Chapter III: The Ex-Slave as He Is (2)

“One hot night in September ... I was travelling by rail in the State
of Alabama. At rather late bedtime there came aboard the train a young
mother and her little daughter of three or four years. They were
neatly and tastefully dressed in cool, fresh muslins, and as the train
went on its way they sat together very still and quiet. At the next
station there came aboard a most melancholy and revolting company. In
filthy rags, with vile odours, and the clanking of shackles and
chains, nine penitentiary convicts chained to one chain, and ten more
chained to another, dragged laboriously into the compartment of the
car where in one corner sat this mother and child, and packed it full,
and the train moved on. The keeper of the convicts told me he should
take them in that car 200 miles that night. They were going to the
mines. My seat was not in that car, and I stayed in it but a moment.
It stank insufferably. I returned to my own place in the coach behind,
where there was, and had all the time been, plenty of room. But the
mother and child sat on in silence in that foul hole, the conductor
having distinctly refused them admission elsewhere because they were
of African blood, and not because the mother was, but because she was
not, engaged at the moment in menial service. Had the child been
white, and the mother not its natural but its hired guardian, she
could have sat anywhere in the train.”—MR. G. W. CABLE.

“During a day’s stay in Atlanta lately, the present writer saw many
things greatly to admire.... He feels constrained to ask whether it
must be that in the principal depôt of such a city the hopeless
excommunication of every person of African tincture from the civil
rewards of gentility must be advertised by three signs at the
entrances of three separate rooms, one for ‘Ladies,’ one for
‘Gentlemen,’ and the third a ‘Coloured Waiting-room?’ Visiting the
principal library of the city, he was eagerly assured, in response to
inquiry, that no person of colour would be allowed to draw out
books.”—MR. G. W. CABLE.

“Postmaster Lewis and Colonel A. E. Buck were hung in effigy in front
of the Court-house to-night, in the presence of probably 10,000
persons. This action was the result of Lewis appointing a negro to a
place in the Registry Department, where he would come in contact with
a white lady clerk.”—Letter from Atlanta, Georgia, of August 8th,
1889, to Charleston _News and Courier_.

“The Rev. J. Francis Robinson, a Baptist preacher of good character,
has been visiting in the City of Auburn, New York. The day after his
arrival he wished to get shaved, and went to a barber-shop, but was
refused attention. He went in succession to several other
barber-shops, but received the same treatment at each. The Rev. F. D.
Penny, pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Auburn, accompanied the
Rev. Mr. Robinson to a number of shops, and offered the proprietors a
dollar to shave his friend, but his co-operation was of no use. The
trouble was that the Rev. Mr. Robinson had a black skin, and, as one
of the barbers said, ‘I refused to shave him because it is against the
rules of the trade to shave a coloured man.’”—New York _Evening Post_,
August 6th, 1889.

“Deacon J. H. Brown, of the First African Baptist Church, of this
city, had quite an unpleasant experience at Baxley yesterday. He is on
his way, along with other coloured deacons and clergymen, to a
convention of the church at Indianapolis. Six of them entered the
white people’s coach, filled largely with ladies, and, despite the
repeated protests of the passengers, would not vacate their seats. One
passenger wired to Baxley over the signature of ‘Passenger,’ asking
for help to put the negroes out, and stating that he would make
himself known when the train arrived. When Baxley was reached a crowd
of men boarded the train and requested the negroes to leave. They
refused. This did not change their purpose, and force was then used.
In the fight that ensued two men were cut, but not very seriously. The
train pulled out quickly to prevent further disturbance, and a
physician at Lumber City was telegraphed for to meet the wounded men
there. He refused, but subsequently one was secured and the men cared
for. Brown was hurt about the head and face from blows inflicted by a
club.”—Savannah (Georgia) _Times_, September 10th, 1889.

