Chapter XVII: Part 17

[457] This is quite evident from the fact that in 1860, out of 60 countries trading with the United States, Haiti stood 27th and Liberia 29th. (Statistical View of Commerce of United States, exhibiting the value of exports to and imports from foreign countries, and the number and tonnage of American and foreign vessels arriving from and departing to each foreign country during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1860, Treasury Department, Register's Office, April 21, 1862.)

John L. Wilson, commercial agent at Cape Haytien, wrote, June 5, 1854: "By a recognition of the Independence of Hayti, our commerce would be likely to advance still more. Our citizens trading there would enjoy more privileges, besides standing on a better footing. Many decided advantages might be obtained through treaty and our own government would exercise a wholesome influence over theirs, of which it stands much in need."--"Commercial Relations," Vol. 4, p. 509.

Seth Webb, commercial agent at Port au Prince, wrote, December 12, 1861: "I must say with frankness to the Department, that I find my position much embarrassed by the failure of our government to take any steps toward acknowledging the nationality of Haiti, or entering into the usual relations of country, which exist between neighboring peoples."--To Hon. Wm. H. Seward, Sec. of State, U. S. Commercial Agency, Port au Prince.

[458] April 18, 1850. Quoted in _N.Y. Tribune_, November 9, 1860.

[459] _Ibid._, November 9, 1860.

[460] "Messages and Papers of the Presidents," Vol. 4, p. 47.

[461] Garrison and Garrison-Garrison, Vol. 4, p. 33. Liberator, 31: 194.

[462] _African Repository_, February, 1862, p. 41.

"The Executive Committee of the American Colonization Society observe with deep interest that the President of the United States has in his late message recommended that the Republic of Liberia should be acknowledged as independent. They also notice his recommendation of some plan of colonization for free people of color in some clime congenial to them."

[463] _Ibid._, May, 1862, p. 157.

[464] _Ibid._, April, 1862, p. 111.

[465] _Congress. Globe_, 37th Cong., 2d Session, February 4, 1862.

[466] _Congress. Globe_, 37th Cong., 2d Session, February 4, 1862.

[467] _Globe_, 37th Congress, 2d Session, p. 1806.

[468] _Ibid._, pp. 2501-2506.

[469] _Ibid._, p. 1807.

[470] Seth Webb to Seward, Sec. of State, December 12, 1861.

[471] La Republique d'Haiti et les Etats-Unis de l'Amérique, désirant rendre durables et solides l'amitié et la bonne entente, qui règnent heureusement entre les deux nations liberales, ont resolu de fixer d'une manière claire, nette et positive les règles qui devront être, à l'avenir, religieusement suivies entre l'une et l'autre, au moyen d'un traité d'amitié, de commerce et de navigation, ainsi que d'extradition de criminels fugitifs.--Leger, "Recueil des Traites," etc., p. 84.

[472] "Treaties and Conventions concluded between the Republic of Liberia and Foreign Powers, 1848-1892."

[473] Grimké, "Chas. Sumner," p. 343.

[474] Chas. Sumner's Works, Vol. XIV, pp. 306-309, XV, pp. 270-272. Memoirs and Letters of Chas. Sumner, E. L. Pierce, pp. 68-69.

[475] _The African Repository_, August, 1862, p. 255. This was passed after thanking the Liberian Commissioners, who had addressed them.

[476] Resolution of the Senate: _Resolved_, that the independence of Texas ought to be acknowledged by the United States whenever satisfactory information shall be received that it has in successful operation a civil government capable of performing the duties and fulfilling the obligations of an independent power.--_Journal of the Senate_, July 1, 1836.

THREE NEGRO POETS: HORTON, MRS. HARPER, AND WHITMAN[477]

With the exception of a few noteworthy individuals, conscious literary effort on the part of the Negro in America is, of course, a matter of comparatively recent years. Decades before Emancipation, however, there were those who yearned toward poetry as a means of artistic expression, and sought in this form to give vent to their groping, their striving, and their sorrow. Handicapped as they were, scores of these black bards must forever remain unknown. Even after the Civil War those who had gifts were frequently held back by insufficient education or the lack of other advantages of culture. At least three persons, however, in the long period between Phillis Wheatley and Paul Dunbar, deserve not wholly to pass unnoticed. These were George Moses Horton, Mrs. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Albery A. Whitman. Each one of these poets had faults and even severe limitations as an artist. Each one had also, however, a spark of the divine fire that occasionally even kindled a flame.

George M. Horton was born a slave in Chatham County, North Carolina, in 1797. Later he became the property of one Hall Horton, son of James, who, from all accounts, was a very hard master. George, however, was permitted to hire his time out at Chapel Hill, the seat of the University of North Carolina, where by some accounts he received twenty-five cents a day for his labor, by others fifty cents. He was very ambitious. He was fond of the melodies and hymns sung at campmeetings, and learned to read largely by matching the words he knew in the hymnal to those in a spelling-book. Many people of distinction became interested in his abilities; several legends exist as to his instructors; and Dr. Caldwell, president of the University, was for some years a special patron. George's earliest poetical compositions, however, had to be written down for him by other people. His work was infused with his desire for freedom, and much of it was suggested by the common evangelical hymns, as were the following lines:

Alas! and am I born for this,
To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil, and pain?

How long have I in bondage lain,
And languished to be free!
Alas! and must I still complain,
Deprived of liberty?

