Chapter X: The Pale Messenger (5)

The ninth is the sale, September 27, 1749, by Jean-Baptiste Auger, merchant of Montreal but then in Quebec, to Joseph Chavigny, Sieur de la Tesserie, of an Indian girl (une panise) of about 22 years of age named and called Joseph for baptism, price 400 livres, Island money,[15] which the purchaser promises and agrees to send to be invested in pepper (?) and coffee for the account and at the risk of the vendor, Auger, by the first ship leaving Martinique for Canada, the pepper (?) and coffee to be addressed by the purchaser, de la Tesserie, to Voyer, a merchant at Quebec for the account of Auger. De la Tesserie hypothecates all his goods as security. The eleventh, November 4, 1751, is the sale by Jacques-François Daguille, merchant, of Montreal but then in Quebec, to Mathieu-Theodoze de Vitre, Captain in the Navy, of an Indian girl (une panise) about ten or eleven, called Fanchon but not yet baptized,[16] price 400 livres cash.

The twelfth, September 8, 1753, sale by Marie-Josephe Morisseaux, wife and agent of Gilles Strouds of Quebec, then at Nontagamion, to Louis Philippe Boutton, Captain of the Snow,[17] _Picard_, of an Indian girl (une sauvagesse panise de nation nommée Catiche) of about twenty years of age, price 700 livres payable on delivery, "with her clothes and linen as they all are."

The fifth, December 27, 1744, is a contract by Jean-Baptiste Vallée of Quebec, rue de Sault-au-Matelot, the owner of a Negro, commonly called Louis Lepage, whom Vallée certifies as belonging to him, and to be faithful and well-behaved. Vallée hires him to François de Chalet, Inspector General of the Compagnie des Indes to serve him as a sailor for the whole remaining term of de Chalet's tenure of the Ports of Cataraqui (Katarakouye, _i.e._, now Kingston, Ontario) and Niagara (on the east side of the river). The Negro is to serve as a sailor on the boats of the ports. Vallée undertakes to send him from Quebec on the first demand of de Chalet to serve him and his representative in all legitimate and proper ways, not to depart without written leave, etc. The amount to be paid to Vallée was 25 livres per month, de Chalet in addition to furnish the sailor a jug (pot) of brandy and a pound of tobacco a month, and for his food, two pounds of bread and half a pound of pork a day.[18]

The sixth act is a petition, April 27, 1747, to the Lieutenant Civil and Criminal of Quebec by Louis Parent, merchant of Quebec, asking him to direct Lamorille, Sr., and Jugon who had by judgment, April 25, 1747, been named as arbitrators, for the valuation of a Negro, named Neptune, part of the estate of the late Sieur de Beauvais, that they should proceed with their valuation--Chaussegros de Léry to be present if he wished, but if not, the two to proceed without him. A direction was given by Boucault to meet at his place the next day at 2 P. M. and a certificate by Vallet, the bailiff (huissier) to the Superior Council at Quebec, is filed that he had served Chaussegros de Léry, La Morille, Sr., and Jugon.

The first instance here recorded of sale of a slave after the Conquest by the British was November 14, 1778. This, the fourteenth document copied, evidences a sale by George Hipps, merchant butcher, living in his house, rue Sainte-Anne in Upper Town, Quebec, to the Honorable Hector-Theophile Cramahé, Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, of a mulatto slave called Isabella or Bell about fifteen years old.[19] She had been already received in Cramahé's house, and he declared himself satisfied with her. She had been the property of Captain Thomas Venture who had sold her at auction to Hipps. The price paid by Cramahé was £50 Quebec money, equal to 200 Spanish piastres; and Hipps acknowledged payment in gold and silver. Cramahé undertakes to feed, lodge, entertain, and treat the slave humanely.

The next, the fifteenth, April 20, 1779, is the sale of the same mulatto girl, Isabella or Bell, by Cramahé to Peter Napier, Captain in the Navy, then living at Quebec, with her clothes and linen for 45 livres, Quebec or Halifax money. Napier undertakes to treat the slave humanely.[20]

The sixteenth, August 15, 1795, is the first written in English, all the preceding being in French. It is dated August 15, 1795 and is sale by Mr. Dennis Dayly of Quebec, tavern-keeper, to John Young, Esquire, of the same place, merchant, of "a certain Negroe boy or lad called Rubin" for £70 Halifax currency. Dayly had bought the boy from John Cobham, of Quebec, September 6, 1786.[21]

The last, the seventeenth, is the most pleasant of all to record. John Young appeared, June 8, 1797, before Charles Stewart and A. Dumas, Notaries Public, in the former's office with the lad Rubin, and declared that he bought him from Mr. Dennis Dayly, August 15, 1795. He, as an encouragement to honesty and assiduity in Rubin, declared in the presence of the Notary, Charles Stewart, that if Rubin would faithfully serve him for seven years, he would give him his full and free liberty, and in the meantime would maintain and clothe him suitably and give him two and sixpence a month pocket money, but if he got drunk or absented himself from his service or neglected his master's business, he would forfeit all right to freedom. This was explained to Rubin, "who accepted with gratitude the generous offer." All parties, including the Notaries, signed the act, Rubin Young by his mark, so that the slave by good conduct and refraining from drunkenness would achieve his freedom, June 8, 1804.

I have discovered certain Court proceedings copied in the Canadian Archives at Ottawa,[22] which have not been made public in any way and which are of great interest in this connection. A short historical note will enable my readers to understand the proceedings more clearly.

After the Conquest of Canada, 1759-60, for a few years the country was under military rule. The three Districts of French times, Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers, were retained, each with its Governor or Lieutenant Governor. To administer justice, the officers of militia in each Parish, generally speaking, were constituted courts of first instance with an appeal to a council of the superior officers in the British Army in the city, this court having also original jurisdiction.

