Chapter VIII: General Observations (3)

Although weakened by the reaction of the North against the methods employed by politicians in maintaining the reconstructed governments at the South, which moved President Hayes to withdraw the troops from that area, the Negroes were still of some concern to the Republicans. To retain their support the Republicans often spoke of foisting upon the South the Force Bill to guarantee fair elections but rather abandoned the Negro to the fate of working out his own salvation with his oppressors. In all of the campaigns up to 1888 there was the usual waving of the "bloody shirt" to array the Negro against the South and of urging the Negro to vote the Republican ticket to pay the debt he owed the party for his freedom, hypocritically threatening also to undo many of the things which had been done to the Negro since Reconstruction. There was no sincerity in these vote-getting declarations, however, and the Negro in the South remained politically doomed.

Nothing will better bring out this treatment of the Negro by the Republican party than a study of the consideration given the race in the various platforms of that party following the Civil war. The Republicans in the convention of 1868 declared themselves in sympathy with all oppressed peoples struggling for their rights and recognized the principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence as a true foundation of democratic government. That same year, however, the Democratic party recognized the question of slavery and secession as having been settled but denounced Negro supremacy.[14]

In 1872 the platform of the Republican party was somewhat more outspoken. It carried a reference to the suppression of the rebellion, the emancipation of four million slaves, the grant of equal citizenship and the establishment of universal suffrage. It said, moreover, that "neither law nor its administration should attempt any discrimination in respect to citizens by reason of race, creed, color, or previous condition of servitude.[15] The Liberal Republicans, rallying in a different quarter that year, declared in their platform their belief in the equality of all men before the law and the duty of the government in all its dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all of whatever nativity, race, color or persuasion, religious or political. The Liberal Republicans pledged themselves to maintain the union of States, emancipation, and enfranchisement and to oppose any reopening of the questions settled by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of the Constitution. They advocated the removal of the disabilities of Confederates, the establishment of civil government at the South, universal amnesty, and impartial suffrage.[16]

In 1876 the Negro was given further mention by the various parties. The Prohibitionists took the lead in the declaration for equal suffrage and eligibility to office without distinction of race, religious creed, property or sex.[17] The Republicans referred in their platform to the permanent restoration of the southern section to the Union and the complete protection of all citizens in the free enjoyment of all their rights as an issue to which the Republican party stood sacredly pledged. "The power to provide for the enforcement of the principles embodied by the recent constitutional amendments," continues the platform, "is vested by those amendments in the Congress of the United States, and we declare it to be a solemn obligation of the legislative and executive departments of government to put into immediate and vigorous exercise all their constitutional powers for removing any just cause of discontent on the part of any class, and for securing to every American citizen complete liberty and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and public rights. To this end we imperatively demand a congress and a chief executive whose courage and fidelity to these duties are placed beyond dispute or recall."[18]

The National Democratic platform of that year, however, spoke for the democracy of the whole country and declared its faith in the permanence of the Federal Union, and devotion to the Constitution of the United States with its amendments universally accepted as a final settlement of the controversies that engendered the Civil War; but took a bold stand for reform as necessary to rebuild and establish in the hearts of the whole people of the Union eleven years ago happily rescued from the danger of a secession of States but now to be severed from a corrupt centralism which after inflicting upon ten States the rapacity of carpet bag tyrannies, had "honey-combed the offices of the Federal government itself with the contagion of misrule and locked fast the prosperity of an industrious people in the paralysis of hard times."[19]

In 1880 The Republican party made no particular mention of the grievances of the Negroes but recited its record in suppressing the rebellion, reconstructing the Union with freedom instead of slavery as its corner stone, the transformation of four million human beings from the likeness of things to the rank of citizens and removing Congress from the infamous work of hunting fugitive slaves and charging it to see that slavery shall not exist. It declared, moreover, that the South must be divided by the peaceful agencies of the ballot that all opinions might there find free expression and to this end the honest voter must be protected against terrorism, violence or fraud.[20]

In 1884 there was no specific reference to the Negro unless it be found in the statement that the Republican party had gained its strength by "quick and faithful response to the demands of the people for the freedom and equality of all men; for a united nation, assuring the rights of all citizens."[21] The platform of the Democratic party carried a declaration equally as emphatic in that it said, "the preservation of personal rights; the equality of all citizens before the law; the reserved rights of the States and the supremacy of the Federal government within the limits of the constitution will ever form the true basis of our liberties." It further said; "Asserting the equality of all men before the law, we hold that it is the duty of the government, in its dealings with the people, to mete out equal and exact justice to all citizens, of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion, religious or political."[22]

Giving some impetus to the movement for woman suffrage which the Republicans had by various platforms theretofore encouraged, the Prohibitionists carried in their platform in 1888 the declaration that the right of suffrage rests on no mere circumstance of race, color, sex or nationality and that "where, from any cause, it has been held from citizens who are of suitable age and mentally and morally qualified for the exercise of an intelligent ballot, it should be restored by the people through the legislature of the several States, on such basis as they may deem wise.[23]

