Having given thus far, in a most impartial manner,
the services of Major Delany; endeavoring
to concede all that rightfully belongs to him,
without debarring others of their dues; claiming, as we
have in this work, for him always an advanced position;
to bear out this statement more fully, we add
some selections from his published political works, which
will show that his administration in a military capacity
but reflected the brilliancy kindled about the civilian.
The most remarkable feature of the greater portion
of the writings is, that they constitute the present essential
principles which form the basis of the reconstruction
of the South, and ultimately for the nation at
large. These are definitely and significantly expressed
in paragraphs 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 18th, and 22d
of the Platform or Declaration of Sentiments, and also
in his paper on the Political Destiny of the Colored
Races, &c.
These are the writings to which reference has been
previously made, and were presented before, and adopted
by the Cleveland Convention of 1854, without modification
of any kind.
On the appearance of these, numerous comments
were drawn from the leading daily journals of the country.
From the Pittsburg Daily Post, of October 18,
1854 (a pro-slavery paper), we quote the following:—
“Dr. M. R. Delany, of Pittsburg, was the chairman
of the committee that made this report to the convention.
It was, of course, adopted. If Dr. D. drafted
this report, it certainly does him much credit for learning
and ability, and cannot fail to establish for him a
reputation for vigor and brilliancy of imagination never
yet surpassed.” Not being able to continue long in
this vein, it concludes: “It is a vast conception, of
impossible birth. The committee seem entirely to have
overlooked the strength of the ‘powers on the earth’
that would oppose the Africanization of more than
half the western hemisphere.”
In their singular adaptability to the extraordinary
events now challenging the highest intelligence of the
land for their permanent adjustment, they will be regarded
as reflecting no ordinary credit on the colored race
for one of their number to adduce such thoughts as are
contained in these on National Polity and Individual
Rights, published as they were some thirteen years ago,
hence prior to the present discussions upon the new issues.
While the position he claimed and sentiments
expressed are most thoroughly anti-slavery, they are
unlike in their issues, and manner of presenting such,
as well as far in advance of the then most radical, with
few noble exceptions, and now in harmony with the
requirements of the times. Then they were looked
upon as extremely impracticable measures and sentiments.
Now they will testify to the fitness of the colored
people for the present right they claim; as these
issues, instead of finding them unprepared, as their political
enemies proclaim, it has found theories promulgated
by a black representative, standing in the midst
of this mighty political combat, side by side with the
most advanced of his white brothers on either continent.
Whatever the seeming tenor of the advice and feelings
which thrill through these productions, it should
be remembered they were written at a time when the
present state of the country was scarcely expected to
be realized, in our age, even by the radicals; penned
within sight of slave renditions into bondage, when his
manhood was humiliated by the legal ordeal under
which the colored people of the United States were
placed by that most infamous of enactments, the Fugitive
Slave Law.
After the publication of his paper on the Destiny of
the Colored Race in America,[7] a committee, selected for
the purpose, sent a copy to each member of the Congress,
of which Mr. Frank Blair was a member, he having
acknowledged its receipt by letter to Mr. J. M. Whitfield,
one of the committee, and in which he broached
the subject he afterwards made the theme of his lecture
which surprised the country from the boldness of
the position taken. By comparing the scheme put
forth during the year 1844-5, in favor of Central and
South American emigration, and the brilliant effort of
Mr. Frank P. Blair in its behalf, including his great lecture
before the Boston Lyceum, we venture to assume
that it was suggested by the paper herein presented.
In the recent report of his African explorations, the
following curious document we quote, as among his political
works. To the discerning historical reader it
will be read with interest, while its significance will
become in time more appreciable.
The president and officers of the General Board of Commissioners,
viz., W. H. Day, A. M., President, Matisen F. Bailey,
Vice-President, George W. Brodie, Secretary, James Madison
Bell, Treasurer, Alfred Whipple, Auditor, Dr. Martin R. Delany,
Special Foreign Secretary, Abram D. Shadd, James Henry
Harris, and Isaac D. Shadd, the executive council in behalf of
the organization for the promotion of the political and other interests
of the colored inhabitants of North America, particularly
the United States and Canada.
To all unto whom these letters may come, greeting: The
said General Board of Commissioners, in executive council assembled,
have this day chosen, and by these presents do hereby
appoint and authorize Dr. Martin Robison Delany, of Chatham
County of Kent, Province of Canada, Chief Commissioner, and
Robert Douglass, Esq., Artist, and Professor Robert Campbell,
Naturalist, both of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one of the United
States of America, to be Assistant Commissioners; Amos Aray,
Surgeon, and James W. Prinnel, Secretary and Commercial Reporter,
both of Kent County, Canada West, of a scientific corps,
to be known by the name of
The Niger Valley Exploring Party.
The object of this expedition is to make a topographical, geological,
and geographical examination of the Valley of the River
Niger, in Africa, and an inquiry into the state and condition of
the people of that valley, and other parts of Africa, together
with such other scientific inquiries as may by them be deemed
expedient, for the purposes of science, and for general information;
and without any reference to, and with the board being
entirely opposed to, any emigration there as such. Provided,
however, that nothing in this instrument be so construed as to
interfere with the right of the commissioners to negotiate, in
their own behalf, or that of any other parties or organization, for
territory.
The Chief Commissioner is hereby authorized to add one or
more competent commissioners to their number, it being agreed
and understood that this organization is, and is to be, exempted
from the pecuniary responsibility of sending out this expedition.
Dated at the office of the Executive Council, Chatham, County
of Kent, Province of Canada, this thirtieth day of August, in
the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight.
By the President,
- William Howard Day.
- Isaac D. Shadd, Vice-President.[8]
- George W. Brodie, Secretary.
While the Commission is worthy of a place among
his political writings, the next in order, and of equal
importance, furnishing another evidence of his adaptability
to circumstances, the essential characteristic to
his success, as well as that which has always been the
secret of the success of all men in public life, is his
treaty made with the king and chiefs of Abbeokuta, in
view of advancing the future prosperity of his fatherland.
We give the treaty, extracted from page 35th
of his “Official Report.”
The Treaty.
This treaty, made between His Majesty Okukenu, Alake,
Somoye, Ibashorum, Sokenu, Ogubonna, and Atambola, Chiefs,
and Balaguns of Abbeokuta, on the first part, and Martin
Robison Delany, and Robert Campbell, of the Niger Valley Exploring
Party, commissioners from the African race of the United
States and the Canadas, in America, on the second part, covenants:
Art. 1. That the king and chiefs, on their part, agree to
grant and assign unto the said commissioners, on behalf of the
African race in America, the right and privilege of settling, in
common with the Egba people, on any part of the territory belonging
to Abbeokuta not otherwise occupied.
Art. 2. That all matters requiring legal investigation among
settlers be left to themselves, to be disposed of according to
their own custom.
Art. 3. That the commissioners, on their part, also agree
that the settlers shall bring with them, as an equivalent for the
privileges above accorded, intelligence, education, a knowledge
of the arts and sciences, agriculture, and other mechanical and
industrial occupations, which they shall put into immediate operation,
by improving the lands, and in other useful avocations.
Art. 4. That the laws of the Egba people shall be strictly
respected by the settlers; and, in all matters in which both parties
are concerned, an equal number of commissioners, mutually
agreed upon, shall be appointed, who shall have power to settle
such matters.
As a pledge of our faith, and sincerity of our hearts, we
each of us hereunto affix our hand and seal, this twenty-seventh
day of December, Anno Domini one thousand eight hundred and
fifty-nine.
- His Mark, × Okukenu, Alake,
- His Mark, × Somoye, Ibashorum,
- His Mark, × Sokenu, Balagun,
- His Mark, × Ogubonna, Balagun,
- His Mark, × Atambala, Balagun,
- His Mark, × Oguseye, Ariaba,
- His Mark, × Agtabo, Balagun, O. S. O.
- His Mark, × Ogudemu, Ageoki,
- M. R. Delany,
- Robert Campbell.
Witness, Samuel Crowther, Jun.
Attest, Samuel Crowther, Sen.
Says the report on the Niger Valley Exploration,
“On the next evening, the 28th, the king, with the
executive council of chiefs and elders, met at the
palace in Aka, when the treaty was ratified by a unanimous
approval. Such general satisfaction ran through
the council, that the great chief, his highness Ogubonna,
mounting his horse, then at midnight, hastened to the
residence of the surgeon Crowther, aroused the father,
the missionary, and author, and hastily informed him of
the action of the council.”
An event of revenge, from prejudice to his race, was
of great personal loss to himself, occasioned by the burning
of Wilberforce College, the first and only thoroughly
literary institution of that capacity owned and controlled
solely by the colored people of this country. This
happened on the memorable night of the 14th of April,
1866; he having had in the third story of the right
wing of the edifice a room as a depository of valuables,
among which were his entire collection of African
curiosities, collected during his tour, together with
his entire European and African correspondence, and
that with distinguished Americans after his return home.
In this conflagration it was a loss entailed to him,
never to be remedied, as these were the collections of
twenty years. Besides correspondence, there were
manuscripts, by which we are deprived of some of his
finest productions.
The following papers are of a recent date:—
One important fact developed during this gigantic civil war,
and which could not have escaped the general and mature intelligent
observer as a result of the struggle, and so contrary to
concessions under the old relations of the Union, is, that no
great statesmen were produced on the part of the South;
although at the commencement, at the Montgomery Convention,
or Provisional Congress, August, 1861, their independence was
declared, and consequently must have been fully matured, not
a measure was put forth of national import to sustain their
cause, except the issue of the cotton bonds thrown upon the foreign
market—a cheat so consistent with the Mississippi bond
repudiation of Mr. Jefferson Davis, that it is not difficult to determine
the source of that financial scheme, which, of itself, was
an ordinary commercial measure, of every-day transaction, enlarged
to meet the occasion of a “national want.”
Previous to the war, it was generally conceded that by far the
ablest statesmen in the service of the nation came from the
South. And doubtless this may have been so, for a long period
of the government, after the close of the revolutionary struggle;
because, the people of the North, caring for little else than business,
of personal interests, and local legislation, few men could
be found among them willing to devote more than one term in
Congress, or the executive departments of the government; while
the policy of the South was to continue the same men as long as
possible in the councils, in consequence of their domestic relations
affording them ample time and leisure in their absence
from home to mature their plans of ascendency.
During the revolutionary period, which may be reckoned from
the Albany Continental Congress, in 1754, to the Peace Congress
at Ghent, 1814, both grand political divisions, north and
south of Mason and Dixon’s line, show with equal brilliancy in
the national forum.
After the treaty of peace with Great Britain, gradually the
leading spirits passed away, either by death or withdrawal from
public life, till Clay, Calhoun, Adams, and Benton appeared for
many years as the only dependence of the country in questions
and measures of great national import.
These master spirits continued their career till they, in turn,
one by one, left the stage of action, the last terminating in 1852,
by the death of Mr. Webster.
Of this galaxy, the Hons. John Quincy Adams, of the House
of Representatives, and Henry Clay, of the Senate, were the
leaders of international measures; Senators Daniel Webster and
Thomas H. Benton, those of national import; while Senator
John C. Calhoun was especially confined to that of state rights
sovereignty. During the existence of these, there were other
men of note and distinction, all of whom have left the stage of
action. Of the great personages above named, all, excepting
Senator Benton, have held the portfolio of first minister of state;
and it is notorious, that although Senator Calhoun’s was under
President James K. Polk, 1844, a period most auspicious for the
display of statesmanship, as great and vital questions of national
and international polity were prominent before the country and
the world,—such as the extension of territory, and the annexation
of Texas,—not a measure was put forth by Mr. Calhoun to
meet the exigencies of the occasion and the times. Indeed, that
senator, outside of “state sovereignty” and South Carolina, as
history bears witness, as a statesman, was a failure.
The social polity of the North being based upon labor, and
that of the South on leisure, depending on slave labor for
maintenance, as an almost natural consequence, the North
neglected as much as possible places of honor in the nation,—the
army, and navy,—conceding these, as a matter of course, in all
good faith, to its brethren of the South. In good faith the concession
was certainly made, because the North then as heartily
approved of slavery as the South.
Foreign intervention being permanently settled, and no longer
any dread of a common enemy, the South accepted the indifference
of the North, and commenced preparations for her own independence.
This was probably maturing shortly after the battle of
New Orleans (1815), till the election of James Buchanan, 1856;
or, more historically, from the treaty of Ghent, 1814, to the
Ostend Congress, in 1854.
When the civil war commenced, it was alarmingly apparent
that the South had by far the best officers, the North having few
trustworthy, or those of military experience. And while the
army was routed, and the enemy gaining strength at home and
abroad, the masterly ability of statesmanship of the North not
only challenged the respect and admiration of the world by the
wisdom of the great executive head of the government, but intricate
questions of the greatest international policy were raised,
met, sustained, and established; military and financial measures
created by the ministers of state, war, and the treasury, never
yet equalled by any nation.
During the time immediately succeeding the revolutionary
period,—from 1815 to 1851,—with the exception of representatives
from Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, in the
persons of Hons. Thomas H. Benton, Henry Clay, Reverdy
Johnson, and John M. Clayton, every great measure of national
interest was represented by gentlemen of the North. So completely
had the state rights question engrossed the attention of
the South, that nothing could be elicited in the halls of Congress
from that side of the house, of whatever import the question,
but “Old Dominion” and “first families,” “South Carolina and
state rights,” “Georgia and negro slaves,” “Alabama and cotton,”
“Louisiana, slaves, and sugar,” “Mississippi negro traders,”
“Arkansas and amen with abolition,” “Texas and bowie
knives.” These appeared to be the only rejoinders given, and
arguments made for many years past, in the councils of the
nation, by representatives from the South.
