since they have begun, we hear no more of the need of new territory for cotton. The influence of slavery upon the section in which it ex- isted was particularly evil in regard to the possibilities of war- fare. Not only did it throttle commerce, manufactures, 144 HI8T0RY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. literature, art — everything which goes to make a people inde- pendent of the rest of the world — its influence in checking the natural increase of fighting men is plainly perceptible in the decennial census tables. Even where there is an apparent equality of numbers between the two sections, the equality is delusive so long as the Southern scale is partly filled with a population not only non-combatant, but actually to be dis- trusted as possibly hostile. For this reason, in the following table, taking separately the States which were free and slave in 1860, the population of the free States is given first, then the population of the slave States (excluding slaves), and finally the slaves. 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 NORTH. 1,968,010 2,6S4,616 3,758,910 5,152,327 7,006,399 9,733,922 13,599,488 19,128,418 SOUTH. 1,303,647 1,764,211 2,317,048 2,966,989 3,842,843 4,848,107 6,459,946 8,361,848 SLAVES 657,527 857,105 1,163,854 1 518,930 2 005 469 2,486,326 3.204,051 3,353,524 Whatever causes may be assigned to explain the growing disproportion of free population and fighting men of the two sections, it is evident that the slave States were worse fitted at the end of each successive period for a forcible struggle with the free States, and that the sceptre was departing from the South. We do not propose here to touch on the moral aspect of slavery or the absurd Biblical arguments for and against it: the rigid application of the Partus sequitur ventrem rule, com- bined with the material interests of the cotton monopoly, will absolutely distinguish African slavery in the United States from every system that has preceded it. We may summarize the economical evils of the system in those points which no one can dispute in a few words. It paralyzed invention and commerce; it prevented manufactures and the general intro- duction of railroads, steam machinery, or improved agricul- tural implements; it degraded labor by white as well as by black men; it stunted all the energies of the people, and de- SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 145 prived them of those physical comforts which were regarded elsewhere as almost necessaries; it dwarfed the military ability of the people at the same time that it increased the military ambition of the ruling class, and kept the poor whites so ignor- ant that, to them, their State was a universe, its will sovereign, and its power irresistible. Every year increases the pile of ex- plosives in the Southern territory, and yet the force of events compelled slavery to grow more aggressive, as it grew really weaker for war. That a people so situated, with no resources of their own and with little power to draw from without, should have waged the final war as they did, is almost enough to hide in the glory of their defeat the evil thing that went down with them. The enormous strides of the Southern States since the war show what the same people can do under free labor, and nearly all Southern writers are agreed that the South was the greatest gainer by the overthrow of slavery. President Hay- good, of Georgia, in a thanksgiving sermon of 1880, says: “For one illustration, take the home life of our people. There is ten times the comfort there was twenty years ago. Travel through your own country — and it is rather below than above the average — by any private or public road, compare the old and the new houses. Those built recently are better in every way than those built before the war. I do not speak of an oc- casional mansion that in the old time lifted itself proudly among the score of cabins, but of the thousands of decent farm- houses and comely cottages that have been built in the last ten years. I know scores, whose new barns are better than their old residences. Our people have better furniture. Good mattresses have driven out old-time feathers. Cook stoves, sewing-machines, and all such comforts and conveniences may be seen in a dozen homes to-day, where you could hardly have found them in one in 1860. Lamps, that make reading agree- able, have driven out the tallow dip, by whose glimmering no eyes could long read, and continue to see. Better taste asserts itself: the new houses are painted; they have not only glass, but blinds. There is more comfort inside. There are luxuries where once there were not conveniences. Carpets are getting 146 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. to be common among the middle classes. There are parlor organs, pianos, and pictures, where we never saw them before. And so on to the end of a long chapter. There are more people at work in the South to-day than were at work before; and they are raising, not only more cotton, but more of everything else. And no wonder, for the farming of to-day is better than the farming of the old days: first, in better culture; second, in the ever-increasing tendency to break up the great plantations into small farms. Our present system is more than restoring what the old system destroyed.” The Louisiana Civil Code (Article 35) thus defines a slave: “One who is in the power of a master, to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any- thing