To protect the Negroes in their political rights, however, the Federal Government as administered by the Republican party during these years furnished little encouragement, through its much talked of enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Bills providing for adequate military protection of the Negroes at the polls were enacted but the Supreme Court of the United States declared that the Federal Government did not possess the authority to restrain mobs from interfering with elections. The Supreme Court conceded that the Fifteenth Amendment forbade the denial of the right to vote by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, but easily conceded that no violation of this amendment could occur when a hostile mob excluded Negroes from the polls. Yet although the mob thus quickly triumphed in undoing the democratic reforms of Reconstruction, the South hoped thereafter to reach the same end by imposing on the Negroes a legal disability; for the Fifteenth Amendment did not assert the right of the Negro to vote. It merely said that suffrage could not be denied on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. As the Negro was generally poor and in the midst of the economic depression of the South too often had to wander from place to place to seek a livelihood, he could be easily eliminated by the poll tax, the resident requirement, and educational tests.

Thus it happened. Mississippi under its new constitution in 1890 eliminated the Negro and in the next twenty years all of the cotton States except Florida and Texas followed its example. Arkansas based the franchise on a one year poll tax in 1893; South Carolina required residence, enrollment, and poll tax in 1895; Delaware adopted an educational test in 1897, Louisiana resorted to the same test and poll tax in 1898 and North Carolina fell in line in 1900. Alabama established the residence, registry and poll tax requirement in 1901; and Virginia, Georgia and Oklahoma based suffrage on property, literacy or poll tax in 1902, 1908, and 1910 respectively. As these measures bore heavily also upon certain ignorant whites they were relieved of this disability by the "Grandfather Clause" specifying that the persons deprived by these regulations of the right to vote might be placed upon the roll of voters if they had exercised this privilege before the year 1867 or were descended from such voters. This was essentially the clause adopted in North Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, and Georgia.[24] The Supreme Court, however, has declared the "Grandfather Clause" a violation of the Fifteenth Amendment.

During the campaigns after 1888 the Republican party made no special mention of the Negro as it had formerly and did not show any inclination to shoulder the grievances of the race. At this time the Republicans were face to face with a large element of political reformers led by the Democrats who, prior to the campaign of 1884 had carried Pennsylvania and New York and made such other inroads in northern strongholds as to convince the leaders of the Republican party that the Negro issue and the "bloody shirt" would no longer suffice to hold those voters who had been won by the intelligent appeal for deliverance from the corrupt practices in the local and national governments. This movement culminated in the election of Grover Cleveland in 1884 and in his election the second time in 1892.

To attach Negroes to their cause, to be sure, the Republicans were very deferential to them in the national conventions, where they were of much service in naming candidates for the national ticket although they could not vote in the South and were not sufficiently numerous in the North to be a large factor at the polls. At the convention in 1884, the national committee had named ex-Senator Powell Clayton of Arkansas as temporary chairman of the convention, an arrangement which was supposed to be in the interest of Mr. Blaine. The young men of the party led by Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt effected the nomination from the floor of John R. Lynch, a distinguished man of color of Mississippi, and the vote by delegates elected him to the position by 431 to 387 given to Mr. Clayton.[25] Frederick Douglass received one vote for the nomination for President in 1888.[26]

After the complete undoing of the Reconstruction the Negroes were at a loss politically. A number of the foremost Negro politicians, among whom were Frederick Douglass, John R. Lynch, B. K. Bruce, John M. Langston, John C. Dancy, and a few others, were given positions in the service of the Federal Government of high sounding titles and little importance, such as Registrar of the Treasury, Recorder of Deeds, Auditor of the Navy and diplomatic posts in Negro countries. A greater number of Negroes found an outlet in the civil service. Even up until the present day it is an ardent desire of the Negro to obtain a civil service appointment. In these positions the Negroes were able to earn a comparatively easy living but were not able to do anything constructive for the uplift of their people.

The Negroes, however, had continued to support the Republican party to the full extent of their strength. But it soon became clear that the support of Negro leaders was little more than an effort directed toward obtaining a few unimportant offices. The Republicans, having long since discovered that the Negro vote of most communities can be changed neither to harm nor to help them, have consequently ceased to consider the danger of losing their support of great import. The Democratic party, moreover, has continued almost unswervingly its attitude of aloofness from the Negro. The onesidedness of the Negro vote has been declared by some Negroes to be the cause of its non-importance. With this political view some few of them have allied themselves with the Democratic party, feeling that the division of the Negro's vote may work an improvement in his political status. Because of ex-President Taft's attitude of indifference toward the Negroes a number of the Negro politicians supported Roosevelt's party in 1912 and many voted for Wilson in 1916.

With the Negro in this weak position, however, there developed in the South a movement to remove from the Republican party the stigma of its connection with the Negro by eliminating the members of that race from the circles of control in the South. This movement has been generally known as a "Lily-Whiteism." For the last twenty-five years, therefore, there have come to the National Republican Conventions from the various Southern States contesting delegations, one white and the other black, each one claiming to be the properly accredited representative of the Republican party in the State concerned. In some States the "Lily-Whites" have actually held conventions from which the Negroes were excluded or which they were not permitted to attend. Because of the difficulty of making good their claim as properly accredited delegates they have abandoned this method for the subterfuge of holding their conventions in hotels or other exclusive places which Negroes, because of the social proscription of the race, are prohibited from entering by an already well established unwritten law.

