Chapter II: Part 2

Liberty and equality then reigned in the French mind and however vague the idea which had found lodgment in the brain of the San Domingo blacks and mulattos, it was nevertheless sufficiently entrancing to call them from the depths of the inferno in which they were cast and to tempt them to essay the dizziest heights. At a later period this most remarkable man in explaining the object for which he was contending, defined his idea of liberty in words worthy of that greatest statesman, soldier and patriot that has adorned the Negro Race in modern times.[3] He said: "It is not a liberty of circumstance, conceded to us alone, that we wish; it is the adoption of the principle absolute that no man, born red, black or white, can be the property of his fellow man."

[3] "But Bonaparte's plans were doomed to encounter an obstacle in the
most remarkable man of negro blood known to modern history.
Toussaint L'Ouverture was the descendant, he claimed, of an African
chieftain. Highly endowed by nature, he had obtained an excellent
education, and had gradually, though born a slave, cultivated his
innate power of leadership until all the blacks of San Domingo
regarded him with affection and awe."--Sloan's Napoleon, Vol. II,
pages 236-237.

Thus spoke Toussaint L'Ouverture, the man of whom Lamartine says: "After God, this man was a nation;" thus he spoke in 1799, a time when all the nations of the earth were themselves slaves to slavery. To this black man was given to see the truth; to them it was not given.

We are now, I trust, prepared to estimate that thirteen years' struggle which went on in that island, during which the tidal wave of destruction, torture, and death, swept the land from side to side, and from end to end, inundating everything except the indomitable spirit of the humble people to whom the heavens of freedom had been opened. Truly does MacMaster class it among the noblest struggles for liberty. I cannot detail that mighty struggle here. For the history of those thirteen eventful years, for the instructive and thrilling story of those heroic black men who garlanded our race, I must refer you to my book on the Haitian Revolution from 1791 to 1804.

We may pause here at the close of this awful period and stand in the proud presence of these triumphant black heroes, as the last of their enemies sail slowly away as prisoners of war. With the new flag floating over the fortresses of the Cape, and the victorious army well-equipped and intact, it is Dessalines, the intrepid Dessalines, never beaten in battle, never surprised in camp, who in the name of the black people and Men of Color of Saint Domingo announces:

"The Independence of Saint Domingo is Proclaimed.
"Restored to our primitive dignity, we have asserted[4] our
rights; we swear never to yield them to any power on earth."

These were the words of war-worn veterans with swords still unsheathed.

[4] "Asserting their liberties as men, he (Toussaint L'Ouverture) and
his fellow slaves rose against their masters and a servile War
insued." Sloan, ibid.

They have proclaimed independence, they must now take up the task of government. For this work their training hitherto had been the worst possible, while their anthropological and sociological condition was most unfavorable. Among them were represented fourteen different African tribes,--coming from widely separated territory in their native land and differing in customs and language.[5] Besides these diversities there was also a positive and assertive element of mulattos, some of whom had been slaveholders, and, what was worse still, the country had but recently emerged from a war of caste, a war between blacks and mulattos, more cruel than the war between the Lancastrians and Yorkists in England, and much more pernicious in the hates it bequeathed.

[5] "C'etaient des hommes tires de regiones fort differentes de
l'Afrique equatoriale ou equinoxiale. En partant du nord du
continent noir, des Senegalais, des Yolofs, des Foulahs, des
Bambaras, des Mandingoes, des Bissagots, des Sofas se
rencontraient, pele mele, dans les marches a esclaves de la
colonie. Au sud de Sierra-Leone, on embarquait pour Saint-Domingue
des negres de la Cote d'Or, dont les Aradas, les Socos, les
Fantins, les Caplaous, les Mines et les Agones. De la Cote des
Esclaves on a tire les Cotocolis, les Popos, les Fidas ou Foedas.
Viennet ensuite les Haousas, les Ibos, les Nagos; les Congos tires
de la cote du Congo ou d'Angola, partages en sous-divisions de
Congos-May youmbes, Congos-Moussombes et Mondongues. De l'Afrique
orientale ont ete tires les negres de la cote de Mosambique, dont
les Mosambiques proprement dits, les Quiriams et les Quilos, Quilos
et les Montifiats."

"M. Roosevelt, president des etats-Unis et la Republique d'Haiti,"
par A. Firmin, published 1905, p. 232-233.

"Here in Haiti, there are recognizable traces of fourteen different
African tribes." Bishop Holly. "Haitian Revolution," T. A. Steward,
p. 282.