“The colour line question has nearly caused a split in the Independent
Baptists’ Union. An organisation composed of Baptist ministers of
Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland is in session here. The Rev. H.
A. Braxton, a coloured member, objected to the use of the word
‘coloured’ in a report referring to work among his race. This
objection fired the Southern sentiment of some of the white brethren,
and a sharp discussion ensued. Preacher Braxton declared that he was
opposed to ecclesiastical bossism, and wanted the colour line buried.
Dr. A. C. Dickinson, editor of the _Religious Herald_, of Richmond,
asked: ‘Do you want us to treat you every way as if you were not
coloured?’ The Rev. Mr. Braxton replied: ‘Yes, we want to be treated
as men, and we want no special favours.’ The Rev. A. C. Dickinson
said: ‘Do you want us to bury the colour line? If so, where is it to
be buried—on the white side or on the black? The colour is there. God
put it there. Leaving out the word “coloured” won’t help it. Now, what
are you going to do about it? Do you intend to give up your convention
and your churches and join ours, or do you want us to give up ours and
join yours?’ Rev. Dr. J. W. M. Williams, one of the most prominent
Baptists in the South, said: “If you (the coloured people) don’t
intend to stop talking on this question, then, in the name of the
Lord, go by yourselves and talk all day on the question of colour. If
the coloured people see they can do their work better alone, let them
go and work by themselves.’”—General Press Telegram from Baltimore,
Maryland, October 18th, 1889.

“A delegation of citizens waited on Governor Gordon to-day, and asked
him to take action concerning the whipping of a number of negroes by
unknown white men at East Point, near Atlanta. The affair occurred
late last night. It was the outgrowth of the lynching of a negro boy
on Wednesday night for the usual crime. The negroes had a mass
meeting, and the citizens, becoming alarmed, sent for police from
Atlanta. The presence of the officers prevented further trouble, but
after they had gone a number of white men went to different cabins and
whipped the negroes, fourteen in all.”—Atlanta despatch of September
6, 1889, to Charleston _News and Courier._

A man named L. P. Smith was employed as a detective. He arrested one
Jackson, a negro, mistaking him for a murderer who was “wanted.”
Finding out his error, but desiring to secure the reward, he offered
to release Jackson if the latter would submit to have one of his ears
cut off, that ear bearing a mark similar to one on the ear of the
sought for murderer. Jackson agreed. Smith, uneasy as to what he had
done, then shot Jackson, who, however, lived long enough to make a
statement.—Summarised from a Birmingham (Alabama) despatch of
September, 1889.

The mutilated bodies of Rosmond Cormier, coloured, and his daughter
Rosalie were found in a cabin on the Abbeville Road, near Lafayette,
Louisiana. Cormier, who was sixty, had been previously whipped and
ordered by a band of “Regulators” to leave the district, but had not
complied. The “Regulators” returned, demanded admittance to the cabin,
were refused, and were fired at in self-defence by Cormier. They then
shot him and cut his daughter’s throat from ear to ear. On the same
night they very severely whipped two other negroes.—Summarised from a
New Orleans despatch of September 11th, 1889, to the Charleston _News
and Courier._

“In Fulton County, Georgia, a black boy of eighteen years was taken
from gaol and hanged for ‘assaulting’ a white girl, the assault
consisting of catching the child by the arms and running away when she
and her companion screamed. Then a pack of white ruffians, heavily
armed, went from one cabin to another in an alleged search for a
criminal, and barbarously whipped and maltreated inoffensive negroes,
who were powerless to defend themselves against shot-guns and
revolvers presented at their heads.”—_Greenville News_, September
10th, 1889.

“There are symptoms of a race war in Missouri, at Dexter.... The
people in that section have for years excluded all negroes from among
them. A short time ago a man named Williams settled on a farm there,
and engaged a dozen negroes to work for him. Fifty armed white men
waited upon him this week, and told him he must get rid of the
negroes. He said they might kill him first. The armed men returned to
town, where they are circulating a paper pledging the signers to stand
by the ‘Regulators.’”—Charleston _News and Courier_, September 14th,
1889.