On July 20, 1762, a council sat, as of original jurisdiction, composed of Lieut. Col. Beckwith, Captains Falconer, Suby, Dunbar and Osbourne, to hear the plea of a poor Negro called André against a prominent merchant of Montreal, Gershon Levy. The proceedings, recorded in French, are somewhat hard to decipher after a hundred and sixty years have elapsed but well repay the labor of examination.

André asked to be accorded his liberty, claiming that Levy had bought him of one Best, but that Best had the right to his services for only four years which had now expired. Levy appeared and claimed that André could not prove his allegation, but that he (Levy) had bought him from Best in good faith and without any knowledge of the alleged limitation of the right to his services. Of course, Best could sell only the right he had and it became a simple question of fact. The court heard the parties, ordered André to remain with his alleged master until he had proved by witnesses or by certificate that he "had been bound to the said Best for four years only, after the expiry of which time he was to have his liberty."

The following year, April 20, 1763, the council sat again to hear the case. Lieut. Col. Beckwith again presided, and Captains Fraser, Dunbar, Suby and Davius sat with him. The parties were again heard and witnesses were called by André; but they were "not sufficient"--and "the Council ordered that the Decree of July 20, last, shall be executed according to its tenor; and in consequence, that the said Negro André remain in the possession of the said Levy until he has produced other evidence or has proved by baptismal extract or the official certificate of a magistrate of the place where he was born that he was free at the moment of his birth."[23] Although these courts continued until the coming into force of purely civil administration of justice, September 17, 1764, I do not find that André made another attempt to secure his liberation from the service of Le Sieur Gershon Levy, negotiant.

I am indebted to my friend, Mr. R. W. McLachlan, F. R. S. C., of the Archives of the District of Montreal, for a memorandum of the following sales of which a record exists in Montreal:

1784, December 16, James McGill of Montreal for and in the name of Thomas Curry of L'Assomption in the Province of Quebec, sold to Solomon Levy of Montreal, merchant, for £100 Quebec currency, a Negro man Caesar and a Negro woman, Flora.

1785, February 20, Hugh McAdam of Saratoga sends by his friend John Brown to James Morrison of Montreal, merchant, "a Negro woman named Sarah" to sell. "She will not drink and so far as I have seen, she is honest."[24]

1785, March 9, Morrison sells Sarah to Charles Le Pailleur, Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, for £36.

1785, January 11, John Hammond of Saratoga, farmer, sold to Paul l'Archeveque dit La Promenade, gentleman, a mulatto boy called Dick, 6 years old, for £30 Quebec currency.[25]

1785, April 26, sale by William Ward of Newfane, County of Windham, State of Vermont, to P. William Campbell in open market at Montreal of three Negroes, Tobi (aged 26), Sarah (aged 21) and child for $425. These had been bought with another Negro, Joseph, a year older than Sarah, from Elijah Cady of Kinderhook, County of Albany, State of New York, for £250.[26]

1789, June 6, James Morrison who had sold Sarah for McAdam to Charles Le Pailleur, bought her for himself and sold her to Joseph Anderson of Montreal, gentleman, for £40.[27] The purchase from Le Pailleur is evidenced in French; it was for £36.

1790, December 23, Guillaume Labart, Seigneur, living at Terrebonne, sold to Andrew Todd, merchant of Montreal, a young panis called Jack, about 14 years of age, for £25.

1792, August 10, "Joshuah Stiles, late of Litsfield in the county of Birkshire, Massachusetts, at present in Montreal," sold to Daniel Carberry of Montreal, hair-dresser, a Negro boy named Kitts, aged 15 years, for the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars each of the value of five shillings Halifax currency.

1793, July 11, Jean Rigot, master hair-dresser, living on Boulevard St. Antoine, sold a mulatto slave boy, Pierre, aged 16, to Sir Charles Chaboille, merchant of the Upper Country (_i.e._, Niagara, Detroit, Michillimackinac), for $200 Spanish, each worth s.5 Halifax currency. Rigot had raised the boy from infancy (l'ayant élevé de bas age).

1793, July 27, William Byrne, formerly captain in the King's Royal Regiment of New York, in a letter of May 29, 1793, having promised his adopted son, Phillip Byrne, on his marriage to Mary Josephine Chêne, daughter of Charles Chêne of Detroit, to give him a Negro boy, Tanno, aged 16, and a Negro woman, Rose, aged 28, carried out his promise by Deed of Gift, July 27, 1793, but he stipulates for "half the young ones"!!

1795, December 15, François Dumoulin, merchant of the Parish of Ste. Anne, Island of Montreal, sells to Meyer Michaels, merchant of Montreal, a mulatto named Prince, aged about 18, for £50.

1796, November 22, John Turner, Sr., merchant, sold to John Brooks, a Negro man named Joegho, aged 36, for £100, Quebec currency, and a Negro woman, Rose, aged 25, for £50.

1797, August 25, Thomas Blaney (attorney for Jervis George Turner, a soldier in the 2d Batt. Royal Canadian Volunteers) and Mary Blaney, his wife, sold to Thomas John Sullivan, tavernkeeper, a Negro man named Manuel, aged about 33, for £36.[28]

1781, August 9, sale per inventory of the estate of the late Naethan Hume, "one pany boy, Patrick, sold to McCormick for £32."

Perhaps this paper may well close with the following:

1781, October 31, a Negro, named York Thomas, a freeman, indentured himself for three years to Phillip Peter Nassingh, a Lieutenant in his Majesty's 2d Battalion, New York, for and in consideration, the said Nassingh to provide the said servant with meat, drink, washing, lodging, and apparel, both linen and woolens, and all other necessaries, in sickness and in health, mete and convenient for such a servant, during the term of three years and at the expiration of the said term, shall give the said York Thomas, one new suit of apparel, above his then clothing, and £6 Halifax currency.