The government set up could but be a military oligarchy. It is well known that there can be no such thing as personal liberty unless there is what may be termed a sovereignty apart from, behind and above the government.[6] With us that power behind the government, that sovereignty, is the people; but in Haiti in 1804 and for many years thereafter there was no such thing as people in a political sense. There were population, army, government, but not people. Their condition was like that of the Europeans generally during the Middle ages. In Europe there were populations, subjects, governments, vassals, tenants, serfs, slaves, soldiers, knights and lords, but not people. By people politically, we mean a body held together by some internal bond, by a spiritual consensus. Perhaps to this extent the Haitian population of 1804 might be vaguely called a people. But the idea of people politically includes also that this body must have a common consciousness of fundamental right, and a common sense of necessary duty; and then possess force of character adequate to the attainment of these rights and the fulfilment of this duty. Rights precede duty; and not vice versa. When complete the idea of people is that body which holds in its hands the sovereignty. Governments are divine, but are created by evolution, coming to us as comes our daily bread, through divinely appointed processes. Rights like the ground, are a natural endowment; government like bread is a production. It is no reflection upon Haiti to state the historic fact that in 1804 and for many years thereafter there was no such thing on her soil as people, in a political sense. The idea and the love of liberty were there and the frequent revolutions that have beset her pathway during the century of her existence attest the continued presence of that spirit. The problem of reconciling government with liberty is still unsolved. Even our own country which in this respect is in advance of all others is at this moment, according to Professor Burgess, stumbling in this process.

[6] "The Reconciliation of Government with Liberty" by John Burgess,
1915. The whole volume, Especially pp. 148-149.

The Haitian "people," then, employing the word in the popular sense were but recently from barbarism, and the little education they had received politically had been obtained through war; an excellent school perhaps for the training of leaders in the mere matters of preservation and order, but of almost no benefit in the development of the common people; although it is related by St. Remy, that Rigaud established schools in his army to have his soldiers taught to read and write. This ex-slave population of half a million souls, had been replaced during the later period of its existence as slaves, about every twenty years with fresh arrivals from Africa.[7]

[7] "Roosevelt et Haiti." A. Firmin p. 245.

No one expected the self-liberated people of Haiti to set up and maintain a stable government. All history was against such a phenomenon. If it required for England, the most fortunately situated of all the modern nations a period of nearly ten centuries to reach stable government, how could Haiti with its population of ex-barbarians and ex-slaves be expected to perform at once so brilliant a feat? Is Haiti, because it is black, expected to do the impossible? Firmin says at the time of which we speak, there was scarcely a person who did not ridicule the idea that Dessalines and his associates should even think they could create a country and govern it independent of foreign control. The statesmen of France were so sure that these people would fail, simply because of racial weakness, that they confidently expected the colony to return to France. They had not given up this hope ten years later; for in 1814 when the island was divided in government, these statesmen proposed to both Christophe who governed in the North, and to Petion who governed in the West that they should return the island to the mother country. They offered to these two colored rulers the highest grades in the French army and large sums of money; but neither Christophe nor Petion could be bought.[8] In this connection, I may remark on the authority of Professor Sloan (his standard work--Life of Napoleon) that it was the heroic resistance of Toussaint L'Ouverture and his compatriots that defeated Bonaparte's plan for the Western Hemisphere and gave us Louisiana. In a letter written by Robert G. Harper in March 1799,[9] which has just reached my hands through the American Historical Society, I find the following: "Last summer, while Mr. Gerry was still in Paris, and the Directory was employing every artifice to keep him there, Hedouville was preparing to invade the southern states from St. Domingo, with an army of blacks; which was to be landed with a large supply of officers, arms and ammunition, to excite an insurrection among the Negroes by means of missionaries previously sent, and first to subjugate the country by their assistance, then plunder and lay it waste. For the execution of this scheme, he waited only till the English should evacuate a certain port in the island which lay most convenient for the expedition; but he was interrupted by a black general of the name of Toussaint, who drove him from the island, compelled him to embark for France and took the whole authority into his own hands."

[8] "The West Indies and Louisiana in one hemisphere, in the other the
Cape of Good Hope, Egypt and a portion of India, with St. Helena
and Malta as ports of call--of this he dreamed, but the failure to
secure San Domingo and England's evident intention to keep Malta,
combined to topple the whole cloud castle into ruins?"

"The magnificent French plan of American colonization having lost
the supports of both San Domingo and Louisiana, collapsed leaving
no trace."

--Page 289 et seq.

[9] American Historical Magazine. December, 1915.

The independence of Haiti has been maintained as we have seen for one hundred and eleven years. In 1873 while visiting that country and looking upon her lofty hills, and upon the toiling people at their base, I fancied an appealing cry coming from these masses and I interpreted that cry in the following lines:

"The cry of souls for bread;
The cry of men and woman who
Have done great deeds and
Whose guiding star is liberty.
Who strong in their right arms,
Have won a name, a place,
And who with valor true will dare defend
That place and sooner die
Than wear the badge of slave."

On Sunday, June 15, 1873, I witnessed, in Port-au-Prince a great religious procession to pray against a return of fire upon their city. This is no unusual thing in a Roman Catholic city, although to an American it seems a waste of piety. Mr. Douglass in his graphic way in a private letter to me thus describes one of their outpourings of religious enthusiasm which occurred while he served in Port-au-Prince as United States Minister: "Yesterday," he says, "all over town, a great racket was heard of people driving the devil out of their houses by beating on their doors. On one account I was glad of their efforts to get rid of the devil although I was aware that the devil would laugh at this method of ridding the city of his presence. This is Holy week here and I must say that on account of the stillness, the absence of the tom tom and the apparent serenity of the people, I could wish holy week continued indefinitely."