“Robert Battey, a negro juror, was refused admission to the
dining-room at the Augusta Hotel yesterday. He was the only coloured
man on the jury, which was empanelled to try a criminal case in the
City Court, and when the hour of dinner arrived the case was of such
importance that Judge Eve ordered the jury to be kept together....
Upon arriving at the hotel Mr. B. S. Doolittle, the proprietor, who
is, by the way, a Northern man, refused Battey, the coloured juror,
admission to his dining-room, where a number of ladies and gentlemen
were seated at dinner. Mr. Doolittle offered to furnish the coloured
juror with his meal in another room, but Battey would not consent to
be isolated in that manner, and before he would go into the private
room he went home, where he enjoyed his usual meal in custody of an
officer. This attempted intrusion of a negro into the dining-hall of
an hotel called forth considerable comment, and Mr. Doolittle was
upheld in his refusal to serve Battey with dinner at the same table
with white people.”—Augusta (Georgia) despatch of October 4th, 1889,
to Charleston _News and Courier_

I have, perhaps, cited sufficient examples of white intolerance and tyranny. These characteristics are, it will have been observed, not exclusively confined to the South. I should add that, in several States, what is known as miscegenation, or, to be plain, marriage between a white and a black or coloured person, is illegal.

After reading what I have written and quoted, can any one fail to ask himself these questions? Is there any doubt that there is a race problem of infinite difficulty and danger awaiting, nay crying for, solution in America? Is it not true that there is practically one law for the black and another for the white in the South? Is it likely that the negro’s civil rights will ever be respected by the Southern whites? Can civilisation admit the claim of the South to be permitted to settle the race question in its own way? Is it not the duty of the United States to deal with the question? Is the position of the Southern black likely to become more tolerable or less, under the existing system? I might insist much more than I have done upon the negro’s unfortunate situation. I might picture him, in all detail, as he is in the school, in the church, and even in the graveyard—a being kept remorselessly apart from his white fellows. But I am anxious not to be one-sided, and not to allow my natural sympathy for the black man’s wrongs to render me blind to the fact that the white man, too, has wrongs great and intolerable. What these wrongs are I shall attempt to show when I deal with the position of the Southern white. In the meanwhile I will conclude my present division of the subject with a few notes on the sanitary, moral, educational, and material position of the Southern negro of to-day.

As to his sanitary position I have, I regret to say, no very modern statistics at my disposal. The latest that convey a fairly broad view of the situation apply to the years 1883 and 1885; but there is no doubt that things have very little changed since then. The death-rate, among children under five years old, per 1,000 of the whole population, for the year 1883 was—in Charleston, white 5·88, coloured 21·3; in Memphis, white 3·75, coloured 13·91; in Nashville, white 5·65, coloured 12·44; and in Savannah, white 7·59, coloured 18·01. The rate in 1885 was—in Charleston, white 4·45, coloured 14·38; in Memphis, white 4·67, coloured 13·46; in Nashville, white 4·37, coloured 10·78; and in Savannah, white 4·23, coloured 13·70. Squalid dwellings, in filthy neighbourhoods, impure air, dirty water, neglect of personal cleanliness, immorality, extensive meat consumption without vegetable diet to match, and gregarious and generally unsavoury habits, induce a black mortality which, at least in the large centres, is enormous, and is particularly noticeable under the heads of consumption, pneumonia, and scrofula.

Bearing upon this point, a paragraph from the New York _Tribune_, of August 20th, 1889, deserves quotation:—

“As the result of extended observations, including thousands of cases,
thirty-six per cent. being negroes, and mulattoes, Dr. L. McLane
Tiffany, of Baltimore, finds some marked differences in the diseases
of whites and blacks. Thus, spinal caries is more frequently located
in the dorsal region of the negro, and a cured case of Pott’s disease
in the middleaged negro is very rare: dislocations are more frequent
in the white, as is also lateral curvature of the spine; keloid is
characteristically more frequent in the negro, likewise lipoma.
Although Dr. Tiffany has never seen an epithelioma of the lip or any
part of the face in a negro, osteo-sarcoma is often met with in the
race. In hospital cases, the negro bears operations better, as a rule,
than the white, but their reaction after accidents is not so good as
that of the latter. Dr. Tiffany concludes that surgical affections
pursue different courses in the white and coloured races under
identical hygienic surroundings; that surgical diseases involving the
lymphatic system, especially tubercular, are more fatal in negroes
than in whites; that congenital deformities are more rare in negroes
than in whites; and that surgical differences observed between negroes
and whites are due to racial peculiarities.”