but what must belong to his master.” This comprehen- sive definition will show the status of the slave and the rights of the master sufficiently to obviate the necessity of any full statement of the 'Slave laws of the States. As slavery rested on custom, its regulation was uniformly by statute, the constitu- tion usually ignoring it, and leaving it wholly in the power of the legislature. Slavery was never mentioned in the State con- stitutions of Delaware, Maryland (until 1837), Virginia (until 1850), North Carolina (except the mere mention of slaves in 1835), South Carolina (except a qualification of Africans for membership in the legislature, in 1790), or Louisiana. In the new States slavery was legalized by that provision of their con- stitutions which forbade the legislature to emancipate slaves without consent of their owners, or to prevent immigrants from bringing their slaves into the State. Such provisions were in- serted by Kentucky in 1792, Georgia in 1798, Mississippi in 1817, Alabama in 1819, Missouri in 1820, Tennessee in 1834, Arkansas in 1836, Maryland in 1837, Florida in 1838, Texas in 1836 and 1845, and Virginia in 1850; and these continued in force until the final abolition of slavery. Trial by jury for crimes above the grade of petit larceny was secured to the slave by the Constitution of Kentucky in 1799, Mississippi in 1817, Alabama in 1819, Missouri in 1820, and Texas in 1845, and by SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 147 various statutes in Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Maryland, but was denied in any case in South Carolina, Vir- ginia and Louisiana. There were also provisions in most of the States for the punishment of the willful and deliberate mur- der of a slave. The benefit of both these provisions, however, was largely nullified by the universal rules of law, that a slave’s testimony could not be received against a white man, and that the killing of a slave who should resist “lawful authority” was justifiable homicide. As slavery grew more extensive, the necessity for repressive legislation to act upon the slaves be- came more pressing, and the slave codes more severe, until every white person felt himself to be a part of a military force guarding a dangerous array of prisoners. Education of slaves was strictly forbidden, though the provision was frequently evaded or disobeyed in individual cases. The pass system was in full vigor everywhere, and even the younger girls of the white race did not hesitate to stop colored people, examine their pass, and order them to a particular house for examina- tion. It was a strange society, always on the alert, always with its hand on the sword, and cruel and evil things were done. The burning of slaves as a punishment for heinous offenses was not an uncommon thing, nor was it by any means the most shocking of the crimes, in the punishment of which George Mason’s prophetic words of 1787 were rigidly fulfilled. Many of the evils had a reflex influence upon the men of the domi- nant race; but the women, shielded from personal contact with most of the evil, and trained from childhood in the daily exer- cise of the heroic virtues, developed an unusual force of charac- ter, to which much of the stubborn endurance of the war was due, and even more of the sudden regeneration of the South after the war. Black Codes, or Black Laws . — These penal laws of the slave States had a very direct influence upon the legislation of several of the free States, particularly of those to which there had been a large Southern migration. Ohio, in 1803, forbade colored people to settle in the State, without recording a cer- tificate of their fredom; in 1807, passed an act denying to 148 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. colored people the privilege of testifying in cases in which a white man was interested on either side, and followed this up by excluding them from the public schools and requiring them to give bonds for their good behavior while residing in the State. In 1849 these “black laws” were repealed, as a part of the bargain between the Democrats and Free-soilers. The legislation of Illinois in 1819, 1827 and 1853 imi- tated that of Ohio, and in 1851 Indiana inserted similar provisions in her State constitution, which the State courts, in 18G6, held to be void, as repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. The same provisions were adopted by Iowa in 1851, by statute, and were made a part of the Constitution of Oregon in 1857. Wherever the State constitutions prescribed conditions of admission to the militia, as in Indiana in 181G, Illinois in 1818, Iowa in 1846, Michigan in 1850, and Kansas in 1859, colored people were excluded; and in the States where the composition of the militia was left to the legislature, the exclusion was as fully attained by statute. As a general rule, most of this legislation was swept away as rapidly as the Re- publican party obtained complete control of each State after 1856. Insurrections . — No slave race has organized so few insur- rections as the Colored Race in the United States. This could hardly be due to cowardice in the race, for its members have made very good soldiers when well organized; nor to the ex- ceptional gentleness of the system, for it was one of increasing severity; nor wholly to the affection of the slaves for their masters, for the great plantation system, under which