Absorbed entirely in the one erroneous idea of state sovereignty,
thinking of nothing besides this, neither fearing nor
caring for anything else, then is a degeneracy in statesmanship
much to be wondered at on the part of the South? Certainly not.
It is but charity to the South to admit of finding a solution of
their deficiencies in the statement of these grave and important
truths.
Was there any one man or measure, either in or out of the
whole Southern establishment, civil or military, approaching
those of the North? Not one. I am fully aware that “comparisons
are odious;” that these features of observations are “in bad
taste,” and that it will be adjudged ungenerous to make such
allusions to our fallen and subjugated fellow-countrymen. I fully
appreciate the extent of the objection; but when it is remembered
that many of this very class of Southerners,—the old
leading politicians are straining their intellects to prove the inferiority
and incapacity of my race to high social and intellectual
attainments,—the objector will, at least, find an explanation, if
not justification, in the strictures.
I admit there are many excellent gentlemen in the South, and
many have, through the press of the country, acknowledged
their approval of the great principles of equality before the law,
liberty and justice, and the natural inalienable rights of all
men by birth; but I must be permitted to place my record, if
not measure my steel, against those who tauntingly dare challenge
me. It was the Hon. Daniel Webster, who, long years
ago, on the floor of the United States Senate, on the very
subject of disparagement, told Senator Hayne, of South Carolina,
in reply to his assertion, “The gentleman from Massachusetts
has found more than his match” in debate with Senator
Benton,—“Sir, where there are blows to be received, there must
be blows given in return.”
One of the highest pretensions set up in favor of the enslavement
of the African race is its inferiority. If the Britons, Caledonians,
Hibernians, and others of the Celtic as well as Teuton
and pure Caucasian races had never been enslaved; if Caractacus,
the king and proudest prince the British ever had up to
that period, had not been led in chains, and sold by order of
Julius Cæsar, with many other British slaves, in the public
market of Rome; if the British nobles, long years ago, had not
written of their own peasantry, that they were incapable of elevation;
if they had not recorded and passed enactments against
the Scotch and Irish, that they were innately inferior, and totally
insusceptible of instruction and civilization, calling them “heathen
dogs, only fit for slaves of the lowest order;” if a general
system of serfdom, known as the Feudal System, had not existed
generally among the white races for ages through all Europe,
before a black slave was ever known among the whites; if the
whites had not been held in slavery many centuries longer than
were the blacks; and finally, if Russia had not, just within the
last three years (1864), emancipated her forty-two millions of
slaves,—ten times more than the African slaves in the United
States, allowing four millions to the South,—then there would
be some semblance of honesty and sincerity in the continued
plea of justice for ages of wrong and crime against an unoffending,
helpless people.
Through all times white slavery had existed among the nations
of Europe, and as civilization advanced, and the lower classes
became more elevated, the difficulty became more apparent in
perpetuating the system. What to do, and how to remedy the
evil, was a question of paramount importance. To suppress the
approach of civilization, and keep down the rising aspirations of
the common people, could not be well determined. The genius
of social and political economy were put to the test to divine the
desired end to be attained. Legislative and royal decrees could
not reach it; the march of man and the light of intellect kept in
advance of legal injunctions.
In 624—twelve hundred and forty-three years ago, and twelve
hundred and thirty-nine before the Emancipation Proclamation
of President Lincoln—the Saracens or Arabs gained access to
Africa, controlling the commerce for seven hundred and fifty-eight
years, being the only foreigners accessible to, and holding
a friendly intercourse with, the people.
In the year 1487, Bartholomew Diaz, of Portugal, discovered
the Cape of Good Hope, calling it Cabo del Tormentoso—“the
Cape of Storms.” On reporting to his sovereign the discovery,
with all of its prospects, the king cried out, “No, let us not call
it ‘Cabo del Tormentoso,’ but rather let us call it Cabo del Buen
Speremza!—the Cape of Good Hope!” And it was a good hope
to Portugal, because it must be remembered that access to Africa,
by communication with the western coast, was then to Europeans
unknown; the only intercourse being from the north by
the Barbary States, and through the interior by caravans, all of
which purported to reach the eastern part of the continent by
that way.
The year 1482 was an eventful period to the African race,
and I here record, for the first time probably in which it has ever
been given to the world (except the authority herein quoted), the
startling facts that the enslavement of the African race was the
result of a determination on the part of at least four, and probably
more, of the strongest, the most enlightened and polished
nations at the time, to make the African race supplant, by substituting
it for European slavery. These nations were, Spain,
England, France, and Portugal.
And I should not feel, whatever I may have effectually done,
that my work had been more than half completed, did I not, as a
wronged and outraged son of Africa, give to the world this
crowning act of infamy against a people, the facts of which have
ever been closely concealed, and even denied, while thousands
of the world’s good people have no knowledge that such facts
ever transpired.
The demands for ameliorating the condition of the whites
pressed heavily in all parts of Europe, as the elevated wealthy
noble could not longer bear to see the ignorant poor of his kinsmen
degraded. To longer deny them the right of elevation, was
to disparage the genius, and degrade the whole Caucasian race.
To remedy this, a race must be chosen foreign to their own, and
as different as possible in external characteristics. For this
dreadful purpose the African was selected as the victim of an
international conspiracy. A political conspiracy of malice aforethought,
prompted by avarice and the love of lucre. During the
memorable events that thrilled with emotion the communities of
every country in 1862, in the midst of our national struggle, the
Rev. Felix, Archbishop of Orleans, France, in a pastoral, sent
forth to exhort the people of France and the French Catholics
of the United States to support the position taken by President
Lincoln, in pronouncing his malediction against the cause of the
South, said, “It is the teaching of experience that the slavery
of the day—the slavery of the blacks—has an origin and a
consequence equally detestable. Its origin was the Treaty,
the ignoble and cruel bargain, condemned by Pius II. in 1482,
by Paul III. in 1557, by Urban VIII. in 1539, by Benedict XIV.
in 1741, by Gregory XVI. in 1839.” His revelation should startle
Christendom, and none would question the historical accuracy
of the facts in the case, when coming from such a trustworthy
source as the reverend and honored Archbishop of Orleans.
Objections were many and serious on the part of the common
classes to the introduction of this new people as a domestic element
into European countries. But notwithstanding this, there
would, doubtless, have been many sent, if a timely relief had
not been afforded by the discovery of America in 1492. So
lucrative became this traffic in a foreign people, running through
many years, and engrossed by the most elevated, as elsewhere
referred to, that in 1518, James I. made it the basis of the revenue,
if not the wealth of England. The people of the New
World—Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch—made
this race their “hope and expectation.”
Whole fleets of merchantmen, from every nation in Europe,
environed Africa, to subjugate her people. Powerful naval forces
were also brought against her, and national representatives, in
the persons of their emissaries, prowled along and about her
entire coast, sowing the seeds of discord, and a baser corruption
among those of the already corrupted natives, inciting them to
war, and the devastation of their homes.
Every vestige of civilization was driven from the coast, the
interior placed under fearful apprehensions, the entire social
system deranged, the progress of improvement suspended, and
permanent establishments abandoned. With the entire white
world against her, is it not clear why Africa, in the last twelve
centuries, has not kept pace with the civilization of the age?
Certainly it is. But there are those who still affect to doubt the
former civilization of Africa, and dispute that race as the authors
of her ancient arts and sciences. Why dispute it? If the African
race were not the authors, what race were? Why are not
the same arts and sciences found in some other portion of the
globe than Africa? Why confined to this quarter of the world?
The identity of one people with another has its strongest evidence
in the characteristics, habits, manners, customs, especially
in moral and religious sentiments, peculiar to themselves, even
after all traces by language are lost.
It is simply ridiculous for ethnologists to claim the few Bebers
who are found in and about Egypt, as the remnants of the ancient
Africans, and erectors of the mighty pyramids, and authors of
the hieroglyphics. The present Bebers of Egypt are none other
than mixed bloods of the ancient Egyptians who once inhabited
it,—who were pure blacks,—and Saracens who had conquered
the country by conquest B. C. 146, and without any prestige, except
that inherited from the Ishmaelitish or Arab side of their
ancestry—avarice and treachery. I mean not to be unkind in
stating this, but simply to paint facts in a strong light.
Certainly the general character of this (the Arabian) race of
men has been known through all times. And although they had
given the world in literature the nine numerals in arithmetic,
a chirography, and a religion which necessarily has some beautiful
philosophy, yet there is little comparison in any of these to
the literature of ancient Africa. I believe it is not pretended
that the Arabians have any peculiar order of architecture; and I
hope not to be regarded uncharitable if I suspect the cunning
Arab, instead of originating, as having stolen the nine numerals
of our common arithmetic from the Alexandrian Museum, destroyed
by them in the memorable conflagration. It was clever
in them to do so, and keep it to themselves; and I shall not
raise the voice of envy against them.
The most striking character of the ancient Africans was their
purity of morals and religion. Their high conception and reverence
of Deity was manifested and acknowledged in everything
they did. They are known in history as having been the most
scrupulous of all races, and conscientious in their dealings. In
this I have reference to the Ethiopians, of whom the inhabitants
of Egypt were lineal descendants by colonization or emigration
down the valley of the Nile, and settlement in the territory at its
mouths; being identical in all their characteristics of a “black
skin and woolly hair,” even as described as late as the time of
Herodotus, “the father of history,” the learned Grecian philosopher
who travelled and resided among them during twenty-five
years.
A people or race possessing in a high degree the great principles
of pure ethics and true religion, a just conception of
God, necessarily inherit the essential principles of the highest
civilization. And is it not a known and conceded fact by all
who are at all conversant with the true character of the African,
that he excels all other races in religious sentiments, and adaptation
to domestic usages, wherever found? In this I will not
even except the Caucasian race, because those characteristics
in the African are in such striking contrast to the same in the
Caucasian, that they are regarded by him as exaggerations and
extravagances. Indeed such is the susceptibility and adaptation
of the African to the civilization of the times and places in
which he may be found, that the Caucasian, instead of looking
upon it in approved comparison with that which he admires in
his own race, has, by usage of a policy, become accustomed to
undervalue it as a mere “imitation.” Can imitation give intellectual
ability for acquirements? If it enables a parrot or split-tongued
crow to gabble words by imitation of sound without any
conception of meaning; if it enables a monkey or an ourang-outang
to “come down from a tree and tie gloves on others’ hands,”
to go back leaving it unable either to loosen the strings, or climb
the tree to escape the artful huntsman, in imitation of what he did
to insnare it; or “thrusting a hand into a jug of figs, grabbing
it full,” and thus holding on to the figs, screams, endeavoring to
take the hand out full, until caught, not having intellect to let
go the figs; does it make him capable of high intellectual attainment,
such as languages, chirography, arithmetic, philosophy,
mathematics, the sciences of war, music, painting, sculpture,
political science, and polite literature?
Let the traducers of the African race, those who affect to believe
that his faculties consist in mere “imitation,” answer this
inquiry. Even in the Southern States, terribly crushed and
shattered as has been for centuries the true African character,
these lurking faculties for the higher attainments rising superior
to the fetters which bound the body of the possessor, would
occasionally burst forth like the sudden illumination of a brilliant
meteor, startling the midnight gazer while all was enshrined
in darkness around. Whether in the person of the distinguished
orator and advocate of his race, Frederick Douglass
of Maryland, or an Ellis, the negro blacksmith linguist, or
George Madison Washington of Virginia, or Blind Tom of
Alabama, the musician and pianist, now surprising the world,
Elizabeth Greenfield of Mississippi, the celebrated “Black
Susan,”—all slaves when developed,—these great truths of
African susceptibility are incontrovertible. With one more
point this treatise shall have ended. But subsequent to its completion,
and very recently, a high functionary, at the head of one
the greatest nations of modern times, in an elaborate argument
on the subject, having seen fit to make it history, by recording,
as part of an official document, the following declaration, I
deem it as treacherous to the African race, to which I wholly belong,
if I did not place as permanently on record an equally bold
and defiant declaration—a proof to the contrary. Says this
sage and statesman,—
“The peculiar qualities which should characterize any people
who are fit to decide upon the management of public affairs for
a great state have seldom been combined. It is the glory of
white men to know that they have had these qualities in sufficient
measure to build upon this continent a great political fabric, and
to preserve its stability for more than ninety years, while in
every other part of the world all similar experiments have
failed. But if anything can be proved by known facts, if all
reasoning upon evidence is not abandoned, it must be acknowledged
that, in the progress of nations, negroes have shown less
capacity for government than any other race of people. No independent
government of any form has ever been successful in
their hands. On the contrary, whenever they have been left to
their own devices, they have shown a constant tendency to relapse
into barbarism.” Instead of the assertion, that in the
progress of the nations the negro has shown less capacity for
government than any other race of people, that no independent
government of any form has ever been successful in their hands,
I shall commend a reply to this predicate, by the proposition
that the negroes were foremost in the progress of time; first
who developed the highest type of civilization. National civil
government and the philosophy of religion were borrowed by
the white races from the negro. And if the learned jurist will
go back to school-boy days, he will remember what time has
evidently caused him to forget.
In the days of Egyptian greatness one dynasty existed, evidently,
for more than one thousand years. This is known to
Holy Writ as the government of the Pharaohs. During the reign
of these princes, the sovereigns repeatedly were chosen from
Egyptian and Ethiopian families. By Ethiopian families, is
meant the going out of the kingdom of Ethiopia to select from a
royal family the ruler, just as Great Britain goes into Germany
to select from a family a sovereign for the throne.