With the impression of that religious procession upon my young and inexperienced mind I wrote then in my journal: "Poor, poor Haiti! As a nation it is the veriest humbug; and yet there is something splendid about it." Fourteen days later I was able to write differently. I was riding on the road leading from L'Arcahai to St. Mark in company with some young friends. "On both sides of the road were luxuriant fields of sweet potatoes, bananas and sugar cane. Mountain streams were sending down their pure waters by which the plains below were irrigated. It was the fete of St. Pierre at the bourg, and on the road we met hundreds of people, some on foot, some on donkeys, and many on beautiful horses with most magnificent saddles and trappings, all going to the bourg. Fine country gentlemen, mounted on these steeds and riding as though born on horseback, pass us very frequently, every one of whom lifts his hat entirely off his head and gives the Bon jour, monsieur. Ladies dressed in snowy white dash by us at full galop, but never so fast, but they have time to say in the sweetest voice: Bon jour, monsieur."

The constitution of Haiti contains a very complete Bill of Rights bearing testimony to the idea of liberty, but unfortunately there is nowhere any adequate defense of these rights against the encroachment of government. There is no check and balance system between executive and legislative departments; nor can the courts guarantee the rights of individuals. Governments we know are ever ready to encroach; typo demagogues ever ready to arise in professed defense of constitutional rights; hence revolutions. The soul of Haiti is military. General Legitime speaking before the Universal Races Congress in London in 1911 said: "Born in troublous time, Haiti is essentially a military state; and though he cannot entertain ideas of conquest, its head must nevertheless retain the character of a noble gendarme, the guardian of its institutions." Still there is another side. The great statesman Firmin was not a devotee of militarism. He deplored the existence of so much of it which he described as a burden falling heavily upon the rural classes. He says the "only thing the soldier learns by his long military apprenticeship is passive obedience, the absence of all moral initiative, of all exercise of personal volition, with the complete annullment of the view of human liberty struggling against injustice and wrong. When a Haitian wearing epaulettes says to you, I am a soldier, that means that he is ready to commit the most horrible crimes, to rob, to burn, to kill, just so he has the order to do so from his immediate chief." There is in fact a decidedly brilliant literary element in Haiti, including editors, authors and lawyers who are not so thoroughly military as the general trend of her history would lead us to believe. It is now time to inquire in what light Haiti regards herself in relation to the whole Negro Race. What is her mission as she understands it?

The first man I shall call upon in this respect will be our author Antenor Firmin. The following facts will show that he is entitled to a hearing. He was born in Haiti in 1851. Received all of his education there; a lawyer by profession, in 1889 he was a member of their Constitutional Convention, was Minister of Finance and of Foreign relations 1889-1891, as Mr. Blaine had good reason to know; was Minister to Paris 1900-1902; a profound scholar and a very respectable writer, possessed of a large share of common sense philosophy. He says in the preface of his book on Roosevelt and Haiti, written while in exile at Saint Thomas: "No people any more than the individual can live, make progress, and advance with sustained ardor in the walks of civilization, without an end, an ideal, which leads them onward in all the wanderings of their existence. The end is ordinarily more evident, more clear, before the will of the individual; for nations, it is some times veiled in indefinite form; but it exists always, and acts imperiously, like magnetism terrestrial impressing an irresistible direction upon the magnetic needle in spite of the fog which conceals on the horizon the point of orientation. This ideal for Haiti is the sublime effort of a little people striving for the rehabilitation of whole race of men, an effort so noble and so worthy that each one of those who participates in it may justly regard himself as an apostle." Edmund Paul, another brilliant Haitian whose life went out too soon, wrote that the end or goal of this young nation is to prove the aptitude of the whole African race to the present civilization, "An end he says, powerful, gigantesque, capable of devouring generations, ever worthy to demand and to employ all of our activity."

"In Haiti," says the late Minister Price, "the black man is in possession of national responsibility. In Haiti he is called upon to form his character, and to conduct his movements at his own risk; he receives directly the consequences, and suffers the deplorable results, of his own errors and passions. He is not being _led along_ in civilization; he moves on the road by his own efforts. He is marching without any support on which to lean; without any other force than his own. And when he shall become sufficiently advanced to remove all doubt; when he shall become sufficiently free from his errors, and shall have sufficiently conquered his passions which now retard his steps, it will be evident that he has accomplished this result because he willed it, and because he had within his being the necessary force for its accomplishment." According to Mr. Price there will be no one who can say of the Haitians: "We civilized and educated you; none who can say: without us you would soon have relapsed into African barbarism." Haiti's mission as he understood it is to rehabilitate the Negro race. His dying gift to mankind was his splendid work on the Rehabilitation of the Black Race by the Republic of Haiti.

It is Price who says: "The Negro who shows his dainty hands and his little feet, and is piqued because, with adornments the aristocrats, who are also adorned with little hands little feet do not open their doors to him is an ignoramus and a poltroon, and is still a slave."

I shall close this paper with the counsel of Haiti to the African Race as voiced by the same author.