WILLIAM RENWICK RIDDELL

OSGOODE HALL,
Toronto, Dec. 23, 1922

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Quoted by the Archivist of Quebec in the work cited (infra) at p. 109, from F. X. Garneau, _Histoire du Canada_, 4th Ed., Vol. II, p. 167. See note 2 for translation.

[2] F. X. Garneau, _Histoire du Canada_, 1st Ed., Vol. II, p. 447. Andrew Bell, _History of Canada_, Montreal, 1862 (translated from Garneau's work). Vol. I, p. 440, treats the statement of Garneau somewhat slightingly. His translation reads: "In 1689, it was proposed to introduce Negroes to the colony. The French ministry thought the climate unsuitable for such an immigration and the project was given up. Thus did Canada happily escape the terrible curse of Negro Slavery." Bell's note, pp. 440, 441, shows that he understood what the facts actually were.

The translation of the two passages follows:

"We think we should mention here a determination which is honorable to the French Government. It is the resolve not to encourage the introduction of slaves into Canada, the colony which Louis XIV preferred to all the others by reason of the warlike character of its inhabitants--the colony which he wished to make in the image of France, to fill with a brave noblesse and a population truly national, Catholic, French, without an admixture of foreign races. In 1688, it was proposed to have Negroes there as farm laborers: the minister replied that he feared that they would die there by the change of climate, and that the project would be futile. That, so to speak, destroyed forever an enterprise which would have struck our society with a great, and terrible plague. It is true that in the succeeding century, the _Code Noir_ of the Antilles was extended into Louisiana, it is true that there were ordinances as to slavery there; but, nevertheless, slavery did not prevail in Canada. There were scarcely any slaves at the time of the conquest. That event increased the number of them a little; they later disappeared entirely."

"That was sufficient to wreck a scheme which would have engrafted in our society that great and terrible plague which paralyzes the energies of so considerable a part of the American Union, slavery, that plague unknown under our northern sky."

It will be seen that Garneau does not say or suggest that slavery was entirely unknown in French Canada, but only that it did not "reign" (ne régnait point), _i.e._, was not prevalent; that while there were a few sporadic cases, the disease was not endemic, and it did not become a plague.

For the proposal of 1688-9, see my _The Slave in Canada_, pp. 1, 2 and notes (JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, Vol. V, No. 3, July 1920, and published separately by The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History Washington, 1920).

[3] _Rapport de L'Archiviste de la Province de Quebec pour 1921-1922_ ... Ls--A. Proulx Imprimeur de Sa Majeste le Roi /1922: large 8 vo., pp. 452. This Report is well printed on good paper, with excellent arrangement and faultless proof reading; both in form and in matter it is a credit to the able and learned Archivist, M. Pierre-Georges Roy, Litt.D., F. R. S. Can., and to the Government of Quebec. To anyone with a knowledge of French, the publications of this Department are of inestimable value on the early history of that part of Canada.

[4] "Le nommé Nicolas, neigre de nation" was present with vendor and purchaser before the Notaries, Boisseau and Barolet, in the office of the latter at Quebec. The Vendor says that he had acquired the Negro from Sieur de St. Ignace de Vincelotte.

[5] From the official Report of General James Murray, Governor of Quebec, to the Home Government June 5, 1762, it appears that he considered the livre worth 2 shillings sterling, about 48 cents.

General Murray's Report will be found in Drs. Shortt and Doughty's _Documents relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1759-1791_, Ottawa, 1918 (2d. Edit.), pp. 47-81. It is, however, quite clear that the evaluation is too high. The livre was the old French monetary unit which was displaced by the franc. In the first ordinance passed by the civil government at Quebec, the ordinance of September 14, 1764, the value of a French crown or six livre piece was fixed at 6/8, making the livre 13-1/3 pence sterling (about 26 cents). The Ordinance of March 29, 1777, 17 George 3, c. IX, made the "french crown or piece of six livres _tournois_" worth 5/6; and the same value was assigned to it in Upper Canada by the Act (1796) 36 George 3, c. I, s. 1 (U. C.)--the livre was worth not far from 20 cents of our present money. This was the livre tournois. The livre of Paris was also in use until 1667 and was worth a quarter more than the livre tournois.

[6] "Cinq neigres esclaves dont deux hommes et trois femmes et filles"--names and ages not given; but the slaves are identified by the statement that the purchaser had seen them "chez la dame Cachelièvre." The witnesses were Louis Lambert and Nicolas Bellevue of Quebec and the Notary was Pinguet. The vendor, Réaume, signed but the purchaser St. Germain did not, "ayant déclaré ne sçavoir écrire ni signer."

[7] "Negre esclave"--the spelling vacillates between "neigre," "negre," and "nègre." I have not found the first form in French literature; the word comes from the mediaeval "Niger." See Du Cange, _sub voc._ The word no doubt had the usual variations; modern French has only the last form, _i.e._, nègre. My French Canadian friends cannot help me as to the spelling; but they tell me of a French Canadian saying "Un plan de negre" meaning "Un plan qui n'a ni queue ni tête," but this is probably only jealousy.

[8] "With only the clothes he stands in at the time of delivery and three shirts." "Shirt" has no gender in French.

[9] Dunière receives the right to dispose of the Negro, Jean Monsaige, as his own property, but Damien does not undertake delivery: The slave being absent since the previous evening (perhaps like Eliza knowing of a proposed sale), Dunière takes all the risk of obtaining him without recourse to anyone in case of failure; and Damien sells him without any warranty. This and the fifth are the only instances, until the seventeenth, of a Negro having a family name. The notaries are Barolet and Panet.