* * * * *

Come, Liberty, thou cheerful sound,
Roll through my ravished ears;
Come, let my grief in joys be drowned,
And drive away my fears.

Some of Horton's friends undertook to help him publish a volume of his poems so that from the sale of these he might purchase his freedom and go to the new colony of Liberia. The young man now became fired with ambition and inspiration. Thrilled by the new hope he wrote

'Twas like the salutation of the dove,
Borne on the zephyr through some lonesome grove,
When spring returns, and winter's chill is past,
And vegetation smiles above the blast.

Horton's master, however, demanded for him an exorbitant price, and when the booklet, _The Hope of Liberty_, appeared in 1829 it had nothing of the sale that was hoped for. He lived for years as a janitor at the University, executed small commissions for verse from the students, who treated him kindly, and in later years even went to Philadelphia; but his old dreams had faded. Several reprintings of his poems were made, however, and one of these was bound with the 1838 edition of Phillis Wheatley's poems. He died in 1880 (by other accounts 1883). A scholarly article about him was written for the _Southern Workman_ of October, 1914, by Mr. Stephen B. Weeks, who in turn owed much to the researches of Prof. George S. Wills.

Horton's work showed readily the influence of his models. He used especially the meter of the common evangelical hymns, and cultivated the vague personification of the poets of the eighteenth century. He himself, however, was essentially a romantic poet, as was evinced by his fondness for Byron and Marlowe. His common style is represented by the following lines from his poem entitled _On the Evening and Morning_:

When Evening bids the Sun to rest retire,
Unwearied Ether sets her lamps on fire;
Lit by one torch, each is supplied in turn,
Till all the candles in the concave burn.

* * * * *

At length the silver queen begins to rise,
And spread her glowing mantle in the skies,
And from the smiling chambers of the east,
Invites the eye to her resplendent feast.

The passion in the heart of this man, his undoubted gifts as a poet, and the bitter disappointment of his yearnings have all but added one more to the long list of those who died with their ambitions blasted and their most ardent hopes defeated.

In 1854 appeared the first edition of _Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects_, by Frances Ellen Watkins, commonly known as Mrs. Frances E. W. Harper, who was for many years before the public and who is even now remembered by many friends. Mrs. Harper was a woman of strong personality and could read her poems to advantage. Her verse was very popular, not less than ten thousand copies of her booklets being sold. It was decidedly lacking in technique, however, and much in the style of Mrs. Hemans. _The Death of the Old Sea King_, for instance, is in the ballad style cultivated by this poet and Longfellow; but it is not a well-sustained effort. Mrs. Harper was best when most simple, as when in writing of children she said:

I almost think the angels
Who tend life's garden fair,
Drop down the sweet white blossoms
That bloom around us here.

The secret of her popularity is to be seen in such lines as the following from _Bury me in a Free Land_:

Make me a grave where'er you will,
In a lowly plain or a lofty hill;
Make it among earth's humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves.

I could not rest if around my grave
I heard the steps of a trembling slave:
His shadow above my silent tomb
Would make it a place of fearful gloom.

* * * * *

I ask no monument, proud and high,
To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;
All that my yearning spirit craves
Is bury me not in a land of slaves.

Of the Emancipation Proclamation she wrote:

It shall flash through coming ages,
It shall light the distant years;
And eyes now dim with sorrow
Shall be brighter through their tears.

While Mrs. Harper was still prominently before the public appeared Albery A. Whitman, a Methodist minister, whose important collection, _Not a Man and Yet a Man_, appeared in 1877, and whose long and ambitious poem, _Twasinta's Seminoles_, or _The Rape of Florida_ (the latter title being the one most used), was issued in 1884. This writer had great love for his work. In the preface to his second volume he wrote of poetry as follows: "I do not believe poetry is on the decline. I do not believe that human advancement extinguishes the torch of sentiment. I can not think that money-getting is the whole business of man. Rather am I convinced that the world is approaching a poetical revolution. The subtle evolution of thought must yet be expressed in song. Poetry is the language of universal sentiment. Torch of the unresting mind, she kindles in advance of all progress. Her waitings are on the threshold of the infinite, where, beckoning man to listen, she interprets the leaves of immortality. Her voice is the voice of Eternity dwelling in all great souls. Her aims are the inducements of heaven, and her triumphs the survival of the Beautiful, the True, and the Good. In her language there is no mistaking of that liberal thought which is the health of mind. A secret interpreter, she waits not for data, phenomena, and manifestations, but anticipates and spells the wishes of Heaven."

The work of Whitman himself is exceedingly baffling. It is to his credit that something about his work at once commands judgment by the highest standards. If we consider it on this basis, we find that it is diffuse, exhibits many lapses in taste, is faulty metrically, as if done in haste, and shows imitation on every hand. It imitates Whittier, Longfellow and Tennyson; Scott, Byron and Moore. _The Old Sac Village_ and _Nanawawa's Suitors_ are very evidently _Hiawatha_ over again, and _Custer's Last Ride_ is simply another version of _The Charge of the Light Brigade_. And yet, whenever one has about decided that Whitman is not worthy of consideration, the poet insists on a revision of judgment; and he certainly could not have imitated so many writers so readily, if he had not had some solid basis in appreciation. The fact is that he shows a decided faculty for brisk, though not sustained, narration. This may be seen in _The House of the Aylors_. He has, moreover, a romantic lavishness of description that in spite of all technical faults still has some degree of merit. The following quotations, taken respectively from _The Mowers_ and _The Flight of Leeona_, with all their extravagance, will exemplify both his weakness and his strength in description:

The tall forests swim in a crimson sea,
Out of whose bright depths rising silently,
Great golden spires shoot into the skies,
Among the isles of cloudland high, that rise,
Float, scatter, burst, drift off, and slowly fade,
Deep in the twilight, shade succeeding shade.