"As to the children of the African race, I could wish to see them everywhere, disdain public offices, in order that they might enter into civilization not by the door that the slaveocrats and politicians point out, but by that door through which has passed the real white democracy--knowledge and industry. When one is the son of a serf, who but yesterday was beaten and cuffed without mercy, and aspires to manhood, it is the workman's blouse that he must put on. The blouse leads to the conventional black and white gloves. But he who wishes to commence by a black suit, ought to put a napkin on his arm, and place himself as a servant, behind the man who wears a blouse.

"Haitians, all, and Negro of the continent of America and of all the adjacent islands; My Brethren! Learn it at once, and never forget it. The free man is the one who takes the responsibility? of his own proper well-being. He has nothing to ask, nothing to solicit, neither from the pity nor the generosity of his fellows. He is bound to count upon himself, and upon himself alone, to turn aside or to overcome, whatever obstacles that lie in the way of his happiness. Strength and skill are for the free man absolute necessities."

Thus has Haiti spoken by her actions and in the words of her eminent statesmen given to us a message of lofty purpose, of sorrowful struggle, of hardy endurance, and we trust of willingness to learn from events.

Lafayette M. Hershaw. The Status of the Free Negro Prior to 1860

The difficulty surrounding a proper understanding of any question consists in the fact that self-interest is more than likely to enter to darken the vision. It is seldom that men differ about matters or have a difficulty in understanding matters which do not affect their vanity, their pride, their ambition or their material belongings. The truth concerning any matter which is the subject of controversy can be reached with accuracy in proportion as it is free from these matters. A question of justice, opportunity and humane consideration for persons wholly or partly of African origin is influenced entirely by considerations of the kind just mentioned. If men were not obsessed by the phantom of race superiority and of local vanity and group consciousness, and more than all by the propensity to make gain out of the misfortunes and injustices of conditions, what is known as the Negro question would vanish into thin air. All forms of oppression, caste, proscription and distinction have their origin in the desire and purpose of a man or set of men to improve their condition at the expense of others. If it had not been believed and indeed demonstrated that the subjection of the black man would prove economically profitable to the white man or that he would gain some other fancied advantage from the degradation of the black man we should never have had African slavery together with its attendant chain of ills which afflict the body politic even unto this hour.

That oppression and tyranny wrong both those who practice them and those upon whom they are inflicted is proved by illustrations taken both from the field of economics and the field of intellectual and moral consciousness. In all those parts of the world where all the people approach most nearly a common standard of economic, intellectual and moral excellence there we find the greatest advance in that which we call civilization, for the want of a better term to describe human progress and advance. Wherever we find any considerable group of people residing in the same or contiguous territory who do not enjoy equality of right and opportunity in those things which governments are instituted to conserve, we find that the greater group which denies them these inalienable rights paralyzed in its economic, intellectual and moral growth. On no other ground can we account for the emphatic differences in achievement, in literature, art, science, invention, and economic progress between the white people of the North and the white people of the South. Reasoning from analogy and from the examples which history gives of the achievement of the white race in the world it would be the most reasonable thing to expect that due to variety of soil, favorableness of climate, and the general beneficence of nature, that the white people living in the zone comprising what is commonly designated as the Southern States would excel their Northern brethren in all the arts and achievements of civilization. We should naturally expect to find there the poets, the painters, the sculptors, the inventors and the great organizers of enterprise. Elsewhere in the world in the midst of similar conditions of soil and climate, we find the white race excelling and leading the world in these particulars. The white people inhabiting the South are of the same ethnic type, and have in general the same group consciousness and aspiration. How else can we account for the fact that they have contributed less than their kinsmen in proportion to numbers to the sum of human knowledge, happiness and liberty, if not by the fact that they have suffered the inevitable handicap incident to an environment in which large numbers of human beings suffer inequality and subordination?

But for the difference which has been historically accentuated in North America between white and black which difference has inflicted much of suffering upon both races, it would not be necessary to consider such a subject as the citizenship status of the free Negro prior to 1860. Before the Constitution of the United States was amended by the addition thereto of the Fourteenth Amendment the statement that "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States" was the only definite deliverance to be found in that instrument in relation to the subject of citizenship. In other words there was no national definition of citizenship, and up to the time of the deliverance of the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, there had been no comprehensive treatment of the subject in adjudications by the Supreme Court of the United States. The mention of the term "citizens" in the Constitution in the quotation just given indicates that it had a meaning of such generally accepted significance that definition was not necessary. Presumably citizenship conveyed then, as it conveys now, an idea exactly the opposite of that conveyed by the term slavery. A slave everywhere in the world was understood to be a person who was absolved from allegiance, and was not due protection as that term is ordinarily understood, and who could not invoke ordinary legal process nor own property; a citizen was a person who owed allegiance, was entitled to protection, had the right to invoke all the processes of the law, could become the owner of property, and possibly, if not a woman or a child, exercise the right of the elective franchise. Such was the common understanding of the term citizen at the adoption of the Constitution, and such is substantially the understanding of that term at the present date. However, due to the presence of the Negro in the body politic, the exigencies of the situation suggested an interpretation of the term citizen which might not otherwise have existed, but for the presence of the Negro. The exigency grew out of the fact that toward the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth there