As a matter of fact the Republican party in such commonwealths no longer exists and these delegates whether white or black represent merely rotten boroughs. As they are of use, however, in selecting the candidate to be nominated for president, the administration has been very reluctant to interfere with the proposed reform in these quarters for the reason that such delegates are usually made up of persons appointed by the President of the United States to Federal positions in the South. As the President usually desires to be reelected and can control such a coterie, it has been very difficult to find one with the courage to give his influence in the direction of reform.

Early in the winter of the year when the president is to be nominated, persons supporting the administration usually visit the South laying plans for lining up these prospective delegates. Politicians interested in other candidates make similar tours through the South sometimes lavishly handling funds to the extent of buying up delegates. As the whites are in a much better position to secure the few Federal appointments allotted in the South, after the election, since the abandonment of the policy of appointing Negroes to these positions, the Negroes have usually exacted a much larger compensation for their services in the pre-convention struggle than whites have required, thus shamelessly disgracing themselves in the eyes of those who would expect the leaders of the race to play a more honorable role.

There are in certain sections of the South a number of men who devote all of their time to electing these delegates for service in these conventions and secure therefore adequate remuneration for a livelihood from administration to administration. The pliant Negro delegates at the convention in Chicago in 1908 and 1912 were unequal to the task of nominating a progressive candidate because of their machine like attachment to the candidacy of William Howard Taft, whom the American people would not accept. The Negro delegates, however, did much better in the convention of 1916 and still further improved by the time of the conventions of 1920, when it was impossible for any pre-convention arrangement or plan to be so carried out that any candidate could come to the convention saying that he had the Negroes to vote in any particular way. It is encouraging, moreover, to add that numbers of these delegates had received no funds from any quarter whatever, but along with white men promoting their party had contributed to the campaign funds and had paid their own expenses to the convention. They were, therefore, given a more dignified position in the management of the party affairs and were in many respects shown the same consideration as that given the white delegates, serving on various important committees and placed in strategic positions in the management of the campaign without regard to color.

In drawing to a close this discussion of the Negro in politics I wish to accentuate the fact that while the Negro is at present practically a political nonentity, he is yet potent, as is illustrated in various parts of the country. For example, at present there are two Negro councilmen in Chicago, two aldermen in New York, one assemblyman in New York, two councilmen in Baltimore, three Negro members in the West Virginia legislature, one in the California legislature, and one in the Indiana legislature. In several of the cities of the North there is such a large Negro population and so much appreciation among the Negroes of their political power that they are now launching a movement to nominate and elect members of their race to represent them in Congress. It is likely that this may soon be effected in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia.

NORMAN P. ANDREWS

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This article was written under the direction of Dr. C. G. Woodson, under whom the writer prosecuted various courses in history during the year 1919-1920 at Howard University. The writer is indebted to him for valuable suggestions and many important facts which Dr. Woodson incorporated into the dissertation before publishing it. The writer was aided too by suggestions and facts obtained from Mr. W.T. Andrews, the editor of the _Baltimore Herald_, Professor Kelly Miller, and Mr. A. Phillips Randolph, of New York City.

[2] _The Journal of Negro History_, Vol. V, pp. 110-111.

[3] Eckenrode, _Political History of Virginia during Reconstruction_, pp. 127, 128, and Thompson, _Reconstruction in Georgia_, p. 400.

[4] Hamilton, _Reconstruction in North Carolina_, p. 607.

[5] Burgess, _Reconstruction and the Constitution_, p. 218.

[6] _The Journal of Negro History_, Vol. V, pp. 110-111.

[7] This statement is based on information obtained from numerous participants in the Reconstruction of the Southern States. Among these are John R. Lynch, Thomas E. Miller, T. T. Allain, and P. B. S. Pinchback.

[8] This is the testimony of white persons obtained by the writer.

[9] These facts were obtained through Mr. W. T. Andrews who lived in South Carolina.

[10] Simmons, _Men of Mark_, pp. 113, 829, 948, 1023; Woodson, _A Century of Negro Migration_, pp. 124-125.

[11] _Report of Joint Committee to Investigate the Treasurer's Office, State of Louisiana, to the General Assembly, 1877_, pp. 7-12. _Majority Report; Journal of Negro History_, Vol. II, pp. 77-78.

[12] Lynch, _Facts of Reconstruction_, ch. III. _Journal of Negro History_, Vol. II, p. 30.

[13] Garner, _Reconstruction in Mississippi_; Woodson, _The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861_, p. 17.

[14] Stanwood, _A History of Presidential Elections_, 260.

[15] _Ibid._, 291.

[16] _Ibid._, 287.

[17] Stanwood, _A History of Presidential Elections_, 310.

[18] _Ibid._, 316, 317, 318.

[19] _Ibid._, 322.

[20] Stanwood, _A History of Presidential Elections_, 356, 359.

[21] _Ibid._, 387.

[22] _Ibid._, 393, 396.

[23] Stanwood, _A History of Presidential Elections_, 432.

