Chapter II
are with the Cuffe papers. A copy of the one presented to the Probate Court of Massachusetts Bay was furnished by Mr. James J. Tracey, Chief of the Archives Division, State House, Boston. The story of the lawsuit related in this same
## chapter is based on the original papers to be found in the records of
the Bristol County, Taunton, Massachusetts, Probate Court. They were examined for me by my Harvard classmate, Professor Arthur Buffinton of Williams College.
I have previously published two articles bearing on this study. Early Negro Deportation Projects appeared in the _Mississippi Valley Historical Review_ for March, 1916, the Formation of the American Colonization Society in the _Journal of Negro History_ for July, 1917. A third article, PAUL CUFFE AND HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY, in volume six of the _Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Society_, was an attempt to bring together a full statement of his life and service. Since the publication of this study I found the original Cuffe Papers and have made use of them in this biography. Another source of great help was the _Life of William Allen with Selections from his Correspondence_, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1847. A full account of the services in connection with the memorial monument erected by Mr. Horatio P. Howard is contained in the _New Bedford Morning Mercury_ and the _New Bedford Standard_ for June 16, 1917.
[1] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, New Bedford, Massachusetts, Public Library, from the bill of sale.
[2] Ruth Cuffe to Joseph Congdon, February 12, 1851.
[3] _Dartmouth, Massachusetts, Town Book of Records for Entries of Intention of Marriage._
[4] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Memorandum of family marriages.
[5] _Book of Bristol County Land Records_, Vol. 50, 478, 479.
[6] His commercial activities are well told in _Memoirs of Paul Cuffe_, York, 1812.
[7] See W. J. Allison in _Non-Slaveholder_, December, 1850.
[8] _Ibid._
[9] Peter Williams, _Discourse on the Death of Paul Cuffe, delivered before the New York African Institution, October 21, 1817_.
[12] _Memoirs of Paul Cuffe_, 14, 15.
[14] Paul Cuffe to John and Jenny Cuffe, September 8, 1808.
[10] _Massachusetts Archives_, Vol. 186, 134-136.
[11] The quoted documents relating to the question of taxation are in the _Records of the Court of General Sessions_, Taunton, Mass. They were examined for the writer by Professor Arthur Buffinton of Williams College.
[13] William Armistead, _Memoir of Paul Cuffe_ (London, 1846), 23.
[17] For an extended account of these movements see H. N. Sherwood, _Early Negro Deportation Projects_, in Mississippi Valley Historical Review, II, 484 et seq.
[18] _The Case of our Fellow Creatures, the Oppressed Africans, respectfully recommended to the serious Consideration of the Legislature of Great Britain, London_, 1784.
[19] In the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[20] _Life of William Allen with Selections from His Correspondence._ (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1847), I, 85, 86.
[21] In _Cuffe Manuscripts_. Dated January 5, 1811.
[22] The _Journal_ is in the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[23] _Life of William Allen_, I, 99-105.
[24] The diary is from _Paul Cuffe's Journal_ in the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[25] _Life of William Allen_, I, 103.
[26] _The Seventh Report of the Directors of the African Institution_ is in the _Edinburgh Review_, XXI.
[27] _Life of William Allen_, I, 105.
[28] In the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[29] In the _Cuffe Manuscripts_. Dated June 12, 1812.
[30] _The Cuffe Manuscripts._ Dated June 12, 1812.
[31] In _Cuffe Manuscripts_. Paul Cuffe to William Allen, April 4, 1811.
A summary of his observations came out in print in 1812. It was called "A Brief Account of the Settlement and Present Situation of the Colony of Sierra Leone in Africa,"[32] and was dedicated to "his friend in New York." It contains an account of the topography of the country and states that the population was 2,518.
[32] Published in New York, 1812.
[33] On the Friendly Society see _Life of William Allen_, I, 105-116; 139, 140. _History of Prince Le Boo_ (Dublin, 1822), 162, 163; _Cuffe Manuscripts_. Paul Cuffe to Samuel J. Mills, August 6, 1816.
[34] _Life of William Allen_, I, 133.
[35] _Annals of Congress_, 13th Congress, 2nd session, I, 861-1863; _National Intelligencer_ for January 11, 1814, printed the memorial at the request of its subscribers.
[36] _Annals of Congress_, 13th Congress, 2nd session, I, 1195, 1265.
[37] _Cuffe Manuscripts._
[38] _Second Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 122. _The Western Courier_ (Louisville, Kentucky) for October 26. 1815, reported Captain Cuffe's trip.
[39] A memorandum in Cuffe's handwriting and containing the details concerning each passenger is in the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[40] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Paul Cuffe to William Allen, April 1, 1816.
[41] _Ibid._
[42] _Second Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 121, 122.
[43] _Second Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 121.
[44] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Paul Cuffe to T. Brine, January 16, 1817.
[45] Memorandum made by Cuffe in _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[46] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Paul Cuffe to John Kizell, August 14, 1816.
[47] _Ibid._, Paul Cuffe to James Wise, September 15, 1816.
[48] Quoted in Williams, _Discourse on the Death of Paul Cuffe_.
[49] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Paul Cuffe to Samuel C. Aiken, August 7, 1816.
[50] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Paul Cuffe to James Forten, August 14, 1816.
[51] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, James Forten to Paul Cuffe, January 16, 1817.
[52] _Ibid._, Paul Cuffe to the Imposter, January 13, 1817.
[53] For an extended account of the activities mentioned in this paragraph see N. H. Sherwood, _The Formation of the American Colonization Society_, in THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, July, 1917.
[54] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Robert Finley to Paul Cuffe, December 5, 1816.
[55] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Samuel J. Mills to Paul Cuffe, March 12, 1817. See also Richard, _Life of Samuel J. Mills_ (Boston, 1906); Spring, _Memoir of Mills_ (Boston and New York, 1829); Brown, _Biography of Robert Finley_ (Philadelphia, 1857).
[56] Brown, _Finley_, 83.
[57] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Samuel J. Mills to Paul Cuffe, March 12, 1817.
[58] _Ibid._, James Forten to Paul Cuffe, January 25, 1817.
[59] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Samuel J. Mills to Paul Cuffe, July 14, 1817.
[60] _Second Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 151.
[61] _Ibid._, 150.
[62] _Second Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 152, 153.
[63] See also Brown, _Finley_, note L.
[64] _First Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 5.
[65] Memorandum in the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[66] Cf. _Cuffe Manuscripts_, John Cuffe to Freelove Cuffe, September 10, 1817; David Cuffe, Jr., to Freelove Cuffe, July 8, 1817.
[67] Clipping in the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[68] Peter Williams, _Discourse on the Death of Paul Cuffe_.
[69] _Niles Register_, XIII, 64.
[70] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Clipping from _Columbian Sentinel_, September 17, 1817.
[71] _Ibid._, Clipping from _The Colonization Herald_.
[72] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Clipping from _New York Spectator_, October, 1817.
DOCUMENTS
THE WILL OF PAUL CUFFE
Be it remembered, that I, Paul Cuffe of Westport in the County of Bristol and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, yeoman, being at this time (through mercy) in health and of a sound, disposing mind and memory, and considering that it is appointed for all men once to die, I do make and ordain this my last will and testament in the followering manner (viz.)
Imprimis. My will is, and I hearin order, that my just debts and funeral charges together with the expenses of setteling my estate be paid by my executors herein after named, out of my estate.
Item. I give unto my wife Alice Cuffe all my houshould goods except my two desks and book case, and books; I also give her in lieu of her right of dower in my estate, so long as she shall remain my widow, the use and improvement of my now dwelling house and the one half of all my lands, together with one half of the live stock, and all the famely provisions that may be on hand at my decease, and one hundred dollars in money, and all the profits arising from my half of the salt works, that Joseph Tripp & I built together. Should the salt works not be in operation before this will is proved or should not be built, then my will is she should have one hundred dollars annually.
Item. I give unto my daughter in law Lydia Wainer one hundred dollars.
Item. I give unto my daughter Mary Phelpess & to her heirs and assigns forever, the house and lot of land which I bought of Lucy Castino.
Item. I give unto my son Paul Cuffe, and to his oldest male heir forever, the farm that was given to me by my father Cuffe Slocum, and my maple desk, also one half of my wereing appearl, my will further is that five hundred dollars be retained out of my estate, and put to interest in some safe hands, the income of which I order to be used annually for the support of my son Paul Cuffe' family, forever. I also order that one fourth part of the brig Traveller together with the five hundred dollars, be placed under care and guardianship of my executors, in order that my son Paul and his heirs, might be benefited by it yearly and every year forever, also the one sixth part of the residue be placed under the care & guardianship of my executors for the benefit of Paul & his heirs as above mentioned, forever.
Item. I give unto my son William Cuffe and to his oldest male heir forever, the lot of land which I bought of Ebenezer Eddy called the Allen lot, and one fourth part of the brig Traveller, and my walnut desk and book case standing thereon, and Johnsons Dictionary in two volums, and one half of my weareing appearel, and three hundred dollars in money, to be laid out in building him a dwelling house on the Allen lot.
Item. I give unto my cousin Ruth Cottell fifty dollars. Ruth Howard, Alice Cuffe Jr. and Rhoda Cuffe one half of the brig Traveller, that is to each one of them one eighth part.
Item. I give unto my two grand daughters, namely, Almira Howard and Alice Howard, daughters of my daughters Naomi Howard deceased, fifty dollars to each one, when and as they arive to the age of twenty one years.
Item. I give unto my cousin Ruth Cottell fifty dollars.
Item. I give unto my brother David Cuffe ten dollars.
Item. I give unto my brother Jonathan Cuffe ten dollars.
Item. I give unto my brother John Cuffe ten dollars.
Item. I give unto my sister Freelove Cuffe ten dollars.
Item. I give unto my sister Fear Phelpess ten dollars.
Item. I give unto my three sisters namely Sarah Durfee, Lydia Cuffe and Ruth Weeden, six dollars annually to each one dureing their natural life. Should they or either of them make bad use of the money given them, in such a case I request my executors to pay them in provision or cloathing, and such things that may be for their comfort.