grew into the minds of men the conception that slavery was a condition appertaining to black men alone, that color was an unmistakable proof of the condition of a slave, and that the fact that one was of African descent carried with it this inevitable social degradation. In the decisions of the courts of a number of the States we find this principle enunciated. In North Carolina the Supreme Court of that State, in 1828, decided that "The presumption of slavery arises from a black African complexion." In 1839, the Supreme Court of Indiana, in passing upon the constitutionality of the law entitled: "An act concerning free Negroes and Mulattoes and slaves," held that where a Negro laid claim to freedom the burden of proof was on him to show it inasmuch as persons of the African race were presumed to be slaves. In 1842, the Supreme Court of Ohio decided that under the law of that State "Color alone is sufficient to indicate a Negro's inability to testify against a white man. It has always been admitted that our political institutions embrace the white population only. Persons of color were not recognized as having any political existence; they had no agency in our political organizations, and possessed no political rights under it. Two or three of the States form exceptions. The constitutions of fourteen expressly exclude persons of color; and in the balance of the States they are excluded on the grounds that they were never recognized as part of the body politic." (Thatcher vs. Hawk, 4th Ohio, Rep., 351.) While this opinion expressed a widely prevalent sentiment at that time I have been unable to find a decision of any court in any of the original thirteen States north of Maryland, except Connecticut, which expresses this view. In their moral and intellectual nature the inhabitants of Connecticut exhibit many wide differences from the inhabitants of the rest of New England. These citations show how thoroughly the conception of the difference arising from the difference of color was imbedded in the mind at that time. Such instances of judicial interpretation were to be found in all of the slave States, and in those States which were carved out of the northwest territory, which Virginia ceded to the general government in 1787. In this connection it is pertinent to observe that it is the most natural thing in the world that the States carved out of this northwest territory should have followed not only the legal system of the parent State, but should have adopted many of its practices and modes of thought, and passed them on to succeeding generations.

From the quotations already made it can be seen that to be a colored person was to suffer from the presumption of being a slave, and that to be a free colored person was to be in a condition not of freedom, but of lessened servitude. To be a free colored person was not to possess the citizenship of the world any more than to be a Christian today is evidence that one is an imitator of Christ. In actual practice the term "free colored person" embraced the idea of freedom from personal service to a specified owner and little else, particularly in the slave-holding States. The attitude of these States is well expressed in the following quotation from John C. Calhoun: "I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together the relation now existing in the slave-holding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good--a positive good. I fearlessly assert that the existing relations between the two races in the South forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions (Works of Calhoun, Vol. 2, p. 630)." Thus by legal enactment, judicial interpretation and orderly expressed public opinion, race if it be African was the badge of inferiority and slavery. This was generally true throughout the country and yet a careful and somewhat thorough examination of the statutes, legal decisions, and systematic treatises relating to the law of slavery will convince any fair-minded person that the term free colored person carried with it less of negation of right in the Northern States where slavery had ceased to exist than in the Southern States where it still flourished.

At the close of the revolution, slavery existed in most of the colonies, if not all, and their statute books contained laws relating to that condition, and to the condition of "free persons of color." However, as time passed and the institution of slavery disappeared, we find these laws disappearing or becoming greatly modified or mitigated in their provisions. For instance, March 26, 1783, Massachusetts passed a law forbidding an African or Negro to tarry within the commonwealth for a longer time than two months unless such person could produce a certificate from the secretary of State of which such person claimed to be a citizen, showing that he was such, and that where such persons did not have the required certificate they should be ordered to depart from the State, and upon failure to do so be committed to any house of correction, and that such punishment should be repeated whenever and as often as the order to depart was disobeyed. This law was repealed, however, in 1786. It seems that slavery was abolished in Massachusetts by operation of the constitution of 1780, which declares that "All men are born free and equal." Harry St. George Tucker, president of the Virginia Court of Appeals, said in 1833, speaking of this constitutional utterance, that "We should be disposed to take this declaration less as an abstraction than we regard that which is contained in our own bill of rights" (5th Leigh Rep., 622). By 1786, it appears that Massachusetts had abolished all distinctions in law based on race except that in relation to marriage, which appears to have been repealed in 1843. In 1833, Connecticut enacted a law forbidding the setting up or establishment of any school, academy or literary institution for the instruction or education of colored persons who were not inhabitants of the State. This law was repealed in 1838. The constitution of Rhode Island of 1843, conferred the elective franchise on persons of the male sex qualified by residence and property without distinction of color. In New Hampshire the constitution of 1783 contains the principle that all men are born equally free, and no distinction on account of color is found in any of her statutes except in a law of 1792, which specified that enlistment in the militia should be confined to white people. In the law of 1857, relating to the subject of militia, color is not mentioned. Neither in the constitution nor laws of Vermont does one find for this period any distinction based on color, so that in Vermont the term "free colored person" had no existence and consequently no meaning. In Maine no distinctions based on color are to be found for the period under consideration either in the constitution or the statutes. In Pennsylvania colored people exercised the elective franchise and enjoyed full citizenship with the whites up to 1838, when the elective franchise, by the constitution of that year, was confined to whites. Presumably free colored people exercised the suffrage in New Jersey up to 1844, as there appears no limitation of suffrage on account of color prior to its mention in the constitution of that year. New York, in an act of the legislature of 1799, provided for gradual emancipation of the slaves, and by an act of 1811 it required "free colored people" to carry certificates of their freedom as proofs of their claim thereto. In 1814 the legislature of the State authorized the raising of two regiments of colored soldiers to be officered by white men. In 1823, Negroes who resided in the State three years and possessed a free-hold estate of the assessed value of two hundred and fifty dollars were entitled to exercise the elective franchise, a requirement not imposed upon white people.