[10] The purchaser undertakes all risks, the price remains payable in any event. "Laquelle somme demeure acquise au d. s. Dassier par convention expresse quelque événement qui puisse arriver au d. neigre d'en cy-devant aux risques et perils du d. s. Delzenne."

[11] As to Panis, Panise, see _The Slave in Canada_, p. 2 and note 4. The name Pani or Panis, anglicized into Pawnee, was used generally in Canada as synonymous with "Indian Slave" because the slaves were usually taken from the Pawnee tribe. It is held by some that the Panis were a tribe wholly distinct from the tribe known among the English as Pawnees, _e.g._, Drake's _History of the Indians of North America_.

[12] We are told, Littré, _Dictionnaire de la Langue Française_, 4to, Paris, 1869, _Sub voc._ Nègre: "Louis XIII se fit une peine extrême de la loi qui rendait esclaves les nègres de ses colonies; mais quand on lui eut bien mis dans l'esprit que c'était la voie la plus sûre pour les convertir, il y consentit." (Montesquieu Esp. des Lois, XV, 4) "Louis XIII was much troubled concerning the law which made slaves of the Negroes in his Colonies; but when he had become impressed with the view that that was the surest way to convert them, he consented to the law,"--the ever recurring excuse for the violation of natural right.

There was much discussion whether it was lawful to hold a fellow Christian in slavery; and it was a distinct advantage that a slave was not baptized. In 1781, the Legislature of the Province of Prince Edward Island passed an Act, 21 George 3, c. 15, expressly declaring that baptism of slaves should not exempt them from bondage. The notaries in the present case were Pinguet and Boisseau and the act was passed in the latter's office.

[13] The purchaser here is the vendor Joseph de la Tesserie, Sieur de la Chevrotière, of the first transaction--he is also the purchaser in No. 9 _post._

[14] The notaries were Pinguet and Boisseau and the act was passed in the latter's office.

[15] "Argent des Iles," West-Indian currency to be invested in Martinique. The notaries were Barolet and Panet and the act was passed in the latter's office.

[16] See note 12 supra: The notaries were Barolet and Panet and the act was passed in the latter's office.

[17] French "senaut," English "snow," a sort of vessel with two masts. The notaries were Sanguinet and Du Laurent; the act was passed in the latter's office.

[18] The notary was Barolet who signed the act as did Vallée, De Chalet, and two witnesses, Charles Prieur, Perruquier, and Jean Liquart, merchant.

[19] "L'esclave et mulatre nommée Isabella ou Bell, fille, âgée d'environ quinze ans, avec les hardes et linges à son usage." She is to obey her new master and render him faithful service. The price is expressed as "cinquante livres monnaye du cours actuel de Quebec, égale à deux cents piastres d'Espagne"--Fifty pounds Quebec currency equal to two hundred Spanish dollars. The word "livre" was in English times used for "pound." The pound in Quebec or Halifax currency was in practice about nine-tenths the value of the pound sterling.

The Ordinance of September 14, 1764, made one British shilling equal to 1s. 4d. Quebec currency, _i.e._, the Quebec shilling was 3/4 of an English shilling; the Ordinance of May 15, 1765, confirmed their valuation, making 18 British half-pence and 36 British farthings one Quebec shilling, but the Ordinance of March 29, 1777, made the British shilling only 1/1 and the British crown 5/6.

"The Seville, Mexico and Pillar Dollar" was by the Quebec Ordinance of December 14, 1764, made equal to 6/ of Quebec currency or 4/6 sterling; the Ordinance of March 29, 1777, equates "the Spanish Dollar" to 5/ Quebec currency (which was then substantially nine-tenths the value of sterling), _i.e._, 4/6 sterling; the Upper Canadian Act of 1796 equated "the Spanish milled dollar" to 5/ Provincial currency or 4/6 sterling.

The notaries in the case were Berthelot Dartigny and A. Panet, Jr.; the act was passed in Cramahé's house, rue St-Louis.

[20] The same notaries appeared and the act was passed in the same place.

[21] The notaries are A. Dumas and Charles Stewart; the act was passed in the latter's office.

[22] See the latest Report of the Archives of Canada.

The Ordinance of General James Murray establishing Military Courts in Quebec and its vicinity will be found printed in Shortt and Doughty's _Documents relating to the Constitution of Canada_, pp. 42, 44. General Gage's Ordinance established them in the District of Montreal will be found in the publication of the Archives of Canada. _Le Règne Militaire._

[23] It is to be observed that it was considered that _prima facie_ the Negro was a slave. The same rule was applied in many states (Cobb, _Law of Negro Slavery_, pp. 253 sqq.), unless the alleged slave had been in the enjoyment of freedom; but Chief Justice Strange of Nova Scotia and his successor Salter Sampson Blowers by throwing the onus upon the master did much toward the abolition of slavery in that province. See _The Slave in Canada_, pp. 105-108.

[24] I here copy the letter, _verbatim et literatum_, a delightful literary effort.

SARATOGA 20 Feby 1785.
_Dr Sir_,

I send by John Brown a Negro woman Named Sarah my Right &
Lawful property--which you will Pleas Dispose of with the advis
of your friends.--I have Wrote Mr Thomson on the same subjet--she
has no fault to my knolage She will not Drink and so fare as I
have seen she is honest--many many upertunitys she has had to have
shown her Dishonesty had she been so in Clined ... I am sory to
give you the troble--She cost me sixty five pounds should not Lick
to sell her under.--Should you not be able to get Cash you may
sell her for furrs of any Kind you think will sutt our market and
send them down by the Return sladges; any trobl you my be at shall
Pay for these.
I am Dr. Sir. Your
as hurede frind &c:
HUGH MCADAM

Mr. Morrison
mercht. Montreal.

As to a subsequent disposition of Sarah, see sale of June 6, 1789.