Yet the excess of mortality among the coloured people, large though it be, is more than counterbalanced by their superior fecundity. This is very remarkable, seeing that in many cities where the whites outnumber the blacks as two to one, the death-rate among the latter positively exceeds that among the former. In Charleston, for example, the death-rate in 1884 was for the whites 1 in 42, and for the coloured 1 in 22; and in 1883, for the whites 1 in 46, and for the coloured 1 in 21. This is rendered the more striking by the fact that the poorer coloured people in Charleston are supplied with medicines and medical attention at the expense of the city. In 1884 no fewer than 17,950 coloured patients were treated in the city hospital and in the different health districts, as against only about one-third of that number of white patients. In 1886 the Charleston death-rate was, per 1,000, for whites 20·65 and for coloured 49·01. In 1887, out of 41,000 whites in Atlanta, Georgia, 608 died, while out of 22,000 coloured people 707 died. Again, in the week ending March 9, 1889, the estimated population of New Orleans was—whites, 184,500; coloured, 69,500; and the death-rate per 1,000 was—whites, 14·13; coloured, 30·03. And the story is much the same everywhere. The negroes die like flies, and increase only because they also breed like flies.

Their moral condition, as shown by criminal statistics and by the testimony of competent observers, is equally unsatisfactory. Says the Rev. Dr. Tucker, formerly of Jackson, Mississippi:—

“In all the country districts the removal of the restraints of
slavery, such as they were, has resulted in an open abandonment of
every semblance of morality and the loss almost of the idea of
marriage. Why, in one county of Mississippi, there were during twelve
months 300 marriage licences taken out in the county clerk’s office
for white people. According to the proportion of population, there
should have been in the same time 1,200 or more for negroes. There can
be no legal marriage of any sort in Mississippi without a licence.
There were actually taken out by coloured people just three!... Soon
after the war the Legislature passed an Act legalising the union of
all who were then living together, marrying them whether they wished
or not; and for years afterwards the courts were crowded with
applications for divorce from coloured people, which mostly had to be
granted, since there was ample cause for divorce under either the
Divine or the statute law. I know of whole neighbourhoods, including
hundreds of negro families, where there is not one single legally
married couple, or couple not married, who stay faithful to each other
beyond a few months, or a few years at most; often but a few weeks.
And if out of every 500 negro families one excepts a few dozen who are
legally married, this statement will hold true for millions of
coloured people. And these things I tell you to-night are but hints. I
cannot, I dare not, tell the full truth before a mixed audience.”

These words were originally spoken before the Episcopal Congress at Richmond, Virginia, in 1882; they were subsequently published in a pamphlet, and I am generally assured, and implicitly believe, that they were true then and are true now. Even the negroes themselves dare not deny them. One negro preacher published a pamphlet, in which he admitted that—

“This speech reveals humiliating facts, so truthful, yet hard to
acknowledge. Not one of our social circles, if we can be said to have
any, is clean morally. They are full of base, downright hypocrisy and
falsehood, and full two-thirds of the whole are members of the
churches. Moral character is not the standard. Crimes that should
cause a blush on fair cheeks assume a front of brass, and defy you to
speak of or talk about them.... A coloured man, only a few days ago,
contended with me that the negroes were right in certain of their
practices, because the Lord Jesus himself said that ‘Seven women
should lay hold of one man.’”

Such was the confession of the Rev. Isaac Williams, with whom four other negro preachers fully concurred, adding—

“Our acquaintance extends over seven to ten thousand coloured people,
concerning whose lives we know the truth, and that truth is set forth
in Dr. Tucker’s speech without exaggeration. There are exceptions, but
the general truth is stated exactly as it is. We agree also that he
has only given hints as regards many things of such a nature that only
hints are possible.”

On this repulsive subject I also have said enough. Nor will I say much concerning the degrading superstitions and superstitious practices of the great mass of ignorant blacks. Two years ago the _Herald_, a respectable paper in Boston, published an article five and a half columns long, the object of which was to demonstrate that Voodooism existed to an alarming extent among the coloured people of Boston and New England generally. Here are a couple of extracts:—

“No people are so prone by nature and force of circumstances to
superstition as the blacks. Devout and easily excited, they are apt to
accept, blindly and without reasoning, the traditions of their
fathers; and even among those of reasonable education there are traces
of the idolatrous creeds and customs which have always characterised
the West India Negroes. Voodooism, of which much has been hinted, a
little written, but almost nothing known—one of the blackest, crudest,
and most heathenish forms of idolatry the world has ever seen—exists
to-day to an alarming extent right here in Puritan New England.”