Item. I give unto the monthly meeting or society of friends, called Quakers in Westport, fifty dollars, to be paid over to their treasurer, by my executors, according to direction of the monthly meeting.
Item. My mind and will is that those daughters that are single and unmarried, shall have privelege to live in the house with their mother, and, after their mothers decease, they to have the privelege to live in and occupie the south part of the house, with privelege to the well and in the seller and garden to raise saurce in so long as they remain singel and unmaried.
I give unto my two said sons and four daughters namely Paul, William, Mary, Ruth, Alice and Rhoda all the rest and residue of my estate not hearin otherwise disposed of to be divided between them six equally.
And my will further is, that the one fourth part of the brig Traveller and the one sixth part of the residue, that I have herein given to my son William, I place under the care and guardianship of my executors, to order the use of the same as they shall think best for Williams interest, untill he arives to twenty five years of age. Then if his care and conduct be good, they then are requested to pay the whole over to him together with all the profits ariseing from it.
And my will further is, the balance that may become due to my estate not hearin otherwise disposed of to be divided between or otherway be given up to them.
I further order that all land that I have bought belonging to the estate of Benjmin Cook late of Dartmouth deceased, be returned to the widow and the heirs, they paying what the land cost and interest.
And my will further is that for the payments annually that my executors retain enough of the residue of my estate to put on interest to rais the anual payments mentioned in this way last will.
Lastly. I do constitute and apoint William Rotch Junr. of New Bedford and Daniel Wing of Westport aforesaid executors of this my last will and testament.
In testemony whereof I do hear unto set my hand and seal eighteenth day of the fourth month in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventeen 1817.
Paul Cuffe (seal)
Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said Paul Cuffe as and for his last will and testament in the presence of us
EDWARD PHILLIPS LUTHAN TRIPP DAVID M. GIFFORD
Oct. 7, 1817, Approved.
From the Records of the Probate Office, Taunton, Mass.
BOOK REVIEWS
_Africa and the Discovery of America._ Volume II. By LEO WIENER, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. Innes & Sons, Philadelphia, Pa. 1922.
Professor Wiener, in the second volume of his series _Africa and the Discovery of America_, deals exhaustively with the documentary information relating to "the presence in America of cotton, tobacco and shell money, before the discovery of America by Columbus.... The accumulative evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of an introduction of the articles under discussion from Africa by European or Negro traders, decades earlier than 1492." (Foreword, p. ix.)
The importance, for the history of Pre-Columbian civilization, of these discoveries cannot be overestimated. Moreover, their significance is not concerned alone with the history of America. They will compel a revision and realignment of historical frontiers in Europe and Africa as well, from a date not later than the first quarter of the fifteenth century. Lastly, "Africa and the Discovery of America" forms, as it were, a sequel to Professor Wiener's _Contributions toward a History of Arabico-Gothic Culture_, enabling the historian to trace the influence of the Arabs as the torch-bearers of civilization. It was they who in the eighth century, through the medium of the Spanish Mozarabs, recreated European culture, and at a later period, through that of the Arabicised Negroes, of whom the West African Mandingoes were the most important, at least almost entirely re-created, if they did not actually create, the civilization of the native American tribes, throughout both continents, and planted, so to speak, in the New World, the seeds of two great modern industries, cotton and tobacco.
Let us then consider, first, what is the bearing of Professor Wiener's work on the history of cotton. Assyria and India were centers of cotton culture at a very early date. The evidence that the Arabs popularized cotton in Africa, in connection with the ceremonial purification of the dead, that is, stuffing the orifices of the body with cotton, is shown by the fact that Arabic _'utb_ "cotton," a loan word from Coptic _tbbe_ "to purify," has produced the West African "cotton" words, exactly as Arabic _wudu'_ "ablution" has given rise, doubtless through Hausa influence, to the "cotton" words of Nigeria. What is particularly important to note, however, is that Arabic _qutn_ "cotton" has gone everywhere into the Mandingo dialects, which have, in turn, influenced the native American languages. Thus for example, in South America, the Mandingo _kotondo_, etc., "cotton," derived from Arabic _qutn_, has left derivatives in the Indian languages "from Venezuela south to Peru, and in Central Brazil" (page 80), beside derivatives from Kimbunou _mujinha_ "cotton," in eastern Brazil, northward and westward. If we concede the presence of cotton in South America before Columbus, we can only conclude, on the basis of linguistic evidence, that it was introduced either directly or indirectly from Africa. The Aztec word _ychca_, the native Mexican word for "cotton," furnishes no proof that cotton was known to the Mexicans before the coming of the Spaniards, since _ychca_ is not originally a specific name, but has reference to any kind of fibre,--of a fluffy character, and came to mean "cotton" only secondarily.
Columbus, however, reported that on Oct. 11, 1492, the Indians of Guanahani brought parrots and cotton thread in balls, to trade for beads and hawks' bills. Either he told the truth, or he did not. If he told the truth, it is still remarkable that the Indians should not only have known of the traders' demand for cotton and parrots, but should also have offered the very articles which Cada Mosto, nearly fifty years earlier, had mentioned as coming from Africa,
## particularly the cotton, then offered for sale in the Negro markets.
Columbus's references to growing cotton are specific in declaring that the cotton grew on trees,--hence it is obvious that he did not see any true cotton growing, but only the false cotton, the product of the tree Bombax Ceiba, used for stuffing mats, but not capable of being spun (page 28). A study of the early records of Mexico is conclusive in the evidence it furnishes to show that cotton never formed part of the tribute due the Mexican emperor, but that the payment of tribute in cotton was "an innovation of the Spaniards, and did not have the sanction of the Aztec tribute" (page 56). Hence we have nothing to indicate that, either in the Indies or in Mexico, the material of which the "cotton clothing" of the natives, mentioned by the Spaniards, was made, was really cotton. If it was cotton, its presence points to contact between America and Africa before Columbus, and the readiness of the natives to offer cotton in exchange for hawks' bills testifies clearly to the extent of trade relations between the two countries.
The contention of archæologists is that cotton culture in Peru may go back to a date as early as 200 A.D. The only criterion for such an assumption rests on the theoretical rate of accumulation of guano deposits, in which mummies, wrapped in cotton, have been found,--calculated at two and one half feet per century. This conclusion is absurd, not only for the stress it lays on the capricious habits of sea-birds, but also for the reason that it fails to take into account the irregularity of the guano deposits, as shown in the Peruvian Government Survey of 1854. No conclusion whatever as to the age of even a single mummy-case can be drawn, owing to certain facts concerning Indian burial customs, recorded by Cieza de Leon in 1553, Ondegardo in 1571, and Cobo, nearly a century later. These travellers state that the Peruvian natives were accustomed to open graves, change the clothes of the dead from time to time, and re-bury them (page 67 ff.). The proof that they told the truth is contained in the report by Baessler, of the X-ray examinations of Peruvian mummy-packs in the Royal Museum at Berlin. One such pack contains "the bones of _four separate individuals_, but of none there were enough to construct even distantly one complete skeleton. Besides, there were some _animal bones_ present" (page 71). This disinterment of bodies, and of course the same confusion of the remains, revealed by the X-ray, was practised by the Indians as late as 1621. Nothing then remains to militate against the linguistic testimony so strongly in support of the conclusion that South American cotton culture is of African origin.
Professor Wiener's tentative conclusion that tobacco smoking was of African origin, outlined in his first volume of this series, has been strongly reinforced by a study of the Old-World origin of capnotherapy. "Smoking for medicinal purposes," he says on page 180, "is very old, and goes back at least to Greek medicine. A large number of viscous substances, especially henbane and bitumen, were employed in fumigation, and taken through the mouth, sometimes through the nose, for certain diseases, especially catarrh, toothache and pulmonary troubles. This fumigation took place through a funnel which very much resembles a modern pipe, but by its knot-like end at the bottom of the bowl shows its derivation from the distilling cap of the alchemist's retort." The _bitumen_ corresponds to the _tubbaq_ or _tobbaq_ of the Arab doctors, a name applied to several medicinal plants containing a pungent and viscous juice. One of these plants was known in Spain as _tobbaqah_.
Fumigation as a curative measure soon degenerated in Europe into quackery,--the Arab smoke doctor giving place to the itinerant charlatan whose Arabic name lingers in Portuguese _bufarinheiro_ "peddler," originally "smoke vender." In Africa, medical fumigation spread southward through the Negro country, finding its way to America perhaps a full century before the coming of Columbus. The manner in which smoking was introduced into America is made clear by the history of the Negro _pombeiro_, the African bootlegger in the service of the Portuguese colonists, who taught the natives to drink _pombe_, a kind of intoxicating liquor. This word _pombe_ is a corruption of Latin _pulpa_, which through the Spanish _pulpa_ has persisted in Mexico as _pulque_, the name of an intoxicant used by the Indians, exactly as Arabic _hashish_, through Spanish _chicha_, has entered Nahuatl, producing the Nahuatl _chichila_ "to ferment, etc." The method of preparing the _chicha_ in Peru, by masticating grain, is clearly of African origin, since in the Sudan, a kind of drink is made by chewing the fruit of the baobab. The clearest proof, however, that such _pombeiros_ reached America in Pre-Columbian days is found in Columbus's reference to the report by the Indians of Hispaniola, that "_black people_ had come thither from the south and south east, with spearheads of _guanin_." Now _guanin_ is a Mandingo word; the name of an alloy of 18 parts of gold, 6 of silver and 8 of copper.
The history of shell and bead money, familiar as the wampum of the northern Indians, forms the third part of the present volume, and is perhaps the source of the strongest arguments to show the Pre-Columbian relation of Africa and America. Ultimately, the use of cowry shells for money comes from China, where such shells, called _pei_, _tze-pei_, _pei-tze_, had been used from time immemorial. The Chinese name of the cowry, _ho-pei_, probably anciently pronounced something like _ka-par_, is evidently the origin of Sanskrit _kaparda_, Hindustani _kauri_ (whence English _cowry_), Dravidian _kavadi_ "cowry." "From the ninth century on, we have many references in the Arabic authors to the cowries in Asia and Africa" (page 208). It is quite to be expected, then, that in the Negro languages, we should find derivatives of this ultimately Chinese word, descended through the medium of successive borrowings, via Hindustani and Arabic,--that is, Hausa _al-kawara_, _kawara_, etc., Zanzibar _kauri_, Wolof _korre_, Bambara _kori_, etc., side by side with a group descended from Dravidian _woda_ "shell,"--that is Hausa _wori_, Malinke _wuri_, Bambara _wari_.