[25] It is possibly the same mulatto boy, Dick, the subject of the following Bill of Sale:

THUSBERRY octrs 19. 1785.

Know all men By these presents that I William Gillchres in the
County of Rutland and State of Vermount, Yoeman for and in
consideration of twenty pound Law Money to you in hand paid by
Joseph Barrey of Richmond in the County of Cheshier in State
of New Hampshier yeoman whereof I acknoledg the receipt and
barggained and sold one molate Boy six years old naimed Dick
to him the said Joseph Barney and his heirs for ever, to have
and to hold the said molater boy, I said William Gillchres who
for myself and my heirs promise for ever to warrant socure and
defend said promise against the lawful claims or demand of any
person or persons in which I have set my hand, hereunto, and seal
this nineteenth day of October one thousand seven hundred and
eighty-six, in the eleventh year of endipendency.

(Signed) WILLIAM GILLCHRES

Signed, sealed
in the presence of us
(Signed) ELISHA FULLAN
LUCY YEOMANS

On the back of this document were written thus the following words:

Novemer ye 15, 1786
Recevd the contents of
the within bill by me
Joseph Barrey
29 Nover 1786.
Witness) Martin McEvoy
present)
John Carven
Gillchress
Bill of Morlato
Boy nd. Dick Gun

[26] I assume New York Currency, in which case the pound was 20 York shillings or $2.50.

[27] 1787, January 10, George Brown and Sarah a Negress were married by Cave--it was probably the same Sarah.

[28] While this was in fact and in law a sale, the transaction was far more than a mere transfer of property: The Notary John Abraham Gray has the Notarial Act No. 74 which shows that Manuel, the negro man voluntarily engaged as servant, to Thomas Sullivan, under the usual conditions of servitude, for five years, at the end of which term, the said Manuel, if he should faithfully carry out his said engagement was to be emancipated and set at liberty according to due form of law, otherwise he was to remain the property of the said Sullivan.

A Notarial Act now in the possession of the Historical Society, Chicago, dated at Montreal, August 15, 1731, passed before the Notary Charles Benoit et St. Désiez, evidences the sale by Louis Chappeau to Sieur Pierre Guy, merchant, both of Montreal, of an Indian lad of the Patoka nation, aged about 10 or 12 years, for 200 livres paid in beaver and other skins. See _Report of Canadian Archives_, 1905, vol. 1, lxix.

It may be of interest to note that on pp. 476, 477 of the same report is copied a memorial (October 29, 1768) of the inhabitants and merchants of Louisiana in which they complain, _inter alia_, of D'Ulloa the Spanish Governor of Louisiana (1766-8) forbidding "the importation of negroes to the colony under the pretext that this competition would hurt an English merchant of Jamaica who had sent a vessel to D'Ulloa to confirm the contract for the importation of slaves. In creating this monopoly, he had robbed his new subjects of the means of procuring slaves cheaply...."

DOCUMENTS

BANISHMENT OF THE PEOPLE OF COLOUR FROM CINCINNATI

Prof. T. G. Steward of Wilberforce University directs attention to the following from _The Friend_ which carries an important document bearing on the Free Negroes of Ohio:

In the course of the present year, a law of this state has been
brought into view, by the trustees of Cincinnati township,
requiring people of colour to give bond and security not to become
chargeable to the public, and for their good behaviour--also
imposing a fine on those who may employ them. This law was
passed upwards of twenty years ago, and I believe has remained
inoperative, or nearly so, to the present year. In order that the
effects and bearing of the law may be correctly understood, I
subjoin the proclamation or notice by the trustees.

_To the Public_

The undersigned, trustees and overseers of the poor, of the
township of Cincinnati hereby give notice, that the duties
required of them, by the act of the general assembly of Ohio,
entitled _An Act to Regulate Black and Mulatto Persons_, and
the act amendatory thereto, will be rigidly enforced, and all
black and mulatto persons, now residents of said Cincinnati
township, and who emigrated to, and settled within the township of
Cincinnati, without complying with the requisitions of the first
section of the amended act, aforesaid, are informed, that unless
they enter into bonds as the said act directs, within thirty days
from this date, they may expect at the expiration of that time,
the law to be rigidly enforced.

And the undersigned would further insert herein, for the
information of the citizens of Cincinnati township, the third
section of the amendatory act aforesaid, as follows: That if any
person being a resident of this state, shall employ, harbour, or
conceal any such negro or mulatto person aforesaid, contrary to
the provision of the first section of this act, any person so
offending, shall forfeit and pay for such an offence, any sum not
exceeding one hundred dollars, one half to the informer, and the
other half for the use of the poor of the township, in which such
person may reside, to be recovered by action of debt before any
court having competent jurisdiction, and moreover to be liable for
the maintenance and support of such negro or mulatto, provided
he, she, or they shall become unable to support themselves. The
co-operation of the public is expected in carrying these laws into
full effect.

WILLIAM MILLS,
BENJAMIN HOPKINS,
GEORGE LEE,
Trustees of Cincinnati Township.

COMMENT

When this proclamation was issued, there were upwards of 2,000
people of colour, residing in this city, and nearly all obnoxious
to the operations of the law; many of them had resided here for
a considerable time, and were comfortably situated--they became
unsettled and deprived of employment by this act of banishment and
proscription, and much suffering and distress ensued. They deputed
two of their number to select and provide a place for them to
remove to, who procured a tract of land in Canada. In the meantime
some of them commenced making preparations to leave the country,
and as the time was very short which the trustees allowed them,
they had to incur great losses in disposing of their property,
selling for twenty dollars, what cost one hundred dollars. When
the thirty days expired, and it was ascertained all did not, or
could not comply with the requisitions of the trustees, mobs
assailed them at different times, stoning their houses and
destroying their property; in the progress of these disgraceful
transactions one white man was killed and others wounded.