[24] Thorpe, _Federal and State Constitutions_; Paxson, _The New Nation_, p. 199.

[25] Stanwood, _A History of Presidential Elections_, pp. 385-386; Paxson, _The New Nation_, p. 128.

[26] Stanwood, _A History of Presidential Elections_, p. 447.

HENRY BIBB, A COLONIZER

The underground railroad has been characterized by one historian of the Negro race as a "safety valve to the institution of slavery" since it tended to remove from the slave States those Negroes whose special abilities and leadership might have involved them in insurrections.[1] Their abilities frequently found an outlet in another land, under different conditions and in an entirely orderly way. Negroes who fled to Canada were given considerable material aid by the government of Canada and treated with sympathy by its people. Their own leaders, however, played no small part in the progress that they made in the British provinces and the names of Josiah Henson, Martin R. Delany and Henry Bibb stand for intelligence, energy and high qualities of service on behalf of the race in Canada.

Henry Bibb, born in slavery and without more than the barest rudiments of education, became prominent in the anti-slavery crusade, was actively associated with the Liberty Party in the State of Michigan during the forties and when the Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850 drove thousands of his people out of the North and into Canada he set himself vigorously to the task of settling them on the land, providing schools and churches, and through his paper, _The Voice of the Fugitive_, exercised a good influence upon them at a time when their minds might be expected to be unsettled. Garrison and others who were active in the anti-slavery movement paid tribute to his services in that cause.

Bibb's career in slavery is told in his narrative published in New York in 1849.[2] He was born in Shelby county, Kentucky, in May, 1815, the son of a slave mother and a white father, and his childhood he sums up by saying that he was "educated in the school of adversity, whips and chains." Of his early life he writes:

"I was a wretched slave, compelled to work under the lash without
wages and often without clothes enough to hide my nakedness. I
have often worked without half enough to eat, both late and
early, by day and by night. I have often laid my wearied limbs
down at night to rest upon a dirt floor, or a bench without any
covering at all, because I had nowhere else to rest my wearied
body, after having worked hard all the day. I have been compelled
in early life to go at the bidding of a tyrant through all kinds
of weather, hot and cold, wet or dry, and without shoes
frequently until the month of December, with my bare feet on the
cold frosty ground, cracked open and bleeding as I walked."

From the slaveholder's standpoint he was a most unsatisfactory servant, being an incorrigible runaway, a blemish on his moral character which probably accounted for the frequency with which he changed owners, six separate sales being recorded at prices ranging from $850 to $1200. The plantation punishments had no effect upon him save to increase his desire for freedom.

As with many another slave the very evils of the system served a purpose in Bibb's life. Denied education of a normal kind he became observant and his mind was enlightened by what he saw and heard. "Among other good trades," he says, "I learned the art of running away to perfection. I made a regular business of it and never gave it up until I had broken the bonds of slavery and landed myself in Canada where I was regarded as a man and not a thing."

Ill treatment was the incentive to the first attempt of Bibb to secure his freedom. This was in 1835 and the next few years were occupied with repeated unsuccessful efforts to get away and to take his wife and child with him. He had heard of Canada and his thoughts ever turned in that direction. On several occasions his flights led him as far as the Ohio River, the boundary of freedom, but some force seemed always at hand to drag him back. At the end of 1837 he managed to reach Cincinnati and spent that winter at Perrysburg with a community of Negroes settled there. The next summer he risked his freedom in attempting to bring his wife North, was captured, lodged in jail at Louisville, and managed to escape within a few hours after being locked up. A year later he renewed the attempt, was again captured, and this time was sold, together with his wife, to a trader who dealt in the New Orleans market. It was in the fall of 1839 that the man and wife were exposed for sale in a slave yard on St. Joseph Street and in the narrative there is an interesting account of the trade in this southern city. Newly arrived blacks were taken before a city official who inspected their backs to see if they were scarred and also examined their limbs to see if they were sound. To determine their age the teeth were examined and the skin pinched on the back of the hand. In the case of old slaves the pucker would remain for some seconds. There was also rigorous examination as to mental capacity. Slaves who displayed unusual intelligence, who could read or write or who had been to Canada were not wanted. Bibb notes that practically every buyer asked him if he could read or write and if he had ever run away. Of the slave yard itself he writes:

"All classes of slaves were kept there for sale, to be sold in
private or public--young or old, males or females, children or
parents, husbands or wives. Every day, at ten o'clock, they were
exposed for sale. They had to be in trim for showing themselves
to the public for sale. Everyone's head had to be combed and
their faces washed, and those who were inclined to look dark and
rough were compelled to wash in greasy dish water in order to
make them look slick and lively. When spectators would come in
the yard the slaves were ordered out to form a line. They were
made to stand up straight and look as sprightly as they could;
and when they were asked a question they had to answer it as
promptly as they could, and try to induce the spectator to buy
them. If they failed to do this they were severely paddled after
the spectators were gone. The object for using the paddle in the
place of a lash was to conceal the marks which would be made by a
flogging. And the object for flogging under such circumstances is
to make the slave anxious to be sold."[3]

The Bibbs were eventually sold to a Red River planter with whom they had a most miserable existence. For attending without leave a religious meeting on a neighboring plantation Bibb was ordered to receive five hundred lashes. To avoid this he took his wife and child and they hid in a swamp. Dogs tracked them down and every slave on the plantation witnessed the punishment that was given. Shortly afterwards the planter sold Bibb to a party of southern sportsmen but refused to sell the wife whom Bibb never saw again. The new owners quickly resold him to an Indian from whom he managed to escape and successfully made his way through the Indian Territory, Missouri and Ohio to Michigan and Detroit.[4] He was never in the South again.