* * * * *

And now she turns upon a mossy seat,
Where sings a fern-bound stream beneath her feet,
And breathes the orange in the swooning air;
Where in her queenly pride the rose blooms fair,
And sweet geranium waves her scented hair;
There, gazing in the bright face of the stream,
Her thoughts swim onward in a gentle dream.

In _A Dream of Glory_ occur the lines,

The fairest blooms are born of humble weeds,
That faint and perish in the pathless wood;
And out of bitter life grow noble deeds
To pass unnoticed in the multitude.

_The Bards of England_ discusses many poets. The following is the passage on Byron:

To Missolonghi's chief of singers too,
Unhappy Byron, is a tribute due--
A wounded spirit, mournful and yet mad,
A genius proud, defiant, gentle, sad;
'Twas he whose Harold won his Nation's heart,
And whose Reviewers made her fair cheeks smart;
Whose uncurbed Juan hung her head for shame,
And whose Mazeppa won unrivaled fame.
Earth had no bound for him. Where'er he strode
His restless genius found no fit abode.

Whitman's shortcomings become readily apparent when he attempts sustained work. _The Rape of Florida_ is the longest poem yet written by a Negro in America, and also the only attempt by a member of the race to use the elaborate Spenserian stanza throughout a long piece of work. The story is concerned with the capture of the Seminoles in Florida through perfidy and the taking of them away to their new home in the West. It centers around three characters, Palmecho, an old chief, Ewald, his daughter, and Atlassa, a young Seminole who is Ewald's lover. The poem is decidedly diffuse; there is too much subjective description, too little strong characterization. Palmecho, instead of being a stout warrior, is a "chief of peace and kindly deeds." Stanzas of merit, however, occasionally strike the eye. The boat-song forces recognition as genuine poetry:

"Come now, my love, the moon is on the lake;
Upon the waters is my light canoe;
Come with me, love, and gladsome oars shall make
A music on the parting wave for you,--
Come o'er the waters deep and dark and blue:
Come where the lilies in the marge have sprung,
Come with me, love, for Oh, my love is true!"
This is the song that on the lake was sung,
The boatman sang it over when his heart was young.

It is important to note in a consideration of Whitman's method that while he is writing a story about Indians he frequently leaves this to tell how he feels as a Negro. The following stanzas, however, are pertinent to present-day discussion:

'Tis hard to judge if hatred of one's race,
By those who deem themselves superior-born,
Be worse than that quiescence in disgrace,
Which only merits--and _should_ only--scorn!
Oh! let me see the Negro, night and morn,
_Pressing_ and fighting in, for place and power!
If he a proud escutcheon would adorn,
All earth is place--all time th' auspicious hour,
While heaven leans forth to see, oh! can he quail or cower?

Ah! I abhor his protest and complaint!
His pious looks and patience I despise!
He can't evade the test, disguised as saint,
The manly voice of freedom bids him rise,
And shake himself before Philistine eyes!
And, like a lion roused, no sooner than
A foe dare come, play all his energies,
And court the fray with fury if he can!
For hell itself respects a fearless manly man.

In 1890 Whitman brought out an edition of _Not a Man and Yet a Man_ and _The Rape of Florida_, adding to these a collection of miscellaneous poems, _Drifted Leaves_, and in 1901 he published _An Idyl of the South_, an epic poem in two parts. It is to be regretted that he did not have the training that comes from the best university education. He had the taste and the talent to benefit from such culture in the greatest degree.

This brief review of the work of three earnest members of the race prompts a few reflections on the whole art of poetry as this is cultivated by the Negro in America. If we may make any reasonable deduction from the work of the poets studied, if we may arrive at any conclusion from the work of Paul Laurence Dunbar and the younger writers of the day, we should say that the genius of the race is subjective and romantic rather than objective and classic. In poetry, least of all arts, does the Negro conceal his individuality. This is his great gift, but also in another way the spur to further achievement. The race should in course of time produce many brilliant lyric poets. Dunbar was a lyric poet; so was Pushkin. The drama and the epic obviously call for more extended information, a more objective point of view, and a broader basis in general culture than many members of the race have so far had the time or the talent or the inclination to give to them.

Again, has one ever asked himself why it is that so much of the poetry of the Negro fails to reach the ultimate standards of art? It certainly is not because of lack of imagination, for God has been generous in the imagery with which he has endowed the race. First of all, last of all, is it not the matter of technique? Many booklets of verse that have been issued show that the writers had not mastered even the ordinary fundamentals of English grammar. For one to think of rivalling Tennyson with his classical tradition when he can not make a clearcut English sentence is out of the question. Further, and this is the most important point, the work of those in question almost never exhibits imagination expressed in intense, condensed, vivid, and suggestive phrase--such phrasing, for instance, as one will find in "The Eve of St. Agnes," which I am not alone in considering the most lavishly brilliant and successful brief effort in poetry in the language. To all of this might be added a refining of taste, something all too frequently lacking and something that can come only from the most arduous and diligent culture. When we further secure such things as these the race may indeed possess not only a Horton, a Harper, or a Whitman, but a Tennyson, a Keats, and even a Shakespeare.

