EMORY UNIVERSITY
"OUPx F^TH6^'S HOUSG"
acs!
FAJU ILY,
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE,
JAMES C. EMBRY, D.D.,
Author of "The Digest of Christian Theology," "The Wturgy/*
&c. &c.
Thb A. M. E. Book Concern, 631 Pine Street,
Philada., Pa., U■ S. A.
Aug. 17, '93.
AO rrgLU reserved,
Prefaee.
I have written this little booklet for good, not
for evil. There is no spirit of rancor, or animos¬
ity against any race of men or class of people in
its pages. I believe in God, and in the human
race. I belive the Almighty Creator cares as
well for one race of men or nation as he does for
any other.
I believe the race-idolatry of our times is a
great hinderance to the progress of truth and
right and hence deserves to be opposed and
banished.
I believe in the unity of the human family, I
believe all the varieties of man are branches
from a common stock, and have acquired their
peculiarities by the influence of natural laws
a
our ^father's house" and family
which may now be no longer active, or, if active,
too occult to be understood at the present stage of
human enlightenment. At some future time it
will be better known.
I believe our modern civilization is the fruit of
Revelation and Christianity, and hence, in a sense
Divine and perpetual. I believeallpeople willbe
brought under its sway at some time, and then
our wars and strife will cease.
I believe all people that have fully embraced
our Christian civilization are equal each in digni¬
ty and honor, and that there should be a
universal fraternity among them all.
I believe all proscriptive laws in Christian
lands, discriminating civilly and socially against
any class or race, is a criminal act of rebellion
against the Kingdom and Providence of God.
The object in writing these essays is to enooiir-.
age the unfortunate varieties of the race in tjiia
land to take courage and hope for better days,
and to give a sort of clue to our young people
in their increasing thought about the nation aad
races of men.
t>
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
The discussions have been wrought in a rapid
uncritical way, without time for careful research,
or any attempt at special references to authors or
times. The aim has been to challenge thought
and put every one to reading for himself. It is
^ good thing to instruct men, but far better to
compel them by incitement to instruct them¬
selves.
To the Ladies Mite Missionary Society of the
A. M. E. Church this little booklet is affection¬
ately dedicated.
Philadelphia, Pa., TJ. S. A., August 17, 793.
Prologue.
THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE.
"We call the globe on which we dwell our
Father's House. Speaking more accurately his
house comprises the universe, that larger circle
in which our world is only a single little apart¬
ment.
But since we know nothing of any actual or
possible rational inhabitants in other parts of his
vast habitation we very appropriately think and
speak of this as his house.
The systems of study and inquiry into the
order and history of this world called science
stands over against revelation.
Bevelation tells us directly of the origin of all
i
"our father's house" ii
we see, and ascribes the whole to God as the
Creator.
Science legitimately seeks for the methods or
processes of creation and the regulations by
which the world is governed.
Revelation has chiefly in view moral ends.
Science seeks to enlarge the boundaries of our
knowledge and put us in right relations with
the forces by which we are surrounded.
Revelation leads to the contemplation of God
and man and the Divine man, while science con¬
templates man with reference to his history,
endowments and well-being; the world in which
we dwell, its elements, its phenomena and prob¬
able destiny.
Concerning the House in which our Father's
family abide, it may be briefly stated that science
demonstrates beyond dispute the temporal history
of our globe. It is scarcely conceivable that
there has been greater vicissitude anywhere in
the visible universe than has taken place in the
interior and on the surface of the earth. Three
witnesses—the plutonic, aqueous and fossilifer-
ous rocks—testify to the process of its formation.
•iii '1 oun father's house '' and family.
The plutonic or granite rocks are the same in
structure and character everywhere, and tjitj
simplest and hardest of all stone In which there
is no trace or remains of life, tell of their greater
rage and of the ages in which the stony founda¬
tions of the house were laid. ITo stratification
here by layer on layer, but .great masses of semi-
metallic liquid matter lifted to the surface by
^enormous pressure, to -cool and crystallize till as
firm as iron.
Next comes the igneous rocks., and then the
.-aqueous, full of shells and tokens of low forms
of life. After these the .slates and shale.
But the greatest changes on the-earth's surface,
:and contributing to the formation of the conti¬
nents and islands, liave been wrought by volcapic
action. There can be no doubtbutthat long since
man appeared on earth great continental and in¬
sular changes have taken place, and thus caused
w;hat s^ems. 90 mysterious to us, the later distri¬
bution of man and animals.
It is impossible to account fo? the Jong abode
of m$P allied specif erf mammalia
iii the ogrQat4WMP&eres 4he^earth on^anj^Qi.er
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. iv
principle. The groups of islands stretching well
across the north and south Pacific ocean tell of a
time when Asia and Australia were in closer re¬
lations to North and South America than now.
Besides that a profoundly deep sea on the Ameri¬
can side with scarcely any islands, and a com¬
paratively shallow one on the Asiatic side fringed
with chains of islands, tells where the line of
seismic cleavage occurred.
There was a time of universal moisture and
warmth that caused the growth of dense forests;
these were crushed by the drift period and by the
pressure of superimposed materials, it became
our coals. Other natural processes gave us iron,
lead and tin, with gold and silver abundantly dis¬
tributed in the granitic forms. Thus, in part,
was our Father's House furniihed for its inhabi-
▼ "our father's house" and family,
various opinions.
Some think the human race had its origin in
Central Asia, in the high plateau between the
Himalaya and Thien Shan mountains. There is
one fine conjecture on this theory. Others think
it was further South, in the "top of the world,"
the Hindoo Koosh, or Turkistan. One view, at
least, puts the place of his beginning in Ceylon
when it is supposed to have been a part of the
peninsula of Southern India. A pretty strong case
is made of tnis also. The writer says: "It must
have been the paradise of earth." But it must
be remembered that he is looking backward from
modern to primitive physical conditions. The last
conjecture of any force I have seen puts it in North
Central Africa, and contends that at least the
white and black races started there.
Not a few discard the Bible story and insist
that there were at least three primal types of hu¬
man nature originating at three different points
on the earth's surface. But this theory is only a
conjectural effort to account for some difficulties
that our age cannot comprehend.
Eeason says, as also the Bible, that as earth is
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. V!
one, representing a single continued process, so
man one, representing a uniform design carried
forward to multiform variations under the influ¬
ence of natural laws now latent or ceased to act.
The theory of evolution from the lower to the
higher, when applied to man is a failure. Every¬
thing argues that the fundamental constitution
and faoulties of man were all deposited at the
start. Nothing has been added but expansion,
by the enlargement of knowledge through the
guidance and stimulating presence of the Father
of us all.
Discipline, discipline through suffering, is the
talisinan of human progress. Opportunity and
susceptibility constitute the only important differ¬
ences among men.
Until recent times the meagre sketches con¬
tained in the Bible concerning the early history
and distribution of mankind on the earth, em¬
braced the fundamentals of our knowledge about
the race. The limited geographical information
of the enlightened heathen writers of ancient
times makes their testimony respecting primitive
peoples, of very little value.
vii "our father's house" and family,
"Order in society is but another name for justice, reason
and law ; tyranny is the sovereign disorder."—Virlet.
"My right in every sphere is exactly the same aS thai
which all others claim for themselves; I have only the
rights I acknowledge in them; and as soon as I refuse them
theirs, I "relinquish mine—and as soon as I assert my rights
I assert also theirs."—Idem.
"We hold these truths to be self evident; that all mexk
are created free and equal, and are endowed by the Creator
with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness—Jefferson.
Aducatn eas in montem sanctum rheum, el laeti/ieabo eos in
dortlo oralionis meae; quia dortius mea domus ordtionis vocabilur
cunctis populis.—Isa. lvi. 7.
—Vulgate.
" Atid I will bring them into my holy mountain, and will make
them j oyful in my house of prayer ; for my house shall be called a
house of prayer for all people."
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
Hunqaq ©oi^fliet,
Our variety of the human race, numbering now*
nearly nine millions, in the* United States of
America, and including those of the same de¬
cent on the adjacent island® and in South Amer¬
ica, they number possibly fifteen millions of
people. These people have suffered more or less
intensely from slavery and persecution in! various
ways through nearly three centuries. They are
still sufferers and seem likely to continue thus for
many generations in the future.
In like manner there are other varieties of
mankind, in other parts of the world, living-
under different systems of social order that have
suffered and are still suffering in the same way.
jBut this state of things: is not new or peculiar to
the present age • the Whole recorded history of
the human race is one of conflict; a record of op¬
pression on the one hand and suffering on the
other.
Homo homini hvpus est,
Man is wolf to man, has been true as it is now
fxoiri the beginning. Yet it is also a blessed truth
1
2 "our bather's house" and famely,
that the relations among men have been greatly
improved in many parts of the world, in modern
times, by the progress of knowledge in the arts
and by the influence of christian civilization.
This fact is so prominent and well sustained that
we do well to emphasize it and fix attention upon
it as.the "pole star," of human hope for better
things in the centuries to come than the world
has ever known.
No argument is needful to show that degrees
of oppression and misery prevail, the more or.
less, just as men are more or less removed from
the rude estate of barbarism. According as the
intellectual and moral nature gains ascendency
over the animal instinets do men put away rude¬
ness and the spirit of violence toward their fel¬
low men. The brutal passionate instinct in man
is not accordant with his orignal constitution ; it
is not natural or constitutional but acquired and
artificial.
The thing that puzzles our understanding most
is to learn why men are so much more advanced
in some parts of the earth than in other parts;
and why some varieties of men in the same divis-
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 3
ions of the globe, are so far forward in the
sciences, in government and civilization, while
others of the same variety or race, so called, re¬
main almost stationary. This fact has been ob¬
served and discoursed upon by wise men all over
the world, and gave rise to the notion that some
varieties of men are inherently superior.
The people who are active, thoughtful and
thrifty, grow continually wiser and stronger. By
study and ceaseless effort they learn better meth¬
ods of living, better systems of society, better
rules of government and by recording their ex¬
perience in books and other memorials, they hand
down their best thoughts and highest attainments
to their posterity after them, and thus they rise
higher and higher as the generations pass by.
On the other hand, those nations who are indo¬
lent, thoughtless and stationary, grow weaker,
and at length decline from civilization to barbar¬
ism, from barbarism to savagery and thus become
a prey of their enemies, or else in the whirlpool
of their own disorder, anarchy and strife, they
perish and disappear from the earth.