It is interesting to note that up to 1723, free colored people appear to have exercised the elective franchise equally with the whites in Virginia. The colonial constitution of that year limited its exercise to white people, and the free colored people never voted again until the adoption of the Underwood or reconstruction constitution. Besides this, contrary to conditions above described in the Northern States the laws in relation to free colored people grew harsher and harsher until 1831, when we find a statute prohibiting meetings for teaching free Negroes or mulattoes reading or writing. In 1832, free Negroes were forbidden to preach the gospel. In 1834 free Negroes were forbidden to immigrate into the State. In 1838 free Negroes leaving the State to be educated were forbidden to return. In 1851, the constitution of Virginia of that year, in Sec. 5, Art. 19, provided: That slaves hereafter emancipated shall forfeit their freedom by remaining in the commonwealth more than twelve months, and in 1856, the legislature of Virginia passed an act providing that free Negroes might voluntarily make agreements to become slaves and that such agreement should be binding.

In North Carolina free colored people seem to have exercised most of the rights of white people including that of voting, until 1835, when the right to vote was confined to persons of the white race. In all of the slave States the free colored man was hampered by legislative provisions exactly like or very similar to those just cited as existing in Virginia. In none of these States could free colored people hold the legal title to real property, in none of them did they have the right of public assembly, the right to bear arms or the right to carry on collectively the work of education. In few of them did they even have the right to preach the gospel, and where they did preach it was by favor and permission, and not by right. Of all these Southern slave-holding States Maryland ruled its free colored people with something suggestive of humanity.

It will be seen from this hasty and unsatisfactory review of a great mass of statutes, decisions, and treatises that the condition of the free colored man north of Mason and Dixon's line improved in the main from the close of the revolution to 1860, and that south of Mason and Dixon's line his condition grew worse from the close of the revolution down to 1860.

In the West, where new States were forming, there was, of course, the distinction of race. The settlers who went into these new communities went there to establish white communities and they passed laws forbidding the immigration of free colored people into them. We find statutes in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Kansas, and Oregon, forbidding the immigration of free Negroes. It seems, however, that there was never a very strong public sentiment insisting upon the enforcement of these laws. As a matter of fact there was a small active and effective sentiment which practically nullified the existence of them, for in all of these States we find, especially after the enactment of the fugitive slave law of 1850, a most friendly sentiment toward the unfortunate colored man whether slave or free.

The study of the statutes and conditions of more than a half century ago is not only a matter of curiosity, but a matter of very practical concern, since in these latter days another body of laws, and legal decisions based upon distinction of race have come into existence, and yet others are threatened.

Arthur A. Schomburg. The Economic Contribution by the Negro to America

The services rendered by Negroes in America from the discovery of the islands beyond the Pillars of Hercules by Christopher Columbus to the end of the eighteenth century, make a chapter of history transcending in importance anything which has taken place in the old world. The quaint times and scarcity of willing men among the aboriginal Indians to help the Spaniards to despoil their lands in the rapacious quest of gold brought about the early ruin of flourishing communities of aboriginal tribes in the several islands. So alarming was this state of affairs that Father Las Casas, known as the Apostle of the Indians, interceded in their behalf at the Spanish court in order to ameliorate their unfortunate condition. He pleaded for Negroes to take their places as the blacks were a very hardy and robust race; to this plea the great and humanitarian Cardinal Ximenes was opposed; for he could not justify the substitution of one race for another in what was in itself a wrong. The Cardinal having been overruled, the Slave Trade was instituted and the first Negroes were brought to Santo Domingo. They were not the untutored savages we are expected to believe from modern histories. There existed in Sevilla, Spain, as early as 1475, a large number of Negro slaves, who had been brought from the coasts of North Africa and Guinea, and their one-fifth tribute to the coffers of the state formed a very nice sum of money. This practice of importing Negroes, which had been in vogue during the Arab dominion of Spain, continued to increase to such an extent that when in the year of 1474 a royal decree still extant chronicles the appointment of a Negro known as Juan de Valladolid as mayor of the Negro colony situated in the outskirts of the said city. From this colony of Negroes who could speak the Spanish language, and were familiar with their customs, came the first batch of slaves shipped to Santo Domingo. It must also be borne in mind that 45 years before, in 1370, King Henry of Portugal had commenced his explorations, the Catalans and Normans had frequented the coasts of Africa as far as the Tropic of Cancer, and according to Diego Ortiz de Zuniga, it is known that from the times of Archbishop Gonzalo de Mena (1400) there existed Negro slaves in Sevilla. There is no reason to doubt that a large number of their descendants had already been born in Europe prior to 1500, because the royal dispensations in that year state that the immigration of Negro slaves to Santo Domingo was prohibited except in case of those who were born while in possession of Christians. These historical facts induce us to believe that during that period there was in Europe a larger number of Negroes than we generally suppose or care to believe.