BENJAMIN BRAWLEY

FOOTNOTES:

[477] This paper was read at the biennial meeting of the Association held in Washington, D. C., on August 29, 1917.

CATHOLICS AND THE NEGRO

In order to understand and to gain an adequate idea of what Catholics and their ancient Church have done for the American Negro, it is necessary to take into account the facts and testimony of impartial history in regard to human slavery among the nations, and the influence which the Roman Catholic Church brought to bear on that institution. We must study and remember the conditions and customs in pre-Christian times in regard to slaves, and we should also note the gradual transition from the state of things existing in the heathen world to that prevailing in our modern Christian civilization.

The student of history observes that ideas and principles take their rise and, growing, permeate society, bringing about a change in the morals and manners of a nation. These changes, which may be for good or evil, do not come of a sudden. Even during the Christian ages the principles of the gospel do not always prevail in their fulness and beauty. At times, through the passions of men, non-Christian and pagan ideas gain ground and for a time predominate. It is only by dealing tactfully with human nature and by persistent efforts that the Church has been enabled to make Christian ideals prevail.

At the dawn of Christianity, slavery was an established institution in all countries.[478] Some pagan philosophers, like Seneca, maintained that all men are by nature free and equal, still by the law of nations slavery was upheld in all lands; and it was an axiom among the ruling classes, that "the human race exists for the sake of the few." Aristotle held that no perfect household could exist without slaves and freemen and that the natural law, as well as the law of nations, makes a distinction between bond and free.[479] Plato avowed that every slave's soul was fundamentally corrupt and should not be trusted.[480] The proportion of slaves to freemen varied in different countries, though usually the former were largely in excess of the free population. In Rome for a long time, according to the testimony of Blair, the slaves were three to one. At one time they became so formidable there that the Senate, fearing that if conscious of their own numbers the public safety might be endangered, forbade them a distinctive dress. Atrocious laws regulated the relations of master and slaves. The head of the family was absolute master of his slaves, having over them the power of life and death. Moral and social degradation was the common lot of slaves. Their wretched condition in pagan times was often rendered more intolerable by aggravating circumstances. Many of them had once enjoyed the blessings of freedom, but had been reduced to bondage by the calamities of war. Unlike the Negro slaves of America, they were usually of the same color as their masters; and in some instances, better educated, more refined, and of more delicate frame, than those whom they served. Epictetus, one of the ablest of the Stoic philosophers, was a slave. Horace and Juvenal were the sons of freedmen.[481]

There is something of the ruthlessness of the ancient pagans in the atrocities practiced in later times, and even in our day, by the Mohammedans in Africa. Livingstone, Cameron, and still more recently Cardinal Lavigerie, Archbishop of Carthage, who was furnished with information by his missionaries, declare that at least 400,000 Negroes are annually carried into bondage in Africa by Mussulman traders, and that fully five times that number perish either by being massacred in the slave hunt, or from hunger and hardship on the journey. Thus the lives or liberty of an immense number of the human race are each year sacrificed on the altars of lust and mammon. No pagan government of antiquity ever framed any law aiming at the immediate or gradual extinction of slavery. The same is true of modern nations outside the pale of Christianity.[482]

With the life and teaching of Christ and the preaching of his gospel by his Apostles, began a new era in the history of slavery. The Apostles and their successors pursued a policy that without injustice, violence or revolution, led to the gradual emancipation of the slaves. The labors and influence of the Roman Catholic Church, which have been that of organized Christianity, make a long story, reaching through all the Christian ages. The early Church mitigated the condition of the slave, by teaching him the consoling doctrines of Christ. She taught the slave and master reciprocal duties, prescribing laws that exercised a salutary restraint on the authority of the one, and sanctified the obedience of the other; she contributed to the moral elevation of the slave by leveling all distinctions between bond and free in her temples and religious assemblies.[483] Masters were encouraged to emancipate their slaves by a public ceremony of manumission celebrated in the church on festival days. The dignity and duty of labor for all is inculcated by St. Paul and the early Christian teachers in opposition to the pagan practice, which scorned labor as being only fit for slaves. The absolute religious equality proclaimed in the Church was the negation of slavery as practiced by pagan society. The Church made no account of the social condition of the faithful. Bond and free received the same sacraments. Clerics of servile origin were numerous. The very Chair of St. Peter was occupied by men who had been slaves--Pius in the second century and Callistus in the third.[484] The names of slaves are numbered among the martyrs of the Christian faith and they are inscribed on the calendar of saints honored by the Church.

In giving them a place in religious society, the Church restored to slaves the family and marriage. In Roman law, neither legitimate marriage nor regular paternity, nor even any impediment to the most unnatural unions had existed for the slave. In upholding the moral dignity and prerogatives of the slave, the Church was striking a blow for his civil freedom. Though she was not charged with the framing of the civil laws, she moved the hearts of the slaveowners by moral suasion, and she moulded the conscience of legislators by an appeal to the innate rights of men. In the early Fathers of the Church, like St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. John Chrysostom, the most energetic reprobation of slavery may be found.