Concerning the nations or races of people that
4: "our father's house'' Aisri) family,
remain stationary, it may be observed that they
exhibit much of the same indolence that charac¬
terize the failing varieties above described, for
while they do not so positively retrograde as to
fall into barbarism, they are nevertheless un¬
willing to strive with that energy that secures ef¬
fective progress. They are content to be what
their fathers were.; they wish their posterity to
be what they are, and do as they are doing. With
enough to satisfy the merest physical needs, they
are content to let the days and years go by. They
thus become a stereotyped mass, turning round
and round in the same circle of experience from
generation to generation. At length their stronger
neighbors attack and reduce them to vassalage
and perpetual tribute.
These observations present a picture of the re¬
lations of men as they are now, and as they have
been from time immemorial, a picture that is en¬
tirely familiar to every student of history.
To briefly illustrate what has been said, refer¬
ence may be made to the nations of people in the
far East. The Mongolian nations have, beyond
all doubt, the oldest civilization on the globe that
PAST, PRESENT AND FI3TUB.E. 5
has come down to our times, yet thy are now
what they were in all essential particulars, thou¬
sands of years ago. Their arts, industries and
social system have remained stationary through
a lapse of ages amounting to thousands of years.
They have not been subjugated because they were
isolated, by their geographical location, from the
rest of the active world. They were too remote
from the great military empires and captains that
went out for booty and conquest in the early ages.
So the great mountain systems running from west
to east was the stronghold of their people and
saved them from the ravages of greedy, heartless
war.
On the other hand, there have been many and
great changes in Southern Asia. The history of
India so far as known has been a history of revo¬
lution and war. Tyranny and blood have char¬
acterized their whole course of existence and
although some of the industrial arts have been
sufficiently developed for many centuries to pro¬
duce many beautiful and useful things and to
yield a vast amount of wealth, yet through lack
of that moral and civil progress that alone can.
6 "our father's house" and famjly,
give stability and peace, they have made but
little civil and social progress for thousands of
years. As a result they have been conquered
again and again and subjected to the sway of
stronger people. A mere handful of Englishmen
control with rigorous authority the millions of
people in India. They have no power to throw
off the British yoke and assert the right of self-
control. Thus all the populous islands of the
Pacific and Indian Oceans are becoming, if not
already the vassals of the more enlightened and
greedy nations. A handful of American colo¬
nists defied Great Britain and dashed her yoke
aside. A few pitiful thousands of slaves in
Hayti and San Domingo resisted their French
masters with a dogged and desperate courage and
won their liberty which they maintain until
now.
Again, the vast multitudes of people on the
great continent of Africa, have declined from
a once brilliant civilization, wherein the arts
and sciences prevailed in a degree unknown else¬
where, to a state of almost universal barbarism.
They have so nearly lost their traditions that an
PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE, 7
alien race who utterly despise their posterity,
seek to attribute to themselves the greatness with
which she was once crowned. All her useful
knowledge has been lost; her progress turned
backward and thus she has been what she now is,
for centuries in the rear of centuries, a vast
jumble of tribal fragments; broken, helpless and
the toy of all nations. O Ethiopia, Ethiopia !
when and by whom shall thy captivity be
turned?
Take another illustration from the native
American—miscalled by Columbus Indians—In¬
dians indeed! The nations of this once numerous
and great people during the early ages enjoyed,
in some parts of this land at least, a fair degree
of civilized life and power. Archaeologists tell us
that the remains of a once powerful and consid¬
erably enlightened people are found in Mexico
and South America. A measure of civilized art
and industry in manufactures and agriculture
existed there when the Spaniards first arrived in
those countries. But here, too, we have a case of
national ethnic declension; their wealth and power
have been lost, their cities and the memorials of
8 "OUR FATHER'S HOUSE" AND FAMn>l,
their dead heroes Lave crumbled into dust and
the people themselves are but a lingering rem¬
nant on the earth.
In "Western Asia and Europe, only of all the
habitable world there has been an upward trend
of human progress for above two thousand years.
From the time that Europe received the first
awakening touch of Semitic civilization, especial¬
ly the enlightening influence of the Semitic relig¬
ion, it has never turned back from the way of
progress. But this division of the world, partic¬
ularly Western Europe, now at the head of the
world's affairs, had its long night of darkness. A
vague and cruel form of barbarous despotism
held sway in Europe from north to south for un¬
told ages. When Egypt and Syria, Persia and
Babylon were in the heyday of their glory
Europe was as insignificant and unforceful as
Africa and the Pacific Islanders are to-day. The
barbarous half clad and hungry tribes that dwelt
among its hills, along its rivers and on its isles,
were as hopeless and helpless as the dark inhab¬
itants of the Pacific Islands are now.
Westward from Phonicia and Egypt, through
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 9
Greece and Eome; the light of a new day de-
cended upon her benighted hosts and they awoke
gradually from the night of indolent slumber,
put away the swadling bands of barbarous child¬
hood and began the work of civil and social con¬
struction. The good work once begun, has con¬
tinued to our day with unparalelled persistency,
and 10, we witness as the outcome of a long and
checkered struggle, the highest achievements
known to man. The power and influence of Eu¬
ropean civilization has now compassed the globe
and has given her people a dominant place in the
affairs of the whole world.
It only remains to speak in this part of our
essay, of the chief features of this vast regener¬
ating movement.
At the head of all agencies that have contrib¬
uted to the regeneration of Europe and the Yf es-
tern Hemisphere, must be placed the influence
of Christianity. There are mw many learned (?)
and influential men, on both sides of the Atlan¬
tic, who scout and deny this truth. But that
strange indefinable spirit of religious enthusiasm
which went out from the little rocky, barreik
10 "our father's house" and family,
country at the northeast end of the Mediterran¬
ean Sea, and which spread itself through Greece
westward to Bome, and thence to all Europe,
Germany, Gallia and the British Isles, can never
he undervalued in the great work of modern
regeneration. And still its influence runs and
spreads itself from land to land, from one people
to another, quickening, purifying, exalting the
benighted tribes of men, as the returning power
of the springtide sun.
There be those who assume that this marvelous
growth of humanity is the fruit of a native
genius in the European variety of the race.
They claim that God has endowed this branch of
the human family with intellectual and moral
powers such as he has denied to all others; that
these alone are capable of perpetual progress in
knowledge and the science of government. But
this assumption is plainly groundless. If it
were true, then why was it that they were so
late in taking the initiative1? Why should they
have wasted ages, these most gifted races, in
barbarous ignorance and cruelty1? And further,
the supporters of this theory of special gifts and
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 11
favor need to show some reason for the ignorance,
degradation and semi-barbarism of the same
imperial stock right under the shadow of Cau¬
casus itself.
No; there is nothing merely in race variety or
special endowments to justify the wide differences
in the career of nations. It is the work of a
wise Providence in carrying forward his own
high counsel. That he uses the obvious laws of
nature in their application to various peoples
under favored climatic and other stimulating
agencies, no one will need or desire to dispute.
But a thousand facts of history and experience
conspire to confound and explode the peurile con¬
ceit of special race endowments. But we must
leave these questions for later consideration.
A second element of power in modern civili¬
zation, fostered especially by Christianity, was
the growth and spread of education. The cul¬
tivation of the human mind by education in the
languages and the natural sciences, especially
mathematical science, is scarcely less marvelous in
its results than the influence and energy of
Christianity itself.
12 "OUR FATHERrS HOUSE" AND FAMILY,
In the development of language, man finds the
key to philosophy and all refinement; and in that
of the mathematics, he finds a key to nearly all
the mysteries and forces of the material universe.
Astronomy, navigation,, engineering and develop¬
ment of all the mechanical powers, are the gift
of mathematics. Along with these come inven¬
tion, the construction of machinery, manufactur¬
ing and the consequent expansion of commerce
and rapid growth cf wealth. It is a pleasant and
most fascinating study as to how the influence of
many interacting agencies stimulate one another
and give constant rise to new forms of thought
and action, until human enterprises and pursuits
become as multiform as the stars. But returning
to the thought with which we set out in para¬
graph 13, it maybe coldly asked: Is this wonder¬
ful progress of our Western Hemisphere owing
to racial gift of superior powers'? I mean by
"coldly asked," that we should ask without any
bias of feeling one way or another. For if
the assumption be true, no partisan feeling
against it will alter the fact; but if it be not so,
then we need tut to sift a little to find the truth
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 13
and patiently wait till we witness the explosion
of an immense bubble of human conceit.
The arguments usually put forward by thepeo-
ple identified with modern achievement, sum¬
med up amounts to about this:—"See what we
have done1? Have we not thus demonstrated
our superiority? What have the people of
other races done*?" These high sounding ques¬
tions, propounded with great gusto to the weak
and indolent classes of the stationary varieties,,
are most confounding. They strike us dumb.
"Here are the evidences; no discussion is needed;
see where we are1?" Who but the wildest erra¬
tic, stupid to blindness at noon-day, would or
could refuse his assent to this claim of superiority"
with the prima facie testimony standing out all
around him. Here are wealth, power, learning,,
enterprise, government, law, order, religion and
the moral virtues in a higher degree of develop¬
ment than was ever known to any age or nation*
Well, then, are not these evidences of superior
Inherent endowment, granted to no other race or
people? Our answer here must depend on what
is meant by superiority. If superior condition
14 "our father's house" and family,
superior wealth, power, wisdom, learning is the
construction put upon the word superior, the an¬
swer must be yes, most emphatically, yes! Still
we cannot admit the assumption of any special
inherent gift depending on the mere fact of race
variety. And for thus rejecting this assumption
we think there are most ample reasons.
In the first place, we insist that there has been,
but one inherently superior man in all the earth,
and He was not only a man, but a perfect man
and something more. Without this something
more, we are all idolaters, as the Jews and Pa¬
gans claim; for we worship and pay Divine
honors to one who i3 in no way above ourselves.
"For then are we found to be false witnesses of
God, in that we testify that God has raised Him
from the dead whom He raised not, and if He be
not risen then is our preaching vain and your
faith is also vain."*
Now, do the achievements of modern, or, if
you please, European science and civilization tes¬
tify of the truly vigorous and mighty races who
have carried them forward, under spur of a most
•St, Paul.