Bibb's arrival in Detroit came at what proved for him a most opportune time, since it gave scope for his abilities to be utilized in the anti-slavery cause, particularly in the State of Michigan. The Detroit Anti-Slavery Society had been formed in 1837 and by the end of 1840 there were similar societies all over the State. Michigan, at this time, was probably better organized and more united in sentiment than any other of the Northwestern States. It was the era of the Liberty Party whose platform "asserted the overmastering importance of the one question of the existence of slavery, and the necessity of bringing about a separation of the national government from all connection with the institution." This third party was facing in 1844 a crisis over the question of the annexation of Texas for which the South was a unit and on which the political organizations of the North were divided. Bibb had attended a convention of free colored people held in Detroit in 1843 and the next year he began to give addresses throughout the State in the interests of Liberty Party candidates, a full ticket for both Congress and the State legislature having been nominated. It was a bitter contest in which he engaged. The Whigs pointed out that they were standing out against the annexation of Texas, a slave empire in itself, and that votes for a third party would but pave the way for a Democratic victory. This is exactly what happened. In Michigan the Liberty Party polled six and a half per cent of the votes, but even this added to the Whig vote would not have brought victory.[5] Bibb continued to work for the Liberty Party during 1844 and 1845, going also into Ohio with Samuel Brooks and Amos Dresser. They were more than once mobbed and their meetings broken up by rowdies. Of their work Bibb writes:

"Our meetings were generally appointed in small log cabins,
schoolhouses, among the farmers, which were sometimes crowded
full; and where they had no horse teams it was often the case
that there would be four or five ox teams come, loaded down with
men, women and children to attend our meetings. The people were
generally poor and in many places not able to give us a decent
night's lodgings. We generally carried with us a few pounds of
candles to light up the houses wherein we held our meetings after
night; for in many places they had neither candles nor
candlesticks. After meeting was out we have frequently gone
three to eight miles to get lodgings, through the dark forest
where there was scarcely any road for a wagon to run on. I have
travelled for miles over swamps where the roads were covered with
logs without any dirt over them, which has sometimes shook and
jostled the wagon to pieces where we could find no shop or place
to mend it. We would have to tie it up with bark, or take the
lines to tie it with and lead the horse by the bridle. At other
times we were in mud up to the hubs of the wheels."

Bibb found his real work when, with the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, there began a trek of colored people out of the Northern States into Canada.[6] Before the end of 1850 several thousand of these people had crossed the border and the situation was one that called not only for the aid of generous Canadians but for all that leaders among their own people could do for them. It was Henry Bibb's belief that the future of the people of color in Canada depended upon getting them settled on the land and his mind turned to the possibilities of establishing a distinctly Negro colony on land that might be secured as a grant from the Canadian government or, if necessary, purchased from the government as had been done in the case of the Buxton settlement established by Rev. William King in what is now Southwestern Ontario. Bibb succeeded in organizing his colonization society, its object being "to assist the refugees from American slavery to obtain permanent homes and to promote their social, moral, physical and intellectual development." It was proposed that 50,000 acres of land should be purchased from the government at an estimated cost of about two dollars an acre, the purchase money to be derived partly from contributions and partly from the sale of the land. Each family settling was to receive 25 acres, five acres to be free of cost provided they cleared and cultivated it within three years from the time of occupation. The remaining twenty acres was to be paid for in nine annual installments. Only landless refugees were to receive grants, transfer except after fifteen years occupation was forbidden and all lands vacated by removal or extinction of families were to revert to the parent society. Money returned to the society was to be spent on schools, for payment of teachers and for the purchase of new land. The whole business of the organization was to be in the hands of a board of trustees.[7]

At the beginning of 1851 Bibb had established a little newspaper, published bi-monthly and known as _The Voice of the Fugitive_. In the issue of March 12, 1851, he raises the question as to what the fugitives stand most in need of and holds that charity is but a handicap to their progress and that they must work for their own support, preferably on the land. The recommendation of a recent convention at Sandwich is quoted to the effect that the refugees should go into agriculture, and that to this end an effort should be made to secure a grant of land from the Canadian government, this land to be disposed of in 25-acre plots. Bibb suggested that there should be at least 20,000 acres secured at once.