The redemption of captives was another work which engaged the pious solicitude of the Church. From the fourth to the fourteenth century Europe was periodically a prey to northern invaders. The usual fate of the vanquished was death or slavery. They who escaped were carried into bondage. A more wretched fate awaited the female sex, for they were reserved to gratify the caprices of their conquerors. Religious orders were founded to succor and redeem them.[485] "Closely connected with the influence of the Church," says Mr. Lecky, "in destroying hereditary slavery, was its influence in redeeming captives from servitude. In no other form of charity was its beneficial character more continually and more splendidly displayed."[486]

Among the forces enlisted in the cause of freedom the most potent came from the Papacy. In every age the voice of the Popes resounded clearly throughout the world in the interests of human freedom. They either commended the slaves to the humanity of their masters, or advocated their manumission, and also condemned the slave trade with all its abuses. Pope Gregory the Great, who occupied the chair of Peter from 590 to 604, wrote: "Since our Blessed Redeemer, the Author of all life, in His goodness assumed our human flesh, in order that by breaking the bond of servitude in which we were held, the grace of His divinity might restore us to our original liberty, it is a wholesome deed by the benefits of emancipation to restore the freedom in which they were born, to men whom nature, in the beginning brought forth free, and whom the law of nations has subjected to the yoke of slavery."[487]

On October 7, 1462, Pope Pius II issued a letter in which he reproved and condemned the slave trade then carried on. Again, a short time later Leo X denounced slavery in 1537. Paul III forbade the enslavement of the Indians. In the later centuries on the revival of slavery by some of the nations, especially among those coming under the power of Mohammedanism in Persia, Arabia, Turkey and Africa, as also on account of the enslavement of Negroes and Indians in the Americas, other Popes proclaimed the Christian law in regard to the cruelties of the slave trade. Again Urban VIII, in 1639, and Benedict XIV, in 1741, were defenders of the liberty of the Indians and blacks even though they were not as yet instructed in the Christian faith.[488] In 1815, Pius VII demanded of the Congress of Vienna the suppression of the slave trade. In the Bull of Canonization of St. Peter Claver, one of the most illustrious adversaries of slavery, Pius IX speaks of the "supreme villainy" of the slave-traders. Gregory XVI, in 1839, published a memorable encyclical in which the following strong language occurs:

"By virtue of our Apostolic office, we warn and admonish in the
Lord all Christians of whatever conditions they may be, and
enjoin upon them that for the future, no one shall venture
unjustly to oppress the Indians, Negroes or other men whoever
they may be, to strip them of their property, or reduce them into
servitude, or give aid or support to those who commit such
excesses or carry on that infamous traffic by which the blacks,
as if they were not men, but mere impure animals reduced like
them into servitude, contrary to the laws of justice and
humanity, are bought, sold and devoted to endure the hardest
labor. Wherefore, by virtue of our Apostolic authority, we
condemn all these things as absolutely unworthy of the Christian
name."[489]

Probably the most memorable statement of the history and Catholic position on slavery is the beautiful letter which Pope Leo XIII, in 1888, addressed to the Brazilian Bishops, exhorting them to banish from their country the remnants of slavery--a letter to which the Bishops responded with their most energetic efforts. Some generous slave-owners freed their slaves in a body, as in the first ages of the Church. Catholic Brazil emancipated its slaves without war or bloodshed. The following are some extracts from the Pope's letter:

"The condition of slavery, in which a considerable part of the
human family has been sunk in squalor and affliction now for many
centuries, is deeply to be deplored; for the system is one wholly
opposed to that which was originally ordained by God and by
nature. The Supreme Author of all things so decreed that man
should exercise a sort of royal dominion over beasts and cattle
and fish and fowl, but never that man should exercise a like
dominion over his fellow-man. * * * * * * * * * Monuments, laws,
institutions, through a continuous series of ages, teach and
splendidly demonstrate the great love of the Church towards
slaves, whom in their miserable condition, she never left
destitute of protection, and always to the best of her power
alleviated. Therefore, praise and thanks are due to the Catholic
Church, since she has merited it in the prosperity of nations,
by the very great beneficence of Christ, our Redeemer and
banisher of slavery, and cause of true liberty, fraternity and
equality among men. Toward the end of the fifteenth century, when
the base stain of slavery was almost blotted out from among
Christian nations, the Catholic Church took the greatest care
that the evil germs of such depravity should nowhere revive.
Therefore, she directed her provident vigilance to the
newly-discovered regions of Africa, Asia and America, for a
report had reached her that the leaders of the expeditions,
Christians though they were, were wickedly making use of their
arms and ingenuity to establish and impose slavery on those
innocent nations. Indeed, since the crude nature of the soil
which they had to overcome, nor less the wealth of metals which
had to be extracted by mining, required very hard work, unjust
and inhuman plans were entered into; for a new traffic was begun,
slaves being transported for that purpose from Ethiopia, which at
that time, under the name of the _slave trade_, too much occupied
those colonies."[490]

The fact that the Catholic Church has been a leader of mankind to light and Christian liberty is attested by leading non-Catholic scholars and historians. The historian Lecky, who holds no brief for Catholicism, says: "The Catholic Church was the very heart of Christendom and the spirit that radiated from her penetrated into all the relations of life. Catholicism laid the very foundations of modern civilization. Herself the most admirable of all organizations, there was formed beneath her influence, a vast network of organizations--political, municipal and social--which supplied a large proportion of the materials of almost every modern structure. In the transition from slavery to serfdom, and in the transition from serfdom to liberty, she was the most zealous, the most unwearied and the most efficient agent."[491] The French Protestant Guizot says: "There can be no doubt that the Catholic Church struggled resolutely against the great vices of the social state--against slavery, for instance. These facts are so well known that it is needless for me to enter into details."[492]