PAST, PRESFNT AND FUTURE. 15
singular inspiration, that they are something
more than men? Is there anything special in
their origin or constitution, physical or mental,
that differentiates them from the rest of the hu¬
man family ? If so, let some one point out "what
this exalting quality or endowment is. It cannot
be because they had their supposed origin in
Western Asia in the vicinity of the Caucassian
Mountains, a tradition which some of their most
learned men now deny* for those of the same vari¬
ety who still inhabit that part of the world are until
now only half civilized. Indeed far less so than
many people of other varieties in other parts of
the same continent. Nor can it be on the ground
of color for that is at the best only a derivative
accident, containing in itself nothing at all for or
against any people on the line of inherent abili¬
ties.
But more than this, we may readily believe by
what we know of the past history of some other
varieties of men that there is nothing in the won¬
derful power and progress of this western world,
Europe and America, that might not have been
• Brinton
16 "our father's house" and family,
accomplished by some other branches of the fam¬
ily of man under the same conditions, natural and
spiritual, that have favored them. At any rate
there is not sufficient proof that they could not
and would not have wrought just as gloriously as
these.—
The burden of proof that these alone of all man¬
kind are capable and worthy of the enlightenment
and blessings they enjoy, lies on him who asserts
it. The proof required in such a case is such as
none but God can furnish. He gave to the worlds
one superior man, not only great wisdom, but
wonderful grace. He gave him also power over
nature so that miracles were wrought by Him
even to the raising of the dead. Let it be noted
also, that all He did was beneficent. He made
no wars, He held no slaves; He robbed no man,
nor country of its rights.
The first man was called Adam—"man." The
primitive title of the Asiatic people Othom,
means "man," so, also, the name applied to
themselves by the leading tribes of Africa, such
as Bantu and Mendingo, mean "man." It is most
probable that the primitive Tueton and Celt, of
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 17
the European branch, of our race, only thought
themselves "man." From hence it follows that
all the variations of form, size, color, capacity or
weakness, is built up around the common center
of a common human nature. This leads to a fav¬
orable point to review ttihe >chief varieties of man
and their leading characteristics.
18 "our father's house" and family.
thoughts on the subject of races, or vari¬
eties of the human family.
Our word Eace is derived from the Latin Badix,
root and conveys the idea of a common, or simi¬
lar origin. It is applied to all those varieties of
people, who have similar physical traits, as com¬
plexion, form, hair; and who speak the same or
a kindred language. Still these variations of
mankind are so numerous that an accurate classi¬
fication of the whole has thus far defied success.
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 19
The best attempts ever made remain defective,
so that ethnologists are always reconstructing
their catalogues of the human family. Indeed
the word race is so indefinite that it conveys but
the slightest notion of the numerous variations of
type. Hence the best arrangementl have ever seen,
to my own mind, is that which groups them into
families. The number is thus reduced to less than
one-third of that which it is possible to make
under any purely racial classification. For the
varieties fade into each other so acutely that it is
often impossible in several respects to make dis¬
tinctions among them. They are like the colors,
of the rainbow, so blended that it is difficult to
decide where one shade ceases and the other be¬
gins. Prof. Brinton, of the University of Penn¬
sylvania, divides them into families in his late
treatise or lectures on ethnology. But even here,,
he must adopt methods of sub-division by-
branches of families. This method helps some
in clearing up the vague systems of most ethnol¬
ogists. But the easiest view of all is the simple
plan of the late Martin E. Delaney, who believed
the race of man to be naturally divided into
20 "our father's house" and family,
white and black as primary and positive types
and the rest merely intermediaries. He believed
these two "great races'7 as he was wont to call
them, are the two and only two, co-ordinate and
positive poles of humanity and that each of them
is so strong racially, that they can easily resolve
any intermediate type and absorb it to the point
of extinction. This view looks at color only and
is of no scientific value.
While I do not go along with Dr. Delaney all
the length of his theories, it must still be con¬
fessed that they contain many bright original
ideas. Both reason and experience teach us that
it will not do to follow the mere hints of science
and analogies too far. They often only bring to
the surface one out of many occult influences
which have wrought, or are still at work out of
our sight.
The remote history of all the chief varieties of
men is so obsurce that no one on earth can more
than guess about their origin and one man's
guessing in this matter is just as good as that of
any other. One thing is pretty certain, we have
a pretty well authenticated history of some of
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
21
the families of man, about three thousand years.
Beyond that point all is mere tradition and guess¬
ing. And since it is certain that the varities of
man were about as numerous then as now, it will
never be possible for man to know, accurately
and positively, the how, why and when of varied
types of his race. He can presume with raason-
able certainity that the same natural causes that
produces change and variation in plants and
animals has, at some remote period, done the
same for him. Butjibasra all his researches, a
fundamental fact will remain, that in constitution
and destiny he is one. So that whatever tends to
prolong lif^ promote virtue, advance knowledge
and increase happiness for any one race of peo-
ple win serve the same ends for all others.
On the other hand it will be found that
any general prevalence of evil, moral or physi¬
cal, that shall threaten extinction for any
large section of the race, will threaten the whole.
Or if ever the dominant races in any age shall
resolve to conquer and destroy all the weaker, they
will find themselves balked and at length broken
on the wheels of their own devices, even as
22 "our father's house" and family,
Haman was executed on his own gallows.
One of the facts of history going to sustain
this view, is that no one race or nation has ever
risen very high in civilization above its neighbors
and remained solely strong and independent for
any great period of time. The nations rise and
fall in groups. It is first Egypt, then the nations,
of the far East. Then followed the central group
of nations, as the Chaldeans and Persians. After
them the Greek and Roman Empires and now at
last we have the highest and strongest of all; we
have this European civilization and culture.
Now while this civilization is incomparably
loftier and stronger than any that has ever pre¬
ceded it, yet even if we exclude the influence of
Christianity, the claim that this civilization is its
own and is the fruit of its own genius, is a mon¬
strous perversion of truth. The fact is, our age
has simply climbed upon the shoulders of the
past in gaining its present lofty outlook.
For a brief study of the races of man, we may
properly begin with those that are now the oldest
in civilization, and this precedence belongs to the
Mongolian so-called, or Asiatic peoples*
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 23
We say peoples because clearly they they are
not the same people, though more or less nearly
related.
This family consists of the Turkomans, Mon¬
gols, Tartars, the Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Japan¬
ese and Hungarians, a people now located in the
midst of Europe and forming a part of the Aus¬
trian Empire. Some writers also classify the
Eskimo with the Mongolian family.
Secondly, we have the European peoples.
These comprise the whole territory of Europe
excepting little Hungary as we have stated.
Thirdly, we mention the Malayan nations of
the Indian and South Pacific Oceans, including
the Phillippines, Formosa and the Island of Bor-
nea. All these peoples, as those also of northeast
Africa are a common stock derived from inter¬
mixture of lighter hued people from Southern
Asia with the dark-skinned people of Africa.
Fourth, we have the American, so-called, In¬
dian family of man. These constitute a vast
jumble of tribes spread over the whole continent
of North America and include the Eskimo, or
Esquimaux as some spell the name, inhabiting
24 uour father's house" and familyr
the Arctic region of both Continents.
Fifth, we have the great African branch of the
human race. This is one of the old races of man
and is as widely diffused as as any other on the
face of the globe. We think this enumeration
sufficiently covers all the races of mankind.
Each one of these larger branches represent a
numerous family of subordinate elements. But
it is widely apart from my purpose to attempt
any description or delineation of these various
groups of mankind. It is sufficient for our pur¬
pose to mention the fact that it is and has always
been a great subject of debate among both wise
men and fools, about the unity or diversity of
origin of these various tribes. In late years, be
it said to the credit of our humanity, an over¬
whelming preponderance of enlightened opinion
takes the side of human unity. How it
could have ever been otherwise is accounted for
only by the well known meanness of our sinful
nature. For despite all the variations of color,,
form and feature, habit, language, or degree of
enlightenment, it must be patent to the average
intelligence of ai»y man not blinded by conceit and
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 25
prejudice that all men are alike. That is to say,
the points of similarity are as 100 to 1 of dissim¬
ilarity. No race of men has ever been found that
did not instantly recognize a fellow human being
in any man he might meet and who would not
instinctively and instantly treat any stranger as a
man, whether friend or enemy, either in a
friendly or hostile manner.
One matter in the discussion of this race ques¬
tion is especially worthy of note. 1. The men
who are engaged in geographic and historical
studies with reference to the habitat and early
history of mankind in all its branches, both in
Europe and America, have traveled and ran¬
sacked every accessible part of the earth. They
have discovered many facts and things hitherto
unknown. They have talked and talked and
speculated and guessed about peoples and places
and things of 'which they know as yet almost
nothing, and then they have collected this con¬
tradictory mass of speculation into books and
pamphlets, and named it ethnological science.
Each and all of these speculators quote from all
the others, and concur with so much as suits his
26 "our father's house" and family,
own pet theory, and sneers at or rejects all the
rest.
Science is that method of investigation that
leads to the discovery and explanation of truth.
It takes phenomena and seeks by unprejudiced
inquiry to classify them and arrive at the truth.
2. Now, what are the several classes of phenom¬
ena employed by these self-styled ethnological
scientists! (a). They almost always set out with
the phenomenon of color, and begin their classi¬
fication with this. (b). They take the next more
manifest phenomenon of diversity of language,
and pretend to arrange these into families and
classify by that. (c). They next appeal to the
more occult phenomenon of variation in the an¬
atomical structure. Under the head of osteology
they talk lustily about the cranium, the pelvis,
the tibia and fibula, or shin bones, the long fore¬
arm and all that sort of thing ad infinitum, (d).
Then the muscles, calf or no calf, the thick lip
and the thin, etc., etc. (e). Finally, and we
might say almost chiefly, they resort to the hair
and the beard. O, the volumes and the volumes,
the battles and victories and defeats over these
interesting phenomena!
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 27
But whoever will take the labor to read, say
any three of these authors, will be convinced
that it is necessary to winnow a bushel of chaff
for a grain of wheat. Notwithstanding all this,
it is only just to say that much light is shed on
many subjects by these men—still it is not sci¬
ence, it is only speculation.
In proof of this assertion we need only note
the contradictory assertions and self-contradic¬
tory theories employed. As the fact of diversity
of color and hair is most clearly manifest to all,
these peculiarities are far more prominent
in all race discussion than anything else. In
fact, if tinctus and crinis were all right, the ques¬
tion of race could be quickly settled throughout
the European and American world. These are
the stumbling blocks, the stones of offense in the
way of homogeneity. In popular parlance and in
the common feeling, especially of all Americans
of European descent, all black people, or brown
are Negroes, deserving contempt and aversion.