The substitution of beads for shells, as the development of this primitive form of currency went on, has left its mark likewise in linguistic records. That is to say, we have in Africa a group of words descended ultimately from Chinese _par_, _pei_, originally meaning "cowry," and secondarily "bead," together with a new group, traceable through an Arabic intermediary stage to Persian _sang_ "onyx," the bead-stone par excellence. From the cowry-words have come Benin _cori_, _kori_, _koli_, "blue bead," whence _akori_, the "_aggry_" bead of the white traders, Neule _gri_ "beads," and Baule _worye_ "blue bead," a loan-word from Mandingo _wori_. In Bantu _zimbo_, we have either a Bantu plural of _abuy_, itself a derivative of Maldive _boli_, _bolli_, which is the Chinese _pei_ "cowry," or a direct loan-word, through Arabic or Portuguese influence, of Chinese _tsze-pei_ "purple shell." The transference in meaning from "cowry" to "bead" is illustrated in Kaffir _in-tsimbi_ "beads." Similarly, the original "bead" words, from Persian _sang_ "onyx," have given Zanzibar, Swahili _ushanga_ "bead," Kongo _nsanga_ "string of blue beads," with a recession of meaning in Kongo _nsungu_ "cowry shell."
The transference of African currency to America is shown by two significant facts. First, we have the name. In the Brazilian _caang_ "to prove, try," _caangaba_ "mould, picture, etc.," is to be seen a form of some African derivative of Persian _sang_, as seen in Zanzibar _ushanga_ "bead," Kongo _nsanga_ "blue beads," etc., the change of meaning leading to the connotation "mould" being due to the substitution of the European idea of money as a piece of stamped metal, in place of that of bead or shell money. Exactly as the _petun_ words for tobacco spread from South to North America along the trade routes, so the words for "money" followed the same course. Jacques Cartier's word _esnogny_, given as the Indian name of shell money,--the shells actually gathered by an African method of fishing for shell-fish with a dead body,--is traceable only to some form of the Brazillian _çaang_, which has also given Gree _soniwaw_ "silver," Long Island _sewan_ "money." The Chino-African cowry-word, seen in African _abuy_, is preserved in the North American _bi_, _pi_ (plural _peag_, _peak_) "wampum," side by side with the Guarani _mboi_, _poi_, "shell bead." Lest the reader still harbor a lingering doubt of the fact of early trade relations between Brazil and Canada, Professor Wiener shows how Spanish _aguja_ "needle" has left derivatives in a large number of Indian languages distant by many hundreds of miles from any Spanish settlement.
Secondly, we have the standard of value. From the earliest times, in China, the purple cowry was more valuable than the white. The same standard prevailed in Africa, and was transferred to the beads when beads were substituted for cowries. Among the Indians, the _blue_, or _dark colored_ currency, whether shells or beads, was consistently reckoned as superior in worth to the white. Shell-money was first popularized on Long Island by the Dutch, who, as we are informed, imported cowries and _aggry_ beads from the East to sell them to the Guinea-merchants. Moreover, Gov. Bradford has stated that it took the Massachusetts colonists two years to teach the Indians to use shell or bead money. Finally, Professor Wiener concludes that "in the Norman country, ... the wampum belt, as a precious ornament for European women, had its origin, and was by the Frenchmen transferred to Brazil and Canada" (page 258).
The fifteen full-page illustrations serve well to bring home much of the force of the arguments, even to a casual reader.
PHILLIPS BARRY, A.M., S.T.B.
GROTON, MASSACHUSETTS.
* * * * *
_The Negro Press in the United States._ By FREDERICK G. DETWEILER. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1922. Pp. 274.
Struck by the number and distribution of Negro magazines and newspapers, many investigators in the social sciences have recently directed their attention to the study of the Negro press. This increased interest resulted largely from the unusual impetus given the Negro press during the World War when it played the part of proclaiming the oppression of the Negroes to the nations pretending to be fighting for democracy when they were actually oppressing their brethren of color at home. And why should not the public be startled when the average Negro periodical, formerly eking out an existence, became extensively circulated almost suddenly and began to wield unusual influence in shaping the policy of an oppressed group ambitious to right its wrongs? These investigators, therefore, desire to know the influences at work in advancing the circulation of these periodicals, the cause of the change of the attitude of the Negroes toward their publications, their literary ability to appreciate them, the areas of their greatest circulation, and the attitude of the white people toward the opinion of this race.
While it is intended as a sort of scientific work treating this field more seriously than Professor Robert T. Kerlin's _The Voice of the Negro_, it leaves the impression that the ground has not been thoroughly covered. In the first place, the author does not show sufficient appreciation of the historic background of the Negro press prior to emancipation. He seems acquainted with such distinguished characters as Samuel Cornish, John B. Russwurm, and the like but inadequately treats or casually passes over the achievements of many others who attained considerable fame in the editorial world. In any work purporting to be a scientific treatment of the Negro press in the United States the field cannot be covered by a chapter of twenty pages as the author in question has undertaken to do. Furthermore, many of the underlying movements such as abolition, colonization, and temperance, which determined the rise and the fall of the Negro editor prior to the Civil War, are not sufficiently discussed and scientifically connected in this work. The book, then, so far as the period prior to the Civil War is concerned, is not a valuable contribution.
The author seemed to know more about the Negro press in freedom. Living nearer to these developments he was doubtless able to obtain many of these facts at first-hand and was able to present them more effectively. He well sets forth the favorite themes of the Negro press and the general make-up of the Negro paper, but does not sufficiently establish causes for this particular trend in this sort of journalism. Taking up the question of the demand for rights, the author explains very clearly what the Negro press has stood for. Then he seemingly goes astray in the discussion of the solution of the race problem, Negro life, Negro poetry, and Negro criticism, which do not peculiarly concern the Negro editor more than others in the various walks of life. Looking at the problem from the outside and through a glass darkly, as almost any white man who has spent little time among Negroes must do, the work is about as thorough as most of such investigators can make it and it should be read by all persons directing attention to the Negro problem.
* * * * *
_The Disruption of Virginia._ By JAMES C. MCGREGOR. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1922. Pp. 328, price $2.00.
This book was written, according to the author, as an attempt to present an unbiased account of the strange course of events in the history of Virginia from the time of Lincoln's election to the presidency to the time of the admission of West Virginia into the Union. It is, however, more of a polemic than an historical contribution. The author raises this very question himself by his declaration that he has no grudges to satisfy and no patrons to please. "If he seems harsh in his opinions and conclusions regarding the irregular and inexpedient methods employed in cutting off the western counties of Virginia and forming them into a new State," says he, "it is due to the conviction that an unnecessary wrong was committed, a wrong that helped not at all in Lincoln's prosecution of the Civil War." The author is convinced that not only was the act unconstitutional but that it was not desired by more than a small minority of the people of the new State. He believes that the President and Congress, being grateful to the Union men in northwestern Virginia for their loyalty to the Union, rewarded them by giving their consent to the organization of a new State which, nevertheless, was in violation of the principles of the Constitution.
Unlike Professor C. H. Ambler who, in his _Sectionalism in Virginia_, has set forth in detail the differing political interests of the sections of Virginia, this author reduces it to a mere exploit on the basis that the end justified the means. Furthermore, the author differs widely from C. G. Woodson who in an unpublished thesis similarly entitled _The Disruption of Virginia_, presented in 1911 to the Graduate School of Harvard University in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, emphasized the economic differences as the underlying causes. Dr. McGregor minimizes such causes by reducing his treatment of the economic situation to a single chapter of ten pages. He then briefly discusses the opening of the breach, the Constitutional Convention of 1829-30 and the growth of sectionalism between that Convention and the Civil War. Approaching the main feature of the work, the author takes up the preliminaries of the Convention of 1861, the various conventions of the northwestern counties out of which evolved the organization of the new State of West Virginia, and finally the question of admission before Congress.
Why such a work could be considered necessary and accepted as a contribution in this particular field when valuable works have already been written upon this subject, is justified by the author on the ground that he has discovered considerable new material which convinces him that the new State movement in West Virginia was unrepresentative of the majority of the people of the northwestern counties but was put through in dictatorial fashion by a militant minority. It is true that some new material has been added to this work, but it hardly convinces well informed historians that the far-reaching and sweeping conclusion of the author are justified by the few additional facts which he has been able to find. Almost a causal study of the history of Virginia shows that the western part of the State became estranged from the eastern because their economic interests were different and the authorities failed to make the improvements necessary to connect these sections and thus unify such interests. By the time of the Civil War the northwestern counties were commercially connected with the North and West and accordingly followed these in that upheaval.
* * * * *
_A Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages. Volume II._ By SIR HARRY H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., Sc.D. (Cambridge). The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1922. Pp. 544.
This work is the result of a study of the Bantu languages commenced by the author in 1881 in the Library of the British Museum, and instigated by the project of accompanying the Earl of Mayo on an exploratory expedition in South West Africa, Angola and the countries south and east of the Kunene River. The expedition, according to the author, was extended by him to the upper Congo thanks to the assistance offered by H. M. Stanley. With this large view of Africa his studies were continued with little intermission during the forty years which followed his first introduction into that continent. Even the World War itself was not exactly an interruption but permitted the author to extend the scope of his research by bringing him into closer acquaintance with certain of the western Semi-Bantu languages through the presence in France of contingents of Senegambian troops. The Colonial office, moreover, assisted the work by requesting its officials in British West Africa to examine the Semi-Bantu languages of British Nigeria, South-west Togoland, Sierra Leone and the Gambia. Furthermore, an important discovery of two Bantu languages was made in the southern part of the Anglo-Egyptian province of Bahr-al-ghazal. He is indebted to Mr. Northcote W. Thomas's researches which revealed new and interesting forms of Semi-Bantu speech in the Cross River districts of Southern Nigeria. In the comparison of roots, moreover, the author had considerably more material to draw on than in the case of the first volume. He found also much more information concerning H[=o]ma and Bañgminda through Major Paul Larkin and Captain White. These are the chief features which, he believes, make the second volume a valuable contribution.