Speaking of the development of the colored race under Catholic influence, Dr. Blyden, a noted Negro scholar, wrote in _Frazer's Magazine_ for May, 1870, the following words, which he afterwards incorporated into his _Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race_:

"The thoughtful and cultivated Protestant Negro, though he may,
_ex animo_, subscribe to the tenets of the particular
denomination to which he belongs, as approaching nearest to the
teaching of God's word, yet he cannot read history without
feeling a deep debt of gratitude to the Roman Catholic Church.
The only Christian Negroes who have had the power to successfully
throw off oppression and maintain their position as freemen were
Roman Catholic Negroes--the Haitiens; and the greatest Negro the
Christian world has yet produced was a Roman Catholic--Toussaint
L'Ouverture. In the ecclesiastical system of modern, as was the
case in the military system of ancient Rome, there seems to be a
place for all races and colors. At Rome the names of Negroes,
males as well as females, who have been distinguished for piety
and good works, are found in the calendar under the designation
of saints."[493]

Coming to America, we find that from the beginning of our history, the Christian forces, which in the past strove to civilize and Christianize the old world, have exerted themselves in behalf of the oppressed in the New World. Catholic missionaries have always felt constrained to carry out the injunction of the Divine Savior to his apostles, "Go ye into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature."[494] Their object was not to gain gold or worldly fortune, but to bring the light of Christian truth to the minds of savage aborigines; to win souls to Christ. To those missionaries, as the Church teaches, the souls of the children of all races are equally precious in the sight of God, whatever may be their individual or racial character. It is for this that they left in young manhood, their relatives and comfortable homes, with a probability of never returning. In early ages, they brought Christianity and civilization to peoples and nations of the lands of the Eastern Hemisphere. After the discovery of the New World by Columbus, they were with the explorers of North and South America. From about 1615 we find them laboring among the Indian tribes from Quebec in Canada to California in the West. Intrepid apostles like Marquette, Breheuf, Menard, Millet, Lallemant, Jogues, Le Moyne, Dablon, Garnier, and a host of others like them blazed the way through the wilderness to labor and suffer and die for the salvation of the Indians. They made records in the service of Christ among the Hurons, Algonquins, Iroquois and Mohawks. To the South, in Florida, Spanish Franciscans fell victims to the treachery of Creeks and Seminoles. In the middle of the last century, before the coming of the settlers, Father De Smet spent nearly forty years among the tribes of the great Western plains and in the Rocky Mountain region. Other missionaries in Western Canada penetrated the North as far as the Arctic Circle. In the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century, a frail and slender man, in the person of the learned and saintly Archbishop Charles J. Seghers, journeyed thousands of miles, to bring the message of the Master to the red men in the vast territory of distant Alaska. In California, Arizona and Texas, the traveler meets with many evidences and monuments of the work of early Spanish Catholic missionaries among the Indians. The records show that in some instances, the missionaries were accompanied by Negroes. Probably the first Negro whose name is recorded in North American history is that of Estevan, or Stephen, who accompanied Father Marcos de Niza, in 1536, on a missionary expedition into the territory of the present States of Arizona and New Mexico.[495]

It is at a later period, however, than that of these early missionaries, that the coming of the Negro as a notable part of the population of the American Colonies begins. This growth takes its rise with the revival of the slave trade in America after the first importation of slaves brought to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. There was long a demand for laborers, and thus an increasing number of slaves were brought from Africa to the various colonies on the Atlantic seaboard, from Massachusetts to Louisiana. British ships at that time supplied not only English colonies with slave labor, but also those of France and Spain.[496] Catholic colonists were confined to Maryland and Louisiana. They also had slaves in their homes and on their plantations, but it is known that they provided for their religious needs and were obliged by their religion to regard their slaves as human beings and not as mere chattels. Under Lord Baltimore's government in the English Colony of Maryland, the Catholic Proprietary himself tells us in his answer to the Lords in 1676, concerning the law that had been enacted "to encourage the baptizing and the instructing of those kinds of servants in the faith of Christ."[497] There had been remissness towards the slaves in this respect among other sections of the population, but such denominations were spurred to action by the example of Catholics. The work of Spanish and French missionaries, as Dr. Woodson points out, influenced the education of the Negro throughout America.[498] The freedom and welfare of the unhappy slaves were especially promoted in the famous "Code Noir," the most humane legislation in their behalf which had been devised before the repeal of slavery. In 1724, M. de Bienville drew up the "Code Noir," containing all the legislation applicable to slaves in Louisiana, which remained in force until 1803. This code, signed in the name of the King, and inspired by Catholic teaching and practice, was probably based on a similar code, which was promulgated in 1685, in Santo Domingo, by Louis XIV, King of France. The Edict ordained that all slaves be instructed and that they be admitted to the sacraments and rites of the Roman Catholic Church. It allowed the slave time for instruction, worship and rest, not only every Sunday, but every festival usually observed by the Church. It prohibited under severe penalties all masters and managers from corrupting their female slaves, and provided for the Christian marriage of the slave. It did not allow the Negro, husband, wife or infant children, to be sold separately. It forbade the use of torture or immoderate and inhuman punishments. It obliged the owners to maintain their old and decrepit slaves. If the Negroes were not fed or clothed as the law prescribed, or if they were in any way cruelly treated, they might apply to the procurer, who was obliged by his office to protect them. A somewhat similar edict, known as the Spanish Code, was promulgated in the Spanish West Indies in 1789.