Among these mighty princes were Menes, or Misraim, Sesostris,
Osiris, and the Rameses, the last of which was the dynasty
name numerically recorded I., II., III., and so on. Rameses
I., the greatest of the princes, was the god-man, and none other
than Jupiter-Ammon. In him was the beautiful and symbolic
idea of the attributes of Deity,—the Christian’s God,—first developed.
The person of the Deity, Rameses I., was represented
as a human being of robust proportions, having a “bushy, woolly
head, with ram’s horns.” His position, seated on a throne of gold
and ivory, ivory base and golden floor; in his left hand a sceptre,
the right grasping a thunderbolt. At his side was the Phœnix,
in its well-known attitude. This last symbolic attribute is sometimes,
indeed generally, spoken of by writers as an “eagle with
extended wings,” which is evidently an error, from all the facts
connected with the god Jupiter, and Rameses II., his successor;
besides, the eagle was not an ideal, symbolic bird of religion in
Africa. It is suggestive of combat and carnality instead of
purity, the successor being styled by the ever-devoted Africans,
“Rameses the Ever-living, Always-living Rameses”—his name
occurring twice in the salutation.
Here, in this ideal symbol of a God, was also the identity of
man; ivory representing durability, gold, purity, the sceptre, authority,
and the thunderbolt, power; the ram’s head, innocence,
decision, and caution against too near approach. In a word,
none must presume to attempt to speak face to face with the Deity,
as death would be the result; as it is a well-known characteristic
of a ram, while innocent as a sheep, he will instantly attack any
head, man’s or beast’s, that approaches his.
Another beautiful symbolic attribute of Jupiter-Ammon,—Rameses
I.,—which afterwards personified Rameses II., was the
Phœnix. This bird, like many ancient images, was allegorical
or ideal. It was described as similar to an eagle, larger, and
beautiful; with breast, wings, and tail of a brilliant gold tint; a
crown of solid gold crest capped its head, the rest of the body
covered with green. It never flew, but always walked with
stately step and dignity. There was but one known to have an
existence, and the beginning was never known. It produced no
young, but was itself from the beginning a full-grown bird. It
lived, and lived, and lived on, from generation to generation,
through ages and periods, and periods and ages, till, seeming
weary of life, it built a nest of fagots and brush picked up,
which was long constructing; sat upon it when finished, laid a
golden egg in time; the egg ignited the nest into a burning mass;
the bird continuing to sit, threw up its wings and head in great
excitement, and was consumed in the flames; when in the ashes
was left a ball, out of the ball came forth a worm, from this
worm instantly sprang another Phœnix, which lived on like the
first, to transfigurate or reproduce itself again in time.
There were still other symbolic representatives of Deity among
them, Rameses II. being also called Apis, and represented as an
ox or a bull; while Rameses III. was called Osiris, and represented
as a dog—the ox or bull, as the attribute of patience, endurance,
and strength; the dog, as faithfulness and watchfulness.
Is it not clear that much of the philosophy of our theology
was borrowed from their mythology? Whence the “great white
throne” upon which God sits; the “golden pavement,” the
“thunders” of his wrath, “Behold the Lamb of God,” “Our
God is a consuming fire,” “No man can look upon God and live,”
“A self-creating God,” with numerous kindred quotations which
might be made from the Scriptures?
The Africans, as is well known, were great herdsmen; a great
part of their wealth and available currency consisting in their live
stock; every family, however limited their circumstances, having
a flock of sheep or goats, and both more or less; this running
through to the present day, where, in recent travels on that continent,
the writer met, in the first large city, a dairyman, who,
every morning, milked eighty cows, and farther in the interior,
towards Soudan, the dairy which supplied him every morning
milked two hundred cows. And among the higher families,
as nobles, chiefs, and princes, from five to ten thousand
head, the property of one person or family, is commonly met
with. Dr. Livingstone speaks of meeting with kings, even
in that least civilized interior region of his explorations, who
possessed as many as forty thousand cattle. These herds are
watched by faithful attendants,—men when large, or women
when small, with the indispensable shepherd dog, which is generally
black. In speaking of the riches of Job, the man of Uz,
the Scriptures tell us that his cattle were on a “thousand hills.”
Can it not be conceived that the God who was thus bountiful
in bestowing such wealth might be symbolized by the property
itself and the means of its protection? Hence Jupiter Ammon
or Rameses I., as a ram or sheep; Sesostris, or Rameses II.,
as a bull or ox—Apis; Osiris or Rameses III. as dog or
jackal.
There was also another beautiful symbolic personification in
this—three persons in one. For it is a striking and remarkable
fact, as must be noticed by all antiquarians, that these three persons
inseparably appear, both by inscription and in statuary—Rameses,
Sesostris, Osiris—sheep, ox, dog. Here are innocence,
patience, faith, and charity or love, as none so loving as a
dog. And how typical of the true African character!
It was shown that the authors of this beautiful and pure religious
doctrine were black. This will not be disputed, when it
is remembered that Moses took one of the daughters of Jethro,
prince and priest of Midian, to wife, and the Scriptures inform
us that she was an “Ethiopian woman;” Aaron and Miriam,
the brother and sister of Moses, entering into strife with him
about it. Not, as it is concluded by modern civilization, because
she was black, but because she was identical with their oppressors
and recent masters the objection was made.
It is very evident that the highest conception of the Jewish
religion is that which was borrowed from Africa during the
Israelitish bondage in Egypt, transmitted through them to the
present, and developed in the metaphysical theology of the age.
And it will not do to call this “mummery,” since later, in
June, 1867, the President of the United States took part in the
consecration of a hall, erected in part to the perpetuation of this
African symbolic philosophy and religion.
The capital city of this great people in Africa was Thebais,
commonly called Thebes, supposed to contain two millions of
inhabitants, surrounded by a wall with one hundred gates,
twenty-five at each point of the compass. On the occasion of
his Asiatic conquest, Sesostris, or Rameses II., went out of the
city with ten thousand infantry and two hundred chariots, with
charioteers armed for war, from each gate at one time, having an
aggregate of one million two hundred thousand warriors. The
conquest of this proud and mighty prince was carried to the
banks of the River Indus, conquering every nation as he passed;
where he set his memorable pillars, with the peculiar inscription,
“Sesostris, the king of kings, has conquered the world to the
banks of the Indus;” when he evacuated the country, and returned
to his own, having vindicated the prestige and dignity of
his name.
Who were the builders of the everlasting pyramids, catacombs,
and sculptors of the sphinxes? Were they Europeans
or Caucasians, Asiatics or Mongolians? Will it be at once conceded
that the authors of the symbolic mythology and hieroglyphic
science are identical? Upon this point there is but one
opinion. The inventors or authors of the one were the builders
or architects of the other.
Among what race of men, and what country of the globe, do
we find traces of these singular productions, but the African and
Africa? None whatever. It is in Africa the pyramids, sphinxes,
and catacombs are found; here the hieroglyphics still remain.
Among the living Africans traces of their beautiful philosophy
and symbolic mythology still exist. In the interior their architecture
and hieroglyphics are still the subjects of their art.
Through all time the arts of a people have been among the
clearest evidences of identity.
Asia has her several peculiar orders of architecture, the Chinese
and Japan being identical; that among the Hindoos the
type of the others. Europe has her Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian,
and Composite, with Gothic, and other modifications of
modern orders.
If the originators and builders of the pyramids and sphinxes
had been Asiatics, is it not certain that the same architecture
would have been found in Asia? of Europeans, in Europe?
There is nothing more certain than it would; and the entire
absence of all traces of the purely African architecture, arts,
and symbolic religion and mythology among other races and in
other countries than the Africans and Africa, makes it simply
preposterous for the white race to claim these as productions of
their own.
Would the Asiatic or the European, who had erected the architectural
monuments in Africa, have lost their arts? Would
they not have originated another as they returned to their original
homes? Do the fixed, especially original, arts of a people leave
them simply by a change of countries? Certainly not; as among
the greatest advantages to be gained by emigration is the arts
that are taken by the people to a country. And had the architectures
of Africa been an importation, originated by or among
any other people than themselves, is it not one of the most
striking known to history by ages of experience, that it would
have been found in some other country among the descendants
of the originators and authors, and not been found in Africa
alone, and peculiar to the African race? Were they Persians
who had succeeded by conquest in Africa? Were they Greeks
under Alexander? Were they Greeks and Romans who made
their advent into Egypt with Antony? or those who fled in dismay
under Pompey, after the famous defeat of Pharsalia? or
Jews under tetrarch governments? Certainly not; as all of
them, from the Persian to the Jewish advent, found these arts
and sciences there. And is it not known to history that Egypt
was the “cradle of the earliest civilization,” propagating the
arts and sciences, when the Grecians were an uncivilized people,
covering their persons with skins and clothing, anterior to
the existence of the she-wolf with Romulus the founder of
Rome?
On the invasion of the Saracens, A. C. 146 years, the African
library, known as the “Alexandrian Museum,” was known to
contain in manuscript seven hundred thousand volumes. The
secretiveness of the Africans was a matter of history for ages
known to the world, their arts and sciences being held as sacred,
and propagated with the greatest caution. The kings and priests
were the first recipients; the nobles and gentlemen the other.
All Egypt and Ethiopia regarded this library as the “hope and
expectation” of their countries.
The value of the collection will be estimated by remembrance
of its age and manner of obtaining, printing then being
unknown to the world. The age of the library, from its first
collections, was coequal with the first dawn of science among
them.
And had this immense fountain of knowledge been transmitted
to posterity, the African would have had a history and a name.
And I repeat, with emphasis, that the loss of the African library
was a catastrophe unequalled in the age of the world, as bearing
on the destiny of a people and a race.
But the “Museum” was made the centre of attraction; the
Saracen invaders surrounded the stupendous edifice; orders were
given that not a relic be preserved; the flambeau was the weapon
of attack; assault and fire was the command,—when the accumulated
literature, art and science, of four thousand years’ collection,
sent fire and smoke towards the heavens, more destructive
in its consequences than the world had ever before witnessed!
The African library, the depository of the earliest germs of
social, civil, political, and national progress, the concentrated
wisdom of ages, stood in flames! Fourteen days burning, the
building in ruins, and the light of science and civilization, for
generations, was extinguished, and Africa became a prey to
avarice, imposture, and oppression!
So enlightened, polished, and humane were this race, that
after the birth of Jesus, subsequent to the downfall of Egypt by
the Saracens, the “warning of the Lord to Joseph” was to
take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be
thou there until they are all dead who seek the child’s life. Nor
can it be denied that the African race were that which the
“Spirit of the Lord” meant, because, notwithstanding Saracen
subjugation in Egypt, the African polity, civilization, and humanity
still prevailed. Besides, it is a historically known fact that
Greeks and Jews were with the Romans in government and sentiments
against this Messiah, the promised king of the Jews; all
conspiring for his deposition in the event of his coming. It will
also be remembered that after the crucifixion and ascension, that
Africa was the only country which held prestige enough to send
a national representative to “Jerusalem to worship” under the
Christian doctrine, as propagated by the scattered and terror-stricken
apostles; the Ethiopian eunuch, a man of great authority,
and chief lord of her majesty, Queen Candace’s, royal
treasury.
One word more, and I close a review already too elaborate;
but driven by necessity to the defence of my race, duty compelled
me to the point where I cease. Would any other race than the
African, in the symbolical statues of the sphinxes, have placed
the great head of a negro woman, on the majestic body of a lion,
as an ideal representation of their genius?
If it be the “glory of the white race to know that they have
had these qualifications in sufficient measure to build upon this
continent a great political fabric,” it is also the glory of the
black race to know that they have had these qualities in sufficient
measure to build a great political fabric long before the whites,
imparting to them the first germs of civilization, and enlightening
the world by their wisdom. And the most momentous, extraordinary
international conspiracy against the African race,
which this memento commenced to expose, has never been by
convention annulled nor abrogated, and, therefore, still stands
optional with either party to continue or withdraw; it is fondly
and confidently hoped will not be encouraged nor induced to
continue by an equally extraordinary, if not momentous, official
denunciation against that race, from the executive of one of the
most powerful nations existing on this globe.
And in behalf of my race, once proud, polished, and elevated,—at
the feet of whose philosophers the learned and eminent of
the world sought wisdom, as did “Herodotus, the father of history,”
and others,—may I fondly hope that another generation
will not pass away till Africa, in and by her own legitimate children,
gives evidence of a national regeneration, breathing forth
with fervid and holy aspirations in the religious sentiments of
her native heart and beautiful words of one of her own native
languages: Bi-Olorum Pellu—“the Lord has been merciful
to us.”
And in behalf of my emancipated brethren in America, may
the blessings of that God, whose signal promise must and will
be fulfilled, despite political official anathema, rest upon the
devoted head and in the holy heart of the most eminent prelate,
Father Felix, Archbishop of Orleans in France.
To the Colored Inhabitants of the United States:—
Fellow-Countrymen: The duty assigned us is an important
one, comprehending all that pertains to our destiny and that of
our posterity, present and prospectively. And while it must be
admitted that the subject is one of the greatest magnitude, requiring
all that talents, prudence, and wisdom might adduce, and
while it would be folly to pretend to give you the combined result
of these three agencies, we shall satisfy ourselves with doing our
duty to the best of our ability, and that in the plainest, most
simple, and comprehensive manner.
Our object, then, shall be to place before you our true position
in this country (the United States), the improbability of realizing
our desires, and the sure, practicable, and infallible remedy for
the evils we now endure.
We have not addressed you as citizens,—a term desired and
ever cherished by us,—because such you have never been. We
have not addressed you as freemen, because such privileges have
never been enjoyed by any colored man in the United States.