But in the science of ethnology, no people are
Negroes, or belong to the Negro family that have
straight or wavy hair and the European style of
28 "our father's house" and family,,
lip and nose. Thus all of the dark races ami
tribes of the East Indias, Borneo, Ceylon, and
the long head, brown skinned, curly haired Hin-
doostanee are not Negroes in the language of
scientific ethnology. See the lectures of Prof.
Brinton, Dr. Pickering and others. Even Mrs.
Sommerville, the English lady author of physical
geography and the races of men, as far back as
'59, cuts off all the straight haired, long nosed
blacks from the Negro race, and gives them
primitive origin in Arabia and Southern India.
Pickering is unwilling to identify them in any¬
way with the Aryan stock, but erects for their
benefit six independent races, so as to save them
from identity with the true woolly headed Ne¬
groes.
But in all this there is no such concert and
intensity of purpose as in the almost universal
attempt to claim ancient Egypt and' all its glory
for the florid faced Aryan. For the last thirty
years the ringing phrase '' Indo-European.rr has
filled the air as the genetic or derivative' title of
the Aryan stock.
But what glory was there iiu: India save a. lon«-
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 2$
tradition of revolution, conquest, blood and
barbarism %
On the other hand, old Egypt, grand old Egypt,
the oldest and grandest monument of human
strength and wisdom of ancient times, presents
the one verdant oasis in the gloomy desert of the
remote ages.
What could be done ? They could not blot her
out of the map of history, nor snuff out the solar
splendor "by which she shines supreme among
the wonders of the past. Time was when it was
thought sufficient to dagrade her by sneers at
her low, black Hamite idolatry and superstitions.
She worshipped the ox, the sun, the crocodile,
the serpent. All this would not do. There she
stood gloomy, grand, sublime. What shall we
do? Well, we have this: at any rate she was
conquered by Aryan? in her latter days. The
intrepid Greek conquered her and built Alexan
dria. That is one step toward her reclamation.
Another step is found in the fact that in far
earlier times Egypt was overrun by some ancient
race of white men. Some say from Arabia, as
Professor Baldwin, 1872, p, 272. "The old civi-
30 "our father's house" and family,
lization throughout the upper valley of the Nile
had the same origin. It came originally from
Arabia, and went onward into Egypt in very early
times, before the Gushite race had changed its
color by mixture with the dark-skinned race of
Africa."—(Baldwin).
Let us hear what another learned professor has
to say. " From this all too hasty survey of this
most ancient people, (Libyans) we must turn to
another, akin to it, which has played an impor¬
tant, yes, the most important part in the culture-his¬
tory of our species."
Since this is a truth that can't be erased, he
must join the pirates in the attempt to steal it
from its true alliance and place this most ancient
people out of the African line. Hear him: "I
refer," he says, to the ancient Egyptians. They
belong to the Hamitic stock, (which of course he
has already shown to his satisfaction to have been
a white race.) They belong to the Hamitic stock,
but wandered eastward from its primal home,
(in the south of Europe) certainly more than ten
thousand years before our era. Whew! "had
possessed themselves of the Nile Yalley from the
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 31
mouth of the stream up to and beyond the first
cataract." "Their kinship to the Libyans (white)
Ts proved (?) by numerous linguistic identities.
44 In color they are yellowish-white, passing to a
reddish-brown; though the women who are not
exposed to the sun would pass in Europe as merely
dark brunettes." The sun, you see, is of some use
to help out when he is needed. In Mr. Baldwin's
estimation he is worse than useless in the matter
of producing color.
To crown this monument of ethnological hum-
bugery, this learned man denies that his florid
race had its origin in India or Asia at all. He
scouts the Caucassian tradition as worse than
mythical and declares that the races of Europe
had their origin in Africa and actually names them
the '' Eurafrican race!'' Thus there is a universal
chorus of speculation as harmonious as the an¬
them of frogs in springtime, all going to prove
that Egypt was not founded and raised into
greatness by the Africans, but by Arabians, Li¬
byans from Europe, by Chaldeans, by Phceni-
cans or by any and everybody generally except
"by the people who were there. In order to do
.32 el our father's house" and family,
this they stretch current chronology, by ten
thousand to twenty thousand years, in accommo¬
dation of their misty speculations.
To sum up all that has been said, I have found
that the study of the so-called science of ethnol-
,ogy is the most worthless pursuit imaginable. It
has been absolutely unable up to this day to
locate the place of origin of any race or variety
,of men whatever. is_ simply a tangled maze
of babbling speculation. For the most part it has
been carried on under auspices of the most ran¬
corous prejudice against all the darker races, and
as against the really black tribes of mankind,
this speculation almost universally reveals a pos¬
itive malice.
A certain class of writers and pettyfogging
philosophers have employed all the instruments
,of sophistry to degrade and undervalue the hu¬
manity of the black man. With a few exceptions
all true scientists have acknowledged and demon¬
strated the unity and common dignity of the
whole family of man and have shown that a mean
average of the better qualties of human nature
is found running through all the races and that
IP AST PRESENT AND FUTURE, 33
exclusive ^excellence belongs to none. Such are
the sentiments of the really learned Dr. Blumen-
bach, (German,) Dr. Prichard, (English,) Dr.
Tiedmann, (German,) Linnaeus, Cuvier, Morton,
Zimmerman, Pickering and the great Yon Hum¬
boldt.
With Burke and Virey, Xott and Brock, we have
also one truly great naturalist against the theory
of human unity and that is the late Prof. Agas-
.siz. He seems to agree with the infidel Voltaire
that there were other races of men on earth con¬
temporary with Adam; and so with Winch ell,
another great name, but a positive hater of
IJegroes. Prof. Agassiz, was not in the least
degree infidel, but .he believed we misread the
Scripture history of human origin. He heartily
sides, he says, with the notion of common human
nature, intellectual and physical, derived from
the Creator of all men—under the same moral
government and sustaining similar relations to
the Deity, but beyond that he wavered.
It would be of no interest or profit to our readers
to pursue these discussions and opinions of men.
about our race any further. It is enough for us
34 "our father's house77 and family,
to know that God is the Father of us all and that
our destiny at last is in His Almighty hands.
And if we know and serve Him, we shall not
need to fear what men can do or gay. If it is
His purpose to exalt and lift us up as he has done
for others, it will be done, with our co-operation,
in spite of all weak and wicked human counsels.
Meanwhile it will be well for us to consider our po¬
sition and status in the world of humanity and
devote ourselves to building up every possible
defense against the assaults of malicious men and
devils.
First, it is folly verging to madness for the
black race all over the world to deny its present
inferiority. I mean inferior in the literal sense of
the word. The old Latin sense of the word is
to be below, behind. I do not mean inferior in
nature, constitution or faculty. For in these re¬
spects there is no sufficient evidence that the
darker races of men are one whit inferior to any
other. But in this enlightened age when the
struggle for existence is becoming more severe
with each generation the weaker nations and
races will be rapidly pushed to the wall. Weak-
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 35
ness cannot hold leadership anywhere much
longer. The resources of the whole earth will
soon be laid under tribute to the wants of earth's
increasing millions. Rich countries and territor¬
ies will not be permitted to lie idle.
Accordingly we see the semi-barbarous countries
passing under the rule of the strong nations j
their rude systenu of government are being dis¬
placed and their weak rulers set aside. Govern¬
ors and administrators are appointed and the-
public affairs of the whole land pass into the
hands of those who are able to control in the in-
terest of the conquerors.
Thus we have seen Egypt, Palestine, Africa,.
Madagascar, Cay Ion, India, Australia and all the
Polynesian group of nations with their territories
fall under control of Europe. The Sandwich
Islands are now on the slide and will soon b&
Another little bead on the string of a stronger
people. But there will be a change further on.
X day of reconstruction will come. Decay and
weakness will come by and by to the peoples now
dominating the world. Dissolution by war and
revolution will cause a widespread revision of the
36 "our father's house" and family,
jsivil map of the globe. The great nations are
constantly enlarging their armies. Millions on
millions of the peoples' haM earnings are wasted
in military and navaP equipments, not because
they are needed to preserve order arid secure
the enforcement of the laws, but in order
that great corporations may be sustained in
pushing their commercial enterprises to the
ends of the earth and conserve wealth and nat:
ional aggrandizement. Powerful fleets of steel-
clad warships are being constructed at frightful
cost, not because they have anything in particular
to do, but that they may be on hand and while
they are engaged in nothing more important they
are used to bully and humiliate the smaller na¬
tions and keep them under tribute to the strong.
Prom the present outlook the time is not far away
■when a few great nations will absorb the rest of
the world. The smaller countries will be made'
tributary provinces of the few great countries
which are able to support large, expensive" mili¬
tary establishments, by grinding the laboring
masses that produce the wealth of the" world.
JBut there will come an end to all this. It is
PAST, PRESFNT AND .FUTURE, ,37
now the opinion of many able men that we shall
witness a period of warfare among the nations,
unequalled by any past experience in human an¬
nals and that after such a season of strife and
suffering by the people comprising these great
nations, there will be a general downfall of the
present dynasties and systems of government.
The people will take charge of their own affairs
and instead of vast armies and navies eating up
their substance, they will seek to establish rela¬
tions of peace and a wide fraternity among the
nations and races of men. To the mind of reason
it seems that the age of domination by military
preeminence ought to be coming near its close.
The whole earth is becoming more enlightened
and all the races are settling down under estab¬
lished systems of industrial life. Pirates by sea
and raving marauders on land are now scarcely
any more known. And now if the world could
but see the overthrow and disarmament of a few
pompous and restless military monarchs, the
world might begin an age of peace and happy
- progress such as can be only found in the
predictions of the inspired prophets and sages of
38 *' OUR FATHER'S HOUSE'' AND FAMILTy
old; a time when armament shall be turned
into instruments of peaceful industry and the
nations study war no more.
PAST, PKKfcJKNT AND FUTU&E.
£9
fi. View of thjo JVatiorjs.
+
+
There are now seven great military powers
that hold, apparently in their hands the destiny
of the world. Considered simply with reference
to military strength and prestige, we mention
them in order as follows:
Germany, or the German Empire, England, or
the British Empire, the Bussian Empire, France,
the Empire of Austria-Hungary, the United
States of America and the Kingdom of Italy.
These seven powers own and control seven
tenths or more of the wealth and resources of the
w6rld; aitiiou^ti they comprise orily about oiie
42 "our father's house" and family,
also of the Pacific Isles. That the Malayan race
is failing and those of the whole Polynesian
group are at a hopeless standstill if not actually
declining. He thinks China and the Asiatic
races are hopelessly stationary excepting Japan.