At the time that the slave trade had commenced to occupy the mind of the Hawkins malefactors and the British nation under Queen Elizabeth, Barbarossa had already subjected the mulatto King of Morocco to the payment of a tribute of $1,000,000 in gold dust--and 40 Negro merchants without any hesitation helped the king out of the dangers that confronted his people. When the Moor Zegri was humiliated by the Spanish Commander Cisneros in 1499 and the Arab books destroyed in Granada, Marmol states that less than 1,025,000 tomes on religion, politics, jurisprudence, manuscripts illuminated and worked in silver and gold were consigned to the fires. There remained 3,000 Moorish soldiers under command of a Negro captain whose intrepid heroism and valor was shown by the charges and counter charges he was able to repel. When unable to prevent the utter annihilation of his band by superior forces under Cifuentes, the Negro captain refused to surrender and jumped headlong from a fort. (Alcatara's History, Granada, pp. 165-6.) And this happened seven years after the discovery of America by Columbus.

The conditions of the new world were such that the Spaniards who had spent most of their wealth in the unprofitable civil and Arab wars, lost no time after hearing wonderful stories of untold wealth to requisition not only the Negroes of Seville, but to embark in the lucrative enterprise of human Negroes from the West Coast of Africa, and ships which were engaged in man-hunting poured their human freight into Hispaniola. It was not long after that the Spanish Negroes belonging to Diego Columbus, revolted, and the first insurrection, taking place among the very property of the discoverer's offspring, was suppressed by the military after killing the leaders. The prosperity of the colonies soon became apparent in the enormous number of Spanish ships with their precious cargoes arriving in the Spanish ports. The Spanish people were wild and in an ecstasy of joy to engage in the colonial enterprise, and as ships entered upon the perilous voyages of discovery the Africans were gathered to do the work for which no historian or economist has given them the credit which is their due for blazing the path of wealth into which the nations of Europe have ridden upon the lucrative backs of the Africans. The clearing of the forests from dangerous animals and poisonous insects, making with the awakening of each succeeding spring the virgin earth a paradise that has supported millions of European parasites; the working of the mines for precious metals that fed the envy of other powerful nations which questioned the right of the Spaniards to conquest under the banner of the Christian Church, and induced them to scramble and fight for their colonial honors.

No sooner than Santo Domingo was found to be a paradise of wealth than the other islands were made ready for the unwilling African. He was carried to the mainland of Panama, where Balboa was surprised to find a colony of Negroes whose origin has baffled the mind of the most learned men of that age. To this day no solution has been found for the problem of the coming of these Negroes of Quareca. Gomora says, "That Conquistador entered the Province of Quareca; he found no gold, but some blacks who were slaves of the lord of the place. He asked this lord whence he had received them, who replied that men of that color lived near the place, with whom they were constantly at war. "These Negroes," adds Gomora, "exactly resemble those of the Guinea; and no others have since been seen in America. It may be stated here that every hypothesis has been advanced to show that these men must have been people other than Negroes, but since the natives of the kingdoms of Congo and Guinea were known to have enjoyed friendly relations with each other and sailed the rivers in large oared boats, it is very probable that some of them crossed the Atlantic in like manner as the Caribs in their piraguas traveled from the islands to the mainland and vice versa. The nearest distance from Brazil to Africa is along the Tropic of Cancer, and any number of large boats may have lost their bearing in a storm and got ship-wrecked on the American mainland. This hypothesis is well within the range of probability in view of the fact that the trade winds blow from east to west and the Gulf Stream flows rapidly, and is noted for periodical variation in its course.

The Negroes that were originally carried into Santo Domingo from Spain became devoted to the early priests, for it must be conceded that the Jesuits were the friends who maintained a benevolent attitude toward these outcast sons of men. One of these Negroes, known as Estevanico, was the discoverer of the Seven Cities of Cibola, and what is known as Arizona and New Mexico. Negroes were in Mexico with the vanguard of the Spaniards, and to that country must be credited one of the earliest Negro poets. He lived in Mexico City, and was, by trade, a carpenter and maker of artificial flowers, and was always sought by the elite, because of his ready wit and quickness to rhyme on any theme given him.