Why, then, should we flatter your credulity, by inducing you to
believe that which neither has now, nor never before had, an existence?
Our oppressors are ever gratified at our manifest satisfaction,
especially when that satisfaction is founded upon false
premises; an assumption on our part of the enjoyment of rights
and privileges which never have been conceded, and which, according
to the present system of the United States policy, we
never can enjoy.
The political policy of this country was solely borrowed from,
and shaped and modelled after, that of Rome. This was strikingly
the case in the establishment of immunities, and the application
of terms in their civil and legal regulations.
The term citizen, politically considered, is derived from the
Roman definition, which was never applied in any other sense—cives
ingenui; which meant, one exempt from restraint of any
kind. (Cives, a citizen; one who might enjoy the highest honors
in his own free town,—the town in which he lived,—and in
the country or commonwealth; and ingenui, freeborn—of GOOD
EXTRACTION.) All who were deprived of citizenship—that is,
the right of enjoying positions of honor and trust—were termed
hostes and peregrini; which are public and private enemies, and
foreigners, or aliens to the country. (Hostis, a public, and
sometimes private, enemy; and peregrinus, an alien, stranger,
or foreigner.)
The Romans, from a national pride, to distinguish their inhabitants
from those of other countries, termed them all “citizens,”
but, consequently, were under the necessity of specifying
four classes of citizens: none but the cives ingenui being unrestricted
in their privileges. There was one class, called the jus
quiritium, or the wailing or supplicating citizen; that is, one
who was continually moaning, complaining, or crying for aid
or succor. This class might also include within themselves the
jus suffragii, who had the privilege of voting, but no other
privilege. They could vote for one of their superiors—the cives
ingenui—but not for themselves.
Such, then, is the condition, precisely, of the black and colored
inhabitants of the United States; in some of the states they answering
to the latter class, having the privilege of voting, to elevate
their superiors to positions to which they need never dare
aspire or even hope to attain.
There has, of late years, been a false impression obtained, that
the privilege of voting constitutes, or necessarily embodies, the
rights of citizenship. A more radical error never obtained favor
among an oppressed people. Suffrage is an ambiguous term,
which admits of several definitions. But according to strict
political construction, means simply “a vote, voice, approbation.”
Here, then, you have the whole import of the term suffrage.
To have the “right of suffrage,” as we rather proudly
term it, is simply to have the privilege—there is no right about
it—of giving our approbation to that which our rulers may do,
without the privilege, on our part, of doing the same thing.
Where such privileges are granted—privileges which are now
exercised in but few of the states by colored men—we have but
the privilege granted of saying, in common with others, who
shall, for the time being, exercise rights, which, in him, are conceded
to be inherent and inviolate: like the indented apprentice,
who is summoned to give his approbation to an act which would
be fully binding without his concurrence. Where there is no acknowledged
sovereignty, there can be no binding power; hence,
the suffrage of the black man, independently of the white, would
be in this country unavailable.
Much might be adduced on this point to prove the insignificance
of the black man, politically considered, in this country, but we
deem it wholly unnecessary at present, and consequently proceed
at once to consider another feature of this important
subject.
Let it then be understood, as a great principle of political
economy, that no people can be free who themselves do not
constitute an essential part of the ruling element of the country
in which they live. Whether this element be founded upon a
true or false, a just or an unjust basis, this position in community
is necessary to personal safety. The liberty of no man is
secure who controls not his own political destiny. What is true
of an individual is true of a family, and that which is true of a
family is also true concerning a whole people. To suppose
otherwise, is that delusion which at once induces its victim,
through a period of long suffering, patiently to submit to every
species of wrong; trusting against probability, and hoping against
all reasonable grounds of expectation, for the granting of privileges
and enjoyment of rights which never will be attained.
This delusion reveals the true secret of the power which holds
in peaceable subjection all the oppressed in every part of the
world.
A people, to be free, must necessarily be their own rulers;
that is, each individual must, in himself, embody the essential
ingredient—so to speak—of the sovereign principle which composes
the true basis of his liberty. This principle, when not exercised
by himself, may, at his pleasure, be delegated to another—his
true representative.
Said a great French writer, “A free agent, in a free government,
should be his own governor;” that is, he must possess
within himself the acknowledged right to govern: this constitutes
him a governor, though he may delegate to another the power to
govern himself.
No one, then, can delegate to another a power he never possessed;
that is, he cannot give an agency in that which he never
had a right. Consequently, the colored man in the United States,
being deprived of the right of inherent sovereignty, cannot confer
a franchise, because he possesses none to confer. Therefore,
where there is no franchise, there can neither be freedom nor
safety for the disfranchised. And it is a futile hope to suppose
that the agent of another’s concerns will take a proper interest
in the affairs of those to whom he is under no obligations. Having
no favors to ask or expect, he therefore has none to lose.
In other periods and parts of the world, as in Europe and
Asia, the people being of one common, direct origin of race,
though established on the presumption of difference by birth, or
what was termed blood, yet the distinction between the superior
classes and common people could only be marked by the difference
in the dress and education of the two classes. To effect
this, the interposition of government was necessary; consequently
the costume and education of the people became a subject of
legal restriction, guarding carefully against the privileges of the
common people.
In Rome the patrician and plebeian were orders in the ranks
of her people—all of whom were termed citizens (cives)—recognized
by the laws of the country; their dress and education
being determined by law, the better to fix the distinction. In
different parts of Europe, at the present day, if not the same,
the distinction among the people is similar, only on a modified,
and in some kingdoms, probably more tolerant or deceptive
policy.
In the United States our degradation being once—as it has in
a hundred instances been done—legally determined, our color
is sufficient, independently of costume, education, or other distinguishing
marks, to keep up that distinction.
In Europe when an inferior is elevated to the rank of equality
with the superior class, the law first comes to his aid, which, in
its decrees, entirely destroys his identity as an inferior, leaving
no trace of his former condition visible.
In the United States, among the whites, their color is made, by
law and custom, the mark of distinction and superiority; while
the color of the blacks is a badge of degradation, acknowledged
by statute, organic law, and the common consent of the people.
With this view of the case,—which we hold to be correct,—to
elevate to equality the degraded subject of law and custom, it
can only be done, as in Europe, by an entire destruction of the
identity of the former condition of the applicant. Even were
this desirable, which we by no means admit, with the deep-seated
prejudices engendered by oppression, with which we have to
contend, ages incalculable might reasonably be expected to roll
around before this could honorably be accomplished; otherwise,
we should encourage, and at once commence, an indiscriminate
concubinage and immoral commerce of our mothers, sisters,
wives, and daughters, revolting to think of, and a physical curse
to humanity.
If this state of things be to succeed, then, as in Egypt, under
the dread of the inscrutable approach of the destroying angel, to
appease the hatred of our oppressors, as a license to the passions
of every white, let the lintel of each door of every black man be
stained with the blood of virgin purity and unsullied matron
fidelity. Let it be written along the cornice in capitals, “The
will of the white man is the rule of my household.” Remove
the protection to our chambers and nurseries, that the places
once sacred may henceforth become the unrestrained resort of
the vagrant and rabble, always provided that the licensed commissioner
of lust shall wear the indisputable impress of a white
skin.
But we have fully discovered and comprehended the great
political disease with which we are affected, the cause of its origin
and continuance; and what is now left for us to do is to discover
and apply a sovereign remedy, a healing balm to a sorely
diseased body—a wrecked but not entirely shattered system.
We propose for this disease a remedy. That remedy is emigration.
This emigration should be well advised, and like remedies
applied to remove the disease from the physical system of man,
skilfully and carefully applied, within the proper time, directed
to operate on that part of the system whose greatest tendency
shall be to benefit the whole.
Several geographical localities have been named, among which
rank the Canadas. These we do not object to as places of temporary
relief, especially to the fleeing fugitive,—which, like a
palliative, soothes, for the time being, the misery,—but cannot
commend them as permanent places upon which to fix our destiny,
and that of our children, who shall come after us. But in
this connection we would most earnestly recommend to the colored
people of the United States generally, to secure, by purchase,
all of the land they possibly can while selling at low rates, under
the British people and government; as that time may come,
when, like the lands in the United States territories generally,
if not as in Oregon and some other territories and states, they
may be prevented entirely from settling or purchasing them,—the
preference being given to the white applicant.
And here we would not deceive you by disguising the facts
that, according to political tendency, the Canadas, as all British
America, at no very distant day, are destined to come into the
United States.
And were this not the case, the odds are against us, because
the ruling element there, as in the United States, is, and ever
must be, white; the population now standing, in all British
America, two and a half millions of whites to but forty thousand
of the black race, or sixty-one and a fraction whites to one
black!—the difference being eleven times greater than in the
United States,—so that colored people might never hope for
anything more than to exist politically by mere sufferance; occupying
a secondary position to the whites of the Canadas. The
Yankees from this side of the lakes are fast settling in the Canadas,
infusing, with industrious success, all the malignity and
negro-hate inseparable from their very being, as Christian democrats
and American advocates of equality.
Then, to be successful, our attention must be turned in a
direction towards those places where the black and colored man
comprise, by population, and constitute by necessity of numbers,
the ruling element of the body politic; and where, when occasion
shall require it, the issue can be made and maintained on
this basis; where our political enclosure and national edifice
can be reared, established, walled, and proudly defended on this
great elementary principle of original identity. Upon this solid
foundation rests the fabric of every substantial political structure
in the world, which cannot exist without it; and so soon as a
people or nation lose their original identity, just so soon must
that nation or people become extinct. Powerful though they
may have been, they must fall. Because the nucleus which
heretofore held them together, becoming extinct, there being no
longer a centre of attraction, or basis for a union of the parts, a
dissolution must as naturally ensue as the result of the neutrality
of the basis of adhesion among the particles of matter.
This is the secret of the eventful downfall of Egypt, Carthage,
Rome, and the former Grecian states, once so powerful—a loss
of original identity; and with it, a loss of interest in maintaining
their fundamental principles of nationality.
This, also, is the great secret of the present strength of Great
Britain, Russia, the United States, and Turkey; and the endurance
of the French nation, whatever its strength and power, is
attributable only to their identity as Frenchmen.
And doubtless the downfall of Hungary, brave and noble as
may be her people, is mainly to be attributed to the want of identity
of origin, and, consequently, a union of interests and purpose.
This fact it might not have been expected would be admitted
by the great Sclave in his thrilling pleas for the restoration
of Hungary, when asking aid, both national and individual, to enable
him to throw off the ponderous weight placed upon their
shoulders by the House of Hapsburg.
Hungary consisted of three distinct “races”—as they called
themselves—of people, all priding in, and claiming rights based
on, their originality,—the Magyars, Celts, and Sclaves. On
the encroachment of Austria, each one of these races, declaring
for nationality, rose up against the House of Hapsburg, claiming
the right of self-government, premised on their origin. Between
the three a compromise was effected; the Magyars, being the
majority, claimed the precedence. They made an effort, but for
the want of a unity of interests—an identity of origin—the
noble Hungarians failed. All know the result.
Nor is this the only important consideration. Were we content
to remain as we are, sparsely interspersed among our white
fellow-countrymen, we never might be expected to equal them
in any honorable or respectable competition for a livelihood.
For the reason that, according to the customs and policy of the
country, we for ages would be kept in a secondary position,
every situation of respectability, honor, profit, or trust, either as
mechanics, clerks, teachers, jurors, councilmen, or legislators,
being filled by white men, consequently our energies must become
paralyzed or enervated for the want of proper encouragement.
This example upon our children, and the colored people generally,
is pernicious and degrading in the extreme. And how
could it otherwise be, when they see every place of respectability
filled and occupied by the whites, they pandering to their vanity,
and existing among them merely as a thing of conveniency?
Our friends in this and other countries, anxious for our elevation,
have for years been erroneously urging us to lose our identity
as a distinct race, declaring that we were the same as other
people; while at the very same time their own representative
was traversing the world, and propagating the doctrine in favor
of a universal Anglo-Saxon predominance. The “universal
brotherhood,” so ably and eloquently advocated by that Polyglot
Christian Apostle[9] of this doctrine, had established as its basis
a universal acknowledgment of the Anglo-Saxon rule.
The truth is, we are not identical with the Anglo-Saxon, or any
other race of the Caucasian or pure white type of the human
family, and the sooner we know and acknowledge this truth the
better for ourselves and posterity.
The English, French, Irish, German, Italian, Turk, Persian,
Greek, Jew, and all other races, have their native or inherent
peculiarities, and why not our race? We are not willing, therefore,
at all times and under all circumstances to be moulded into
various shapes of eccentricity, to suit the caprices and conveniences
of every kind of people. We are not more suitable to
everybody than everybody is suitable to us; therefore, no more
like other people than others are like us.
We have, then, inherent traits, attributes, so to speak, and
native characteristics, peculiar to our race, whether pure or
mixed blood; and all that is required of us is to cultivate these,
and develop them in their purity, to make them desirable and
emulated by the rest of the world.
That the colored races have the highest traits of civilization,
will not be disputed. They are civil, peaceable, and religious to
a fault. In mathematics, sculpture and architecture, as arts
and sciences, commerce and internal improvements as enterprises,
the white race may probably excel; but in languages,
oratory, poetry, music, and painting, as arts and sciences, and in
ethics, metaphysics, theology, and legal jurisprudence,—in plain
language, in the true principles of morals, correctness of thought,
religion, and law or civil government, there is no doubt but the
black race will yet instruct the world.
It would be duplicity longer to disguise the fact that the great
issue, sooner or later, upon which must be disputed the world’s
destiny, will be a question of black and white, and every individual
will be called upon for his identity with one or the other.