At the time of the Revolutionary War such Catholic patriots as Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, the Polish General Kosciuszko, and General Lafayette, of France, gave evidence of their interest in the improvement of the Negro. Kosciuszko provided in his will that the property which he acquired in America should be used for the purchase of slaves to be educated for higher service and citizenship.[499] Lafayette persistently urged that the blacks be educated and emancipated.[500]

The impression seems to prevail in some quarters that the Catholic Church in the United States has been indifferent to the welfare of the Negro. Sir Harry H. Johnston in his work, _The Negro in the New World_, rather unjustly asserts that the Church maintains "nothing in the way of Negro education and has never at any time shown particular sympathy or desire to help the Negro slave." At the same time he acknowledges that the Roman Catholic Church in the West Indies and South America has been the great opponent of slavery. Johnston states "that the infractions of the Code Noir," and the increased mal-treatment of slaves and free mulattoes did not take place until the Catholic order of Jesuits had been expelled from Saint Dominique about 1766. Here, as in Brazil, and Paraguay, they had exasperated the white colonists by standing up for the natives or the Negro slaves; and in Hispaniola they had endeavored to exact from the local government a full application of the various slave-protecting edicts. Whatever faults and mistakes they may have been guilty of in the nineteenth century, the Jesuits played, for two hundred years, a noble part in acting as a buffer between the Caucasian on the one hand, and the backward peoples on the other.[501]

Before the emancipation of the slaves in the United States, great difficulties prevented the Catholic Church from benefiting the slaves, especially in those parts where the Church had no adherents and no freedom to act. The Church had but a limited number of clergy and small means. The most of the South was predominantly Protestant and in some sections, penal laws were in force against Catholics. In many States laws were enacted against the instruction of slaves in any manner whatever.

Notwithstanding these obstacles, we find Catholic schools in Washington and Baltimore educating Negro children as early as 1829.[502] The Rt. Rev. John England, the first Catholic Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, who held his office from 1820 until his death in 1842, cared much for the poor friendless slaves. He began to teach them, founding a school for males under the care of a priest, and a school for girls under the care of the Sisters of Mercy. He was compelled to suspend the slave schools by the passage of a law making it criminal to teach a slave to read and write, but he continued the schools for emancipated blacks.[503] After the Civil War, the authorities of the Church were better enabled to take an active part in meeting the religious needs of the Negro. The Plenary Councils of Baltimore invite the colored people of our country to enter the Catholic Church. To her pastors the Negro is a man with an immortal soul to save. Rome, writing to the Bishops of the United States, on January 31, 1866, in preparation for the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, declares: "It is the mind of the Church that the Bishops of the United States, because of the duty weighing upon them of feeding the Lord's flock, should take council together, in order to bring about in a steady way the salvation and the Christian education of the lately emancipated negroes." When assembled in Council the Bishops of the United States cordially seconded the wishes of Rome by quoting the very words in an entire chapter devoted to the question of the salvation of the colored race. The Council declares: "This is true charity, if not only temporal prosperity of men be increased, but if they are sharers in the highest and inestimable benefits, namely, of that true liberty by which we are called and are sons of God, which Christ, dying on a cross and smiting the enemy of the human race, obtains for all men without any exceptions whatsoever."[504] Eighteen years later, in 1884, the Third Plenary Council, in the same city, renewed the exhortations of the preceding council. Among other things it states: "Out of six millions of colored people there is a very large multitude who stand sorely in need of Christian instruction and missionary labor; and it is evident that in the poor dioceses, in which they are mostly found, it is most difficult to bestow on them the care they need without the generous cooperation of our Catholic people in more prosperous localities.... Since the greatest part of the Negroes are as yet outside the fold of Christ, it is a matter of necessity to seek workmen inflamed with zeal for souls, who will be sent into this part of the Lord's harvest."[505]

With the encouragement of the higher authorities of the Church, who sought the spiritual welfare and progress of the race, religious orders and missionary associations took up the work for the Negro. The first of these was the Fathers of the Society of St. Joseph, founded by Cardinal Vaughan, of England. They are known as the Josephites and now have priests and missionaries in nearly all Southern States and dioceses. There are also laboring in this field Fathers of the Holy Ghost, as also members of the Society of the African Missions, and the Society of the Divine Word. Furthermore, there are a number of colored and white Sisterhoods conducting orphanages, academies and Christian Schools for colored children.

In the Second and Third Plenary Councils, the Bishops of the Catholic Church in the United States as a body took up the cause of the Negro race. The Bishops have when occasion offered, by word and deed, shown their friendship and zeal in behalf of the Negro. They have individually raised their voices for humanity and the black man. Cardinal Gibbons, who has long been the leading prelate among the American Bishops, has not only often spoken a good word for the Negro, when the occasion called for it, but has proved by actions his Christian spirit and heroic charity. Among the many instances of his zeal and self-sacrifice, it is related that when he was a young priest in charge of the parish of Elk Ridge, near Baltimore, smallpox broke out in the village, and a general exodus at once followed. One old Negro man, lying at the point of death, had been abandoned by his family and was left alone in his cabin, without food or medicine. Father Gibbons, hearing of the case, hastened to the old man's relief; he procured everything necessary for him, and stood by and tended him until he died. He then procured a coffin and having placed the corpse in it, carried it to the graveyard and buried it with his own hands.[506] A similar incident is told of Rev. J. A. Cunnane, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, now a pastor in Baltimore. When stationed in Charles County he attended an old colored man during an epidemic of smallpox, "took the body to the grave on a wheelbarrow, and with his own hands buried it."[507]