In spite of the extensive investigation, however, the author still finds a good deal about which he is not certain. About many of these languages he knows little regarding their structure and grammar. In other words they have been studied merely from the outside. In spite of his extensive travels, moreover, he had so much to do and apparently such a short time in which to accomplish his task that this work, as valuable as it is, can be considered no more than an introductory treatise going a little further into a field inadequately explored. Already he says he finds that he has been reproached for not bringing within the scope of these two volumes a group of languages in the North-east Togoland and Kisi and the Limba tongues of Sierra Leone. Yet although he finds that these have some Bantu features, they were too mixed to justify their treatment here. He found resemblances of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu families elsewhere but not closely enough akin to require their treatment in connection with this work.
Beginning with a treatment of the enumeration and classification of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages, the work reviews the languages illustrated in Volume I. Attention is directed to the Bantu in various regions of the continent. The author then discusses the phonetics and phonology of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages, prefixes, suffixes, and concords connected with the noun in Bantu and Semi-Bantu, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, the verbs and verb roots. The maps graphically show the probable origins and lines of migration of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages and their distribution in Central and South Africa.
On the whole, the world is indebted to Sir Harry H. Johnston for his enumeration and classification of these tongues, although the work merely marks the beginning of a neglected task. Until some scholar with better opportunities to carry forward this research has produced a more scientific treatise, the works of the author will be referred to as interesting and valuable volumes.
NOTES
On February 20, 1923, there passed away in New York City a Negro of no little distinction in his particular group. This was Horatio P. Howard, the great grandson of Captain Paul Cuffe of African colonization fame. Howard was the grandson of the Captain's daughter Ruth, who married Alexander Howard, and the child of their son Shadrach. Howard was born in New Bedford in 1854 and beginning in 1888 served as a clerk in the Custom House in New York City where he accumulated considerable wealth which, inasmuch as he lived and died a bachelor, he disposed of for philanthropic purposes. He bequeathed $5000 to Hampton and the balance of his estate he gave to Tuskegee as a fund to establish Captain Paul Cuffe scholarships.
Hoping to inculcate an appreciation of the achievements of his great grandfather, he erected to his memory a monument at a cost of $400 dedicated in 1917 with appropriate exercises by the people of both races and made still more impressive by a parade which Howard himself led. On that occasion, moreover, he distributed his interesting biography of the great pioneer in the form of a booklet entitled _A Self-Made Man, Captain Paul Cuffe_.
Henry Allen Wallace, one of the colaborers in unearthing and preserving the records of the Negro, died on the 12th of February. He was the son of Andrew and Martha Wallace and was born in Columbia, South Carolina, about sixty-seven years ago. He was educated in the public schools of Toronto, Canada, the University of Toronto, and Howard University. He began his public life as a clerk in the post office at Columbia, and in the early days of civil service secured, by success in a competitive examination, an appointment as clerk in the War Department in Washington. There he served with an unbroken record for over thirty years, after which he was transferred to the New York office with which he was connected until about eighteen months ago when on account of ill health he was compelled to retire. He afterward made his home with his sister in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he died.
Mr. Wallace was well informed on matters pertaining to the race during the Reconstruction and freely contributed to magazines publishing such material. Furthermore, his assistance was often solicited to correct manuscripts prepared by others who knew less of this drama in our history. His service in connection with finding the names of Negroes who served in southern legislatures and his letters, both of which have appeared from time to time in THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, constitute valuable contributions in this field.
* * * * *
SPRING CONFERENCE
On the 5th and 6th of April there will be held in Baltimore the Spring Conference of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Members of the administrative staff including Professor John R. Hawkins, the Chairman, Mr. S. W. Rutherford, Secretary-Treasurer, and others of the Executive Council, are making extensive preparation for this Conference. The aim will be to bring together teachers and public-spirited citizens with an appreciation of the value of the written record and of research as a factor in correcting error and promoting the truth. The heads of all accredited institutions of learning have been invited to take an active part in this convocation. As it is to be held in Baltimore, near which are located so many of our colleges and universities, it is believed that this Conference will prove to be one of the most successful in the history of the Association.
The program will cover two days and will offer an opportunity for the discussion of every phase of Negro life and history. On Thursday there will be a morning session at 11:00 at Morgan College and an afternoon session there at 3:00 P. M. On the following day the morning session will be held at the Douglass Theatre at 12:00 M. and the afternoon session at the Druid Hill Avenue Y. M. C. A. at 3:00 P. M. The two evening sessions will go to the Bethel A. M. E. Church. In addition to these, special groups of persons cooperating with the Association will hold conferences in the interest of matters peculiar to their needs. Among the speakers will be Professor Kelly Miller, Mr. L. E. James, Mr. Leslie Pinckney Hill, Dr. William Pickens, and Dr. J. O. Spencer.
An effort will be made to arouse interest and to arrange for conducting throughout the country a campaign for collecting facts bearing on the Negro prior to the Civil War and during the Reconstruction period. The field is now being exploited by a staff of investigators of the Association. It is earnestly desired that all persons having documentary knowledge of these phases of Negro History will not only give the Association the advantage of such information, but will attend this Conference to devise plans for a more successful prosecution of this particular work.
Another concern of the Conference will be to stimulate interest in the collection of Negro folklore for which there is offered a prize of $200 for the best collection of tales, riddles, proverbs, sayings and songs, which have been heard in Negro homes. The aim is to study the Negro mind in relation to its environment at various periods in the history of the race and in different parts of the country. The students of a number of institutions of learning are already at work preparing their collections to compete for this prize, and it is hoped that a still larger number will do likewise. This special work is under the supervision of a committee composed of Dr. Elsie Clews Parsons, Assistant Editor of the _Journal of American Folklore_, Dr. Franz Boas, Professor of Anthropology in Columbia University and a member of the Executive Council of the Association, and Dr. Carter G. Woodson, Editor of THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY.
THE JOURNAL
OF
NEGRO HISTORY
VOL. VIII., NO. 3 JULY, 1923.
NEGRO SERVITUDE IN THE UNITED STATES[A]
SERVITUDE DISTINGUISHED FROM SLAVERY
The first Negroes in the American colonies were called Africans, Blackamores, Moores, Negars, Negers, Negros, Negroes, and the like.[1] It is highly probable that Negroes were brought to America by some of the early colonists before 1619, for Negroes had been in England since 1553.[2] James Otis said: "Our colonial charters made no difference between black and white."[3] Some of such early Negro settlers might have been brought over from Barbadoes or other islands. The English colonists often went to and from the mainland for settlement and trade, and by 1674 Barbadoes was a "flourishing state" with a white population of 50,000 and 100,000 "Negroes and colored."[4] Negroes, along with Spanish explorers, are known to have been in North and South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, New Mexico, and California as early as 1526, 1527, 1540, 1542, and 1537, respectively.[5] However, the first Negroes, thus far known, in the American colonies, were the "twenty negars" introduced at Jamestown, in 1619, by the Dutch frigate.[6]
The first status of these Negroes early imported is of some importance. Although the historians do not always mention the fact, there is nevertheless ample proof of the existence of Negro servitude in most of the American colonies. The servitude did not always precede slavery in every case, nor was it ever firmly established as slavery eventually became. Still it is an interesting fact that Negro servitude frequently preceded and sometimes followed Negro slavery. In colonies where servitude followed slavery, it was due to the fact that these colonies were founded after the change of Negro servitude into slavery was well advanced. Even here, servitude accompanied slavery. In some of the colonies, the question of priority resolves itself into the question of the priority of customary servitude to customary slavery. In this case, however, it is probable that servitude was first, even though slavery was first recognized in law. In certain instances, the records make it certain that servitude preceded slavery. This was the case in Virginia.
Several authorities have shown the extent to which the priority of Negro servitude has been recognized. "At first the African _slave_ was looked upon as but an improved variety of indented servant whose term of labor was for life instead of a few years."[7] "As has been mentioned, some Negroes were bound as _slaves_ for a term of years only."[8] The Negroes of 1619 and "others brought by early privateers were not reduced to slavery, but to limited servitude, a legalized status of Indian, white, and negro servants, preceding slavery in most, if not all, of the English mainland colonies."[9] "Negro and Indian servitude thus preceded negro and Indian slavery, and together with white servitude in instances continued even after the institution of slavery was fully developed."[10]
Furthermore, there is not the slightest evidence that the colonists were disposed to treat as slaves the first Negroes who landed in the colonies. They had no tradition of slavery in England at that time. "Whatever may have been the intent and hope of the persons in possession of the negroes as regards their ultimate enslavement, no attempt to do so legally seems for a long time to have been made ... for some reasons the notion of enslavement gained ground but slowly, and although conditions surrounding a negro or Indian in possession could easily make him a _defacto_ slave, the colonist seems to have preferred to retain him only as a servant...."[11] Servitude, on the other hand, was familiar enough, although not in the form which it eventually assumed in the colonies. The attitude of the colonists, when they first became confronted with the Negro question, was the attitude of Queen Elizabeth and Hawkins when it was proposed to go to Africa to barter for African servants.[12]
It was just as true in the colonial days as now that the attitude which the community takes towards the Negro population is largely determined by their relative numbers. If the Negroes had been numerous in the colonies immediately after 1619, it is reasonable to suppose that their status would have been defined earlier and more sharply than it was. But the numbers were not there.[13] Six years after the introduction of the first Negroes in Virginia, there were but twenty-three in the colony. Meanwhile the white population was about 2500. All through the first half of the century importation of Negroes was of an "occasional nature."[14] Forty years after the first introduction there were but three hundred Negroes in the colony.[15] It was during the last quarter of the seventeenth century that the number of Negroes in Virginia showed a noticeable increase. By 1683 there were three thousand; between 1700 and 1750, the increase was even more noticeable.[16] In Maryland, Negroes were not extensively introduced until the eighteenth century.[17] In 1665 a few slaves were brought to North Carolina and it was not until 1700 and after that their number reached eight hundred.[18] After their introduction by Sir John Yeamans in 1671 it was not until 1708 that the number of Negroes in South Carolina became a considerable part of the population.[19] In Pennsylvania, as early as 1639, a number of Negroes served a Swedish company. How many there were is not known.[20] In 1644, 1657, 1664 and 1677 several Negroes singly and in groups are known to have been in the region which afterwards became Pennsylvania. In this colony they were spoken of as "numerous" in 1702, but numerous then did not mean so many. Later their number is noticeable.[21] In Massachusetts, from 1638, when the Salem ship, _Desire_, returned from the West Indies with cotton, tobacco, and Negroes, to the close of the seventeenth century the number of Negroes was comparatively small.[22] Josselyn saw Negroes in the colony when he visited it in 1638-39.[23] In 1678, there were 200 in the colony and in 1678 Governor Andros reported that there were but a few. In 1680, Governor Bradstreet said no blacks or slaves had been brought in the colony in the space of fifty years except between forty and fifty one time and two or three now and then. In the nine years from 1698 to 1707, two hundred arrived and in 1735 there were 2,600 in the Province.[24] Immediately after 1619, then, the number of Negroes scattered throughout the colonies was comparatively small. It seems likely that their condition may be described as that of servitude, which at that time universally prevailed, rather than slavery.