It is thought about five hundred have gone to Canada, many of
these with means exceedingly limited to provide necessaries in
a wilderness country, and encounter the rigours of a northern
winter; one of their agents, a coloured man, informed me of
an instance where twenty-eight persons had set out with a sum
not exceeding twenty-five dollars. I confess my mind has been
impressed with fearful apprehensions that they will greatly suffer
or perish with hunger and cold! Some of them view this act of
banishment with so much horror, they have told me the white people
had better take them out in the commons and shoot them down, than
send them to Canada to perish with hunger and cold!

_The Friend_, Nov. 28, 1829.

FIRST PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES

Prof. Steward invites attention also to the following extract from _The Friend_ published in Philadelphia April 1831, said to be the first document against slavery published in this country:

"At a General Court held at Warwick the 16th. of May 1657.

"Whereas there is a common course practiced among Englishmen, to
buy negroes to that end that they may have them for service or as
slaves forever; for the the preventing of such practices among
us, let it be ordered, that no black mankind or white being,
shall be forced by covenant, bond or otherwise, to serve any man
or his assigns longer than ten years, or until they come to be
twenty-four years of age, if they be taken in under fourteen, from
the time of their coming within the liberties of this Colony--at
the end or term of ten years to set them free as the manner is
with the English servants. And that man that will not let them go
free, or shall sell them away elsewhere, to that end they may be
enslaved to others for a longer time, he or they shall forfeit to
the Colony forty pounds."

The court that enacted this law was composed as follows:
John Smith, President; Thomas Olney, General Assistant, from
Providence; Samuel Gorton from Warwick; John Green, General
Recorder; Randal Holden, Treasurer; Hugh Bewett, General Sergeant.

_The Friend_, April, 1831.

A NEGRO PIONEER IN THE WEST

Mr. Monroe N. Work invites attention to the fact that in an issue of December 23d, 1920, the _Advertiser Journal_ of Kent, Washington, ran the following story:

"The best and largest yield of wheat ever exhibited," grown in
western Washington. It sounds like a real estate folder. And yet
at the World's Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876,
W. O. Bush, son of George Bush, one of the first settlers on Puget
Sound, won the gold premium for wheat he grew on Bush Prairie,
just south of Olympia; to this day the wheat is preserved in the
Smithsonian Institute.

This record of great wheat yield is a part of the history of one
of the families that came to the Northwest and had that quality
that made them successful here. George Bush was the first colored
man to come to this part of the country, the forerunner of the
large number of useful citizens of his race who have followed with
the increasing population. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1814,
and with his wife from Tennessee started west in 1844.

Before coming west with his family, Bush had made a trip to this
country with a number of companions, coming north along the
coast from the Mexican border and suffering from the innumerable
hardships of the trail, hunger and Indians. He must have liked the
prospects, for it was only a short time later that we find him
again headed in this direction in company with a number of other
hardy pioneers.

The character that made him face the privations of immigration
ingratiated him with his companions. There was an unwritten law
in Oregon at that time that no colored people should be allowed
to settle in that territory. When the group of which Bush was a
member approached the Columbia river country and learned of the
rule it was decided that if any one attempted to molest Bush all
of the members of the company would fight to protect him.

The practice in Oregon was to whip the colored man and if he left
after the whipping it was all right and nothing further was done,
but if he did not take advantage of the opportunity to escape he
was whipped again and again until he either left or died.

There is not any record of an attempt being made to molest Bush,
who, with his companions, stayed at the Dalles for several months
and later at Washougal at the mouth of the Cowlitz. The following
year--1845--they came on to Puget Sound and settled at the head of
Budds Inlet at the falls of the DesChutes and founded the town of
New Market, now Tumwater.

Those who made up this party were Michael T. Simmons, James
McAllister, David Kindred, Gabriel Jones and Bush. The latter
decided not to settle right in Tumwater and went back onto the
prairie land about four miles and took up a donation claim of 640
acres. It was on that claim that the prize wheat was grown by his
oldest son thirty-two years later. There on that claim Bush died
in 1863, while the great war for the freedom of his race was being
waged. His widow followed him two years later.

Of their six sons, the state has heard a great deal. The eldest,
W. O. Bush, was born before the couple left Missouri on their
way west, and got the hard training of the pioneer. He took to
farming and that he worked the prairie land where his father
had settled for all it was worth is shown by the crop he took to
Philadelphia. The soil of that section is a black sandy loam on
a gravel base. The soil is not too thick in some parts and has a
tendency to drain, particularly during the hot, dry summer.

Shortly after the formation of the state Bush was elected a member
of the legislature and served two terms during 1890 and 1892. His
record in the law-making body was an honorable one and that he was
highly respected by the people of Thurston county was shown when
they sent him to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 to look after
the county's agricultural exhibit.

CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF WILBERFORCE

While at Tuskegee Institute in 1914 Mrs. Emma Castleman Bowles, who has since died, related this account of the origin of Wilberforce. This story does not agree with the account given in Bishop D. A. Payne's _African Methodist Episcopal Church_ (423 ff.). The value of the document lies mainly in the light which it throws upon the relations between wealthy slaveholders and their children of slave women. There must be much truth in the narrative, for Payne's sketch says that in 1859-60 a majority of the 207 students enrolled "are the natural children of Southern and Southwestern planters." The _Special Report of the United States Commissioner of Education_, published in 1871 (372-373), supports this statement. Mrs. Bowles' story follows:

Mrs. Emma Castleman Bowles said her father was Stephen S.
Castleman, a slave holder who lived on the Yazoo River, about 150
miles from Vicksburg. He owned the Ashland plantation. She was
born June 3, 1845. Her mother was a half sister of her father's
wife. When Castleman married, her mother was sent to wait on her
mistress. Castleman lived with both women. Castleman had two
children by his wife and five by his concubine. He hired a white
woman to teach Emma. This woman was paid $500 a year. Mrs. Bowles
said she was not taught anything, not even to read. She spent her
time playing with her half-brother and riding a pony which her
father had bought for her.