Cardinal Gibbons, some years ago, wrote a letter in which occur the following sentiments:

"What then is the first need of the colored people? A sound
religious education; an education that will bring them to a
practical knowledge of God, that will teach them their origin and
the sublime destiny that awaits them in a better world; an
education that will develop their superior being, that will
inspire them with the love of wisdom and hatred for sin, that
will make them honest, moral and God-fearing men. Such an
education will elevate and ennoble them and place them on a
religious footing with the white man.

"And secondly, it is a matter of observation that few colored
people are mechanics. Now, to be a factor in their country's
prosperity, to make their presence felt and to give any influence
whatever to their attempts to better their status, it is
absolutely necessary that, besides a sound religious training
they should be taught to be useful citizens; they should be
brought up from childhood to habits of industry. They should be
taught that to labor is honorable, and that the idler is a menace
to the commonwealth. Institutions should be founded wherein the
young men may learn the trades best suited to their inclinations.
Thus equipped--on the one hand well-instructed Christians, on the
other skilled workmen--our colored people may look forward
hopefully to the future. I am happy to bear testimony from
personal observation to the many virtues exhibited among so many
of the colored people of Maryland, especially their deep sense of
religion, their gratitude for favors shown, and their
affectionate disposition."[508]

The Cardinal used his great influence against the lynching evil and in an article in the _North American Review_ for October, 1905, pronounced lynching "a blot on our American civilization."[509] It should be stated too that in Catholic countries of Central and South America we rarely ever hear of lynching nor of unnatural crimes which provoke it. In an address announcing "Colorphobia" as a "malignantly unchristian disease," Mr. John C. Minkins, a journalist, not long ago told a Baptist Ministers' Conference of Providence, Rhode Island, that the lynchings in the United States are nearly all in States where there are scarcely any Catholics. He based his statements on figures from the Research Bureau of the Negro Industrial Institute at Tuskegee, Alabama.[510]

In March, 1904, Cardinal Gibbons wrote the following letter to the Rev. George F. Bragg, of Baltimore:

"In reply to your letter of yesterday, I hasten to say that the
introduction of the 'Jim Crow' bill into the Maryland Legislature
is very distressing to me. Such a measure must of necessity
engender very bitter feelings in the colored people against the
whites. Peace and harmony can never exist where there is unjust
discrimination, and where the members of every community must
constantly strive for its peace, especially now in the hour of
our affliction. While calamity and disaster are frowning upon our
city, mutual helpfulness should be the common endeavor and no
action should be lightly taken which would precipitate enmities,
strife and acrimonious feelings. The duty of every man is to
lighten the burdens that weigh heavily upon his neighbor to the
full extent of his power. It is equally the duty of every member
of a community to avoid any action which is calculated to make
hard and bitter the lot of a less fortunate race. Furthermore, it
would be most injudicious to make the whole race suffer for the
delinquencies of a few individuals, to visit upon thousands who
are innocent that punishment and chastisement which should be
meted out to the guilty alone."

Hostile legislation to the colored people was opposed by a noted Catholic layman of Maryland, the Hon. Charles J. Bonaparte, Attorney General of the United States, under President Roosevelt. Mr. Bonaparte rendered service and wrote sympathetic words to Mr. Bragg, in 1904, concerning the proposed restriction of the elective franchise. He said: "Whatever the restrictions imposed, they should be the same for all citizens; there should not be one law for white men and another law for black men, one law for Americans of two generations and another for Americans of three."[511]

The distinguished Archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, John Ireland, a man of wide influence, on May 5, 1890, spoke on the race problem in a sermon delivered at St. Augustine's Church, Washington, D. C. Secretary Windom, Recorder Bruce, the whole Minnesota delegation to Congress and many Senators and others prominent in public life were among the congregation. The bold and outspoken stand of the Archbishop on this occasion created somewhat of a sensation throughout America. Among other things he said:

"It make me ashamed as a man, as a citizen, as a Christian, to
see the prejudice that is acted against the colored citizens of
America because of his color. As to the substance, the colored
man is equal to the white man; he has a like intellect, the same
blood courses in their veins; they are both equally the children
of a common Father, who is in heaven. A man shows a narrowness of
mind and becomes unworthy of his humanity by refusing any
privilege to his fellowman because he is colored. Every prejudice
entertained, every breach of justice and charity against a
fellow-citizen because of color is a stain flung upon the banner
of our liberty that floats over us. No church is a fit temple of
God where a man, because of his color, is excluded or made to
occupy a corner. Religion teaches that we cannot be pleasing to
God unless we look upon all mankind as children of our Father in
heaven. And they who order and compel a man because he is colored
to betake himself to a corner marked off for his race,
practically contradict the principles of justice and of equal
rights established by the God of Mercy, who lives on the altar.
Let Christians act out their religion, and there is no more race
problem. Equality for the colored man is coming. The colored
people are showing themselves worthy of it. Let the colored be
industrious, purchase homes, respect law and order, educate
themselves and their children, and keep insisting on their
rights. The color line must go; the line will be drawn at
personal merit."[512]