“Perhaps the fact that the negroes have always regarded themselves as
a wronged people impels them to cultivate a revengeful spirit; and the
prevailing object of their so-called spells is in the direction of
working harm to their enemies. They pay more attention to vengeance
than to the cure of diseases, although claiming wonderful power from
their herbs and decoctions. The prevailing sentiment, if it may be so
termed, of Voodooism, aside from idolatry, is revenge, and in their
hatreds these people are implacable. No punishment is too horrible to
be visited upon their enemies.”

Most white Bostonians believed that the article was full of exaggerations, but, to the general surprise, the negroes practically admitted the impeachment.

Here is part of a resolution which was passed in July, 1889, by the Coloured National League sitting at Boston:—

“Whereas the Boston _Herald_ has lately shown that the degrading
superstition of Voodooism, as well as its practice, exists here in
Boston to some extent among a few illiterate and ignorant persons of
our race; and whereas the sentiment among the better class of coloured
people is that no one should be swifter to condemn any kind of foolish
race superstition or disreputable practice than the coloured people
themselves; and whereas it should everywhere be the aim and desire of
the coloured people to welcome any information that may show the need
of greater race enlightenment, or that shall stir us up to more
earnest efforts for the general elevation of our people; be it
resolved that the League places itself on record as being both anxious
and willing to strike hands with the _Herald_, or any one else, in
condemning, discountenancing, and stamping out Voodooism or any other
‘ism’ hurtful to the physical, moral, or spiritual elevation of the
coloured people; and that the League calls upon good coloured people
everywhere to set their face like a flint against every kind or evil
superstition, habit, practice, custom, or belief, whose tendency, if
encouraged, might be to degrade, belittle, or harm the coloured people
in public estimation.”

I may add that, not perhaps at Boston, but certainly in the South, and especially in Louisiana, Voodooism exists to-day. I pass on to criminal statistics as they concern the negro.

I will first take some suggestive statistics concerning the State of Mississippi, one of the “blackest” States in the Union, the population, according to the Census of 1880, having been—white, 479,398; coloured, 650,291. In the State Penitentiary on December 1, 1885, there were 103 white and 676 coloured males. Of the coloured people 113 were mulattoes, and the total number of coloured criminals in Mississippi in 1885 would be still further augmented if the number of judicial and irregular executions could be ascertained. As it is, it is clear that an unduly large proportion of criminality is furnished by the negro and negroid population. Mr. H. S. Fulkerson, who has written an interesting pamphlet on “The Negro” (Vicksburg, Mississippi, 1887), was induced by these startling figures to go further into the subject, and to examine the gaol register of Vicksburg, Mississippi, from March 1st, 1886, to February 28th, 1887. He found the commitments for the year to have been 446, as many as 426 of the prisoners being coloured, and only 20 white. The population of Vicksburg in 1880 was—whites 5,975; coloured, 5,836. He also examined, for the same period, the register of Vicksburg Workhouse, an institution in which violators of the city ordinances, &c., are confined. Of 1,416 persons committed 992 were coloured and 424 white. In 1889, in Charleston, 2,202 coloured persons were arrested, as against only 1,250 whites. Most of the arrests during the year were made for the following offences:

────────────────────┬─────────┬─────────
│ Whites. │Coloured.
────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────
Disorderly conduct │ 160│ 518
Drunk │ 248│ 165
Drunk and disorderly│ 242│ 291
────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────
Total │ 650│ 974
────────────────────┴─────────┴─────────

And here, to put the matter in a nutshell, are the relative proportions, as gathered from the United States Census of Prisoners, of black to white criminality in half a dozen States:—Massachusetts, 2¾ to 1; Indiana, 6¼; to 1; Illinois, 2·4 to 1; Tennessee, 5 to 1; South Carolina, 6¾ to 1; and Georgia, 7·8 to 1. Thus in Tennessee the coloured man is five times as prone to criminality as the white, and in Georgia nearly eight times. And it must be borne in mind that these figures deal only with that portion of the total criminality which finds its way into prison. They do not, and no official figures can, take into account the criminality which is summarily punished by the operation of lynch law; and every one who knows the South knows also that, out of every fifty persons who are lynched there, at least forty-nine are of coloured complexion. Of lynching, however, I shall speak later, for it is mainly reserved as a punishment for one particular crime, the prevalence of which has a most important bearing upon the position of the Southern white.