The blacks and colored races are four sixths of all the population
of the world; and these people are fast tending to a common
cause with each other. The white races are but one third
of the population of the globe,—or one of them to two of us,—and
it cannot much longer continue that two thirds will passively
submit to the universal domination of this one third. And it
is notorious that the only progress made in territorial domain, in
the last three centuries, by the whites, has been a usurpation
and encroachment on the rights and native soil of some of the
colored races.
The East Indies, Java, Sumatra, the Azores, Madeira, Canary,
and Cape Verde Islands; Socotra, Guardifui, and the Isle
of France; Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Barca, and Egypt in the
North, Sierra Leone in the West, and Cape Colony in the South
of Africa; besides many other islands and possessions not herein
named; Australia, the Ladrone Islands, together with many
others of Oceanica; the seizure and appropriation of a great portion
of the Western Continent, with all its islands, were so many
encroachments of the whites upon the rights of the colored races.
Nor are they yet content, but, intoxicated with the success of
their career, the Sandwich Islands are now marked out as the
next booty to be seized in the ravages of their exterminating
crusade.
We regret the necessity of stating the fact, but duty compels
us to the task, that, for more than two thousand years, the determined
aim of the whites has been to crush the colored races
wherever found. With a determined will they have sought and
pursued them in every quarter of the globe. The Anglo-Saxon
has taken the lead in this work of universal subjugation. But
the Anglo-American stands preëminent for deeds of injustice
and acts of oppression, unparalleled, perhaps, in the annals of
modern history.
We admit the existence of great and good people in America,
England, France, and the rest of Europe, who desire a unity
of interests among the whole human family, of whatever origin
or race.
But it is neither the moralist, Christian, nor philanthropist
whom we now have to meet and combat, but the politician, the
civil engineer, and skilful economist, who direct and control the
machinery which moves forward, with mighty impulse, the nations
and powers of the earth. We must, therefore, if possible,
meet them on vantage ground, or, at least, with adequate means
for the conflict.
Should we encounter an enemy with artillery, a prayer will
not stay the cannon shot, neither will the kind words nor smiles
of philanthropy shield his spear from piercing us through the
heart. We must meet mankind, then, as they meet us—prepared
for the worst, though we may hope for the best. Our submission
does not gain for us an increase of friends nor respectability,
as the white race will only respect those who oppose their
usurpation, and acknowledge as equals those who will not
submit to their oppression. This may be no new discovery in
political economy, but it certainly is a subject worthy the consideration
of the black race.
After a due consideration of these facts, as herein recounted,
shall we stand still and continue inactive—the passive observers
of the great events of the times and age in which we live; submitting
indifferently to the usurpation by the white race of every
right belonging to the blacks? Shall the last vestige of an
opportunity, outside of the continent of Africa, for the national
development of our race, be permitted, in consequence of our
slothfulness, to elude our grasp, and fall into the possession of
the whites? This, may Heaven forbid. May the sturdy, intelligent
Africo-American sons of the Western Continent forbid.
Longer to remain inactive, it should be borne in mind, may be
to give an opportunity to despoil us of every right and possession
sacred to our existence, with which God has endowed us as
a heritage on the earth. For let it not be forgotten that the
white race—who numbers but one of them to two of us—originally
located in Europe, besides possessing all of that continent,
have now got hold of a large portion of Asia, Africa, all North
America, a portion of South America, and all of the great islands
of both hemispheres, except Paupau, or New Guinea, inhabited
by negroes and Malays, in Oceanica; the Japanese Islands, peopled
and ruled by the Japanese; Madagascar, peopled by negroes,
near the coast of Africa; and the Island of Hayti, in the West
Indies, peopled by as brave and noble descendants of Africa as
they who laid the foundation of Thebias, or constructed the
everlasting pyramids and catacombs of Egypt,—a people who
have freed themselves by the might of their own will, the force
of their own power, the unfailing strength of their own right
arms, and their unflinching determination to be free.
Let us, then, not survive the disgrace and ordeal of Almighty
displeasure, of two to one, witnessing the universal possession
and control by the whites of every habitable portion of the earth.
For such must inevitably be the case, and that, too, at no distant
day, if black men do not take advantage of the opportunity,
by grasping hold of those places where chance is in their favor,
and establishing the rights and power of the colored race.
We must make an issue, create an event, and establish for
ourselves a position. This is essentially necessary for our
effective elevation as a people, in shaping our national development,
directing our destiny, and redeeming ourselves as a race.
If we but determine it shall be so, it will be so; and there is
nothing under the sun can prevent it. We shall then be but in
pursuit of our legitimate claims to inherent rights, bequeathed to
us by the will of Heaven—the endowment of God, our common
Parent. A distinguished economist has truly said, “God has
implanted in man an infinite progression in the career of improvement.
A soul capacitated for improvement ought not to be
bounded by a tyrant’s landmarks.” This sentiment is just and
true, the application of which to our case is adapted with singular
fitness.
Having glanced hastily at our present political position in the
world generally, and the United States in particular,—the fundamental
disadvantages under which we exist, and the improbability
of ever attaining citizenship and equality of rights in this
country,—we call your attention next to the places of destination
to which we shall direct emigration.
The West Indies, Central and South America, are the countries
of our choice, the advantages of which shall be made apparent
to your entire satisfaction. Though we have designated
them as countries, they are, in fact, but one country, relatively
considered, a part of this, the Western Continent. As now politically
divided, they consist of the following classification, each
group or division placed under its proper national head:—
|
Square miles. |
Population
in 1840. |
| The French Islands. |
| Guadeloupe, |
675 |
124,000 |
| Martinico, |
260 |
119,000 |
| St. Martin, N. part, |
15 |
6,000 |
| Mariegalente, |
90 |
11,500 |
| Deseada, |
25 |
1,500 |
| Danish Islands. |
| Santa Cruz, |
80 |
34,000 |
| St. Thomas, |
50 |
15,000 |
| St. John, |
70 |
3,000 |
| Swedish. |
| St. Bartholomew, |
25 |
8,000 |
| Dutch. |
| St. Eustatia, |
10 |
20,000 |
| Curacoa, |
375 |
12,000 |
| St. Martin, S. part, |
10 |
5,000 |
| Saba, |
20 |
9,000 |
| Venezuela. |
| Margarita, |
00 |
16,000 |
| Spanish. |
| Cuba, |
43,500 |
725,000 |
| Porto Rico, |
4,000 |
325,000 |
| British. |
| Jamaica, |
5,520 |
375,000 |
| Barbadoes, |
164 |
102,000 |
| Trinidad, |
1,970 |
45,000 |
| Antigua, |
108 |
36,000 |
| Grenada and the Granadines, |
120 |
29,000 |
| St. Vincent, |
121 |
36,000 |
| St. Kitts, |
68 |
24,000 |
| Dominica, |
275 |
20,000 |
| St. Lucia, |
275 |
18,000 |
| Tobago, |
120 |
14,000 |
| Nevis, |
20 |
12,000 |
| Montserrat, |
47 |
8,000 |
| Tortola, |
20 |
7,000 |
| Barbuda, |
72 |
0,000 |
| Anguilla, |
90 |
3,000 |
| Bahamas, |
4,440 |
18,000 |
| Bermudas, |
20 |
10,000 |
| Haytien Nation. |
| Hayti, |
000 |
800,000 |
In addition to these there are a number of smaller islands, belonging
to the Little Antilles, the area and population of which
are not known, many of them being unpopulated.
These islands, in the aggregate, form an area—allowing
40,000 square miles to Hayti and her adjunct islands, and something
for those the statistics of which are unknown—of about
103,000, or equal in extent to Rhode Island, New York, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and little less than the United Kingdom
of England, Scotland, Ireland, and the principality of
Wales.
The population being, on the above date, 1840, 3,115,000
(three millions one hundred and fifteen thousand), and allowing
an increase of ten per cent. in ten years, on the entire population,
there are now 3,250,000 (three millions two hundred and fifty
thousand) inhabitants, who comprise the people of these islands.
| Central America. |
|
Population
in 1840. |
| Guatemala, |
800,000 |
| San Salvador, |
350,000 |
| Honduras, |
250,000 |
| Costa Rica, |
150,000 |
| Nicaragua, |
250,000 |
These consist of five states, as shown in the above statistics, the
united population of which, in 1840, amounted to 1,800,000 (one
million eight hundred thousand) inhabitants. The number at
present being estimated at 2,500,000 (two and a half millions),
shows in thirteen years, 700,000 (seven hundred thousand), being
one third and one eighteenth of an increase in population.
| South America. |
|
Square miles. |
Population
in 1840. |
| New Grenada, |
450,000 |
1,687,000 |
| Venezuela, |
420,000 |
900,000 |
| Ecuador, |
280,000 |
600,000 |
| Guiana, |
160,000 |
182,000 |
| Brazil, |
3,390,000 |
5,000,000 |
| North Peru, |
300,000 |
700,000 |
| South Peru, |
130,000 |
800,000 |
| Bolivia, |
450,000 |
1,716,000 |
| Buenos Ayres, |
750,000 |
700,000 |
| Paraguay, |
88,000 |
150,000 |
| Uruguay, |
92,000 |
75,000 |
| Chili, |
170,000 |
1,500,000 |
| Patagonia, |
370,000 |
30,000 |
The total area of these states is 7,050,000 (seven millions and
fifty thousand) square miles; but comparatively little (450,000
square miles) less than the whole area of North America, in
which we live.
But one state in South America, Brazil, is an abject slaveholding
state; and even here all free men are socially and politically
equal, negroes and colored men partly of African descent
holding offices of honor, trust, and rank, without restriction. In
the other states slavery is not known, all the inhabitants enjoying
political equality, restrictions on account of color being entirely
unknown, unless, indeed, necessity induces it, when, in all such
cases, the preference is given to the colored man, to put a check
to European assumption and insufferable Yankee intrusion and
impudence.
The aggregate population was 14,040,000 (fourteen millions
and forty thousand) in 1840. Allowing for thirteen years the
same ratio of increase as that of the Central American states,—being
one third (4,680,000),—and this gives at present a population
of 18,720,000 in South America.
Add to this the population of the Antilles and Guatemala, and
this gives a population in the West Indies, Central and South
America, of 24,470,000 (twenty-four millions four hundred and
seventy thousand) inhabitants.
But one seventh of this population, 3,495,714 (three millions
four hundred and ninety-five thousand seven hundred and fourteen)
being white, or of pure European extraction, there is a
population throughout this vast area of 20,974,286 (twenty millions
nine hundred and seventy-four thousand two hundred and
eighty-six) colored persons, who constitute, from the immense
preponderance of their numbers, the ruling element, as they ever
must be, of those countries.
There are no influences that could be brought to bear to change
this most fortunate and Heaven-designed state and condition of
things. Nature here has done her own work, which the art of
knaves nor the schemes of deep-designing political impostors
can ever reach. This is a fixed fact in the zodiac of the political
heavens, that the blacks and colored people are the stars
which must ever most conspicuously twinkle in the firmament
of this division of the Western Hemisphere.
We next invite your attention to a few facts, upon which we
predicate the claims of the black race, not only to the tropical
regions and south temperate zone of this hemisphere, but to the
whole continent, North as well as South. And here we desire it
distinctly to be understood, that, in the selection of our places
of destination, we do not advocate the southern scheme as
a concession, nor yet at the will nor desire of our North
American oppressors; but as a policy by which we must be
the greatest political gainers, without the risk or possibility of
loss to ourselves. A gain by which the lever of political elevation
and machinery of national progress must ever be held and
directed by our own hands and heads, to our own will and purposes,
in defiance of the obstructions which might be attempted
on the part of a dangerous and deep-designing oppressor.
From the year 1492, the discovery of Hispaniola,—the first
land discovered by Columbus in the New World,—to 1502, the
short space of ten years, such was the mortality among the natives,
that the Spaniards, then holding rule there, “began to
employ a few” Africans in the mines of the island. The experiment
was effective—a successful one. The Indian and the
African were enslaved together, when the Indian sunk, and the
African stood.
It was not until June the 24th, of the year 1498, that the
continent was discovered by John Cabot, a Venetian, who sailed
in August of the previous year, 1497, from Bristol, under the
patronage of Henry VII., King of England.
In 1517, the short-space of but fifteen years from the date of
their introduction, Carolus V., King of Spain, by right of a
patent, granted permission to a number of persons annually to
supply the islands of Hispaniola (St. Domingo), Cuba, Jamaica,
and Porto Rico with natives of Africa, to the number of four
thousand annually. John Hawkins, a mercenary Englishman,
was the first person known to engage in this general system of
debasing our race, and his royal mistress, Queen Elizabeth,
was engaged with him in interest, and shared the general
profits.
The Africans, on their advent into a foreign country, soon experienced
the want of their accustomed food, and habits, and
manner of living.
The aborigines subsisted mainly by game and fish, with a few
patches of maize, or Indian corn, near their wigwams, which
were generally attended by the women, while the men were absent
engaged in the chase, or at war with a hostile tribe. The
vegetables, grains, and fruits, such as in their native country
they had been accustomed to, were not to be obtained among the
aborigines, which first induced the African laborer to cultivate
“patches” of ground in the neighborhood of the mining operations,
for the purpose of raising food for his own sustenance.
This trait in their character was observed and regarded with
considerable interest; after which the Spaniards and other colonists,
on contracting with the English slave dealers—Captain
Hawkins and others—for new supplies of slaves, were careful
to request that an adequate quantity of seeds and plants of various
kinds, indigenous to the continent of Africa, especially those
composing the staple products of the natives, be selected and
brought out with the slaves to the New World. Many of these
were cultivated to a considerable extent, while those indigenous
to America were cultivated with great success.