Africa, he declares, has not and never had the teem¬
ing millions claimed for it and that it must soon
yield before the same all-pervading energy and de¬
structive contact of the European nations. Along
with their advent comes not only the destroying
weapons of war, when resisted, but also the
vices of the race—its rum and syphilis, measles,
small-pox, yellow fever, scarletina and consump¬
tion. Against all this array of destructive agents
a poor half civilized or barbarous people have
but little chance of resistance.
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTUKE. 43
Will All of tl^e Weaker F^aees
be IDestpoyed?
1
It does not follow, that because the power of
the world is concentrated in the hands of a few
nations and they all of one, or closely allied races,
th&t the rest of the human family will necessarily
be destroyed. Several causes lie against such
result.
1. These great nations are widely separated in
traditions, interest and language. The wealth
and power they control and the ambitions which
excite a spirit of rivalry among liiem keeps them,
in the toils of perpetual jealousy and intrigue.'
A. great war may occur at any time and
44 S'.OUll father's house" and family,
serve to liberate a feeble people and transfer its
allegiance from one nation to another, or give it a
guaranteed independence, as in the case of Bel¬
gium and Switzerland and as may be the case
of Ireland or Egypt at any time.
2. The diffusion of knowledge is rapidly lifting
the weaker peoples up toward the same civil and
social status of the strong, thus rendering their
destruction more difficult. The awakened con¬
science of the world will not allow any enlighten¬
ed worthy people to be destroyed by the sword.
Such a universal slaughter as Titus wrought at
Jerusalem would horrify Christendom. No nation
would dare do such a thing outside the secluded
interior of Africa.
- 3. The providence of God is all controlling and
in the long run it is always conservative of the
wellfare of the poor and the weak. In the onward
roll of that great wheel by the hand of the un¬
seen omnipotence, the uplifted arm of the
destroyer is often paralyzed oir the blow aimed at
another is turned on himself. {" Another influence
in the problem of universal domination and de¬
struction of the weaker races is time. A more
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 45
striking illustration of the influence of time co¬
operating with overruling providence could
scarcely b£ found than the case of the forlorn
African race in America. A turn of the provi¬
dential wheel reversed the aim of his oppressor,
so that instead of strengthening his chains he
broke them. While he was a rude barbarian,
the self interest of the master protected him and
n6w that he is a civilized man and a citizen, the
public welfare' Will save him from any degree of
violence' that would threaten his destruction.
From a few hundred thousand two or three gen¬
eration ago, he has grown to four millions, then
six millions, now eight millions. Meanwhile he
is becoming an enlightened people. So that per¬
secution and the vaporings of prejudice only
serves to awaken his self-consciousness and call
into activity his higher, better impulses. Take
another instance. For hundreds of years Egypt
and Northwestern Africa has been overrun by
foreigners. Tyranny, oppression and bloodshed
have prevailed and yet the native people have not
been destroyed. So in South Africa, the natives
have been beaten, oppressed and robbed of land
48 "our father's house" and family,
Pacific states of the Union may yet be overcome
or entirely disregarded. Canada, South America
and the British Islands have none of them shown
a corresponding resentment to Chinamen. Indeed
the opposition to them in the states is chiefly
among the Irish laboring class, who by making
the matter a political issue have forced the parties
to do that which is manifestly repugnant to a
large enlightened element of the American peo¬
ple. The pulpit, the college and sbhools have
already uttered their protest against Chinese
proscription and the Christian, enlightened sense
of the nation, will sooner or later prevail.
the indian.
The American Indian presents a rare subject
for study. They have steadily lost ground in
their native country from the time when the
European began to take possession here. At the
settling of the colonies, the Indian population
was little known It has been variously estimated
from three to ten millions. It is probable there
were not more than three or four millions at
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 49
most. It appears from several circumstances
that they had long been declining in numbers
before the white man ever saw them. Perpetual
internal strife had scattered them into tribal
bands all over the continent, , so, that they sus¬
tained only a thin attenuated existence. Hunger,
cold and diseases, swept them away by thousands.
There are evidences that pulmonary consumption
had mowed them as a scythe. Deprived of all
the advantages of united effort, mutual assistance
and protection, they have simply sustained a
battle with fate for many generations. In many
of the tribes as we have seen them, the Indian
presents some of the finest specimens of physical
manhood to be seen on the face of the globe.
Looked at from the standpoint of simple human
ity, it seems a cruel fate that has doomed a branch
of so princely men to decimation and extinct¬
ion. But the ruinous misfortune of the Indian
was not so much the result of a severe clime, or
persecuting enmity by the white emigrant, as it
was the fruit of his own internal nature and
constitution.
First, He belongs to the indolent variety- of
50 "our father's house" and family,
mankind. He is indolent both of body and
mind. ^^Th^re is literally no industry, no enter¬
prise, no reaching forth from the lower to the
higher in his nature?^)
Second, He is among the most spiteful and
resentful of men. He will not compromise, he
will not make friends when once he has become
an enemy. He is the unthinking bull dog of the
human race. If he had possessed a fraction of
the sympathetic compromising spirit of the Afri¬
can races, the white man would have taken him
aboard the ship of progress without one half the
friction he has with the friendly faithful black.
His hair is long and straighter than that of his
paler brothers; his color less removed from that
of the florid Aryan; a cross of blood between
the two produces a very handsome and very
active man and as to the females, many of them
would compare with the famed women of Circas-
sia, for beauty, but they are soft and indolent.
There be some at the present day, who say the
Indian will rally and not disappear, but we think
their faith is groundless. The handful of the
tribes left, amounting to only a few score thous-
PAST; PRESENT AND FUTURE. 51
ands, scattered here and there, will perish or be
absorbed. They feel a deep implacable hatred
of the cruel white. They will never voluntarily
push into his society or his arms. The proud
and lordly element among them, scorn the swarthy
Negro and abhor his abject history in the land.
They think of him only as a dog. I can never
forget the resentment of a princely Indian at
the presence of a dark skinned African sitting on
the United States jury, before which he was
being tried. Nevertheless, the masses among
the common Indians are friendly with the Negro.
They apparently feel less inconvenience and more
at home with them than when among the whites.
I predict that in the flow of years, a tinge of
Indian blood will flow into the veins of the
American Negro or rather, speaking more accur¬
ately, the Afro-American, for he, of Africlan
descent in these lands is not, in the main, a
Negro.
I do not thiuk that by this infusion, the
Afro will gain any essential advantage. A
slightly softened complexion, a deeper wave in
his hair and to some extent an imprbved round-
52 "our father's house" and family,
ing of the whole physical contour. On the
other hand, a diminished moral sense; colder,
weaker affection; loss of love for song and music;
greater sluggishness and above all, a great loss of
that conjugal ecstacy which alone sustains the fe¬
cundity of the dark race under conditions where
others would die of melancholia.
When their tribal relations shall have been
broken up as it will be and the Indian is placed
on a common footing with the rest of us, they
will spread out more generally over the country
in quest of a livelihood. The higher catse of
Mestesoes, or half bloods, where they have wealth
and some refinement, will be readily taken in by
the whites, while those of purer blood and
humble station will gradually affiliate with the
Afro citizens, finding the sympathy and warmth
of heart he will so much feel" the need of. No
man having the warm affectionate blood of the
Negro, can look upon the vanquished, unfortu¬
nate Indian without a touch jof that fellow feeling
that makes all the suffering races kin. I remem¬
ber standing on the west bank of the Mississippi
in- the state of Iowa twenty years ago when I saw
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 53
the last remnant of the Winnebago tribe being
transferred by the government from upper Wis¬
consin to the Indian Territory. They were in a
most forlorn condition, crowded togethar on open
barges. They had paused at Davenport, Iowa,
for provision and refreshment. As they collected
at the river's brink to re-embark, an old man,
short of stature and long white hair, seemingly
eighty years or more, stepped down to the water's-
side to offer a sacrifice to the "Great Spirit.""
He gathered up a little dog, tenderly in his arms,
and kneeling down beside the running stream, he*
drew his tomahawk and crushed the brains of
the poor little brute and poured its smoking-
blood into the flowing tide; then dropping his
weapon, he stretched his lank and withered arms;
toward the western sky and uttered words of
supplication to the great Deity, whom he sought
to appease. I thought with myself, as tears
started from my eyes in sympathy with theirs,,
"will the God we serve and in whose gracious-
mercy we trust, disregard these poor heathen:
children's plea1?" A half dead orthodoxy may
say no, but I believed then and still believe, yes*.
54 c' OUR FATHER'S HOUSE'' AND FAMILY,
Who can say the Almighty may not yet find
a way to bring this remnant of his exiled children
from the dead and make them a great people?
At any rate, the Negro will sympathize with the
Indian and the Indian will learn to sympathize
with him.
THE AFRO-AMERICAN.
It may be said truthfully, the American Negro
is the enigma of all things human in our times.
No class of people that ever trod American soil
has been more constantly under discussion for the
past five and forty years, than he. None have been
so weighed and measured by wise men and by
men less wise; by men of good will and ill will;
by those who know much about him and by those
who know nothing. They have pronounced him
a man, and some have decided him a "beast."
Some decide that "he is a man," but think he
was made for a slave—or at least they pretend
to think so. Some say he is weak, and will soon
,die out j others say he is physically strong enough
to outgrow any other people found here. Some
..are jealous of his growth and .progress, others act
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 55
strangely, as if they were secretly afraid.
All agree that he is black, ugly and undesira¬
ble; none love him, and yet many really like
him.
Now, strange as it may seem to many, I will
here positively affirm what will yet be accepted
as true, that none of the people who have talked
so much about the African races represented in
this land Ttnow him well, or understand him thor¬
oughly.
The slave master knew him only as a slave.
The African captive came to him a heathen,
broken in spirit by his strange captivity, and
was immediately subjected to absolute servitude—
a servitude nnillumined by a single ray of hope
for the future. The Northern man knew him
only as an alien outcast, subjected to contumely
and every disadvantage. The white race of
these states has never concerned itself to make
acquaintance of the Negro at his best. Indeed,
so false and unnatural has his life and relations
been through all these years, the race has no
adequate estimate of its own capabilities or the
high destiny for. which it is fitted.