Wherever the English ruled we have had to combat a very prejudiced and arrogant system of oppression. In the Spanish and French colonies the rule was milder, in consequence of a system of judicial laws which predicated a better understanding as a solution of the complex relations between master and slave. The English have shown by their rule in the Island of Trinidad how much regard they have had for the rights of others guaranteed by treaty. For a case in point we may refer to the treaty of capitulation between the Spaniards and the English that took place February 18th, 1797. Article 12 of this treaty reads: "The colored people, who have been acknowledged as such by the laws of Spain, shall be protected in their liberty, persons and property, like other inhabitants; they taking the oath of allegiance, meaning themselves as becomes good and peaceable subjects of His Britanic Majesty" (16). The way the British respected this "Scrap of Paper" is shown in a book written by a free mulatto, a graduate of the Edinburgh University, and printed in London in 1824. Says this anonymous author: "And even the Spanish governor saw his country about to be divested of a possession she had held ever since the third voyage of Columbus, he did not forget the faith she had plighted to the colored population, but exacted from the invaders security for the continuance of the equality of rights and privileges with the whites by the 12th article of the capitulation" (p. 16).

It would have been a glory to Britain to have emulated in those days the benevolent plan of France and Spain in improving the condition of their slaves; and to open a way for the admission of reason, religion, liberty and law among creatures of our kind who were deprived of every advantage, of every privilege, which as partakers of our common nature they were capable of and entitled to (Ramsay).

We have been instructed to look at the Negro as "idle, worthless, indolent and disloyal," but a careful examination of the West Indies and South America does not show this to be true. Many instances of advancement by hard industry can be noted in any of the many spots of the New World. There is not a single field of industrial activity in which the descendants of the African have not contributed their mite toward an improvement of the conditions which the gold seekers and pleasure hunters were wont to overlook. The commercial activities, the irrigation of fields, the working of the mines where the labor of Negro slaves and free men was paramount, the untold number of ships loaded down with merchandise and precious metals wending their way to Europe to support monarchies and provide pleasure for parasites, all this depended upon the unrequited toil of Negroes, which cannot be computed in dollars and cents because it would form a ladder, like Jacob's, which would reach to the very gates of Heaven.

Under the institution of slavery which curbed the aspirations of the Negro, it was not possible to expect the race to have shown any capacity except for hard labor in the fields which the lash accelerated. In most islands there was nothing else but agriculture fields to be cleared and developed with religion to mitigate and console the workers. The profits which were uppermost in the minds of the masters were gathered regularly and yielded handsomely.

The African people have been one of the earliest acquainted with cotton. A careful examination of available historical material shows that while Europe was still dressing in goat skins and grass goods the Negro peoples of Africa had been using cotton goods. Miss Kingsley relates that the cloth loom was invented by natives of the Eboe tribe, but many varieties of looms were common to the people of the Soudan. The prevailing color of the cloth from Guinea is blue and it is distinctly quaint, so enduring and pleasing that it has been handed down from the hoary ages to the present day. The dyes of the natives obtained from vegetable matter and other unknown primitive processes, have always won the admiration of the appreciative world. Europeans have admired the quality and durability of these cloths. The work of African looms in their primitive frames can be seen in the Museums of Natural History in London, Paris, Berlin and New York. They are indeed fine specimens of African handiwork and authorities have said that they would do credit to any Manchester or Birmingham looms.

It is said that native cloth manufactured at Kano is not very old and that it probably came from the Songhay country, but according to El Bekri, the Arab historian, and other ancient geographers, the art of weaving was very flourishing on the Upper Nile, especially in the town of Silla from very ancient times and as early as the eleventh century, the cotton cloth was called in this region by the same name it bears to this day, namely, "shigge."

The English West Indies exported to Britain during the year 1760 9,535,010 pounds of cotton. By 1787 this amount had increased to 18,716,445 pounds; in 1801 to 42,090,765, and in 1811 it was 41,735,555, according to William Irving, Inspector General of the London Customhouse.

It has been stated that just before the war of American independence the slaves in the sugar colonies did not exceed the fortieth part of the inhabitants of the British Empire, yet they contributed in that neglected state perhaps a sixth part of the revenue. The British Isles contained a population of nearly 11,500,000; North America, 2,600,000 with 400,000 slaves, which made 3,000,000; the West Indies 82,000 freemen and 418,000 slaves.

The Negroes under the terrifying and debasing influence of slavery were able to improve their condition by that cheerful spirit which holds them together even in these days of dark clouds, with a silver lining. The cheerfulness of these sons of Africa has been their redeeming quality through all their privations and sufferings; their chants and songs, whether in the hearing of their masters or among themselves, were full of soul and feeling. They kept body and soul together after the arduous day's labor under the torrid rays of the sun. Whereas the Indians gave way under the milder system of slavery, the Negroes grew stronger under its despotism. They were able in the production of sugar cane to become experts in the tempering of the cane juice for the various degrees of sugar, which today require analytical chemists to supervise its improved manufacture and Negroes were in charge of this delicate branch of the industry on many plantations. In the distillation of rum they were proficient and many were excellent mechanics.

In the production of cocoa, in Venezuela, Suriname and Trinidad, the labor of Negroes gave it such an impetus and stability that the eminent Humboldt, in his travels through South America could not but speak in the highest terms of those plantations that devoted their time to the improvement of this industry.