In March 1858, Castleman sent his daughter Emma to Cincinnati by
his brother-in-law, her half uncle, O. Leroy Ross. Here, she was
emancipated and acknowledged as Castleman's daughter. Ross then
brought her to Wilberforce and placed her in school.

Tawawa Springs was a summer resort for Southern slave holders. The
Springs were medicinal. The Hotel Tawawa had 350 rooms, extensive
grounds, elaborate water works for fountains, etc. There were
several cottages on either side of the hotel. Slave holders would
bring their families and slaves and live either in the hotel or
in the cottages. A law was passed in Ohio forbidding the bringing
of slaves into the State. Then white help and free Negro servants
were used. The place declined financially and was finally sold for
debt. Several planters banded together bought the place and turned
it into a school for their illegitimate children by Negro women.
Stephen S. Castleman was one of these men. Mrs. Bowles said this
was done about 1856 or 1857.[2]

There were about nine teachers, all Yankees. The first principal
was Rev. M. P. Gaddis. Richard Rust was the first President. The
students, with a few exceptions, were children of slave holders.

Money was deposited in Cincinnati banks for the use of the
children. President Rust was given power to draw on banks as the
children needed money.

The following were named as among the slave owners who brought
their children to the school. A planter named Mosley from Warren,
Miss., brought seven children by three different mothers and freed
them. Senator Hemphill of Virginia brought two daughters and
emancipated them. A planter by the name of Smith brought eight
children from Mississippi with their mother about 1859. He had a
slave man and woman to wait on them. He was arrested and made to
emancipate them. He bought a large tract of land for them. A brick
house he built was later owned by Colonel Charles Young. The woman
had lived with Smith under compulsion, and as soon as she was
emancipated would have nothing more to do with him. Mrs. Bowles
said that she went to school with these children and often visited
the family. She had seen the mother strip herself to the waist and
show how her back had been mutilated to make her submit to her
master's wishes. A man named Piper came and brought 10 children
and their mother. She was jet black. After the war he married her
and settled in Darke County, Ohio.

General T. C. McMackin, a hotel owner of Vicksburg, Mississippi,
was appointed by Castleman as his daughter's guardian. She said
that she got in a fight with another school girl and was put on
bread and water. She wrote her father. He had McMackin come to
Wilberforce and adjust the matter. Her father, and she said the
fathers generally, lavished money on their children. She had a
box that held fifty silver dollars. This her father kept full of
silver dollars for her to buy candy with.

Abolition was preached constantly in the school. She came to hate
slavery. She had seen great cruelties inflicted on her mother and
other slaves. Her mother took up with a slave man. Emma was a
child, sleeping in the room. Many a night her father would come
and curse the slave and compel him to leave the cabin. Then he
would whip him and her mother. Whipping was on bare back from 39
to 300 lashes. Slave stripped naked and hands and feet tied to
stakes driven into the ground. Stocks were also used. The lash and
the stocks were both used on her mother's slave husband. They were
put in the stocks at night and whipped night and morning.

Mrs. Bowles was courted in school by a class-mate, named George
W. Harding, whose father was a large slave holder in Tennessee.
President Rust tried to break it up. He wrote her father.
Castleman wrote his daughter that he did not send her North to
waste her time with a nigger. If she did not stop he would come
and get her, cow hide her and bring her home and put her in the
cotton field. She replied that "if her mother was good enough
for him to sleep with, that a nigger was good enough for her
to marry." She married Harding March 5, 1862. He had received
considerable wealth from his father. When they married he had
$55,000,[3] and later inherited $80,000 from his mother.

The war stopped communications with the South. As soon as the war
closed, Castleman wrote to find out about his daughter and learned
that she was married and the mother of two children. He wrote to
her to come home and leave her niggers. If she didn't she would
not get any of his property. She wrote him that he had beaten her
mother and made her bear five children out of wedlock and that she
would not forsake her husband and her lawfully born children.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] The school began in 1855.

[3] Harding squandered his property and died a pauper. Mrs. Harding then married another student of Wilberforce, A. J. Bowles.

COMMUNICATIONS

Mr. John W. Cromwell has addressed the Editor the following letter which may interest persons directing their attention to the record of the Negro in West Virginia:

_Dear Sir_:

While reading your _Negro Education in West Virginia_ I was
reminded of my acquaintances in that State, and I thought of the
striking contrast between the West Virginia of 1877 and that of
1923.

On invitation of Prof. Brackett, President of Storer College, I
attended a Teachers' Institute and Educational Convention, held at
Harper's Ferry, in 1877. There I first saw a gathering of young
teachers, vigorous and alert, none more chivalric in bearing than
the central figure in the person of John R. Clifford, at that time
Principal of the Grammar School at Martinsburg. To me it was quite
a contrast from dealing with the civil service of the Treasury
Department at Washington on the one hand, and my experience with
the young men there a few years before as I had beheld them in
central Pennsylvania.

The bearing of the men was more than matched by the excellence of
the women. Outstanding at the time was a young woman whom I could
not at first determine whether I should rate her as a young pupil
in one of the classes or one of the faculty. I soon found that
she was a student teacher, also an elocutionist of grace, skill
and power. So impressed was I that Storer College thenceforth was
a regular place of visit during commencement season, and I soon
found myself on its trustee board.