56 "our father's house" and family,
That this people have a sort of sickly vanity
relating to this or that silly fancy, is true, and
equally true of ignorant white folks as well. For
instance, all ignorant white Americans—and some
who are not as ignorant as sinful—are vainly
proud of the color of their skin and the hair on
their heads, as if they had taken "the raw mater¬
ial '' and made it according to a pattern of their
own design, whereas they had no more to do with
it than with making a rainbow. To be proud of
their recent history and achievements is rational
and just. But the other sort of pride is a silly
vanity. Precisely so, the Afro may be proud of
his new suit, his horse, his little property, his
little "larnin" or his office as patrolman in the
■city, sargent in the army, elder or bishop in
the church; but this is also vanity.
But let us inquire who this dark skinned man
is, and whence.
Our first reply is, the Afro-American as we
see and know him here, is a composite repre¬
sentative of several varieties or races so-called,
brought as captives to this land from every part
of the fatherland. The greater portion of the
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 57
the captive races in America were doubtless taken
from the various branches of the Mandingo na¬
tion, and represents the Wolofs, an agricultural
people of considerable enlightenment, all of
whom are said to be Mohammedans at the present
day. The Malliki tribes, miscalled in this coun¬
try Molliglascos. These people have a dark
skin, almost jet, with a redish undertone and
loose, open wavy hair. Traces of these peculi¬
arities may be found in their descendants here,
even at this late day.
A vastly larger portion were taken from the
pepper coast of Guinea. Here for more than a
hundred years the Arab, the' European slave
dealer and man stealer, did their worse than
beastly work. The Guinean African is most
fully represented in our American population.
But there are those also of higher type and cast
of body and mind, whom we have always been
taught to call "Congoes," but of whom better
information shows that they are a branch of the
powerful Bantu nation and known as Waganda.
Some call themselves Watuta, others Masiti.
But they are all the same people, and fill the
58 uOU& father's house and family,
great valley of the Congo, the greatest continen¬
tal stream on earth. Their territory stretching
from the Atlantic to the Victorian lakes, embraces
two million square miles. These lands now com¬
prise the uCongo Independent State," under the
Belgian crown. As described by Stanley and
other travelers, they all speak a kindred lan¬
guage and have a tradition that they came from
the East Central or Nile region. There are also
representatives of other African nations both in
the states and the British West Indias.
From the Western Soudan, stretching down to
the Senegal River, north of Sierra Leone and
eastward by north, we have another strain of
blood, or race, derived in part from ancient
Libya, and evidently mixed with some old Semite
or Mediterranean race that dwelt in the north¬
west of Egypt in early times. These people are
distinguished by their fine form and regular
features, thin lip and round, lofty brow. They
are characterized as unusually intelligent, build¬
ing good houses, cultivating the soil, and having
a knowledge of working the iron ore, even to the
making of steel. They have a strong ambition
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 5S>
for trading, traveling hundreds of miles to dis¬
pose of their wares. And while they aro like
most all African tribes, polygamists, they do
not enslave their women and degrade them by
all drudgery, as do most of the heathen tribes.
Many descendants of these people may be easily
identified in the best specimens of our race in
this land.
No greater error could be adopted than the
common notion that all Negroes are of the same
ilk, and of similar capacity and worth. Nor
has there ever been a greater injustice or misfor¬
tune to any people than the indiscriminate junv
bling together of the noble with the ignoble in a
common seething pen of social degradation.
And now the sentence of universal dishonor
passed on all alike by the perverted sentiment
of prejudice, is a sinful blow at the best interests
of humanity itself. We are not all alike nor all
of the same racial order, even here in America.
There are men of princely instincts and high
natural endowments, that would honor any race
or tribe of men,., and. there be some of brutal
nature, derived from a degraded ancestry in-
€0 "our father's house" and family,"
dexed on the very visage. The same is true,
though to a less extent, of the European races.
A day in London, Paris or New York, will show
you multitudes of men, not merely fallen, but
who were meanly born.
The number of the race in this country in 1790
one hundred years ago, was 757,000, in 1890 they
numbered 8,500,000, or more than tenfold. Ye.t
there is reason to believe that this enumeration
is not a full statement of the people classed as
colored. Thousands of the mixed bloods were
counted as whites.
The ISfegvo American has proven by his history
here, that he is a tough, iron-rierv,ed,. race, capa"-
ble of withstanding the severest tests of endur*
ance. They have fully embraced the Teutonic
civilization and must be transferred from the
indolent, stationary races of the human family, to
the ranks of the active, vigilant and progressive.
They are founding schools, building churches,
engaged in the various industries and rapidly
mastering every branch of science connected with
industrial art. As. agricultural laborers, they
«jie among the best peasantry in the world. The
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 61
cotton and other products raised by them and
prepared for the market has been estimated at
($225,000,000) two hundred and twenty-five mil¬
lions annually. It is certain that the product of
Afro-American labor in these states yields not
less than three hundred millions per year. It
may be taken for granted that any people that
can offer so great a tribute to the wealth and
well being of the world as this, are not in
course of extinction. We find them in college
by the hundreds and also seeking the very
highest culture of the great universities of the
world. Some are students of art in Rome, others
at the greatest schools of philosophy, in both
England and America.
62 1' our father's house'' and family,
TJ:}© IPpo vailing IPrejudioo,
Recently, there has sprung up an intensity of
prejudice against the race, especially in our
Southern states, that is hard to account for.
Every form of legal proscription, possible under
the general laws of the land, are being enacted
against the race. An organized system of resist¬
ance to their civil and political rights prevails so
widely and so uniformly in the late slave states,
as to justify the belief of concerted action, on a
plan agreed to and fully understood. "What can
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 63
be the cause or causes of this Anti-Negro upris¬
ing in the South'? The chief and real cause is
jealousy of the Negro's progress in numbers, en¬
lightenment and in mastering the elements of
self help. The whole country was alarmed by
the figures of 1880, which showed an abnormal
increase of the colored people; but they were
overdrawn. It is equally certain that those of
1890 have been underdrawn. At least one mil¬
lion, to one million two hundred thousand, have
been deducted in some way and transferred to
the other people. But we need not care in the
least for that. The aim of this revived persecu¬
tion of our race in the South must be to check by
discouragement, the energies of the black people;
or, failing in that, to so disturb the country that
it may be finally brought to consent to the
expatriation of a large part of them. Neither of
these aims will succeed.
METHODS OF SELF PRESERVATION.
An intelligent course of self-preservation is the
result of enlightenment. Enlightenment is obtained
64 "our father's house" and family,
by travel, observation, reading and study. We
have reached a time when the Afro-American is
well nigh ubiquitous; Dr. Pickering declares
that in his travels all over the world, as early as
1859, he found representatives of the race almost
everywhere. But the conditions of the race
have wonderfully changed in many parts of the
world since then. Could he make the same tour
to day, he would find the inextinguishable black
more numerous than ever and acting a much
nobler part in the world's aftairs. A primary
need of the hour is-a wider fellowship and better
understanding among men of the race. Consuls,
missionaries, doctors, lawyers, teachers and the
whole enlightened guild of our race should strive
to promote a wider fellowship and better ac¬
quaintance.
The millions of the dark race in this Eepublic
and the British West Indias, South America,
Hayti and West Africa, should co-operate with
each other in every effort for the diffusion of
knowledge respecting the race in all lands ; and
for the refutation of the many erroneous state-
PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE, 65
ments published to its injury for the last hundred
years.
Here in America a universal watchfulness and
esprit de corps is rapidly springing up. Millions
of awakened people resolved not to die, will not
die. Millions resolved to go ahead and work out
their own salvation cannot be long or seriously
hindered in their progress. The chief danger in
America is the danger of becoming discouraged
by the noisy opposition of wicked prejudiced
white men; or by falling into the vices of the
degraded class of the whites, or it may fail
through leadership of ignorant demagogues
among themselves. The most dangerous of all is
the last named. If the enlightened honest hard
working men of the race would only swear to
never acknowledge the leadership of any dema¬
gogue, whether in civil, or religious affairs, the
day of its safety in this land would be assured.
A demagogue is always either a deceiver or self
deceived. An ignorant, man has no right to
leadership, where the welfare of thousands, or
even millions, is involved. Every man aspiring
to leadership among the Afros, should have the
66 "our father's house" and family,
credentials of an honest and successful life.
Moreover lie should demonstrate his devotion by
unselfishness, by modesty and by the conservative
wisdom of his conduct.
With a certain element of the dishonored class
of whites, they have a semi-social relation, that
is dangerous to the colored race. They are a
wicked godless class, perfectly dead to all moral¬
ity and stolidly ignorant. In the large cities
especially, they are corrupting the colored youth
daily by their vices of drink, gambling and
licentiousness.
Another danger is from the noisy complaining
class of white people who never see anything in
the black man but his faults and a dark skin.
They magnify his short comings ten-fold and
always hold up a distorted picture of his alleged
ugliness. As a matter of fact they are not so
mad with the race as they are with its progress.
They want his labor and the profits it yields, but
they are in wrathful dread of his rising to the
dignity of freeman. These are the men who are
eternally thundering in newspaper and magazine,
on the platform and in the pulpit, about Negro
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTUliE. 67
inferiority and the white man's inherent right to
rule. These are the men that stir up mobs, stuff
ballot boxes, abuse and maltreat the hapless
members of the race with or without provocation,
at every opportunity. The danger from this class
is in provoking resentment- It may stir up
conflicts and thus offer an opportunity to kill
a few of the people they have learned to
dread and despise. The Afro-American race,
will be exposed to this form of abuse and vio¬
lence for many years in some parts of the country.'
But by and by a better state of things will
prevail. One privilege is theirs at least when it
becomes intolerable in any given place they can
leave and seek a better. This negative form of
resistence to ill treatment by any community that
has become hostile to their people, is their only
safe remedy. Why thousands of our race in the
South should endure the wrongs they complain
of from year to year when they couid simply
leave them, is unaccountable; excepting that;
they are poor, unacquainted with tho world and
don't know how to get away nor where to go.
Nevertheless, some thousands do leave every yea£
68 "ouk father's house7' and family,
and find more congenial homes in the North. As
a rule, industrious and steady colored people are
cordially welcomed in the upper country and
soon find self-supporting employment.
California being very desirous of freeing her¬
self from Chinese labor, would welcome fifty
thousand colored people. Not all at once, but
should they go with gradual convenience, 50,000
would find homes and employment. Besides that
Oregon, Washington and all the new northwest¬
ern states, would be glad to receive some
thousands of useful Afro-Americans from the
overburdened and caste-cursed South. Even the
Dominion of Canada is still a place of safe re¬
treat for as many brave hearted colored people as
may wish to go.