To aid in forwarding the plans Bibb enlisted the support of a number of Michigan people and at a meeting held in Detroit on May 21, 1851, the Refugee's Home Society was organized with the following officers: president, Deacon E. Fish, Birmingham; vice-president, Robert Garner; secretary, Rev. E. E. Kirkland, Colchester; assistant secretary, William Newman. It was decided that an effort should be made to secure 50,000 acres of land. New officers appear to have been elected almost immediately after the society had started operations, the new executives being as follows: president: J. Stone, Detroit; vice-president, A. L. Power, Farmington; secretary, E. P. Benham, Farmington; treasurer, Horace Hallock, Detroit.[8] The whole movement was heartily approved at a convention of colored people held at Sandwich on May 26, 1851. The Canada Land Company offered to sell large blocks of land to the Society at from two to four dollars an acre but no large purchases were immediately made. Instead, the society began a canvass for funds, sending out Charles C. Foote of Commerce and E. P. Benham of Farmington for this purpose. A letter from Foote in _The Voice of the Fugitive_ of July 30, 1851, says "The plan seems popular and he looks forward to the day when the colored people will nestle in the mane of the British lion." In the latter part of 1851 a purchase of land was made from the Canada Company and a contract was entered into for further purchases as soon as the funds should be available.

At the meeting of the Society held in Farmington on January 29, 1852, the following officers were elected: president, Nathan Stone, Detroit; vice-president, A. L. Power, Farmington; treasurer, Horace Hallock, Detroit; recording secretary, E. P. Benham, Livonia; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Mary Bibb, Windsor; Executive William Lolason, Detroit; Colman Freeman, Windsor; Elisha Vanzant, Detroit; David Hotchkiss, Amherstburg; and Henry Bibb, Windsor, Vanzant and Bibb were appointed trustees, the latter reporting the purchase of 200 acres of land at three dollars an acre. It was decided to reserve ten acres for school purposes, to send out J. F. Dolbeare as agent to collect funds and to make Bibb's newspaper the official organ of the society.[10]

The second annual report of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada (1853) reported that at that time the Refugee's Home Society had purchased 1328 acres of land of which 600 acres had been taken up by settlers. The scheme was considered a good one but it was emphasized that good management would be needed. The progress of the Elgin or Buxton settlement showed that success was possible.

When Benjamin Drew visited Canada in 1854 he found that the Society had purchased nearly 2,000 acres of land, that forty of the 25-acre plots had been taken up and that there were 20 families located. A school was being maintained during three-fourths of the year, intoxicating liquors had been completely banned and a society known as the True Band had been organized to look after the best moral and educational interests of the colony.[11] The colony was fortunate in the first teacher that was engaged for the school. This was Mrs. Laura S. Haviland, who came in the fall of 1852 and began her work in the frame building which had been erected for general meeting purposes. So great was the interest in her Bible classes that even aged people would come many miles to attend. Similar success attended her experiment of an unsectarian church. In her autobiography she tells something of the conditions in the colony while she was there. In their clearings the settlers raised corn, potatoes and other vegetables while a few had put in two or three acres of wheat. Mrs. Haviland's account of the colony is much more favorable than some of the adverse stories that were sent abroad regarding it.[12]

Rev. W. M. Mitchell, who was a Negro missionary among his own people in Toronto, makes the following reference to the colony in his "Underground Railroad":

"About ten miles from Windsor there is a settlement of 5000 acres
which extends over a large part of Essex county. It is called the
Fugitives' Home. Several years ago a very enterprising and
intelligent fugitive slave ... bought land from the government,
divided it into 20-acre plots and sold it to other fugitives,
giving them five to ten years for payments. Emigrants settled
here in such large numbers that it is called the Fugitives' Home.
The larger portion of the land is still uncultivated, a great
deal is highly cultivated and many are doing well."

The writer goes on to point out the evidences of the material advancement of the colony. There were two schools, the government paying half the salary of the teacher and the other half being collected from the parents. The school he found was also used for the church services, though the spirituality of the people seemed low.[13]

The record of Henry Bibb's activities in Canada show that he took a broad view of the refugee question. He associated himself actively with the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada at its formation in 1851 and at the first annual meeting held in Toronto in 1852 was elected one of the vice-presidents. In the reports of this organization will be found several references to his work. He was also the first president of the Windsor branch of the Anti-Slavery Society and made several tours through the western end of Upper Canada visiting the Negro communities and speaking on the slavery issue. In his newspaper, _The Voice of the Fugitive_, he chronicled every movement that would aid in the uplift of his people and set forth their needs in an admirable way. Its columns give a large amount of information concerning the fugitives in Canada after 1850.

Bibb's colonization plan was a well-meant effort to improve the status of the Negro in Canada. While it lacked the permanence of the Elgin settlement, which even today preserves its character, it opened the way for a certain number of the refugees to provide for their own needs and it lessened to some extent the congestion of refugees in border towns like Windsor and Sandwich. It is a debatable question whether segregation of these people was wise or not. At that time it seemed almost the only solution of the very pressing problem. After the Civil war many of the Negroes in Canada returned to the United States and those who remained found conditions easier. There was usually work for any man who was willing to labor and it is a well-recorded fact that many of the fugitives, entering the country under the most adverse of circumstances, succeeded in getting ahead and gathering together property. Benjamin Drew's picture of the Canadian Negroes as he found them in the middle of the fifties is favorable and when Dr. Samuel G. Howe investigated the Canadian situation on behalf of the Freedmen's Inquiry Commission in 1863[14] he was able to report:

"The refugees in Canada earn a living, and gather property; they
marry and respect women; they build churches and send their
children to schools; they improve in manners and morals--not
because they are picked men but simply because they are free men.
Each of them may say, as millions will soon say, 'When I was a
slave, I spake as a slave, I understood as a slave, I thought as
a slave; but when I became a free man I put away slavish
things.'"