We are likely to think of the status of the early Negroes in America as having been inherited or transplanted. Far from this, the status of the Negro in the early period, like slavery itself, was purely a local development.[25] The status of the early Negroes shows unmistakably that it developed in lines parallel to that of white servitude.[26] The motives which determined the growth of white servitude and Negro slavery are peculiar to the social and economic conditions of the colony of Virginia and its neighbors, whose inhabitants were primarily imported settlers and laborers. White servitude and black servitude were but different aspects of the same institution. As white servitude disappeared, Negro slavery succeeded it.[27]
The reason the early Negroes were not given at once the status of slaves is that there was at this time no legal basis for slavery. The Dutch who settled in New York seem to have defined the status of the Negro slave on the civil law of Holland. In the English colonies it was a local development.[28] Clearly, the ownership in the Negroes was widely recognized and practiced in custom and in law. It is equally clear, however, that white servitude and some form of black servitude existed for a long time side by side with Negro slavery. This recognition of slavery in custom and practice, moreover, makes its appearance near the date of the statutory recognition of slavery by the colonies.[29] Hence, the dates of this statutory recognition fix the "upper limit to the period" in which slavery may be said to have had a beginning.[30] In a number of the colonies, not only is absolute ownership in Negroes, hence slavery, conspicuous, by the absence of any records of it, but the priority of Negro servitude and of a free Negro class is established. Ownership in the services but not of the person was characteristic of both whites and Negroes in this early period.[32]
"Prior to 1619 every inhabitant of Virginia was practically a 'servant manipulated in the interest of the company, held in servitude beyond a stipulated term.'" "It was not an uncommon practice in the early period for shipmasters to sell white servants to the planters." By 1619 servitude was already recognized in the law of Virginia.[33]
In this early period the Company, as represented locally by its officials, was the sole controlling and directing power of the colony.[34] The Company was at the outset doubtful about the advantages of bringing in slaves, partly because they were not sure of the value of slave labor, and partly because they feared the Negro would not become a permanent settler and so contribute to the building up and defending the colony. The opposition of the trustees of Georgia to the importation of Negroes was rested on these grounds.[35] Early legislation in order to prohibit the trade in the colonies imposed duties on slaves imported.[36] Moreover, it appears that the Company generally held and worked the Negroes, who were purchased, in the interest of the government, frequently distributing them among the officers and planters. This was done, for example, in the island colony, the Bermudas, in Virginia, and in Providence Island.[37]
Established and universal as white servitude was it not only became the model of Negro servitude but also decidedly influenced its transition to slavery. When Negro servitude passed into slavery, it was white servitude that lent that slavery the mild character which it possessed until the early part of the nineteenth century.[38]
The earliest authorized effort of England for Negro servants further elucidates this point. In 1562, Sir John Hawkins proposed to take Negroes from Africa and sell them. Queen Elizabeth did not at first approve Hawkins' plan but questioned the justice of it. Hawkins argued that bringing the Africans from a wild and barren country would be eminently just and beneficial to the Africans and to the world. He seemed not to have had the purpose of selling the Africans into perpetual servitude: "Hawkins told her, that he considered it as an act of humanity to carry men from a worse condition to a better ... from a state of wild barbarism to another where they might share the blessings of civil society and Christianity; from poverty, nakedness and want to plenty and felicity. He assured her that in no expedition where he had command should any Africans be carried away without their own free will and consent, except such captives as were taken in war and doomed to death;.... Indeed it would appear that Hawkins had no idea of perpetual slavery, but expected that they would be treated as free servants after they had by their labor brought their masters an equivalent for the expenses of their purchase."[39] After this, Hawkins received approval and support from the Queen, and with three ships and crews he went on his trip to Africa.
Upon his arrival he began traffic with the natives. He sought at first to persuade the blacks to go with him, offering them glittering rewards. When the natives did not respond so readily to his entreaty, members of his crew, under the influence of rum, undertook to coerce the Africans.[40] Hawkins sought to dissuade them and reminded the men of his promise to the Queen. They finally succeeded in getting on board a number of Africans and set sail for the Spanish islands where the Africans were to be sold as servants.[41]
The early Negroes of Virginia, moreover, were servants. On the status of "the 1619 Negroes" historians are uncertain, but the popular conception of the situation is undoubtedly erroneous. The Dutch frigate sold the Negroes to the Company which controlled and distributed them. Some of them were clearly retained by the officers while others "were put to work upon public lands to support the governor and other officers of the government." There is no evidence that any of these Negroes were made slaves, while evidence that they were servants is abundant.[42]
The statutes of Virginia up to 1661 indicate the existence of Negro servitude rather than that of slavery.[43] In 1630, whites were whipped for fornication with the blacks "before an assembly of _negroes_." In 1639 and 1640, all persons except _Negroes_ were to be provided with arms and ammunition or be fined.[44] Up to that time the acts do not indicate slavery. The act of 1655 refers to Indian slavery.[45] The act of 1659 does not show that Negro slavery existed in the colony, but apparently aims to prevent it.[46] No other acts, in the statutes, throw any light on the status of the Negro before the act of 1661. This acts reads, "In case any English servant shall run away in company with any negroes who are incapable of making satisfaction by addition of time, be it enacted that the English so running away in company with them shall serve for the time of the said negroes absence as they are to do for their own by a former act."[47] The inferences from this act are three: some of the Negroes in the colony were slaves, others free, and still others servants. The repetition of this act the following year made provision for runaway Negro servants also by a change of statement.[48]
Notwithstanding the statutes, Russel found that in the records of county courts dating from 1632 to 1661 negroes are designated as 'servants,' 'negro servants,' or simply as 'negroes,' but never in the records were the Negroes termed 'slaves'. From the context of the records, moreover, "servant" was distinctly meant and not "slave." Again, according to the census taken in 1624-1625, there were twenty-three persons of the African race in Virginia and they are listed as "servants."[49] In several musters of settlements the names of Negroes appear under the heading, "Servants"; sometimes only "Negro" appears.[50] The General Court in October, 1625, had before it for the first time a question involving the legal status of the Negro in America. A Negro named Brass had been brought to the colony by the captain of a ship. Upon handing down the decision as to what should be done with Brass, since his master had died, the Court "ordered that he should belong to Sir Francis Wyatt, Governor," evidently as servant.[51] Anthony Johnson and Mary, his wife, whose names appeared as servants in the census mentioned above, were, at sometime before 1652, given their freedom from servitude, for in that year they were exempted from payment of taxes by the county court on account of the burning of their home. The order of the court in reference to Johnson and his wife mentioned that "they have been inhabitants in Virginia _above_ thirty years." According to this, they had been in the colony at least from 1621 which approaches 1619. It appears that they were among the first Negroes sold at Jamestown. And this, with the understanding that they were not free at first establishes quite well their original status as servants as well as that of the 1619 Negroes and other Negroes in the colony.
The free Negro, Anthony Johnson, in 1653 owned John Castor, another Negro of Northampton County, as his indented servant. In 1655, a Negro was bound to serve George Light for a period of five years.[52] The court record of the discharge of Francis Pryne in 1656 is an example of the discharge certificate of Negro servants:
"I Mrs. Jane Elkonhead ... have hereunto sett my hand yt ye aforesd Pryne [a negro] shall bee discharged from all hindrance of servitude (his child) or any [thing] yt doth belong to ye sd Pryne his estate.