Shortly after the commencement of the slave trade under
Elizabeth and Hawkins, the queen granted a license to Sir Walter
Raleigh to search for uninhabited lands, and seize upon all unoccupied
by Christians. Sir Walter discovered the coast of
North Carolina and Virginia, assigning the name “Virginia” to
the whole coast now comprising the old Thirteen States.
A feeble colony was here settled, which did not avail much,
and it was not until the month of April, 1607, that the first permanent
settlement was made in Virginia, under the patronage
of letters patent from James I., King of England, to Thomas
Gates and associates. This was the first settlement of North
America, and thirteen years anterior to the landing of the Pilgrims
on Plymouth Rock.
And we shall now introduce to you, from acknowledged authority,
a number of historical extracts, to prove that previous
to the introduction of the black race upon this continent but
little enterprise of any kind was successfully carried on. The
African or negro was the first available contributor to the country,
and consequently is by priority of right, and politically
should be, entitled to the highest claims of an eligible citizen.
“No permanent settlement was effected in what is now called
the United States, till the reign of James the First.”—Ramsay’s
Hist. U. S., vol. i. p. 38.
“The month of April, 1607, is the epoch of the first permanent
settlement on the coast of Virginia, the name then given
to all that extent of country which forms thirteen states.”—Ib.
p. 39.
The whole coast of the country was at this time explored,
not for the purpose of trade and agriculture,—because there
were then no such enterprises in the country, the natives not
producing sufficient of the necessaries of life to supply present
wants, there being consequently nothing to trade for,—but, like
their Spanish and Portuguese predecessors, who occupied the
islands and different parts of South America, in search of gold
and other precious metals.
Trade and the cultivation of the soil, on coming to the New
World, were foreign to their intention or designs, consequently,
when failing of success in that enterprise, they were sadly disappointed.
“At a time when the precious metals were conceived to be the
peculiar and only valuable productions of the New World, when
every mountain was supposed to contain a treasure and every
rivulet was searched for its golden sands, this appearance was
fondly considered as an infallible indication of the mine. Every
hand was eager to dig.…
“There was now,” says Smith, “no talk, no hope, no work;
but dig gold; wash gold, refine gold. With this imaginary
wealth the first vessel returning to England was loaded, while
the culture of the land and every useful occupation was totally
neglected.
“The colonists thus left were in miserable circumstances for
want of provisions. The remainder of what they had brought
with them was so small in quantity as to be soon expended, and
so damaged in course of a long voyage as to be a source of
disease.
“... In their expectation of getting gold, the people were
disappointed, the glittering substance they had sent to England
proving to be a valueless mineral. Smith, on his return to
Jamestown, found the colony reduced to thirty-eight persons,
who, in despair, were preparing to abandon the country. He
employed caresses, threats, and even violence in order to prevent
them from executing this fatal resolution.”—Ramsay’s
Hist. U. S., pp. 45, 46.
The Pilgrims or Puritans, in November, 1620, after having
organized with solemn vows to the defence of each other, and
the maintenance of their civil liberty, made the harbor of Cape
Cod, landing safely on “Plymouth Rock” December 20th,
about one month subsequently. They were one hundred and
one in number, and from the toils and hardships consequent to
a severe season, in a strange country, in less than six months
after their arrival, “forty persons, nearly one half of their original
number,” had died.
“In 1618, in the reign of James I., the British government
established a regular trade on the coast of Africa. In the year
1620 negro slaves began to be imported into Virginia, a Dutch
ship bringing twenty of them for sale.”—Sampson’s Historical
Dictionary, p. 348.
It will be seen by these historical reminiscences, that the
Dutch ship landed her cargo at New Bedford, Massachusetts,—the
whole coast, now comprising the old original states, then
went by the name of Virginia, being so named by Sir Walter
Raleigh, in honor of his royal mistress and patron, Elizabeth,
the Virgin Queen of England, under whom he received the
patent of his royal commission, to seize all the lands unoccupied
by Christians.
Beginning their preparations in the slave trade in 1618, just
two years previous,—allowing time against the landing of the
first emigrants for successfully carrying out the project,—the
African captives and Puritan emigrants, singularly enough,
landed upon the same section of the continent at the same time
(1620), the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and the captive slaves at New
Bedford, but a few miles, comparatively, south.
“The country at this period was one vast wilderness. The
continent of North America was then one continued forest …
There were no horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, or tame beasts of any
kind … There were no domestic poultry … There were
no gardens, orchards, public roads, meadows, or cultivated
fields … They often burned the woods that they could advantageously
plant their corn … They had neither spice,
salt, bread, butter, cheese, nor milk. They had no set meals,
but eat when they were hungry, or could find anything to satisfy
the cravings of nature. Very little of their food was derived
from the earth, except what it spontaneously produced …
The ground was both their seat and table … Their best bed
was a skin … They had neither iron, steel, nor any metallic
instruments.”—Ramsay’s Hist., pp. 39, 40.
We adduce not these extracts to disparage or detract from the
real worth of our brother Indian,—for we are identical as the
subjects of American wrongs, outrages, and oppression, and
therefore one in interest,—far be it from our designs. Whatever
opinion he may entertain of our race,—in accordance with
the impressions made by the contumely heaped upon us by our
mutual oppressor, the American nation,—we admire his, for
the many deeds of heroic and noble daring with which the brief
history of his liberty-loving people is replete. We sympathize
with him, because our brethren are the successors of his in the
degradation of American bondage; and we adduce them in evidence
against the many aspersions heaped upon the African
race, avowing that their inferiority to the other races, and unfitness
for a high civil and social position, caused them to be reduced
to servitude.
For the purpose of proving their availability and eminent fitness
alone—not to say superiority, and not inferiority—first
suggested to Europeans the substitution of African for that of
Indian labor in the mines; that their superior adaptation to the
difficulties consequent to a new country and different climate
made them preferable to Europeans themselves; and their superior
skill, industry, and general thriftiness in all that they did,
first suggested to the colonists the propriety of turning their attention
to agricultural and other industrial pursuits than those
of mining operations.
It is evident, from what has herein been adduced,—the settlement
of Captain John Smith being in the course of a few months
reduced to thirty-eight, and that of the Pilgrims at Plymouth
from one hundred and one to fifty-seven in six months,—that
the whites nor aborigines were equal to the hard, and to them
insurmountable, difficulties which then stood wide-spread before
them.
An endless forest, the impenetrable earth,—the one to be removed,
and the other to be excavated; towns and cities to be
built, and farms to be cultivated,—all presented difficulties too
arduous for the European then here, and entirely unknown to
the native of the continent.
At a period such as this, when the natives themselves had
fallen victims to the tasks imposed upon them by the usurpers,
and the Europeans also were fast sinking beneath the influence
and weight of climate and hardships; when food could not be
obtained, nor the common conveniences of life procured; when
arduous duties of life were to be performed, and none capable
of doing them, save those who had previously, by their labors,
not only in their own country, but in the new, so proven themselves
capable, it is very evident, as the most natural consequence,
the Africans were resorted to for the performance of
every duty common to domestic life.
There were no laborers known to the colonists, from Cape Cod
to Cape Lookout, than those of the African race. They entered
at once into the mines, extracting therefrom the rich treasures
which for a thousand ages lay hidden in the earth; when, plunging
into the depths of the rivers, they culled from their sandy
bottoms, to the astonishment of the natives and surprise of the
Europeans, minerals and precious stones, which added to the
pride and aggrandizement of every throne in Europe.
And from their knowledge of cultivation,—an art acquired in
their native Africa,—the farming interests in the North and
planting in the South were commenced with a prospect never
dreamed of before the introduction on the continent of this most
interesting, unexampled, hardy race of men. A race capable of
the endurance of more toil, fatigue, and hunger than any other
branch of the human family.
Though pagans for the most part in their own country, they
required not to be taught to work, and how to do it; but it was
only necessary to bid them work, and they at once knew what to
do, and how it should be done.
Even up to the present day, it is notorious that in the planting
states the blacks themselves are the only skilful cultivators of
the soil, the proprietors or planters, as they are termed, knowing
little or nothing of the art, save that which they learn from
the African husbandman; while the ignorant white overseer,
whose duty is to see that the work is attended to, knows still
less.
Hemp, cotton, tobacco, corn, rice, sugar, and many other important
staple products, are all the result of African skill and
labor in the southern states of this country. The greater number
of the mechanics of the South are also black men.
Nor was their skill as herdsmen inferior to their other proficiencies,
they being among the most accomplished trainers of
horses in the world.
Indeed, to this class of men may be indebted the entire country
for the improvement South in the breed of horses. And
those who have travelled in the southern states could not have
failed to observe that the principal trainers, jockeys, riders, and
judges of horses were men of African descent.
These facts alone are sufficient to establish our claim to this
country, as legitimate as that of those who fill the highest stations
by the suffrage of the people.
In no period since the existence of the ancient enlightened nations
of Africa have the prospects of the black race been brighter
than now; and at no time during the Christian era have there
been greater advantages presented for the advancement of any
people than at present those which offer to the black race, both
in the eastern and western hemispheres; our election being in
the western.
Despite the efforts to the contrary, in the strenuous endeavors
for a supremacy of race, the sympathies of the world, in their upward
tendency, are in favor of the African and black races of the
earth. To be available, we must take advantage of these favorable
feelings, and strike out for ourselves a bold and manly
course of independent action and position; otherwise, this pure
and uncorrupted sympathy will be reduced to pity and contempt.
Of the countries of our choice, we have stated that one province
and two islands were slaveholding places. These, as before
named, are Brazil in South America, and Cuba and Porto Rico
in the West Indies. There are a few other little islands of
minor consideration: the Danish three, Swedish one, and Dutch
four.
But in the eight last referred to, slavery is of such a mild type,
that, however objectionable as such, it is merely nominal.
In South America and the Antilles, in its worst form, slavery
is a blessing almost, compared with the miserable degradation
of the slaves under our upstart, assumed superiors, the slaveholders
of the United States.
In Brazil color is no badge of condition, and every freeman,
whatever his color, is socially and politically equal, there being
black gentlemen, of pure African descent, filling the highest positions
in state under the emperor. There is, also, an established
law by the Congress of Brazil, making the crime punishable
with death for the commander of any vessel to bring into the
country any human being as a slave.
The following law has passed one branch of the General Legislative
Assembly of Brazil, but little doubt being entertained that
it will find a like favor in the other branch of that august general
legislative body:—
“1. All children born after the date of this law shall be free.
“2. All those shall be considered free who are born in other
countries, and come to Brazil after this date.
“3. Every one who serves from birth to seven years of age,
any of those included in article one, or who has to serve so many
years, at the end of fourteen years shall be emancipated, and live
as he chooses.
“4. Every slave paying for his liberty a sum equal to what he
cost his master, or who shall gain it by honorable gratuitous title,
the master shall be obliged to give him a free paper, under the
penalty of article one hundred and seventy-nine of the criminal
code.
“5. Where there is no stipulated price or fixed value of the
slave, it shall be determined by arbitrators, one of which shall
be the public promoter of the town.
“6. The government is authorized to give precise regulations
for the execution of this law, and also to form establishments
necessary for taking care of those who, born after this date, may
be abandoned by the owners of slaves.
“7. Opposing laws and regulations are repealed.”
Concerning Cuba, there is an old established law, giving any
slave the right of a certain legal tender, which, if refused by the
slaveholder, he, by going to the residence of any parish priest,
and making known the facts, shall immediately be declared a
freeman, the priest or bishop of the parish or diocese giving him
his “freedom papers.” The legal tender, or sum fixed by law,
we think does not exceed two hundred and fifty Spanish dollars.
It may be more.
Until the Americans intruded themselves into Cuba, contaminating
society wherever they located, black and colored gentlemen
and ladies of rank mingled indiscriminately in society.
But since the advent of these negro-haters, the colored people
of Cuba have been reduced nearly, if not quite, to the level of
the miserable, degraded position of the colored people of the
United States, who almost consider it a compliment and favor to
receive the notice or smiles of a white.
Can we be satisfied, in this enlightened age of the world,
amid the advantages which now present themselves to us, with
the degradation and servility inherited from our fathers in this
country? God forbid. And we think the universal reply will
be, We will not!
Half a century brings about a mighty change in the reality of
existing things and events of the world’s history. Fifty years
ago our fathers lived. For the most part they were sorely oppressed,
debased, ignorant, and incapable of comprehending the
political relations of mankind—the great machinery and motive-power
by which the enlightened nations of the earth were impelled
forward. They knew but little, and ventured to do nothing
to enhance their own interests beyond that which their
oppressors taught them. They lived amidst a continual cloud
of moral obscurity; a fog of bewilderment and delusion, by
which they were of necessity compelled to confine themselves to
a limited space—a known locality—lest by one step beyond
this they might have stumbled over a precipice, ruining themselves
beyond recovery in the fall.
We are their sons, but not the same individuals; neither do
we live in the same period with them. That which suited them,
does not suit us; and that with which they may have been contented,
will not satisfy us.
Without education, they were ignorant of the world, and fearful
of adventure. With education, we are conversant with its
geography, history, and nations, and delight in its enterprises
and responsibilities. They once were held as slaves; to such a
condition we never could be reduced. They were content with
privileges; we will be satisfied with nothing less than rights.
They felt themselves happy to be permitted to beg for rights;
we demand them as an innate inheritance. They considered
themselves favored to live by sufferance; we reject it as a degradation.