Educationally, the coloured man has undoubtedly made great progress since his emancipation. In the slavery days ignorance was imposed by law upon the slave. Says the South Carolinian statute of 1834:—“If any person shall hereafter teach any slave to read or write, or procure any slave to be taught to read or write, such person, if a free white person, shall be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars for each offence and imprisonment not less than six months; or, if a free person of colour, shall be whipped not exceeding fifty lashes and fined not exceeding fifty dollars; and, if a slave, shall be whipped at the discretion of the Court not exceeding fifty lashes; the informer to be entitled to one-half the fine and to be a competent witness.” And up to the day of emancipation the slave was, with scarcely an exception, kept in the densest ignorance. From the close of the war to the taking of the tenth census only fifteen years elapsed. In that period the adult negro had not greatly advanced, but the negro youth had made an amount of progress which, though by no means startling, was, I think, distinctly encouraging. The following table shows (1) the illiteracy of the male adult negro, and (2) the illiteracy of the whole negro population of the Black Belt in 1880:—

──────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────
│ Total │ Illiterate │ Total │ Total
│ Coloured │ Coloured │ Coloured │ Coloured
│Male Adults.│Male Adults.│Population. │Illiterates.
──────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────
Virginia │ 128,257│ 100,210│ 631,707│ 315,660
North Carolina│ 105,018│ 80,282│ 532,505│ 271,943
South Carolina│ 118,889│ 93,010│ 604,472│ 310,071
Georgia │ 143,471│ 116,516│ 725,274│ 391,482
Florida │ 27,489│ 19,110│ 126,838│ 60,420
Alabama │ 118,423│ 96,408│ 600,320│ 321,680
Mississippi │ 130,278│ 99,068│ 652,199│ 319,753
Louisiana │ 107,977│ 86,555│ 484,992│ 259,429
──────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────
│ 879,802│ 691,159│ 4,358,357│ 2,250,438
──────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────

Thus, while the proportion of male adults who could read and write was, roughly speaking, only one in four, the proportion of coloured people of all ages was one in two. I have been informed at Washington that the eleventh census is likely to show that in these States seven coloured people out of every ten have escaped the imputation of illiteracy; but at the same time I have been warned that “writing” necessarily implies nothing more than ability to laboriously trace a signature, and that “reading” does not involve the ability to mark, learn, and inwardly digest anything more abstruse than a sentence in monosyllables. As Judge Tourgée has said:—

“One of the encouraging phases of the present situation is the fact
that a coloured man is proud of the distinction of being able to read
and write. It is to him a sort of patent of nobility. It shows to the
world that he has gone above the level, that he has come up above the
mass of his fellows, and is worthy of distinction and consideration in
this respect if in no other. Because of these facts the statistics of
illiteracy among the coloured people are peculiarly unreliable.”

We may accept them as such, and yet regard them as encouraging. The level of education is rising. It has not risen high, and the number of negroes who possess such an education as is the property of a senior boy at a London Board School may probably, even now, not mount to six figures. But there is promise in the fact that the race supplies for its own improvement over 16,000 school teachers. An educated negro has supplied some statistics on the subject of coloured education in the South:—

“In 1887–88,” he writes, “there were 15,000 public schools, having
1,118,556 pupils; 16 normal schools, 119 teachers and 3,924 pupils,
with property valued at $992,350; 31 schools for secondary
instruction, 247 teachers, with 6,555 students, and property valued at
$843,100; 11 colleges of arts and sciences, 79 teachers, 922 students,
and property valued at $1,443,000; two schools of science, 29
teachers, 840 students, and property valued at $50,000; 16 theological
schools, 77 teachers, 833 students, and $489,500 in property; 4 law
schools, 16 teachers, 81 students, and $40,000 in property; 3 schools
of medicine, 48 teachers, 165 students, and $80,000 in property; while
there were 2,081 pupils in schools for the blind and dumb, making a
total of 16,430 teachers, 1,139,904 pupils, and $3,934,950 in school
property.”