there could have been little affection on either side, had been fairly established in 1860, and yet there was no insurrection through- out the Rebellion. It is encouraging to believe that the race, by long contact with the white race, has imbibed something of that respect for law which has always characterized the latter, so that the colored people, however enterprising, when backed by the forms of law, patiently submitted to legal servitude. It is cer- tain that revolt, during their history as slaves, was regularly SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 149 individual, and that most of it was only revolt by legal construction. In 1710 an insurrection is said to have been planned in Virginia, but it was prevented by one of the conspirators, who revealed the plot, and was rewarded by emancipation. In 1740 a local insurrection broke out in South Carolina, but it was stamped out instantly by the militia. In New York a plot was unearthed in February and in March, 1741, and, as a con- sequence of the intense popular excitement, a number of Africans and whites were hung, and several of the former burned; but the whole story of the “conspiracy” seems now of the flimsiest possible construction. In 1820 Denmark Vesey, a St. Domingo mulatto, organized an insurrection in Charleston. It was revealed; Vesey and thirty-four others were hung, and a like number were sold out of the State. In August, 1831, the most formidable of all the insurrections broke out in Southampton County, near Norfolk, Virginia, led by Nat Turner. He believed that he had been instructed by Heaven three years before to rebel, the sign being an eclipse of the sun in February, 1831; but, oppressed by a sense of the greatness of the task, he fell sick and did not begin until August. With fifty associates, he then began a massacre of the whites, sparing neither age nor sex. The insurrection was at once suppressed, and Turner, after several weeks’ concealment, was captured and executed in November. The total loss of life was sixty-one whites and over a hundred colored. The Seminole War in Florida partook very much of the character of an African insurrection. While Florida was under Spanish rule, very many fugitive slaves had taken refuge there and intermarried with the Indians; and the desire of reclaiming them was the secret of many of the Indian difficul- ties of that region. In 1816 American troops blew up the “Negro fort” on the Appalachicola, which was the head- quarters of the fugitives. On the annexation of Florida, slave- hunting increased in eagerness, and the fugitives were pur- sued into the everglades. In 1833 the Seminoles had about two hundred slaves of their own and twelve hundred fugitives. 150 BISTORT OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. One of the latter, the wife of Osceola, was seized while trading at Fort King, and her enraged husband at once began open war. It was conducted with inhuman cruelty on both sides, the most prominent example being the massacre of Major Dade’s command December 28, 1835. The American com- manders hardly ever made any secret of the great object of the war, the recapture of the fugitives, and, as the Seminoles refused to make any treaty in which the fugitives were not included, the war was long and expensive. In 1845 a treaty was arranged for the removal of both Seminoles and fugitives beyond the Mississippi, but the claim- ants pursued the latter with every form of legal attack, secured some of them, and, in 1852, obtained payment from Congress for the remainder. The Harper’s Ferry insurrection, given elsewhere, closed the list of colored revolts. The System Externally — The Slave Trade . — It has long been a general belief that the colonies, before the Revolution, were anxious to prohibit the slave trade, but were prevented by the Crown’s instructions to the governors to veto any such laws, and the Virginia declaration of June 29, 1776, denounces the King for “prompting our slaves to rise in arms among us, those very Africans whom, by an inhuman use of his negative, he had refused us permission to exclude by law.” The case is complete enough against the Crown. From the time of Hawkins’ slaving cruise, in 1562, the British government was an active partner in the slave trade. By the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 it secured for one of its mo- nopolies the slave trade from Africa to the West Indies; in 1750 it beneficently threw open the trade to all its subjects, and its consistent policy is well stated in the official declara- tion of the Earl of Dartmouth in 1775 that “the colonies must not be allowed to check, or discourage in any degree, a traffic so beneficial to the nation.” But it is not so easy to clear the skirts of the colonies. The assertion of their desire to suppress the trade rests on a great number of acts laying duties upon it; the titles of twenty-four of these acts in Vir- ginia are given in Judge Tucker’s appendix to Blackstone; SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 151 but almost invariably these acts were passed for revenue only, and the Virgina act of 1752 notices in its preamble that the duty has been found “no way burdensome to the traders.” It was not until the opening of the Revolution that any honest effort was made to suppress the trade, except in Pennsylvania, where bills to abolish the slave trade were passed in 1712, 1714 and 1717, and vetoed. The Massachusetts General Court