A subordinate position was all they asked for; we
claim entire equality or nothing. The relation of master and
slave was innocently acknowledged by them; we deny the right
as such, and pronounce the relation as the basest injustice that
ever scourged the earth and cursed the human family. They
admitted themselves to be inferiors; we barely acknowledge the
whites as equals, perhaps not in every particular. They lamented
their irrecoverable fate, and incapacity to redeem themselves
and their race. We rejoice that, as their sons, it is our
happy lot and high mission to accomplish that which they desired,
and would have done, but failed for the want of ability
to do.
Let no intelligent man or woman, then, among us be found at
the present day, exulting in the degradation that our enslaved
parents would gladly have rid themselves had they had the
intelligence and qualifications to accomplish their designs. Let
none be found to shield themselves behind the plea of our brother
bondmen in ignorance, that we know not what to do, nor where
to go. We are no longer slaves, as were our fathers, but freemen;
fully qualified to meet our oppressors in every relation
which belongs to the elevation of man, the establishment, sustenance,
and perpetuity of a nation. And such a position, by the
help of God our common Father, we are determined to take and
maintain.
There is but one question presents itself for our serious consideration,
upon which we must give a decisive reply: Will we
transmit, as an inheritance to our children, the blessings of unrestricted
civil liberty, or shall we entail upon them, as our only
political legacy, the degradation and oppression left us by our
fathers?
Shall we be persuaded that we can live and prosper nowhere
but under the authority and power of our North American white
oppressors? that this (the United States) is the country most, if
not the only one, favorable to our improvement and progress?
Are we willing to admit that we are incapable of self-government,
establishing for ourselves such political privileges, and
making such internal improvements as we delight to enjoy, after
American white men have made them for themselves?
No! Neither is it true that the United States is the country
best adapted to our improvement. But that country is the best
in which our manhood—morally, mentally, and physically—can
be best developed; in which we have an untrammelled right
to the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty; and the West
Indies, Central and South America, present now such advantages,
superiorly preferable to all other countries.
That the continent of America was designed by Providence as
a reserved asylum for the various oppressed people of the earth,
of all races, to us seems very apparent.
From the earliest period after the discovery, various nations
sent a representative here, either as adventurers and speculators,
or employed laborers, seamen, or soldiers, hired to work for
their employers. And among the earliest and most numerous
class who found their way to the New World were those of the
African race. And it has been ascertained to our minds, beyond
a doubt, that when the continent was discovered, there
were found in the West Indies and Central America tribes of
the black race, fine looking people, having the usual characteristics
of color and hair, identifying them as being originally of
the African race; no doubt, being a remnant of the Africans
who, with the Carthaginian expedition, were adventitiously cast
upon this continent, in their memorable adventure to the “Great
Island,” after sailing many miles distant to the west of the
“Pillars of Hercules,”—the present Straits of Gibraltar.
We would not be thought to be superstitious, when we say,
that in all this we can “see the finger of God.” Is it not worthy
of a notice here, that while the ingress of foreign whites to this
continent has been voluntary and constant, and that of the blacks
involuntary and but occasional, yet the whites in the southern
part have decreased in numbers, degenerated in character, and
become mentally and physically enervated and imbecile; while
the blacks and colored people have studiously increased in numbers,
regenerated in character, and have grown mentally and
physically vigorous and active, developing every function of their
manhood, and are now, in their elementary character, decidedly
superior to the white race? So, then, the white race could never
successfully occupy the southern portion of the continent; they
must, of necessity, every generation, be repeopled from another
quarter of the globe. The fatal error committed by the Spaniards,
under Pizarro, was the attempt to exterminate the Incas
and Peruvians, and fill their places by European whites. The
Peruvian Indians, a hale, hardy, vigorous, intellectual race of
people, were succeeded by those who soon became idle, vicious,
degenerated, and imbecile. But Peru, like all the other South
American states, is regaining her former potency, just in proportion
as the European race decreases among them. All the
labor of the country is performed by the aboriginal natives and
the blacks, the few Europeans there being the merest excrescences
on the body politic—consuming drones in the social hive.
Had we no other claims than those set forth in a foregoing
part of this address, they are sufficient to induce every black and
colored person to remain on this continent, unshaken and unmoved.
But the West Indians, Central and South Americans, are a
noble race of people; generous, sociable, and tractable—just
the people with whom we desire to unite; who are susceptible of
progress, improvement, and reform of every kind. They now
desire all the improvements of North America, but being justly
jealous of their rights, they have no confidence in the whites of
the United States, and consequently peremptorily refuse to permit
an indiscriminate settlement among them of this class of
people; but placing every confidence in the black and colored
people of North America.
The example of the unjust invasion and forcible seizure of a
large portion of the territory of Mexico is still fresh in their
memory; and the oppressive disfranchisement of a large number
of native Mexicans, by the Americans,—because of the color
and race of the natives,—will continue to rankle in the bosom
of the people of those countries, and prove a sufficient barrier
henceforth against the inroads of North American whites among
them.
Upon the American continent, then, we are determined to remain
despite every opposition that may be urged against us.
You will doubtless be asked,—and that, too, with an air of
seriousness,—why, if desirable to remain on this continent, not
be content to remain in the United States. The objections to
this—and potent reasons, too, in our estimation—have already
been clearly shown.
But notwithstanding all this, were there still any rational, nay,
even the most futile grounds for hope, we still might be stupid
enough to be content to remain, and yet through another period
of unexampled patience and suffering, continue meekly to drag
the galling yoke and clank the chain of servility and degradation.
But whether or not in this God is to be thanked and
Heaven blessed, we are not permitted, despite our willingness
and stupidity, to indulge even the most distant glimmer of a hope
of attaining to the level of a well-protected slave.
For years we have been studiously and jealously observing the
course of political events and policy on the part of this country,
both in a national and individual state capacity, as pursued towards
the colored people. And he who, in the midst of them,
can live without observation, is either excusably ignorant, or
reprehensibly deceptious and untrustworthy.
We deem it entirely unnecessary to tax you with anything like
the history of even one chapter of the unequalled infamies perpetrated
on the part of the various states, and national decrees,
by legislation, against us. But we shall call your particular
attention to the more recent acts of the United States; because,
whatever privileges we may enjoy in any individual state, will
avail nothing when not recognized as such by the United States.
When the condition of the inhabitants of any country is fixed
by legal grades of distinction, this condition can never be
changed except by express legislation. And it is the height of
folly to expect such express legislation, except by the inevitable
force of some irresistible internal political pressure. The force
necessary to this imperative demand on our part we never can
obtain, because of our numerical feebleness.
Were the interests of the common people identical with ours,
we, in this, might succeed, because we, as a class, would then be
numerically the superior. But this is not a question of the rich
against the poor, nor the common people against the higher
classes, but a question of white against black—every white
person, by legal right, being held superior to a black or colored
person.
In Russia, the common people might obtain an equality with
the aristocracy, because, of the sixty-five millions of her population,
forty-five millions are serfs or peasants; leaving but
twenty millions of the higher classes—royalty, nobility, and all
included.
The rights of no oppressed people have ever yet been obtained
by a voluntary act of justice on the part of the oppressors.
Christians, philanthropists, and moralists may preach, argue,
and philosophize as they may to the contrary: facts are against
them. Voluntary acts, it is true, which are in themselves just,
may sometimes take place on the part of the oppressor; but
these are always actuated by the force of some outward circumstances
of self-interest equal to a compulsion.
The boasted liberties of the American people were established
by a constitution, borrowed from and modelled after the British
magna charta. And this great charter of British liberty, so
much boasted of and vaunted as a model bill of rights, was
obtained only by force and compulsion.
The barons, an order of noblemen, under the reign of King
John, becoming dissatisfied at the terms submitted to by their
sovereign, which necessarily brought degradation upon themselves,—terms
prescribed by the insolent Pope Innocent III.,
the haughty sovereign Pontiff of Rome,—summoned his majesty
to meet them on the plains of the memorable meadow of Runnymede,
where, presenting to him their own Bill of Rights—a
bill dictated by themselves, and drawn up by their own hands—at
the unsheathed points of a thousand glittering swords, they
commanded him, against his will, to sign the extraordinary document.
There was no alternative: he must either do or die.
With a puerile timidity, he leaned forward his rather commanding
but imbecile person, and with a trembling hand and single
dash of the pen, the name KING JOHN stood forth in bold relief
sending more terror throughout the world than the mystic
handwriting of Heaven throughout the dominions of Nebuchadnezzar,
blazing on the walls of Babylon. A consternation, not
because of the name of the king, but because of the rights of
others, which that name acknowledged.
The king, however, soon became dissatisfied, and determining
on a revocation of the act,—an act done entirely contrary to his
will,—at the head of a formidable army spread fire and sword
throughout the kingdom.
But the barons, though compelled to leave their castles, their
houses and homes, and fly for their lives, could not be induced
to undo that which they had so nobly done—the achievement of
their rights and privileges. Hence the act has stood throughout
all succeeding time, because never annulled by those who
willed it.
It will be seen that the first great modern Bill of Rights was
obtained only by a force of arms: a resistance of the people
against the injustice and intolerance of their rulers. We say
the people—because that which the barons demanded for themselves,
was afterwards extended to the common people. Their
only hope was based on their superiority of numbers.
But can we, in this country, hope for as much? Certainly
not. Our case is a hopeless one. There was but one John,
with his few sprigs of adhering royalty; and but one heart, at
which the threatening points of their swords were directed by a
thousand barons; while in our case, there is but a handful of
the oppressed, without a sword to point, and twenty millions of
Johns or Jonathans—as you please—with as many hearts, tenfold
more relentless than that of Prince John Lackland, and as
deceptious and hypocritical as the Italian heart of Innocent III.
Where, then, is our hope of success in this country? Upon
what is it based? Upon what principle of political policy and
sagacious discernment do our political leaders and acknowledged
great men—colored men we mean—justify themselves
by telling us, and insisting that we shall believe them, and submit
to what they say—to be patient, remain where we are; that
there is a “bright prospect and glorious future” before us in this
country! May Heaven open our eyes from their Bartimean
obscurity.
But we call your attention to another point of our political
degradation—the acts of state and general governments.
In a few of the states, as in New York, the colored inhabitants
have a partial privilege of voting a white man into office. This
privilege is based on a property qualification of two hundred and
fifty dollars worth of real estate. In others, as in Ohio, in the
absence of organic provision, the privilege is granted by judicial
decision, based on a ratio of blood, of an admixture of more
than one half white; while in many of the states there is no
privilege allowed, either partial or unrestricted.
The policy of the above-named states will be seen and detected
at a glance, which, while seeming to extend immunities,
is intended especially for the object of degradation.
In the State of New York, for instance, there is a constitutional
distinction created among colored men,—almost necessarily
compelling one part to feel superior to the other,—while
among the whites no such distinctions dare be known. Also, in
Ohio, there is a legal distinction set up by an upstart judiciary,
creating among the colored people a privileged class by birth!
All this must necessarily sever the cords of union among us,
creating almost insurmountable prejudices of the most stupid
and fatal kind, paralyzing the last bracing nerve which promised
to give us strength.
It is upon this same principle, and for the self-same object,
that the general government has long been endeavoring, and is
at present knowingly designing to effect a recognition of the independence
of the Dominican Republic, while disparagingly refusing
to recognize the independence of the Haytien nation—a
people four fold greater in numbers, wealth, and power. The
Haytiens, it is pretended, are refused because they are negroes;
while the Dominicans, as is well known to all who are familiar
with the geography, history, and political relations of that people,
are identical—except in language, they speaking the Spanish
tongue—with those of the Haytiens; being composed of
negroes and a mixed race. The government may shield itself
by the plea that it is not familiar with the origin of those people.
To this we have but to reply, that if the government is thus
ignorant of the relations of its near neighbors, it is the height
of presumption, and no small degree of assurance, for it to set
up itself as capable of prescribing terms to the one, or conditions
to the other.
Should they accomplish their object, they then will have succeeded
in forever establishing a barrier of impassable separation,
by the creation of a political distinction between those peoples,
of superiority and inferiority of origin or national existence.
Here, then, is another stratagem of this most determined and
untiring enemy of our race—the government of the United
States.
We come now to the crowning act of infamy on the part of
the general government towards the colored inhabitants of the
United States—an act so vile in its nature, that rebellion against
its demands should be promptly made in every attempt to enforce
its infernal provisions.
In the history of national existence, there is not to be found a
parallel to the tantalizing insult and aggravating despotism of the
provisions of Millard Fillmore’s Fugitive Slave Bill, passed by
the Thirty-third Congress of the United States, with the approbation
of a majority of the American people, in the year of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ eighteen hundred and fifty.
This bill had but one object in its provisions, which was fully
accomplished in its passage, that is, the reduction of every colored
person in the United States—save those who carry free
papers of emancipation, or bills of sale from former claimants
or owners—to a state of relative slavery; placing each and
every one of us at the disposal of any and every white who
might choose to claim us, and the caprice of any and every upstart
knave bearing the title of “commissioner.”
Did any of you, fellow-countrymen, reside in a country, the
provisions of whose laws were such that any person of a certain
class, who, whenever he, she, or they pleased, might come forward,
lay a claim to, make oath before (it might be) some stupid
and heartless person, authorized to decide in such cases, and
take, at their option, your horse, cow, sheep, house and lot, or
any other property, bought and paid for by your own earnings,—the
result of your personal toil and labor,—would you be willing,
or could you be induced by any reasoning, however great the
source from which it came, to remain in that country? We
pause, fellow-countrymen, for a reply.
If there be not one yea, of how much more importance, then,
is your own personal safety than that of property? Of how
much more concern is the safety of a wife or husband, than that
of a cow or horse; a child, than a sheep; the destiny of your
family, to that of a house and lot?