FRED LANDON

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Williams, G. W., _History of the Negro Race in America_, N. Y., 1883, Vol. II, p. 58.

[2] See _The Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, written by himself, with an introduction by Lucius Matlack_, New York, 1849. I am indebted to the Brooklyn Public Library for the loan of this book.

[3] Compare with this description of a New Orleans slave pen the descriptions of Richmond auctions by W. H. Russell, _My Diary North and South_, N. Y., 1863, page 68, and William Chambers, _Things as they are in America_, London, 1854, pages 273-286.

[4] He says that his object in going to Detroit was to get some schooling. He was unable to meet the expense, however, and as he puts it: "I graduated in three weeks and this was all the schooling I ever had in my life." His teacher for this brief period was W. C. Monroe who afterwards presided at John Brown's Chatham Convention in May, 1858.

[5] See Smith, _Liberty and Free Soil Parties in the Northwest_, New York, 1897.

[6] See _The Journal of Negro History_, Vol. V, No. 1, January, 1920, pp. 22-36.

[7] This plan was recommended by a convention of colored people held at Sandwich, C. W., early in 1851. See _The Voice of the Fugitive_, March 12, 1851. A file of this paper for 1851-2 is in the library of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

[8] _The Voice of the Fugitive_, June 4, 1851.

[9] _The Voice of the Fugitive_, Nov. 19, 1851.

[10] _Ibid._, Jan. 29, 1852. See also _The Liberator_, June 11, 1852.

[11] _Ibid._, _The Refugee, or the Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada related by themselves_, Boston. 1856, pp. 323-326.

[12] Hairland, _A Woman's Life Work_, Grand Rapids, 1881, p. 192.

[13] Mitchell, _Underground Railroad_, London, 1860, pp. 142-149.

[14] Howe, _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West, Report to the Freedmen's Inquiry Commission_, Boston, 1864. The Freedmen's Inquiry Commission was instituted by Stanton in 1863 to consider what should be done for slaves already freed. The members of the Commission were Dr. Samuel G. Howe, Robert Dale Owen and James Mackay.

MYRTILLA MINER

A century ago it was generally conceded that a person unfitted for any other occupation either public or private could at least be a teacher, for many teachers of the colonies were felons and convicts brought to America to serve as indentured servants. This egregious error, however, was discovered by the pioneers of the new era in education, who saw clearly enough that the strength of the nation depended upon the _professional_ as well as the academic equipment of its teachers and thus the training school for teachers had its birth. Its influence has been most significant in raising the standards of efficiency in the elementary schools and equally significant is its need in the high schools and colleges of this country.

No one in the District of Columbia can think of the benefits derived from the professional teacher training without immediate recollection and sacred memory of its pioneer and benefactress, Myrtilla Miner. For her noble character, her high ideals, her progressive methods in education, her struggles against opposition in the pursuit of her Godgiven task, her lasting contribution of an organized institution for the training of teachers in the spirit of the Master to serve all humanity, the citizens of the District of Columbia and especially the people of color must ever revere her memory.[1]

On the 4th of March, 1815, in Brookfield, Madison County, New York, Myrtilla Miner, of poor and humble, yet of industrious parentage, was born. As a child, though frail of physique and deprived of opportunity, her indomitable will enabled her to overcome the obstacles of poverty and superstition as well as poor health. Wading through them all she earned enough by arduous labor in the hopfields near her home to purchase books for her further enlightenment. These struggles against fate, however, were the rocks upon which her noble character was built. Here were sown the seed of sympathy for the weak, appreciation for the struggling, and respect for the ambitious.

After a year's training at Clinton, Oneida County, New York, where she obtained the elements of education under the most adverse circumstances of ill health and lack of funds, Miss Miner accepted a call to teach in Mississippi in order to pay the debts incurred for the training she had already received. Her experience in Mississippi was indeed invaluable, for there she learned through horrible experiences the evils of the institution of slavery. She boldly protested against the cruelties of the slaveholders and the institution in general. She innocently requested permission to teach the slaves of the planter whose daughters she was then instructing. When told that such was a criminal offense against the laws of Mississippi and that she should "go North and teach the 'Niggers,'" Miss Miner with an intrepid spirit resolved then and there that she _would_ go North and teach them. Out of this unpleasant experience developed the determination to found a Normal School for girls of color in the city of Washington.