passed a bill to prohibit the slave trade March 7, 1774; and another, June 16, followed, but both were vetoed. It was prohibited, further, by Rhode Island in June, 1774, by Connecticut in October, 1774, and by the non-importation covenant of the Continental Congress, October 24, 1774, as follows: “We will neither import nor purchase any slave im- ported after the first day of December next; after which time we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are con- cerned in it.” This covenant, ratified by the States North and South, checked the trade for a time. No further attempt was made by Congress to interfere with the trade, and the ratification of the Articles of Confederation in 1781 gave the States the power to regulate this and all other species of commerce. In the formation of the Constitution the question of the regulation of the slave trade offered a great difficulty. The three Southern States demanded its continuance, alleging that Virginia and Maryland desired to prohibit it only to secure a domestic market for their own surplus slaves. The matter was compromised by allowing Congress to prohibit it after 1808. In the meantime, the act of March 22, 1794, prohibited the carrying of slaves by American citizens from one foreign country to another. The act of May 10, 1800, allowing United States war-vessels to seize ships engaged in such trade, and the act of February 28, 1803, prohibited the introduction of slaves into States which had forbidden the slave trade by law. Virginia had done so, by statute in 1778 and 1785, Georgia by 152 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. constitutional provision) in 1798, South Carolina by statute in 1798. Finally, Congress, by act of March 2, 1807, prohibited the importation of slaves altogether after the close of the year; the act of April 20, 1818, and March 3, 1819, authorized the President to send cruisers to the coast of Africa to stop the trade; and the act of May 15, 1820, declared the foreign slave trade to be piracy. It cannot, however, be truly said that the slave trade was abolished — it never really ceased before 1865. The census of 1870 assigns Africa as the birthplace of nearly 2,000 colored people, and it is impossible even to estimate the number illegally imported from 1808 until 1865. The sixth section of the act of March 2, 1807, allowed colored people, confiscated under the act, to be disposed of as the legislature of the State might direct. The Southern legislatures promptly directed the sale of the confiscated Africans. This absurd section, which introduced slaves into the South, while punishing the importer, was repealed March 3, 1819, and the confiscated Africans were ordered to be returned to their native land. The claim of British naval officers on the African coast to visit and search vessels flying the American flag, but suspected of being slavers, was steadily resisted by the American govern- ment, and led to an infinite variety of diplomatic difficulties and correspondence. It was finally compromised by Articles VIII. and IX. of the Webster-Ashburton treaty, August 9, 1842, by which the two governments agreed to maintain independent squadrons on the African coast to act in conjunc- tion. Difficult as this made the slave trade, it by no means suppressed it. And as the price of Africans in the South rose higher, importations increased, and so did the difficulties of obtaining convictions from Southern juries. The most noto- rious case was that of the Georgia yacht “Wanderer” in December, 1858, but it was not the only one. According to the Evening Post, of New York city, 85 vessels were fitted out from that port for the slave trade during the eighteen months of 1858-60, the names of the vessels being given; and another SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 153 newspaper of the same city estimated the cargoes introduced by these New York vessels alone at from 30,000 to 60,000 Africans annually. Said a Georgia delegate in the Charleston Convention of 1860: “If any of you Northern Democrats will go home with me to my plantation, I will show you some darkies that I bought in Virginia, some in/ Delaware, some in Florida, and I will also show you the pure African, ‘the noblest Roman of them all.’ I represent the African slave trade interest of my section.” In 1858 an ingenious attempt was made to evade the law. A Charleston vessel applied for a clearance to the African coast, “for the purpose of taking on board African emigrants in accordance with the United States laws.” Howell Cobb, Secretary of the Treasury, refused to give the clearance. As we approach the year 1860, we find growing apprehen- sions of the re-opening of the foreign slave trade. It must be remembered that Congress was only permitted, not directed, to abolish the trade after 1808, and that a simple repeal of the law of 1807 would have made it as legal as any other branch of commerce. The inherent weakness of the system of slavery, which grew weaker as it widened, imperatively demanded the repeal. To retain political power it was necessary to intro- duce the custom of slavery into the new Territories in order to prepare them to be slave States. For this the domestic sup- ply would not suffice; and Alexander H. Stephens, in his fare- well speech to his constituents, July 2, 1859, says “that his object is to bring clearly to your mind the great truth that without an increase of African slaves from abroad, you may