And yet this is precisely our condition. Any one of us, at
any moment, is liable to be claimed, seized, and taken into custody
by any white, as his or her property—to be enslaved for
life—and there is no remedy, because it is the law of the land!
And we dare predict, and take this favorable opportunity to forewarn
you, fellow-countrymen, that the time is not far distant,
when there will be carried on by the white men of this nation
an extensive commerce in the persons of what now compose the
free colored people of the North. We forewarn you, that the
general enslavement of the whole of this class of people is now
being contemplated by the whites.
At present, we are liable to enslavement at any moment, provided
we are taken away from our homes. But we dare venture
further to forewarn you, that the scheme is in mature contemplation,
and has even been mooted in high places, of harmonizing
the two discordant political divisions in the country by
again reducing the free to slave states.
The completion of this atrocious scheme only becomes necessary
for each and every one of us to find an owner and master
at our own doors. Let the general government but pass such a
law, and the states will comply as an act of harmony. Let the
South but demand it, and the North will comply as a duty of
compromise.
If Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts can be found
arming their sons as watch-dogs for Southern slave hunters; if
the United States may, with impunity, garrison with troops the
court-house of the freest city in America; blockade the streets;
station armed ruffians of dragoons, and spiked artillery in hostile
awe of the people; if free, white, high-born and bred gentlemen
of Boston and New York are smitten down to the earth,[10] refused
an entrance on professional business into the court-houses,
until inspected by a slave hunter and his counsel, all to put
down the liberty of the black man, then, indeed, is there no
hope for us in this country!
It is, fellow-countrymen, a fixed fact, as indelible as the
covenant of God in the heavens, that the colored people of these
United States are the slaves of any white person who may
choose to claim them!
What safety or guarantee have we for ourselves or families?
Let us, for a moment, examine this point.
Supposing some hired spy of the slave power residing in Illinois,
whom, for illustration, we shall call Stephen A., Counsellor
B., a mercenary hireling of New York, and Commissioner C., a
slave catcher of Pennsylvania, should take umbrage at the acts
or doings of any colored person or persons in a free state; they
may, with impunity, send or go on their knight errantry to the
South (as did a hireling of the slave power in New York—a
lawyer by profession), give a description of such person or persons,
and an agent with warrants may be immediately despatched
to swear them into slavery forever.
We tell you, fellow-countrymen, any one of you here assembled—your
humble committee who report to you this paper—may,
by the laws of this land, be seized, whatever the circumstances
of his birth, whether he descends from free or slave
parents—whether born north or south of Mason and Dixon’s
line—and ere the setting of another sun, be speeding his way
to that living sepulchre and death-chamber of our race—the
curse and scourge of this country—the southern part of the
United States. This is not idle speculation, but living, naked,
undisguised truth.
A member of your committee has received a letter from a
gentleman of respectability and standing in the South, who
writes to the following effect. We copy his own words:—
“There are, at this moment, as I was to-day informed by Colonel
W., one of our first magistrates in this city, a gang of from
twenty-five to thirty vagabonds of poor white men, who, for
twenty-five dollars a head, clear of all expenses, are ready and
willing to go to the North, make acquaintance with the blacks in
various places, send their descriptions to unprincipled slaveholders
here,—for there are many of this kind to be found
among the poorer class of masters,—and swear them into
bondage. So the free blacks, as well as fugitive slaves, will
have to keep a sharp watch over themselves to get clear of this
scheme to enslave them.”
Here, then, you have but a paragraph in the great volume of
this political crusade and legislative pirating by the American
people over the rights and privileges of the colored inhabitants
of the country. If this be but a paragraph,—for such it is in
truth,—what must be the contents when the whole history is
divulged! Never will the contents of this dreadful record of
crime, corruption, and oppression be fully revealed, until the
trump of God shall proclaim the universal summons to judgment.
Then, and then alone, shall the whole truth be acknowledged,
when the doom of the criminal shall be forever sealed.
We desire not to be sentimental, but rather would be political;
and therefore call your attention to another point—a point
already referred to.
In giving the statistics of various countries, and preferences to
many places herein mentioned, as points of destination in emigration,
we have said little or nothing concerning the present
governments, the various state departments, nor the condition
of society among the people.
This is not the province of your committee, but the legitimate
office of a Board of Foreign Commissioners, whom there is no
doubt will be created by the convention, with provisions and instructions
to report thereon, in due season, of their mission.
With a few additional remarks on the subject of the British
Provinces of North America, we shall have done our duty, and
completed, for the time being, the arduous, important, and momentous
task assigned to us.
The British Provinces of North America, especially Canada
West,—formerly called Upper Canada,—in climate, soil, productions,
and the usual prospects for internal improvements, are
equal, if not superior, to any northern part of the continent.
And for these very reasons, aside from their contiguity to the
northern part of the United States,—and consequent facility for
the escape of the slaves from the South,—we certainly should
prefer them as a place of destination. We love the Canadas,
and admire their laws, because, as British Provinces, there is no
difference known among the people—no distinction of race.
And we deem it a duty to recommend, that for the present, as a
temporary asylum, it is certainly advisable for every colored
person, who, desiring to emigrate, and is not prepared for any
other destination, to locate in Canada West.
Every advantage on our part should be now taken of the
opportunity of obtaining LANDS, while they are to be had
cheap, and on the most easy conditions, from the government.
Even those who never contemplate a removal from this country
of chains, it will be their best interest and greatest advantage
to procure lands in the Canadian Provinces. It will be an easy,
profitable, and safe investment, even should they never occupy
nor yet see them. We shall then be but doing what the whites
in the United States have for years been engaged in—securing
unsettled lands in the territories, previous to their enhancement
in value, by the force of settlement and progressive neighboring
improvements. There are also at present great openings for
colored people to enter into the various industrial departments
of business operations: laborers, mechanics, teachers, merchants,
and shop-keepers, and professional men of every kind.
These places are now open, as much to the colored as the white
man, in Canada, with little or no opposition to his progress; at
least in the character of prejudicial preferences on account of
race. And all of these, without any hesitancy, do we most cheerfully
recommend to the colored inhabitants of the United States.
But our preference to other places over the Canadas has
been cursorily stated in the foregoing part of this paper; and
since the writing of that part, it would seem that the predictions
or apprehensions concerning the Provinces are about to be verified
by the British Parliament and Home Government themselves.
They have virtually conceded, and openly expressed it—Lord
Brougham in the lead—that the British Provinces of
North America must, ere long, cease to be a part of the British
domain, and become annexed to the United States.
It is needless—however much we may regret the necessity of
its acknowledgment—for us to stop our ears, shut our eyes,
and stultify our senses against the truth in this matter; since, by
so doing, it does not alter the case. Every political movement,
both in England and the United States, favors such an issue, and
the sooner we acknowledge it, the better it will be for our cause,
ourselves individually, and the destiny of our people in this
country.
These Provinces have long been burdensome to the British
nation, and her statesmen have long since discovered and decided
as an indisputable predicate in political economy, that any
province as an independent state, is more profitable in a commercial
consideration to a country than when depending as one of its
colonies. As a child to the parent, or an apprentice to his master,
so is a colony to a state. And as the man who enters into
business is to the manufacturer and importer, so is the colony
which becomes an independent state to the country from which
it recedes.
Great Britain is decidedly a commercial and money-making
nation, and counts closely on her commercial relations with any
country. That nation or people which puts the largest amount
of money into her coffers, are the people who may expect to
obtain her greatest favors. This the Americans do; consequently—and
we candidly ask you to mark the prediction—the British
will interpose little or no obstructions to the Canadas, Cuba, or
any other province or colony contiguous to this country, falling
into the American Union; except only in such cases where there
would be a compromise of her honor. And in the event of a
seizure of any of these, there would be no necessity for such a
sacrifice; it could readily be avoided by diplomacy.
Then there is little hope for us on this continent, short of
those places where, by reason of their numbers, there is the
greatest combination of strength and interests on the part of
the colored race.
We have ventured to predict a reduction of the now nominally
free into slave states. Already has this “reign of terror” and
dreadful work of destruction commenced. We give you the
quotation from a Mississippi paper, which will readily be admitted
as authority in this case:—
“Two years ago a law was passed by the California legislature,
granting one year to the owners of slaves carried into the
territory previous to the adoption of the constitution, to remove
them beyond the limits of the state. Last year the provision
of this law was extended twelve months longer. We learn by the
late California papers that a bill has just passed the Assembly,
by a vote of 33 to 21, continuing the same law in force until
1855. The provisions of this bill embraces slaves who have been
carried to California since the adoption of her constitution, as
well as those who were there previously. The large majority
by which it passed, and the opinions advanced during the discussion,
indicates a more favorable state of sentiment in regard to
the rights of slaveholders in California than we supposed existed.”—Mississippian.
No one who is a general and intelligent observer of the politics
of this country, will after reading this, doubt for a moment
the final result.
At present there is a proposition under consideration in California
to authorize the holding of a convention to amend the
constitution of that state, which doubtless will be carried into
effect; when there is no doubt that a clause will be inserted,
granting the right to hold slaves at discretion in the state. This
being done, it will meet with general favor throughout the country
by the American people, and the policy be adopted on the
state’s rights principle. This alone is necessary, in addition to
the insufferable Fugitive Slave Law, and the recent nefarious
Nebraska Bill,—which is based upon this very boasted American
policy of the state’s rights principle,—to reduce the free to
slave states, without a murmur from the people. And did not
the Nebraska Bill disrespect the feelings and infringe upon the
political rights of Northern white people, its adoption would be
hailed with loud shouts of approbation, from Portland, Maine,
to San Francisco.
That, then, which is left for us to do, is to secure our liberty;
a position which shall fully warrant us against the liability of
such monstrous political crusades and riotous invasions of our
rights. Nothing less than a national indemnity, indelibly fixed by
virtue of our own sovereign potency, will satisfy us as a redress
of grievances for the unparalleled wrongs, undisguised impositions,
and unmitigated oppression which we have suffered at the
hands of this American people.
And what wise politician would otherwise conclude and determine?
None, we dare say. And a people who are incapable of
this discernment and precaution are incapable of self-government,
and incompetent to direct their own political destiny.
For our own part, we spurn to treat for liberty on any other
terms or conditions.
It may not be inapplicable, in this particular place, to quote,
from high authority, language which has fallen under our notice
since this report has been under our consideration. The quotation
is worth nothing, except to show that the position assumed
by us is a natural one, which constitutes the essential basis of
self-protection.
Said Earl Aberdeen recently, in the British House of Lords,
when referring to the great question which is now agitating
Europe, “One thing alone is certain, that the only way to obtain
a sure and honorable peace, is to acquire a position which
may command it; and to gain such a position, every nerve and
sinew of the empire should be strained. The pickpocket who
robs us is not to be let off because he offers to restore our
purse;” and his lordship might have justly added, “should never
thereafter be intrusted or confided in.”
The plea, doubtless, will be, as it already frequently has been
raised, that to remove from the United States, our slave brethren
would be left without a hope. They already find their way
in large companies to the Canadas, and they have only to be
made sensible that there is as much freedom for them South as
there is North; as much protection in Mexico as in Canada; and
the fugitive slave will find it a much pleasanter journey and
more easy of access, to wend his way from Louisiana and Arkansas
to Mexico, than thousands of miles through the slaveholders
of the South and slave-catchers of the North to Canada.
Once into Mexico, and his farther exit to Central and South
America and the West Indies would be certain. There would
be no obstructions whatever. No miserable, half-starved, servile
Northern slave-catchers by the way, waiting, cap in hand,
ready and willing to do the bidding of their contemptible Southern
masters.
No prisons nor court-houses, as slave-pens and garrisons, to
secure the fugitive and rendezvous the mercenary gangs, who
are bought as military on such occasions. No perjured marshals,
bribed commissioners, nor hireling counsel, who, spaniel-like,
crouch at the feet of Southern slaveholders, and cringingly
tremble at the crack of their whip. No, not as may be encountered
throughout his northern flight, there are none of these to
be found or met with in his travels from the Bravo del Norte to
the dashing Orinoco—from the borders of Texas to the boundaries
of Peru.
Should anything occur to prevent a successful emigration to
the south—Central, South America, and the West Indies—we
have no hesitancy, rather than remain in the United States, the
merest subordinates and serviles of the whites, should the Canadas
still continue separate in their political relations from this
country, to recommend to the great body of our people to remove
to Canada West, where, being politically equal to the
whites, physically united with each other by a concentration of
strength; when worse comes to worse, we may be found, not as
a scattered, weak, and impotent people, as we now are separated
from each other throughout the Union, but a united and powerful
body of freemen, mighty in politics, and terrible in any conflict
which might ensue, in the event of an attempt at the disturbance
of our political relations, domestic repose, and peaceful
firesides.
Now, fellow-countrymen, we have done. Into your ears have
we recounted your own sorrows; before your own eyes have we
exhibited your wrongs; into your own hands have we committed
your own cause. If these should prove inadequate to remedy
this dreadful evil, to assuage this terrible curse which has come
upon us, the fault will be yours and not ours; since we have
offered you a healing balm for every sorely aggravated wound.
- Martin R. Delany, Pa.
- William Webb, Pa.
- Augustus R. Green, Ohio.
- Edward Butler, Mo.
- H. S. Douglas, La.
- A. Dudley, Wis.
- Conaway Barbour, Ky.
- Wm. J. Fuller, R. I.
- Wm. Lambert, Mich.
- J. Theodore Holly, N. Y.
- T. A. White, Ind.
- John A. Warren, Canada.