During the next five years, two or three hun¬
dred thousand colored people could be distributed
in the North and West all the way to Canada.
And this would relieve the strained and threat*
ening situation immensely in the South for those
who wish to and must remain.
I am not in favor of the colored people gener¬
ally leaving the South, any more than I should
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 69
favor leaving the country for Africa, or any-'
where else. But why remain in congested
multitudes anywhere until they bring on a civil
crisis in which they should be the chief sufferers'?
There is still plenty of room, let them take it and
improve their condition. And this is to do only
what other people are doing and with tremend¬
ous gain to themselves. Better schools, better
living, better houses and better treatment all
round. But strange to tell, many of these people
South are as sternly prejudiced against the
Northern people as they can possibly be. They
have inherited the sentiment and are not wholly
to blame for it. I can never forget the pain I
felt when I heard an enlightened leader declare
in a public assembly his idea of the superior
advantages of the sunny South. It was a lapsus
linguae,—slip of the tongue, in a moment of
excitement, but it represented the average feel¬
ing. But if there is no difference between the
two sections, or if the South is the better, then
slavery was a blessing to white and black and its.
abolishment a crime. There are thousands of
good friendly white people in the South. Chris-
70 i 1 OUR FATHER'S HOUSE'' AND FAMILY,
tian men and woman, who owe no ill will to their
colored fellow men. They have willingly, piously
helped them and will help them. But they can
never do the Negro the service he needs because
they regard him from the standpoint of a master
and think of him only in the relation of a servant.
They cannot conceive of a similar dignity and
right belonging to a black, conferred by the God
and Father of us all. Their sympathy and help
is in the form of pity derived from the mellowed
feeling of Christian duty. Whenever the black
shall stand up and say I am a man and insist on
the treatment due to manly worth, they are and
will be, as sternly indignant as any infidel in all
their coast. And here lies the difference. I
would persuade my brother in the South that it
is an immense difference, that they may find out
later on.
The Northern man, exceptions always allowed,
will not be "mad," although he may be anused,
if a Negro says "I am a man as good as any
^other man." He is no better than the other, but
lie feels no wound to his pride, because he has.
ihad no special part or interest in degrading his
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 71
colored neighbor. The man of the North, ex¬
ceptions allowed, is half convinced that the-
Negro is the next best man on earth to himself
but the white man of the South would not be
convinced if it were proven before his eyes. Here
is the point of cleavage between the two classes
and the two sections and accounts for the differ¬
ence of treatment of the Afro-American North
and South.
72 "our father's.house" and family,
© ©oIop QuQStior^ ar^d of
_/^\.iseoqer|atior|.
A Negro barrister in West Africa has lately
written a book,* in which he alleges that the
"burden of difficulty between the European and
African races, is the intense blackness of the
Afro and his uncomliness of face and features.
He accepts the decision of the white man,
which decrees the African the ugliest of men.
Of course this is a falsehood pure and simple,
an exaggerated judgment derived from a diseased
imagination. The truth is, that in some of the
African tribes, disproportionally represented in
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 73
the United States colored population and on tlie
West Coast of Africa as well, we have speci¬
mens of the homliest types of humanity. The
convenience of their location in the days of the
slave trade, made them a constant prey of the
European and Arab dealers. Beside that, they
seem to hive been a weaker people than any
other and were more easily conquered and cap¬
tured. The highest and best types of our race
have never been so generally enslaved. Both the
Arab and the human destroyer of Europe have
found his poisoned arrow and assigai (spear) a
wholesome deterrent to the man stealer. The
proud young Napoleon met his death at the
hand of a Caffri brave.
Mr. ,believes the Negro should seek to
placate this morbid aversion to the color and
features of the race, by intermarrying with the
lighter hued races. So too, apparrently, there
are some Afro-Americans that feel the same way.
But talk about this sort of thing works no good
and as a racial policy it can amount to nothing.
There has always been intermixture of the races
of varied types and will always be. If the dark
74 "OUR FATHER'S CHURCH" ANI> FAMILY,
races ever rise to power and. distinction—and
they surely will—they will rise substantially as
they are. People of other varieties will consent
to alliances with them only after they shall have
compassed wealth and power.
In our country, the admixtur 3 has gone for-
ward illicitly, till more than half the Afro-
Americans are modified by it. The undesirable
practice is now greatly abated, but it has not
stepped. It will continue, in some degree, per¬
petually and a century or so hence, a native
American Negro, of pure blood, will be rare.
The result will be of no such gain to our variety
as some shallow parties are wont to suppose.
Without the least bias of purpose to offend, I
believe with that class of the whites, who claim
that the half, or mulatto man is generally—not
always—inferior in strength and temper to either
white or black. On the other hand, I am led to
believe from observation, that the brown man,
with a fourth to a sixth of Iranian blood to pure
African, gives the finest type _of man on earth.
He wears better and Js capable of enduring any
clime or condition. He is less liable to the ma-
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 75
larial fevers that are the bane of the white man
in all semi-tropic, or soft, moist climes: and is
freerer from phthisis, or consumption than any
other. There is strong reason for believing with
Bishop Tanner, that this was, as to the matter of
complexion the primitive type of man. If you
should take all the shades of men and reduce
them to an average-, you would have, approxi¬
mately, this outcome. We should gain by mix¬
ture some of the calm reflective faculty of the
white, that makes him the master of mathematics
and the conjurer of finance, but we should lose
in love and all the higher, sweeter emotional fac¬
ulties of the human heart. That our fervid
race needs more reflective and analytical power is
too manifest. Any modification of temperament
that shall give him a taste for patient investiga¬
tion will add manifold value to his usefulness to
himself and the world.
A race without a literature and without history
and that, too, one of the greatest races, numeri¬
cally, on the globe, tells its own story. It is not
lack of perception or inventive faculty, but a
lack of temper. It is the difference between;
76 "OUK father's house" and family,
iron and steel; the basilar elements are in the
iron but requires further reduction in bringing it
to the superior excellence of steel. When I
read the assertion in Dr. Brinton's lecture on the
mental traits of the white and colored, where he
says the Negro during his primary course of
study in early life, shows equal and often super¬
ior capacity to the white child, but when he
reaches puberty, or the age for grappling with
the intricacies of the higher studies, he falters,
because the physical overslaughs the pscyical
appetence, I felt like dissenting from his perem-
tory judgment, but after all, on reflection, I am
•convinced there is something in it. Yet I would
suggest to the learned man that this does not
reveal any essential difference of capicity, but
one of tendency. The Negro is tuned to a far
more intensive key than his white brother. And
this fact is doubtless indexed by the intensity of
his complexion. Dr. Dslaney has shown, (Origin
of Race and Color,) that the blackest Afro is the
exact compliment, (physiologically,) of the fairest
Anglo blonde; that the coloring principle, pig¬
ment, in the roseate cheek of the blonde, is the
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 77
same as in the cuticle of the black, carried for¬
ward to intensive degree. If this be true, it
seems to furnish a hint, by implication, that
these two extreme types of the human race are
physiologically and psychologically, closer together
than all other men, thus justifying the proverb
that "extemes meet."
I have given considerable thought to the phe¬
nomenon of Negro emotionalism and their strong
tendency to ebullientcy—to boil over. He has
quicker and intenser feeling than any other man.
Nor is this all, a higher tension of nervous energy
is found in all people residing at great length
under a tropical or ssmi-tropical sun. A hint of
this may be found in the quicker action and
tornado like temper of the Spaniard, of the South
American states, as also our own American
Southerner.
In our late war, he was beyond dispute a
quicker, faster, fiercer fighter, than his Northern
antagonist. And pardon the comparison, Negro¬
like, he is a warmer, readier man all round.
Let the Negro cultivate greater calmness of
temperament. Much of his explosive emotion-
78 "our father's house" and family,
alism will be overcome as brain work and brain
power rises. There is still a long, severe con¬
test before him. He can do his work with far
less feeling, whether religious or secular, but he
cannot do it in either field, with less brains.
From our present status among the nations and
races, in any question between mere emotion and
brains, I would give my suffrage to brains. The
man that can shout may always be useful in a
fight or a revival, but the first need of the race
in every household and every place of influence
or leadership is greater coolness and greater in¬
tellectual power.
PAST. PRESENT AND FUTUBE.
79
The African races in their native home, are on
the eve of a crucial experience that will decide
their fate for weal or woe in the next few decades.
The strongest and highest races on the continent
are being at last confronted in their strongholds
by the invincible forces of modern civilization.
Many times in by-gone ages have they fought and
won or retired in defeat from the presence of
their conquerors into safer retreats, whither it
-was not possible or desirable to follow them, But
80 "our father's house" and family,
the present invasion represents a cast of forces
that has never before attempted the mastery of
the dark continent.
Professor Blyden, a very respectable and hon¬
ored authority, is of the opinion that the present
invasion will end like all its predecessors, in
failure to take and hold the land. While I have
the highest regard for his keen intelligence and
larger information, he being on the ground, I
cannot share his conclusion.
In the first place the Professor is an old school
racialist of the strictest sect, like Dr. Delaney.
His idea of race origin and destiny is like that
we have been taught to regard of the church,
that it is a thing of Divine origin and infallible.
Professor Brinton and many others seem to hold
the same view of racial destiny, but only with
regard to the white or Aryan races. I do not
believe there is anything of great value in the
fact of race. Everything of value is in the bent
and aptness for civilization. In other words,
eolor, form, nor features make the man. They
simply tell of how and where he has been and
the conditions of his birth and environment.
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 81
One single question and its answer will go far
toward deciding the question of Negro survival in
Africa and that is; will he fight, as the Indian
did, or will he make terms with the invaders and
"fall in" with the march of progress? We
have every reason to believe he will do the latter.
One or two trials will convince him that he
can't fight repeating rifles with arrows and spears.
Stanley tells of a fight down the valley, when,
after being beaten, they simply laughed at the
idea of fighting men with guns that roared tat,
tat, tat! They gave the thing up in good humor
and wanted to buy a gun. Indians would have
burnt the forest and even the ground, if they
could.
82 "our father's house" and family,
©or}©lu.sior} of tl^o y^lattor.
It is folly for the A fro-Americans to think of
going to Africa to escape the presence and domi¬
nant influence of the white man. He is there now
and will stay. And there, as elsewhere, with his
gnn and sword and bottle of rum, he'll claim the
right to boss everything and everybody in sight.
He wants its gold and metals, its ivory, fruits
and oils.