not expect to look for many more slave States.” The repeal of the law of 1807, and the revival of the foreign slave trade, were advocated by the Southern commercial convention in 1858 and 1859, by De Bow’s Review, and by a great and grow- ing number of leading men and newspapers. It was even taking the aspect of a new phase of a distinct Southern polit- ical creed, an effort to repeal that which was a standing condemnation of slave-holding and slave-holders. Before any- thing definite could be attempted, Secession intervened. The 154 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. Constitution of the Confederate States forbade the foreign slave trade, and “required” Congress to pass such laws as should effectually prevent the same. How long this prohibi- tion would have endured if independence had been achieved can only be conjectured, but it is certain that a Slave-holding government would have found far more difficulty in enforcing such a prohibition than the Government of the United States had found. We will now consider the domestic slave trade: Even bar- ring Secession and Rebellion, African slavery had always a possible danger in the undoubted power of Congress to regu- late commerce “between the States.” Should this power ever find a majority in Congress ready to apply it in an unfriendly spirit to the sale of slaves from State to State, and- thus to coop up each body of slaves in its own territory, the system would be injured in a vital point. For this reason the ninth section of the Act of 1807 allowed the transfer of slaves from point to point, along the coast, in vessels of not more than forty tons burden. After the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, American coasting vessels with slaves on board would occasionally be forced by a stress of weather into British West India ports, and the authorities at once liberated the slaves. Diplomatic complications followed, of course; but the British Government steadily refused to pay for the slaves liberated, except in cases which had occurred before the aboli- tion of slavery in the colonies. The domestic slave trade by land was never interfered with, until the abolition of slavery, except by the unavoidable operations of war during the Rebellion. A bill was introduced by Sumner in 1864 to pro- hibit it, but it came to nothing. A bill to repeal the sections of the Act of 1807, permitting the coastwise slave trade, was added as a rider to an appropriation bill, and became law •July 2, 1864. The Suffrage Clause and the Slave Power . — The Constitution gave to the States in which slavery existed legal repre- sensation in the lower house of Congress for three-fifths of their slaves. In this provision there was innate an influence, SLAVERY IN AMERICA. 155 which was as potent on the political aspect of the slave sys- tem as the cotton culture was upon its material aspect. It must be remembered that in spite of the number of slaves in the South, slave-Mre nor sleep! Swear once aeain the vow, O freeman! dare to do! God’s will is ever now! may this thy will renew ! Enfurl the boasted lie, till Freedom lives again, To reign once more in truth among untrammeled men! Roll up the, starry sheen— conceal its bloody stains; For in its folds are seen the stamp of rusting chains. Be bold, ye heroes all! spurn, spurn the flaunting lie, Till Peace, and Truth, and Love, shall till the bending sky; Then, floating in the air, over hill, and dale, and sea, ’T will stand forever fair, the emblem of the free! HANNAH, WIFE OF DRED SCOTT. THE DRED SCOTT DECISION. 213 CHAPTER XII. THE DRED SCOTT DECISION - . “ Grpat Heaven ! Is this our mission? End in this the prayers and tears, The toil, the strif , the watchings of our youuger, better years? Still as the Old World rolls in lignt, shall ours in shadow torn, A beamless chaos, cursed of God, through outer darkness borne? Where the far nations looked for light, a blackness in the air? Where for words of hope they listened, the long wail of despair? I N the year 1S51 Dred Scott, an African, began suit in a local court in St. Louis to recover his and his family’s freedom from slavery. He alleged that his master, one Dr. Emerson, an army surgeon living in Missouri, had taken him, as a slave, to the military post at Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, and, afterwards, to Fort Snelling, situated in what was originally upper Louisiana, but was at that time part of Wisconsin Terri- tory, and now forms part of the State of Minnesota. While at this later post, Dred Scott, with his master’s consent, married a colored woman, also brought as a slave from Missouri, and of this marriage two children were born. All this happened be- tween the years 1834 and 1838. Ajfterwards Dr. Emerson brought Dred Scott and his family back to Missouri. In this suit they now claimed freedom, because, during the time of residence with their master at these military posts, slavery was there prohibited by positive law; namely, at Rock Island by the Ordinance of 1787, and later by the constitution of Illinois; at Fort Snelling by the Missouri Compromise Act of 1820, and sundry other acts of Congress relating to Wisconsin Territory. The local court at St. Louis, before which this action was brought, appears to have made short work of the case. It had become settled legal doctrine by Lord Mansfield’s decision in the Sommersett case, rendered four years before our Declara- tion of Independence, that “the state of slavery is of such a 214 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons moral or political, but only positive law. It is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law.” The learned chief-justice, therefore, ordered that Sommersett, being claimed as a Virginia slave, brought by his master into England, and attempted to be carried away against his will, should be discharged from custody or restraint, because there was no positive law in England to support slavery. The doc- trine was subsequently modified by another English chief- justice, Lord Stowell, in 1827, to the effect that absence of positive law to support slavery in England only operates to suspend the master’s authority, which is revived if the slave voluntarily returns into an English colony where slavery does exist by positive law. The States of the Union naturally inherited and retained the common law of England and the principles and maxims of English jurisprudence not necessarily abrogated by the change of government, and, among others, this doctrine of Lord Mans- field. Unlike England, however, where there was no slavery and no law for or against it, some of the American States had positive laws establishing slavery, others positive laws prohib- iting it. Lord Mansfield’s doctrine, therefore, enlarged and strengthened by Americas statutes and decisions, had come to be substantially this: Slavery, being contrary to natural right, exists only by virtue of local law; if the master takes his slave from permanent residence into a jurisdiction where slavery is prohibited, the slave, therefore, acquires the right to his free- dom everywhere. On the other hand, Lord Stowell’, s doctrine was similarly enlarged and strengthened, so as to allow the master right of transit and temporary sojourn in free States and Territories, without suspension or forfeiture of his authority over his slave. Under the somewhat complex American system of govern- ment, in which the Federal Union and the several States each claim sovereignty and independent action within certain limit- ations, it became the theory and practice that toward each other the several States occupied the attitude of foreign THE DRED SCOTT DECISION. 215 nations, -which relation was governed by international law, and that the principle of comity alone controlled the recognition and enforcement by any State of the law of any other State. Under this theory, the courts of slave States had generally accorded freedom to slaves, even when acquired by the laws of a free State, and, reciprocally, the courts of free States had enforced the master’s right to his slave where that right depended on the laws of a slave State. In this spirit and con- forming to this established usage, the local court of Missouri declared Dred Scott and his family free. The claimant, loath to lose these four human “chattels,” carried the case to the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri, where, at its March term, 1852, it was reversed and a decree rendered that those Africans were not entitled to freedom. Three judges formed the court and two of them joined in an opinion, bearing internal evidence that it was prompted not by considerations of law and justice, but by a spirit of retaliation growing out of the ineradicable antagonism of freedom and slavery. The opinion of the court runs thus: “Every State has the right of determining how far, in a spirit of comity, it will respect the laws of other States. Those laws have no intrinsic right to be enforced beyond the State in which they are enacted. The respect allowed them will depend altogether on their conformity to the policy of our institutions. No State is bound to carry into effect enactments conceived in a spirit hostile to that which pervades her own laws. It is a humiliating spectacle to see the courts of a State confiscating the property of her own citizens by the command of a foreign law. * * * Times now are not as they were when the former decisions on this subject hvere made. Since then not only individuals, but States, have been possessed of a dark and fell spirit in relation to slavery, whose gratification is sought in the pursuit of measures whose inevitable conse- quence must be the overthrow and destruction of our Govern- ment. Under such circumstances it does not behoove the State of Missouri to show the least countenance to any measure which might gratify this spirit. She is willing to assume her 216 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. full responsibility for the existence of slavery within her limits, nor does she seek to share or divide it with others.” To this partisan bravado the third judge replied with a dignified rebuke in his dissenting opinion'. “As citizens of a 'slave-holding State we have no right to complain of our neighbors in Illinois because they introduce with their State constitution a prohibition of slavery; nor has any citizen of Missouri who removes with his slave to Illinois a right to complain that the fundamental law of the State to which he removes, and in which he makes his residence, dis- solves the relation between him and his slave. It is as much his own voluntary act as if he had executed a deed of emanci- pation. * * * There is with me nothing in the law relating to slavery which distinguishes it from law on any other subject, or allows any more accommodation to the temporary public excitements which are gathered around it. * * * In this