During one of these commencements, Frederick Douglass was booked
to speak on John Brown; but Andrew Hunter, the prosecuting
attorney who convicted John Brown, came to Harper's Ferry, and
declared that Frederick Douglass should not speak in Jefferson
county, where Brown was convicted and hung. He also said: "If
Douglass dares to come here, I'll meet him, denounce him, and
crush him!" Douglass came; so did Hunter. At the proper time,
Douglass was escorted to the rostrum, and without invitation
Hunter followed and took a seat close to Douglass, the master of
American orators, who spoke as I never heard him before; and when
through started to his seat. Hunter interrupted him, arose, and
advanced toward Douglass with outstretched hand and exclaimed:
"Let us shake hands," and while so doing, said: "Were Robert E.
Lee here, he would shake the other," and pausing a few seconds,
with all the power of his nature he said: "Let us go on!" to which
Douglass replied: "IN UNION TOGETHER!" And everybody on the campus
shouted--making the occasion one of dramatic as well as historic
interest.

As editor of _The People's Advocate_, of Washington, D. C, the
incident was sketched in bold and striking outlines for the
country, and was read eagerly. It also forms an incident of one of
the chapters of _The "Life and Times" of Frederick Douglass_.

In 1882, the Knights of Wise Men, with headquarters at Nashville,
Tennessee, held their convention at Atlanta, Georgia. Thither
went such representatives of the day as William J. Simmons, of
Kentucky; Frances L. Cardozo, of Washington, D. C.; Bishop Henry
M. Turner, of Georgia; Richard Gleaves, of South Carolina; John
R. Lynch, of Mississippi; Robert Peel Brooks, of Virginia; Prof.
J. C. Corbin, of Arkansas, and many other distinguished men
interested in the order.

John R. Clifford, of Martinsburg, West Virginia, was one of the
party and a most distinguished orator was he, whose masterly
oration delivered in the State Capital of Georgia, with Governor
Colquitt, and other state officials, was a fitting setting for
the presentation of a beautiful gold-headed cane, with the
convention's and his initials carved on it. Robert Peel Brooks was
chosen by the delegates to present the gift.

The career of Mr. Clifford for twenty years' work as a teacher,
brought him to the forefront, and he was appointed by three
different W. Va. State Superintendents to hold and conduct
Teachers' Institutes. Mr. Clifford holds a life-time teacher's
certificate in honor of this distinguished service. He was the
first colored man in West Virginia to be admitted to the bar in
the early eighties. He became editor of the _Pioneer Press_ in
1882 at Martinsburg, and ran it regularly for thirty-six years,
being honored with the deanship of Negro journalism a short time
before the _Pioneer Press_ ceased to exist.

Mr. Clifford, single-handed and alone, filed charges against
Prof. N. C. Brackett, head of Storer College, killed and wiped
out Brackett's drawn color line, that barred colored people from
going there as had been their privilege. He was the only colored
editor in West Virginia who was a member of the State Editorial
Association for twenty years, and was chosen the last year as its
historian.

While defending a client sometime ago, a United States
Commissioner and Mr. Clifford got into a controversy over some
witnesses he wanted summoned, and it was kept up until the
Commissioner demanded that he stop and go on, or he would put
Clifford in jail. Undaunted he continued and gave the Commissioner
to understand that just as long as he refused to summon the
witnesses, he would contend for it; whereupon the Commissioner
had him put in jail, where he remained for an hour and twenty-two
minutes. Getting out he asked for his client, who had been tried
and jailed. He was brought back. Clifford went his bond, sent
him home, preferred charges against T. T. Lemen, United States
Commissioner, and W. D. Brown, United States Marshal. Clifford
went to the Department of Justice in Washington, D. C. proved his
charges and had both put out of office and his client was set free.

He was appointed, by Senator B. K. Bruce and Frederick Douglass,
Commissioner for the state of West Virginia to the New Orleans
Exposition. He was elected three times President of the National
Independent Political League, was chosen Principal of the Manassas
Industrial School, where he and Frederick Douglass spoke on
the occasion of his inauguration. He resigned because of his
contention for better water.

He was the first man to impanel a colored jury in the state of
West Virginia, and for so doing, was knocked down in the court
room three times with deadly weights, causing the blood to run
down into his shoes. When knocked down the third time, U. S. G.
Pitzer, a Republican (?) prosecuting attorney, sprang on him, but
with apparent superhuman skill and force, Clifford turned him at
a time when there was not a soul in the court room (everybody
having run out) but Pitzer & Clifford, with the latter on top, and
had not Stephen Elam rushed in and pulled Clifford off of Pitzer
and carried him out, death might have been the result,--Elam is
still living. Later Pitzer was nominated for the Legislature, and
Clifford canvassed Berkeley County on his bicycle exhibiting his
bloody shirt (which he still has) and the day before the election
Clifford spoke in the band-stand in the Public Square for an hour
and thirty minutes, waving his bloody shirt and the following day
Pitzer was defeated by 1336 votes.

He is a 33° Mason and a Past Grand Master of W. Va.; member of
the American Negro Academy, and helped to shoot off the shackles
from four million slaves and cement this Union on the bloody
battle fields during the war of the sixties and holds an honorable
discharge in proof of it.

He gives credit to the late Hon. John J. Healy of Chicago, Ill.,
for his early education thru the public schools of Chicago. He
attended and graduated from Storer College 1875, and holds an
honorary diploma from Shaw University.

JOHN W. CROMWELL.

* * * * *

Mr. Monroe N. Work, who has spent some time establishing the official roster of Negroes who served in State conventions and legislatures, has turned over for publication the following letters giving the record of Peter G. Morgan, a prominent citizen of Virginia:

MR. MONROE N. WORK,
Editor _Negro Year Book_,
Tuskegee Institute, Ala.

_My dear Mr. Work_:

I am extremely sorry that many pressing duties have prevented me
from letting you have the information asked for in your letter
under date of September 1st, bearing upon the late Peter George
Morgan of Petersburg, Virginia.