Old England controls now a larger territory in
Africa, than England, France and Germany
combined. Germany claims as much in the North¬
east, France is pushing ahead in the Northwest,
Little Belgium undertakes to govern and profit
past, present and future. 83
by holding a country larger than Texas, Arkansas
and Louisiana, in the central part, while Portugal
is humming round the coast like a bee, taking a
little honey wherever she can. Meanwhile North
Central Africa is all ablaze with agitation and
restless activity. They seem to realize an
awakening unknown in that region for many gen¬
erations. In Egypt and Abissynnia, the great
Soudan region, from the Nile to the Senegal and
from the Nubian Desert to Lake Victoria Nyanza,
the tramp of Africa's dark millions is heard. A
complete and general conquest of Africa will not
be made soon. The door of civilization is open¬
ing wide to the races and people -of that long
neglected land. If they decide to enter, all will
yet be well and it will not be long thereafter, till
the-whole earth wilj. be reclaimed from barbar¬
ism, and given to the peaceful sway of the Lord
our Righteousness.
♦The reference on pp. 72-3. is to "The Negro Question," by James
R, Maxwell, of Sierra Leone.
84 11 OUR FATHER'S HOUSE'' AND FAMILY,
" He who has seen obscurities which appeared impen¬
etrable, suddenly dispelled and the most barren and
unpromising fields of inquiry converted, as if by inspiration
into rich, inexhaustible springs of knowledge and power,
on a simple change of our point of view, or by bringing to
bear on them some principle which it never occured before
to try, will surely be the very last to acquiesce in any dispir¬
iting prospects of either the present or the future destinies
of mankind."—Sir John Herschell.
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE.
85
Oup PrierjdB ir\ tl^o cDoutl^orrj
Statos,
We have also a word with our friends of the
white race in the South, who manifest by their
words and general bearing somewhat more than
usual concern for their fellow citizens of African
descent. 11 Our Brother in Black," the defense
of the Negro by the Eev. Mr. Marshall, of Miss¬
issippi, the kind sentiments of the Protestant
Episcopal Bishop of Kentucky and many such
command our respectful and grateful attention,
A glimpse of light in the midst of darkness,
dense and all surrounding, is grateful to the eye
of him who has long been fumblingly seeking his
way. It is a promise of sunshine further on.
Whatever plea for justice and fairness, even
86 "our father's house" and family,
the most tentative, or shadowy, is accepted on
the ground that these friends see and feel more of
truth and duty, than the present time and cir¬
cumstances will permit them to openly avow. A
man who will acknowledge my claim to some of the
rights and advantages that belong to manhood,
thereby acknowledges that my rights are the
same as his own. The tribute he pays may not
be paid possibly to the dishonored man whose
cause he pleads in oratio obliqua, but the tribute
is to the principle, that must always be recognized
by the healthy mind. And since, in some de¬
partments of human relation, principles must
dominate rather than men, we conclude we have
positive gain in the acknowledgement of our
right to even a limited measure of justice.
But we beg you to consider that our cause is
not ilSk case in equity" as it has been speciously
put by an adroit and earnest friend. It is indeed
a ease in equity, but not at any human court. It
is such at the highest of courts, because the
{sourt of the Most High.
Ait ItJje bar of human reason and enlightened
conscience, it is "a case at law," not any special
past present and future, 87
code of human enactments, but the lex supremat
involving the best welfare of us all. This law is.
inexorable and will not, cannot be repealed, or
set aside. What, then, is our plea? We demand,
first, in the name of a common manhood, liber¬
ty and justice. Quality and quantity the same
as all others enjoy; nothing less well satisfy the
law which determines the best welfare of all.
The case is before you, the testimony we give :—
1. We are men; no creature on earth is anything
more.
2. We are free men and responsible for our
own growth and progress in knowledge and vir¬
tue. Once we were your slaves and were not
responsible.
3. There can never be peace or rest in this
Eepublic until this liberty and justice is fully
accorded to all.
4. Any hope that we will either perish or
leave you is futile.
5. By oppressing and degrading us you de¬
moralize and curse yourselves.
6. You cannot treat us as children, nor handle
us as the barbarous Indian. We are too numerous,
88 "OUR FATHER'S HOUiSE11 A>.> ,
too lunch enlightened and too strong.
7. Persecution and legal proscription only
annoys us and sours you and .profits nobody.
8. Mobs and barbarous cruelty cure no evils,
they rather intensify them. The report of a gun
will be heard further in a forest than in an open
country, but the influence of violent excutions
for crime, will only be felt in the immediate
neighborhood where the crime is alleged to be
done, and there the chief result is an unspeak¬
able injury to the innocent, honest community.
9. We beg you to cease believing that you
have done and.are now doing a great deal for us,
at a sacrifice. We testify that you have done
much, but really have gicl'ii us nothing. AVe
have paid roundly for all we have. Industry,
civilization, education, religion and all. AVe
have paid you well so far. for all you have done,
but we'll pay you better if you will grant us
more, or rather, the balance of what we are en¬
titled to:—Liberty and justice and in this case as
in all right-doing, the sooner the grant, the
better compensation.
10. You had a war; we did not make it. You
past, pkesfnt and future, 89
lost thousands of wealth; we did not take it.
It was a decision of the highest court in pursu¬
ance of the lex sujprema. It is past and irrevo¬
cable. But we all, of each race, ought to learn
the ojie dread lesson which it taught, namely:—
that wrong doing to our felloe men, however
humble, creates a debt that draws big interest
and must be paid by somebody sooner or later.
The highest court through the highest law will
enforce the claim.
Now friends let us think over these things and
strive to reach a common ground, where we can all,
while pursuing our own lines of effort, be equally
honored and equally happy, because equally free.
We wait for the spirit in our friends, which shall
no longer be patronizing—but which shall say in
the manly language of old:—"Stand up; fori
also am (only) a man," Acts x, 26.
90 "our father's house" and family,
^ddGrjdeu
1. The study of primitive human history shows
that civilization is evolved by acquisition from
external sources rather than internal. As the late
Wendell Phillips says in one of his lectures: "No
people has ever risen from barbarism alone, but
by contact with other forms and influences from
without."
On this subject, Sir H. Smith speaks thus—
" Intercourse occurring, more or less knowledge
of the acquirements each class had gained would
be the result, although it might be obtained after
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 91'
collision, by much slaughter and suffering, if not
by the subjugation of one of the parties. Yet,
out of these disasters rose' almost all the elements
of civilizatipns.'r *
He also affirms that intermixture of the peo¬
ples thus brought in contact is a positive element
in the progress of humanity. a A want of
such concurrence, as already observed, may be-
the sole cause why China has remained station¬
ary." f
2. On the subject of classification of the races,
or varieties of men, by typical forms, Ethonolo-
gists are wont to fix an ideal standard of physical,
mental and moral endowments and then ascribe
this perfection to the florid European races. On
the other hand,, they select specimens of the most
degraded forms of men, by which to illustrate-
the typical branches of the dark races.
In giving thirty-four plates of illustrations of
the various types of men, Lieutenant C. H.
Smith, presents fairly just representations of the
Caucasian of Western Asia and Europe; also
* Natural History of Man—177-78.
t Pafea 178.
d2 "our father's house" and family,
faithful pictures of some of the Indian tribes as
we have seen them. But of the Mongolian and
Negro, he gives only the likeness of extreme
cases and indeed some such as we have never
seen,—utterly exaggerated deformities. And
this sort of deceptive injustice is denominated
science! .
I must say, however, that Dr. Pickering se¬
cured better work from his artist. The two like¬
nesses selected of a Malay, a Hawaiian and those
of the Papuan blacks are splendid specimens of
humanity, as also the North American Indian.
Such an example is really refreshing.
3. A most notable fact in nearly all the debates
.on the natural history of man, is the assumption
that primaeval man was universally savage
and so degraded as to be scarcely removed from
the brute creation as to his intelligence. This is
a complete inversion of the Bible theory, which
represents primitive man as having been taught
by the Creator and thus commencing his career
Jiigh up in the scale of enlightenment. It is by
refusing to recognize a long stage of primitive
jenlightment, that so confounds all inquiry in
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 93
striving to account for an astonishing pre-historic
civilization in many parts of the world. That
mankind in many places on the earth enjoyed a
higher illumination than he had anywhere at the
dawn of authentic history is abundantly proven
by the monuments of his past greatness in both
hemispheres, and all the continents.
If these would-be scientists would condescend
to take a few hints from that old book which has
done so much for the world, they would find a
good deal of light cast on these "prehisoric
ages." The information it contains, though
fragmentary, is quite as valuable as that obtained
from Strabo, Joseph us and even Heroditus "the
father of history."
If they will invert the antideluvian period and
read the record from the higher to the lower,
in conformity with the teaching that man is
fallen, they will surely obtain better results and
find that their problems of history will require
less time.
Almost every writer on the history of man and
nations soon finds himself entangled in problems
so large that he instinctively—as it were—begins
94 "our father's house" and family,
to plead for more time than the current chronol¬
ogy affords. And then when he has doubled the
periods allowed by the common standards, turn¬
ing six into twelve thousand years, the time is
still too short! "Man was too wise and great at
such and such a period to have attained it in so
short a time." All this trouble is from the at¬
tempt to deny the truth of revelation, which
shows that in the matter of sheer wisdom and
strength, of both mind and body, man was in¬
comparably higher at the start, that is to say,
in the morning of his existence, than he has ever
been since. Modern thinkers seek to avoid the
doctrine of human unity and to ignore the fact of
the fall and consequent human deprivation.
4. It seems to me that the time has come when
the African races on both sides of the Atlantic
should organize and begin researches in its own
history. In both countries we ought to have an
anthropological society, strong and effective.
Corresponding branches should be found in the
West Indies, Hayti and Liberia, West' Africa.
A great many lines of useful inquiry could be
and should be pursued by such an association.
past, present and future. 95
There is no more fruitful field for research, his¬
torical and otherwise, than in the north of
Africa. On this continent, the history of tlie
African people brought hither will be a treasure
of infinite value a few centuries hence, aye, a
few decades hence. Beside that, such studies are
intensely stimulating, tending as it does to
quicken and arouse the whole race.
By the trend of modern thought* Africa is
contesting with Central Asia, the honor of the
primitive seat of human existence, and just as
the scale seems yielding in her favor, we find our
white kin-folk, striving by every sophistical de¬
vice to pluck the jewels of primitive distinction
from the swarthy brow of her children. This
fort can be and must be held.
Philadelphia, Pa., Sept. 18th., 1893.