State it has been recognized from the beginning of the Gov- ernment as a correct position in law, that a master who takes his slave to reside in a State or Territory where slavery is pro- hibited thereby emancipates his slave (citing cases). * * “But the Supreme Court of Missouri, so far from standing alone on this question, is supported by the decisions of other slave States, including those in which it may be supposed there was the least disposition to favor emancipation (citing cases). * * * Times may 'have changed, public feeling may have changed, but principles have not and do not change; and, in my judgment, there can be no .safe basis for judicial decision but in those principles which are immutable.” These utterances, it must be remembered, occurred in the year 1852, when all slavery agitation was supposed to have been forever settled. They show conclusviely that the calm was superficial and delusive, and that this deep-reaching con- test was still, as before the adjustment of 1820, actually trans- forming the various institutions of society. Gradually, and as yet unnoticed by the public, the motives disclosed in these opinions were beginning to control courts of justice, and popular discussion and excitement were not only shaping THE BRED SCOTT DECISION. 217 legislation, but changing the tenor of legal decisions through- out the country. Not long after the judgment by the Supreme Court of ■Missouri, Dred Scott and his family were sold to a man named Sanford, who was a citizen of New York. This circumstance afforded a ground for bringing a similar action in a Federal tribunal, and, accordingly, Dred Scott once more sued for free- dom in the United States Circuit Court, at St. Louis. The case .was tried in May, 1S54, and adecree rendered that they were Negro slaves and lawful property of Sanford. As a final effort to obtain justice, they appealed by a writ of error to the .Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial tri- bunal of the nation. Before this court of last resort the case was argued a first time in the spring of 1856. The country had been for two years in a blaze of political excitement. Civil war was raging in Kansas; Congress was in a turmoil of partisan discussion; a Presidential election was impending, and the whole people were anxiously noting the various phases of party politics. But few persons knew there was such a thing as the Dred Scott case on the docket of the Supreme Court, but those few appreciated the importance of the points it involved, and several distinguished lawyers volunteered to take part in the argument. Two ques- tions were presented to the court : First, Is Dred Scott a citizen entitled to sue? Secondly, Did his residence at Bock Island and Fort Snelling, under the various prohibitions of slavery existing there, work his freedom? The Supreme Court was composed of nine justices, namely: Chief Justice Taney and Associate Justices McLean, Wayne, Catron, Daniel, Nelson, Grier, Curtis and Campbell. There was at once manifested among the judges not only a lively interest in the questions presented, but a wide difference of views as to the manner of treating them. Consultations of the Supreme Court were always shrouded in inviolable secrecy, but the opinions afterwards published indicate that the political aspect of slavery, which was then convulsing the country, from the very first, found a certain sympathy and reflection in 218 HISTORY OF THE COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. these grave judicial deliberations. The discussions yet turned upon certain merely technical rules to be applied to the plead- ings under review: and, ostensibly to give time for further examination, the case was postponed, and a re-argument ordered for the next term. It may, however, be .suspected that the nearness of the Presidential election had more to do with this postponement than did the exigencies of the law. The Presidential election came and Mr. Buchanan was chosen. Soon after, the court again met to begin its long winter term; and about the middle of December, 1856, the Dred Scott case was once more elaborately argued. Again occupying the attention of the court for four successive days, as had also been done in the first hearing, the eminent counsel, after passing lightly over mere technical subtleties, discussed very fully what was acknowledged to be the leading point in the controversy — namely, whether Congress had power under the Constitution to prohibit slavery in the Federal Territories, as it had done by the Missouri Compromise Act and various other laws. It was precisely the policy or impolicy of this and similar prohibitions which formed the bone of conten- tion in party politics. The question of their constitutional validity was certain to take even a higher rank in public interest. When, after the second argument, the judges took up the case in conference for decision, the majority held that the decision of the Missouri federal tribunal should simply be affirmed on its merits. In conformity to this view, Mr. Justice Nelson was instructed to prepare an opinion to be read as the judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States; such a paper was thereupon duly written by him of the following import: It was a question, he thought, whether a temporary residence in a free State or Territory could work the emanci- pation of a slave. It was the exclusive province of each State, by its legislature or courts