Jane Elkonhead"[53]
In some cases, as it was with the white servants, Negroes were given written indentures, of which Russell gives several examples. It was an early practice of the colony to allow "head rights," a certain number of acres of land for every servant imported. In 1651 "head rights" were allowed on the importation of a Negro whose name was Richard Johnson. "Only three years later a patent calling for one hundred acres of land was issued to this negro for importing two other persons. Hence, it appears that Richard Johnson came in as a free negro or remained in a condition of servitude for not more than three years."[54] It was a practice also of those who held servants to allow them the privilege of raising hogs and poultry and of tilling a small plot of ground. The court records show that by this means John Geaween, Emanuel Dregis, and Bashasar Farando, as Negro servants, between 1649 and 1652, accumulated property. Again, there are cases illustrating that the Negro servant received "freedom dues" as the white servants at the close of the term of service.[55] Thus the first and early Negroes of Virginia were servants, not slaves. They were not only servants at first, but also servants in general for a period of years.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] In the preparation of dissertation the following works were consulted: Ballagh, James Curtis, _White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia_ (J. H. U. Studies, Thirty-first Series, 1913), and _History of Slavery in Virginia_ (J. H. U. Studies, Twenty-fourth Series, 1902); Bassett, John Spencer, _History of Slavery in North Carolina_ (J. H. U. Studies, Seventeenth Series, 1899), and _Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina_ (J. H. U. Studies, Fourteenth Series, 1896); Beatty, William Jennings, _The Free Negroes in the Carolinas before 1860_ (1920); Brackett, J. R., _The Negro in Maryland_ (J. H. U. Studies, Seventh Series, Extra Volume, 1889); Brown, Alexander, _The Genesis of the United States, 1605-1616_, Two Volumes (1890), and _The First Republic in America_ (1898); Bruce, Philip Alexander, _Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century_, Two Volumes (1896); Buckingham, J. S., _The Slave States of America_ (1842); _Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts, 1652-1798_, Edited by Wm. P. Palmer, Six Volume (1875-86); Carroll, Bartholomew Rivers, _Historical Collections of South Carolina_ (1836); Daniels, John, _In Freedom's Birth Place, A Study of Boston Negroes_ (1914); Doyle, J. A., _English Colonies in America_, Five Volumes (1889); DuBois, W. E. Burghardt, _The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America_ (1896); Eddis, Wm., _Letters from America, 1769-77_; Hazard, Willis P., _Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in the Olden Time_ (1879); Henry, Howell Meadows, _The Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina_ (1914); Henning, William Waller, _Statutes at Large of Virginia, 1623-1792_, Thirteen Volumes (1812); Hotten, J. C., _Original Lists of Emigrants, 1600-1700_ (1874); Hurd, John C, _The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States_, Two Volumes (1858-62); Jones, Hugh, _The Present State of Virginia_ (1865); _Journal of Negro History_, edited by Carter G. Woodson (The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History); Lauber, Almon Wheeler, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times Within Present Limits of the United States_ (Columbia University Studies, Volume LIV (1913)); Washburn, Emory, _Massachusetts and Its Early History: Slavery as it once prevailed in Massachusetts_; McCormac, E. I., _White Servitude in Maryland 1634-1820_ (J. H. U. Studies, Twenty-second Series, 1904); Moore, George H., _Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts_ (1866); Work, Monroe N., _Negro Year Book, An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro_; Neill, E. D., _History of the Virginia Company of London, 1604-24_ (1869) and _Virginia Carolorum, 1625-85_; Nell, Wm. C., _Colored Patriots of the American Revolution_ (1855); Nieboor, Herman Jeremias, _Slavery as an Industrial Institution_ (1900); Palfrey, John Gorham, _History of New England_, Five Volumes (1892); Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell, _American Negro Slavery_ (1918); _Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New England_, edited by John Russell Bartlett (1856-65); Rivers, William James, _A Sketch of the History of South Carolina to the Close of the Proprietary Government by the Revolution of 1719_ (1856); Russell, John H., _The Free Negro in Virginia 1619-1865_ (J. H. U. Studies, Thirty-first Series, 1913); Steiner, Bernard C., _History of Slavery in Connecticut_ (J. H. U. Studies, Series Eleven, 1893); Stevens, William Bacon, _A History of Georgia from its First Discovery by Europeans to the Adoption of the Present Constitution in 1798_ (1848); Stroud, George M., _A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of America_ (1827); Thwaites, Ruben Gold, _The Colonies, 1492-1750_; Turner, Edward Raymond, _The Negro in Pennsylvania 1693-1861_ (1910); _Winthrop's Journal: "History of New England" 1630-1649_, Three Volumes. Edited by James Kendall Hosmer.
[1] Many historians have substituted "slave" for "Negro." Russell, _Free Negroes in Virginia_, p. 16. White servants are also called slaves. Doyle, _History of English Colonies in America_, II, p. 387; Stevens, _History of Georgia_, pp. 289, 294.
[2] Several years before 1619, Negroes in England were sentenced to work in the colonies. "Two Moorish thieves [negroes] in London were sentenced to work in the American colonies. And they said no, they would rather die at once." Brown adds: "I do not know whether they were sent to Virginia or not." (_The First Republic in America_, p. 219. See also postnote 14.) Again, "I do not know that these negroes were the first brought to the colony of Virginia. I do not remember to have seen any contemporary account which says so. The accounts which we have even of the voyages of the company's ships are very incomplete, and we have scarcely an idea of the private trading voyages which would have been most apt to bring such 'purchas' to Virginia." Pory wrote in September, 1619: "'In these five months of my continuance here, there have come at one time or another eleven sail of ships into this river.' If he meant that these eleven ships came in after he did, at least three of them are not accounted for in our annals." Washburn, _Slavery as it once prevailed in Massachusetts_, pp. 198, 327.
[3] Nell, _Colored Patriots of the American Revolution_, p. 59.
[4] Rivers, _History of South Carolina_, p. 113; Buckingham, _Slave States of America_, I, p. 19.
[5] _The Journal of Negro History_, III, p. 33; Work, _Negro Year Book_, p. 152. "The second settler in Alabama was a Negro."
[6] Ballagh gives an interesting and the most reliable account of this ship and these Negroes. (_History of Slavery in Virginia_, p. 8.) A heated controversy took place over what should be done with the Negroes. "And so the people of her were all disposed of for the year to the use of the company till it could be truly known to whom the right lyeth." Brown, _The First Republic in America_, pp. 359, 368, 391, 325-27.
[7] Thwaites, _The Colonies_, p. 98.
[8] Daniels, _In Freedom's Birthplace_, p. 7.
[9] _New International Encyclopedia_, p. 166.
[10] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 32.
[11] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 31.
[12] Washburn holds that the moral stamina of sturdy people seeking freedom argued against enslavement. _Slavery as it once prevailed in Mass._, p. 194.
[13] "If twenty negroes came in 1619, as alleged, their increase was very slow, for according to a census of 16th of February, 1624, there were but twenty-two then in the colony." Neill, _Hist. of the Va. Co._, p. 72.
"When the census was taken in January, 1625, there were only twenty persons of the African race in Virginia...." _Virginia Carolorum_, pp. 15, 16, 22, 33, 40, 59, 225; Brown, _The Genesis of Am._, II, p. 987.
[14] Ballagh, _History of Slavery in Virginia_, pp. 9-10.
[15] The group brought over in 1638 by Menefie was an unusually large number: "Menefie was now the leading merchant. On April 19, 1638, he entered 3,000 acres of land on account of 60 transports, of whom 23 were, as he asserts, 'negroes, I brought out of England.'" _Virginia Carolorum_, p. 187 note; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia_, p. 91 note.
[16] "Intended insurrections of negroes in 1710, 1722, 1730, bear witness to their alarming increase...." _White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia_, p. 92 note.
[17] Brackett, _The Negro in Md._, p. 38.
[18] Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, pp. 18-20.
[19] Henry, _Police Control of the Slave in S. C._, p. 3.
[20] Post, p. 262, note 10.
[21] Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, pp. 1-3.
[22] Moore, _Notes on the History of Slavery in Mass._, pp. 5, 48; Palfrey, _Hist. of N. E._, p. 30.
[23] "They have store of children, and are well accommodated with Servants;----of these some are English, others Negroes: of the English there are can eat till they sweat, and work till they freeze; and of the females they are like Mrs. Wintus paddocks, very tinder fingered in cold weather." _Account of Two Voyages to N. E._, pp. 28, 139-140.
[24] Moore, _Notes on the Hist. of Slavery in Mass._, pp. 48-49.
[25] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Virginia_, pp. 2, 3, 34.
[26] "The main ideas on which servitude was based originated in the early history of Virginia as a purely English colonial development before the other colonies were formed. The system was adopted in them with its outline already defined, requiring only local legislation to give it specific character...." (Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia_, p. 9.) The status of servitude, customary and legal, similar to that given the Negroes in Virginia is as a rule met with in several of the colonies.
[27] Post, p. 254, note 33.
[28] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 28, 29, 34.
[29] White servitude had recognition in statute law by 1630-36 in Massachusetts, by 1643 in Connecticut, by 1647 in Rhode Island, by 1619 in Virginia, by 1637 in Maryland, by 1665 in North Carolina, by 1682 in Pennsylvania, and by 1732 in Georgia. Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 36, 37. Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 18, 19, 22, 29.
[30] Statutory recognition of slavery by the American colonies occurred as follows: Massachusetts, 1641; Connecticut, 1650; Virginia, 1661; Maryland, 1663; New York and New Jersey, 1664; South Carolina, 1682; Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, 1700; North Carolina, 1715; and Georgia, 1755. Prior to these dates the legal status of all subject Negroes was that of servants, and their rights, duties, and disabilities were regulated by legislation the same as, or similar to, that applied to white servants. Ballagh, _Hist. of Servitude in Va._, pp. 34, 35.
[31] Russell, _The Free Negroes in Va._, p. 29.
[32] Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p. 25; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 30, 31.
[33] Ante, note 30: "It was but natural then that they should be absorbed in a growing system which spread to all the colonies and for nearly a century furnished the chief supply for colonial labor." Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Colony of Va._, pp. 14, 27, 49. Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 32.
[34] The Company secured servants for the colony. Stevens, _History of Ga._, p. 290; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 15.
[35] The Trustees of Georgia held out on account of philanthropic motives. See Du Bois, _Suppression of the Slave Trade_, pp. 7, 8, 26; Declaration of one of the trustees, Stevens, _Hist. of Ga._, p. 287.
[36] Moore, _Notes on the History of Slavery in Mass._, p. 50. Du Bois, _Suppression of African Slave Trade_, p. 15.
[37] In Providence in 1633, "it was recommended that twenty or thirty negroes be introduced for public work, and that they be separated among various families of officers and industrious planters to prevent the formation of plots. Some of these negroes received wages and purchased their freedom, and the length of servitude seems to have been dependent on the time of conversion to Christianity." Lefroy, _The History, of the Bermudaes_, p. 219. Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 29, 30, notes.
The Dutch dealt with the early Negroes in a similar way. "In practice the heavy duty imposed by the Company seems to have discouraged any large importation. As a natural consequence, too, most of those imported seem to have been in the employment of the Company. Thus we learn that the fort at New Amsterdam was mainly built by negro labor. The Company seems wisely to have made arrangements whereby its slaves should be gradually absorbed in the free population. In 1644 an ordinance was passed emancipating the slaves of the Company after a fixed period of service." Doyle, _Eng. Cols. in Am._, IV, p. 49.