Returning North, Miss Miner found other difficulties than poor health confronting her in her efforts to establish a school for the Negro youth in the District of Columbia. Funds had to be raised, pro-slavery opposition had to be overcome, and public sentiment had to be changed at least to indifference. Each of these in itself was sufficiently colossal to try the strength, physical and moral, of the ablest anti-slavery agitators of that day. It was at the time of the passage of that infamous Fugitive Slave Law, when freedmen and runaways like William Parker, Jerry McHenry and Joshua Glover were knocked down, beaten, bound and cast into prison; when abolitionists were incarcerated for their anti-slavery propaganda and giving aid to the fugitives; when even our valiant Frederick Douglass admitted himself too timid to support any such project as that undertaken by Miss Miner in the city of Washington.[2] It was in times such as these that this fearless and resolute little woman, with an enthusiasm that seemingly glistened in her penetrating eyes, determined to give her life to the cause of alleviating suffering, dispelling ignorance, and liberating the oppressed Americans in body and mind.

With the small sum of one hundred dollars that she had secured from Mrs. Ednah Thomas,[3] of Philadelphia, a member of the Society of Friends, Miss Miner started out upon her great work in behalf of the Negro children of the District of Columbia. Her thrift prompted her to solicit funds of various and peculiar sorts. Donations of old papers, books, weights, measures and other castaway material were transformed by this real teacher into valuable material for the instruction of her undeveloped pupils.

Funds of the material sort were not the only difficulties that beset her road of progress, for pro-slavery opposition assailed Miss Miner from every side.[4] Such propaganda as the following appeared in the _National Intelligencer_, a Washington newspaper of pro-slavery sentiments and was spread far and wide. (1) The school would attract free colored people from the adjoining States, (2) it was proposed to give them an education far beyond what their political and social condition would justify, (3) the school would be a center of influence directed against the existence of slavery in the District of Columbia, and (4) it might endanger the institution of slavery and even rend asunder the Union itself.[5]

The truth of some parts of this declaration was quite evident and irrefutable, for education, as Miss Miner understood it, was destined to make every slave a man and every man free. This, of course, increased the difficulty of Miss Miner's task but her faith was abiding and her courage unabated. Miss Miner realized fully that the lot of the eight thousand free people of color of the District of Columbia was but little better than that of the 3,000 slaves, for the former, though free according to the letter of the law, in actual life had no rights that a white man was compelled to respect. They were not admitted to public institutions, could not attend the city schools, could not testify against a white man in court, and could not travel without a pass without running the risk of being cast into prison.

Amidst it all, on the 6th day of December 1851, in a rented room about fourteen feet square, in the frame house on Eleventh Street near New York Avenue then owned and occupied as a dwelling by Edward C. Younger,[6] a Negro, Myrtilla Miner with six pupils established as a private institution for the education of girls of color the first Normal School in the District of Columbia and the fourth one in the United States. Increase of enrollment soon forced her to secure accommodations and within two months she had moved into a house on the north side of F Street between Eighteenth and Nineteenth, near the house then occupied by William T. Carroll and Charles H. Winder. This house furnished her a very comfortable room for her growing school of well-behaved girls, from the best Negro families of the District of Columbia. Threats on the part of white neighbors to set fire to the house forced her to leave the home of the Negro family with whom she had stayed but one month and to seek quarters elsewhere. Miss Miner then succeeded in getting accommodations in the dwelling-house of a German family on K Street, near the K Street market. After tarrying a few months there, she moved to L Street into a room in the building known as the "The Two Sisters," then occupied by a white family. But the inconvenience of holding school in rented quarters of private dwellings proved a very unpleasant one indeed; for not only did she suffer the lack of comfort which such quarters naturally could not offer, but found herself constantly harassed by the necessity of moving to escape the enmity and persecution of her white neighbors.

A new day, however, was to dawn. With the aid of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dr. Gamaliel Bailey and a few such faithful Philadelphia friends as Thomas Williamson, Samuel Rhoads, Benjamin Tatham, Jasper Cope and Catherine Morris, enough funds were raised to purchase a site of three acres or more for a permanent home on a lot near N Street and New Hampshire Avenue, between Nineteenth and Twentieth Streets, Northwest. Though the environment of this new home was most pleasing and beautiful, being surrounded with flowers and fruit trees, the enmity of the white hoodlums still followed her. She and her pupils were frequently assailed with torrents of stones and other missiles. Once threatened by mob violence, Miss Miner bravely and defiantly exclaimed, "Mob my school! You dare not! If you tear it down over my head I shall get another house. There is no law to prevent my teaching these people and I shall teach them even unto death!" Testimony of some of Miss Miner's former pupils upholds such a defiance as truly descriptive of her fearless nature.

In its earlier days the Miner Normal School was supported by private funds and directed by a board of trustees consisting of Benjamin Tatham and H. W. Bellows of New York; Samuel M. Janney of Virginia; Johns Hopkins of Baltimore; Samuel Rhoads and Thomas Williamson of Philadelphia; G. Bailey and L. D. Gale of Washington; C. E. Stowe of Andover; H. W. Beecher of Brooklyn, together with an executive committee consisting of S. J. Bowen, J. M. Wilson and L. D. Gale of Washington; Miss Miner, principal and William H. Beecher, secretary.

The curriculum of the school then embraced boarding, domestic economy, teachers' training course and the primary departments. It is interesting to note that some of the advanced ideas in education today, such as student self-government, vitalized teaching, socialized recitation, and civic as well as personal hygiene, were taught and practiced by Miss Miner during the fifties of the last century.