Unfortunately there are no symptoms whatever that the spread of education among the negroes is causing, or ever will cause, the diminution of white prejudice against the race.

Concerning the material position of the negroes opinions vary greatly. There is no doubt, however, that they are gradually acquiring property, and, in a few cases, accumulating capital. It was recently declared that coloured people owned a million acres of land in Texas alone, paying taxes there on twenty million dollars’ worth of property, and there were in the State twenty-five coloured lawyers, one hundred coloured merchants, five thousand coloured mechanics, and fifteen newspapers conducted by coloured people. Somewhat similar statements have been made, by negro speakers and writers chiefly, concerning the progress of the race elsewhere. Says one journal:—

“Georgia’s coloured people are making a good record for thrift and
industry. In 1879 their property was valued at $5,182,398; but in 1887
the valuation was $8,939,479, showing a gain of 72½ per cent. during
the nine years. In the same time the valuation of white men’s property
had risen from $229,777,150 to $332,565,442, a gain of only 44·6 per
cent. approximately. These figures simply prove what the intelligent
representatives of the negro race have said about the progress made,
and go to illustrate anew that the negroes are working out their own
future. The richest coloured woman in the South, Mrs. Amanda Ewas, who
has a snug fortune of $400,000, lives in Atlanta.”

On the other hand, the Charleston _News and Courier_ points out that in Charleston the negroes stand just where they did in 1860; that the value of the property held by them to-day is just about the same as that held by the free negroes twenty-eight years ago, and that, strange to say, the coloured property holders are of the same class as in 1860, namely, the descendants of negroes who were free before the war.

I have had an opportunity of examining the assessment rolls of Chatham County, in which the city of Savannah, Georgia, is situated. These, as compiled in the summer of 1889, give the following results:—

────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────
│Population. │ Property. │Property per
│ │ │ Head.
────────┼────────────┼────────────┼────────────
Whites │ 17,494│$126,420,780│ $1,510
Coloured│ 27,515│ 571,450│ 21
────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────

The negroes and coloured people, therefore, who constitute 61 per cent. of the local population, hold only 2 per cent. of the local wealth.

On the same subject the New Orleans _Times-Democrat_ says:—

“We doubt whether the value of property held by coloured men in New
Orleans is any greater to-day than that held by the freedmen of colour
in 1860, and yet both in New Orleans and throughout Louisiana the
negro has been improving his condition steadily. It takes more than
one generation, however, to raise a race held in bonds of slavery to
the condition of property holders. When the hundreds of millions of
dollars that have been paid the negroes in wages and the millions
wasted by them in the veriest trash are considered, it seems strange
that so few dollars have been invested in land, houses, or any
permanent property. The freedmen of colour who inherited land or
houses have held on to them, or at least to a portion of them. The
negroes engaged in any very profitable trade or business may have laid
aside something and own some little property, but the great majority
of the race, who are simply farm hands, labourers, or domestic
servants, have acquired no permanent property of any kind.”

As a further illustration of the relative status of blacks and whites in what may be regarded as a representative section of the Black Belt, I append some interesting and detailed official statistics of Richmond County, Georgia, a county which had a total population in 1870 of 25,724, and in 1880 of 34,665, and which is one of the most populous and well-to-do counties in the State. In it, moreover, the races are almost equally divided.

Polls for 1889—White 5,069, coloured 4,029; total 9,098. Polls for
1888—White 4,923, coloured 3,844; total 8,767—an increase of 331.

Lawyers in 1889—White 50, coloured 1; total 51. Lawyers in 1888—White
48, coloured 1; total 49—an increase of 2.

Doctors in 1889—White 53, coloured 1. In 1888—White 46, coloured 2—an
increase of 6.

Dentists in 1889—White 11, coloured 1; and the same for 1888.

Acres of land owned in 1889—White 180,332, coloured 4,943; total
185,275. Acres in 1888—White 180,835¼, coloured 4,661; total
185,496¼—a decrease of 221¼ acres.

Aggregate value of land in 1889—White $1,571,550, coloured $64,440;
total $1,638,990. In 1888—White $1,619,720, coloured $66,810; total
$1,686,530—a decrease of $47,540.