[38] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 33.
[39] Carroll, _Hist. Coll._, I, p. 27.
[40] _Ibid._, p. 29.
[41] _Ibid._, p. 29.
[42] Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 16, 23; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 29 notes; Brown, _The First Republic in Am._, p. 326.
Thomas Jefferson said, "the right to these negroes was common, or, perhaps they lived on a footing with the whites, who, as well as themselves, were under absolute direction of the president." Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, p. 24.
[43] _Ibid._, 23, 24; Ballagh, _History of Slavery in Va._, 28, 31; Phillips, _Am. Negro Slavery_, p. 75.
[44] Henning, I, pp. 146, 226.
[45] The first time the term "slave" is used in the statutes was in these words: "If the Indians shall bring in any children as gages of their good and quiet intentions to us, ... that we will not use them as slaves." Henning, I, p. 296.
[46] In Henning, _Statutes_ I, p. 540, it is said: "That _if_ the said Dutch or other foreigners shall import any negroes, they the said Dutch or others shall, for the tobacco really produced by the sale of the said negro, pay only the impost of two shillings per hogshead, the like being paid by our own nation."
[47] Henning, II, p. 26.
[48] Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, p. 20, note 13.
[49] _Ibid._, pp. 23, 24; Hotten, _List of Immigrants to Am._, pp. 202, etc.
The "_Lists of the Living and Dead in Virginia_, Feb. 16th, 1623," shows that there were twenty or more Negroes in the Colony; these Negroes are referred to as servants not slaves. _Col. Records of Va._, p. 37, etc.
[50]
"Captain Francis West, His Muster. ********** Servants ********** John Pedro, A Neger, aged 30, in the _Swan_, 1623." Va. Carolorum, p. 15.
"Muster of Sir George Yeardley, Kt. ********** Servants ********** Thomas Barnett, 16, in the _Elsabeth_, 1620 Theophilus Bereston, in the _Treasuror_, 1614 Negro Men, 3. Negro Women, 5. Susan Hall, in the _William_ and _Thomas_, 1608" Ibid., p. 16.
"Muster of Capt. William Tucker, Elizabeth City. ********** Servants ********** Antoney, Negro Isabell, Negro William, theire child, baptised" Ibid., p. 40; see a muster also on page 22.
"On the 25 of January, 1624-5, a muster of Mr. Edward Bennett's servants at Wariscoyak was taken, and the number was twelve, two of whom were negroes." _Va. Carolorum_, 225 note. See also Brown, _The Genesis of Am._, II, 987.
[51] _Virginia Carolorum_, pp. 33, 34; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Virginia_, p. 30.
[52] Russell, _The Free Negro in Virginia_, pp. 24, 26, 32.
[53] _Ibid._, pp. 26, 29.
[54] _Ibid._, pp. 25, 26.
[55] _Ibid._, pp. 22, 28, 34; Bruce, _Econ. Hist. of Virginia_, II, pp. 52, 53.
NEGRO SERVITUDE AND ITS PRIORITY IN OTHER COLONIES
Slavery received statutory recognition in the colony of Maryland in 1663, and in North Carolina in 1715. White servitude had long existed in these colonies, receiving statutory recognition in Maryland as early as 1637, and in North Carolina in 1665. Servitude, therefore, had ample time for local definition "before slavery entered upon either its customary or legal development."[1] Ballagh holds that in these colonies, also, Negro servitude historically preceded slavery.[2] In Maryland, particularly, along with Virginia and Massachusetts, the "circumstances surrounding the enactments defining slavery" indicate a natural transition from Negro servitude to slavery. Since servitude existed in these states, it seems probable, from analogy with conditions in other parts of the country, that the early Negroes in these colonies were servants.[3]
Negro servitude preceded Negro slavery in Massachusetts. This servitude existed legally and underwent a period of development. After the recognition of slavery in 1641, Negro servitude continued along with slavery and in a more pronounced manner.[4] The early inhabitants of Massachusetts were hostile to the introduction of slavery. This attitude was, perhaps, responsible for the milder form which Negro bondage first assumed, for "the facts of history ... seem to establish this conclusion, that slavery never was in harmony with the public sentiment of the colony."[5] The Salem ship, the _Desire_, brought to the Colony, February 26, 1638, "some cotton, tobacco, and negroes." This cargo had been taken on by Mr. Pierce of the _Desire_, at Providence Island, evidently in exchange for fifteen Indian boys and two women, taken as prisoners in the Pequod War.[6] At this time, it was common to purchase servants from shipmasters and merchants, and so it is not certain that the Negroes brought back by Mr. Pierce were slaves. At Providence, moreover, Negroes had the status of servants.[7] When Josselyn visited New England in 1638-39, he saw in Boston servants, English and Negroes.[8] In 1641, after the adoption of the Body of Liberties, a master of a ship brought two Negroes for sale into slavery, but was compelled by the court to give them up. These Negroes were then sent back to their native country. In 1646, the General Court passed an act "against the heinous and crying sin of man-stealing." In this colony "slaves" testified against white men in court and, for a long time after 1652, served in the militia.[9] Again, beginning with 1700, Judge Sewall and the Quakers started their memorable work against slavery. Charles Sumner said concerning slavery in Massachusetts: "Her few slaves were merely for a term of years, or for life."[10]
The Bond of Liberty, adopted in 1641, evidently made provision for servitude.[11] Negroes were held as servants under this provision. During the entire colonial period until 1791, they were rated as polls, as, for example, in the tax laws, in 1718, which provided that "all Indian, negro and mulatto servants _for a term of years_ were to be numbered and rated as Polls, and not as Personal Estate."[12]
Prior to 1700, moreover, Negroes had the status of servants in Pennsylvania. In the region of the Delaware River, which became a part of Pennsylvania, the Dutch had a few Negroes with them in 1636. In 1639, also, a number of Negroes worked under the New Netherlands Company on the South River.[13] It is not definitely known that these Negroes were servants, although the circumstances indicate that they were. The same is true of the Negroes in the employment of the Dutch during this very early period. Provision was apparently made for their gradual absorption by the free population. As late as 1663, there existed laws which "granted them a qualified form of freedom, working alternate weeks, one for themselves, one for the Company."[14] Among the Swedes, also, in the region of the Delaware, were a number of Negroes. Just after Rising had come to the region as head of the Swedish Company, in 1654, he issued an ordinance that "after a certain period Negroes should be absolutely free." In Penn's charter to the Free Society of Traders, in 1682, there was a provision that if the inhabitants "held blacks they should make them free at the end of fourteen years...." Benjamin Furley, also, vigorously opposed holding Negroes longer than eight years.[15] The Friends of Germantown in 1688, made strong protests against slavery; and in 1693, George Keith declared that the masters should let the Negroes go free after a reasonable term of service.[16] Later on, children of white mothers and slave fathers became servants for a term of years, and the same was true of the children of free Negro mothers and slave fathers.[17]
After 1700, Negro servants were a common and well-recognized class in Pennsylvania. Negroes who were "unable or unwilling to support themselves" were bound by the court for the term of one year.[18] All children of free Negroes were bound out until twenty-one or twenty-four years. Mulatto children "who were not slaves for life" were bound out "until they were twenty-eight years of age." The abolition act of 1780 provided among other things that "all future children of registered slaves should become servants until they were twenty-eight."[19] And again, Negroes manumitted could indenture themselves until twenty-eight.
Negro servants were generally subject to the laws which governed the white servitude; but they were subject further to other laws which gave to the Negro servants a status between that of the white servants and Negro slaves. Negro servants were apprenticed for a longer period than white servants; and such servants were object of a considerable interstate traffic, people from other states selling them into Pennsylvania. They were often apprenticed and generally given some form of freedom dues. So entrenched was Negro servitude here that in 1780 there were probably a greater number of servants in Pennsylvania than slaves.[20]
In Rhode Island Negro servitude preceded and passed into slavery.[21] Although as early as 1652 the practice of buying Negroes for service or slaves for life existed in this colony, this was not sanctioned by law. On the other hand, white servitude was clearly recognized in statute law of 1647.[22] In 1652 the legally established servitude, as well as the attitude of the colonists, undoubtedly influenced the passing of a law to prohibit slavery and provide for servitude. This law said: "Whereas, there is a common course practiced amongst English men to buy negers, to that end they may have them for service or slaves forever; for the preventinge of such practices among us, let it be ordered, that no blacke mankind or white being forced by covenant bond, or otherwise, to serve any man or his assighness longer than ten yeares, or until they come to bee twentie four yeares of age, if they bee taken in under fourteen, for the time of their cominge within the liberties of this Collinie. And at the end or terme of ten yeares to sett them free, as the manner is with the English servants. And that man that will not let them goe free, or shall sell them away elsewhere, to that end that they may bee enslaved to others for a long time, he or they shall forfeit to the Collonie forty pounds."[23] Although this law was enforced for a time, it soon became a dead letter, for after 1708, when slavery received sanction by statute, buying and selling Negroes was practiced generally.[24]
The first few Negroes in Connecticut were servants along with a few Indian and white servants. It was due, no doubt, to the paucity of the Negroes--there were in 1680 not above thirty in the colony--that they became servants. However, as this number increased, their status became gradually that of slaves by custom. Because of the fear of treachery from the Negro and Indian servants, the General Court, in 1680, ordered that "neither Indian nor negar servants shall be required to train, watch or ward in the Colony."[25] Evidently some of the servants very early had served out their time and had been freed, for by a law, in 1690, "Negro, mulatto, or Indian servants," "suspected persons" and free Negroes who were found wandering could be taken up and brought before a magistrate.[26] An act in 1711 made provision for the care of Negro servants and others who came to want after they had served out their time. "An act relating to slaves, and such in particular as shall happen to become servants for life, enacts that all slaves set at liberty by their owners, and all negro, mulatto, and Spanish Indians, who are servants to masters for time, in case they shall come to want after they shall be so set at liberty or the time of their service be expired, they shall be relieved at the cost of their masters." In fact, slavery of the "absolute, rigid kind" never existed to any extent in Connecticut.[27]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Ballagh, pp. 36-37.