Aggregate value of city or town property in 1889—White $9,713,140,
coloured $438,940; total $10,152,080. In 1888—white $9,364,150,
coloured $416,620; total $9,980,770—an increase of $371,310.

The number of shares in State or national banks is the same for 1888
and 1889, and is 20,300, and they are all owned by the whites.

The value of shares of such bank stock for 1889 is returned at
$887,000, and for 1888 was returned at $1,002,000, showing a decrease
of $115,000.

Property owned by gas or electric light companies is all owned by
whites, and is valued in 1889 at $203,840, and for 1888 was returned
at $215,250, showing a decrease of $11,410.

Amount of money and solvent debts, notes, accounts, etc., for
1889—whites $1,358,890, coloured $150; total $1,359,040. In
1888—whites $1,491,630, coloured $150; total $1,491,780—a decrease of
$132,740.

Merchandise of every sort for 1889—whites $1,260,550, coloured $5,730;
total $1,266,280. In 1888—whites $1,278,290, coloured $5,680; total
$1,283,970—a decrease of $17,690.

The capital invested in shipping and tonnage is all white, and for
1889 is $16,200. In 1888 it was $27,620—a decrease of $11,420.

Stocks and bonds are all white, and for 1889 are returned at
$1,209,120, and for 1888 at $1,400,630, showing a decrease of
$191,510.

Cotton manufactories are all white, and are returned for 1889 at
$4,023,300, against $3,946,000 for 1888—an increase of $77,300.

Iron works, foundries, etc., are all white, and are returned for 1889
at $33,500, against $35,500, showing a decrease of $2,000.

Value of household and kitchen furniture, pianos, organs, etc., for
1889—White $570,690, coloured $17,990; total $588,680. In 1888—White
$550,300, coloured $14,490; total $564,790—an increase of $23,890.

Watches, silver plate, and jewellery for 1880—White $74,020, coloured
$50; total $74,070. In 1888—White $77,950, coloured $50; total
$78,000—a decrease of $3,930.

Horses, mules, hogs, sheep, cattle, etc., for 1889—White $200,140,
coloured $12,820; total $212,960. In 1888—White $199,430, coloured
$13,580; total $213,016—a decrease of $50.

Plantation and mechanical tools, law or other library books, pictures,
etc., are all returned by whites, and for 1889 are $63,100, against
$71,650 for 1888, showing a decrease of $8,550.

Cotton, corn, crops, and provisions held for sale on April 1st are all
white, and are returned for $350 in 1889 and $2,000 in 1888, showing a
decrease of $1,650.

Value of all other property not before enumerated for 1889—White
$405,170, coloured $4,440; total $409,610. In 1888—White $343,430,
coloured $3,960; total $357,390—an increase of $52,220.

Aggregate value of whole property in 1889—White $21,590,560, coloured
$547,560; total $22,138,120. In 1888—White $21,635,550, coloured
$521,340; total $22,156,890—an aggregated decrease of $18,770.

In view of facts like these, it is hard to know what to make of the favourite negro declaration that the coloured people will, in the not distant future, be as powerful in the South in the matter of wealth as they already are in the matter of numbers. I believe, nevertheless, that it may be accepted that the material improvement in the coloured man’s condition is more noticeable than his improvement in any other direction. He lives more comfortably and dresses better than he did eight or ten years ago; and, as his main ambitions are physical and material rather than intellectual and æsthetic, he is entitled to congratulate himself.

The general progress of the negro does not, however, satisfy those who once cherished the highest hopes on his behalf. Here is a suggestive, and, as I happen to know, a true paragraph, dated Atlanta, Georgia, June 1, 1889, which I clip from a Southern newspaper:—

“A celebrated English philanthropist was buried here yesterday, having
died at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Booth. John Glazebrook was
his name, and he was a citizen of Manchester, England. He was a man of
great wealth, and becoming interested in the abolition of slavery in
the United States, spent thousands of pounds in aiding the agitation.
He paid the expenses of lecturers, had runaway slaves exhibited before
English audiences, and placed his fortune in the scales to accomplish
the abolition of human servitude. A few months ago he decided to visit
this country for the purpose of seeing whether the negro had improved.
He died with the declaration that he had wasted his money, and that
freedom had brought no benefit to the negro.”