[2] _Ibid._, 32.
[3] _Ibid._, 37; Beatty, _The Free Negroes in the Carolinas before 1860_, p. 3.
The children, resulting from the intermixture and intermarriage of the races were likewise servants in these two colonies. Stroud, _Laws Relating to Slavery_, pp. 8-9.
[4] Servitude was recognized in statute law in this colony by 1630-36. Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 32, 33, 36.
[5] Washburn, _Slavery as It Once Prevailed in Mass._, p. 193.
[6] Providence Isle was "an island in the Caribbean, off the Nicaraguan coast. In 1630 Charles I granted it, by a patent similar to that of Massachusetts, to a company of Englishmen, mostly Puritans, who held it till 1641, when the Spaniards captured it." Winthrop's _Journal_, II, pp. 227, 228, 260; Moore, _Notes on the Hist. of Slavery in Mass._, p. 5.
[7] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, note 2, quoted from _Calendar State Papers_, pp. 160, 168, 229.
[8] Ante, p. 252, note 23.
[9] Washburn, _Slavery as It Once Prevailed in Mass._, pp. 208, 215.
[10] Nell, _Colored Patriots in Am. Rev._, p. 37.
[11] "There shall _never_ be _any_ Bond Slavery, Villinage, or Captivity among us, unless it be lawful Captives taken in just Wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves, or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God, established in Israel concerning such persons, doth morally require. This exempts none from servitude, who shall be judged thereto by authority." _Massachusetts Hist. Coll._, 28, p. 231; Palfrey, _Hist. of New England_, II, p. 30
[12] Moore, _Notes on Slavery in Mass._, pp. 62, 63-64, 248.
[13] "A judgment is obtained, before the authorities at Manhattan, against one Coinclisse, for wounding a soldier at Fort Amsterdam. He is condemned to serve the company along with the blacks, to be sent by the first ship to South River, pay a fine to the fiscal, and damages to the wounded soldier. This seems to be the first intimation of blacks being in this part of the country.... Director Van Twiller having been charged, after Kiet's arrival, with mismanagement.... Another witness asserts he had in his custody for Van Twiller, at Fort Hope and Nassau, twenty-four to thirty goats, and that three negroes bought by the director in 1636 were since employed in his private service." Hazard, _Annals of Penn._, pp. 49-50; Turner, _The Free Negro in Penn._, p. 1.
It is noteworthy that the Negroes among the Dutch were generally under the supervision of the Company or worked for officers of the Company.
[14] Ante, p. 255, note 37.
[15] "Let no blacks be brought in directly, and if any come out of Virginia, Maryld. (or elsewhere erased) in families that have formerly brought them elsewhere Let them be declared (as in the west jersey constitutions) free at 8 years end." Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p. 21, notes 13, 14.
[16] _Ibid._, p. 66.
[17] _Ibid._, pp. 24, 25; Stroud, _Laws Relating to Slavery_, pp. 9-10.
[18] Hurd, _The Law of Freedom and Bondage_, I, 290; Turner, _The Free Negro in Penn._, p. 92.
[19] "On the 1st of March, 1780, before the war of the Revolution was closed, the Assembly of Pennsylvania passed an act declaring that negro and mulatto children whose mothers were slaves, and who were born after the passage of the act, should be free, and that slavery as to them should be forever abolished. But it was declared that such children should be held as servants, under the same terms as indentured servants, until the age of twenty-eight, when they should be free...." Watson, _Annals of Philadelphia and Penn. in Olden Times_, pp. 468-469.
[20] _Ibid._, pp. 93, 94, 98, 101.
[21] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 32.
[22] _Ibid._, p. 36.
[23] R. I., _Col. Rec._, I, p. 243.
[24] Du Bois, _Suppression of the Slave Trade_, p. 34.
[25] Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, I, p. 270; Steiner, _Hist. of Slavery in Conn._, p. 12.
[26] Conn., _Col. Rec._, XV, p. 40.
[27] Stroud, _Laws Relating to Slavery_, p. 11, note; Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, p. 271.
THE TRANSITION FROM WHITE SERVITUDE TO SLAVERY
Let us now direct our attention to the change from servitude to slavery. It is well to note here, however, that white servitude did not embrace the chief features of slavery. Nieboer defines a slave as "a man who is the property or possession of another man, and forced to work for him." Again, "slavery is the fact that one man is the property or possession of another."[1] White servitude lacked the final and formal feature of "property," namely complete "possession," and consequently never included either perpetual service or the transmission of servile condition to offspring, although during the first half of its development in the colonies, servitude tended to assume the character of slavery.[2][3]
The servitude that existed up to 1619 underwent change until it finally crystallized into indented servitude. The conditions were not as bad as the testimony of colony servants and observers of the period would indicate, and yet where there were so many references to it the condition evidently obtained.[4] In enlisting new settlers for the colonies, the Company "issued broadsides and pamphlets, with specious promises, which, however honest its purpose, were certainly never fulfilled."[5] In Virginia in 1613, colonists of 1607 who had served out the term of their original five-year contract were either retained in servitude or granted a tenancy burdened with oppressive and unfair obligations. The changed land policy of 1616 brought upon the colony servants further disadvantages. Before March, 1617, when the men of the Charles City Hundred demanded and were granted their "long desired freedom from that general and common servitude," no freedom had been granted to the colonists. After this until 1619, it was only through "extraordinary payment" that freedom was obtained.[6] Many of these colonists of Virginia, moreover, were retained in servitude until 1624 when the Company dissolved.[7]
Other incidents, growing out of the servant's role, tended to make the condition of servitude more rigid. In order to make the system of labor under the Company successful, Lord Delaware, in 1610, organized the colony into a "labor force under commanders and overseers"; and close watch over the men and their work was accordingly maintained. "The colonists were marched to their daily work in squads and companies under officers, and the severest penalties were prescribed for a breach of discipline or neglect of duty. A persistent neglect of labor was to be punished by galley service from one to two years. Penal servitude was also instituted; for 'petty offences' they worked 'as slaves in irons for a term of years'"; and there were whipping, "hangings, shooting, breaking on the wheel, and even burning alive."[8]
It may be observed from references made to this early servitude that, generally, it was harsh. We read: "Having most of them served the colony six or seven years in that 'general slavery'"; "'three years slavery' to the colony"; "noe waye better than slavery"; "rather than be reduced to live under like government we desire his Magestie that Commissioners may be sent over with authority to hang us"; and "Sold as a d---- slave."[9] Undoubtedly, these references are not all true; yet, they are not altogether false. At least they indicate that the conditions of this servitude approached slavery.[10] Out of these, informal "slavery" and unsettled conditions of early servitude, indented servitude developed.
As a general rule, every advantage was taken of the servant by the servant-dealers and masters. Opportunity to hold the servant longer than the period allowed by law or to extend his service was not infrequently seized upon, for the laxity of the system and the need of labor in the colonies made this a natural consequence. During the first period of servitude, the term of service in many cases was not prescribed in the indentures; and sometimes servants were brought over without indentures, or with only verbal contracts.[11] Thus trouble about the length of their term of service arose, especially in connection with the servants who did not have indentures. Circumstances indicate that in the interpretation of law and the facts, the master generally triumphed.[12] It was in 1638-39 that Maryland took the first definite step to prevent unfair treatment of servants by their masters. In 1654 it became necessary again to pass a law determining the servant's age and length of service. Virginia enacted similar measures in 1643 and 1657. Still, when the servants were ignorant, "which was usually the case," or could not speak the English language, the master took advantage of their shortcomings.[13] Notwithstanding the repeated efforts of the courts and assembly to protect the servant in his relation to the master, the lucrative practice of extending a servant's term, which became customary in the case of Indian and Negro servants, proved a significant factor in the degradation of white servitude.
Under the system of servitude, the conduct of the servant necessarily bore a close relation to the interests of the master. When the servant stole, ran away, "unlawfully assembled" or "plotted," indulged in fornication, spent unusual time in social intercourse, or was secretly married, the master as a rule suffered some loss. And for protection of the master, methods of punishment were resorted to, the character, definiteness, and attendant circumstances of which tended to reduce the servant to the status of a slave.
As the servant had no money with which to pay fines, some other method of punishment had to be used. Corporal punishment of a harsh character appears to have been established. Practiced at first by individuals, it soon became a general custom, and finally found its way into the laws of the colonies. During the period prior to indented servitude, instances of severe whipping of servants are numerous.[14] The first colony law which gave the master the privilege of regulating the servant's conduct in this manner, however, appeared in 1619.[15] Corporal punishment then gradually gained ground and won sanction by the colonial courts. A law in Virginia provided in 1662 "for the erecting of a whipping post in every county" and the General Assembly of this colony, in 1688, reassured the master of his right to whip the servant. All along this right was so much abused[16] that it was restrained in Virginia. In 1705 an act ordered the master not to whip the servant "immoderately"; and to whip a Christian white servant naked, an order from a justice of peace had to be obtained.[17] Several other colonies similarly restrained the right to whip.[18]
Another method of punishment that gradually hardened the conditions of servitude was the addition of time to the term of the servant. This evidently originated in the custom of the Company to prescribe as penalty for offense "service to the colony in public work."[19] This method of punishment was extensively used throughout the colonies. Sometimes the length of additional service was left to the discretion of the master, but this was so abused that the government saw fit to make regulations, which, however, themselves were not free from harshness.[20]
At first the servants undoubtedly enjoyed the right of marriage, but as this proved a source of much inconvenience and loss to the master, since the men servants lost time, stole food and other provisions, and the women servants lost time during pregnancy and in rearing children, laws restricting marriage of servants were enacted in the colonies. In Virginia, in 1643, this right was legally restricted. When the servants were secretly married, in some cases the man had to "serve out his or their tyme or tymes with his or their masters--after serve his master a complete year more for such offense committed" while the woman-servant had to double her time of service.[21] In other cases, as in North Carolina, the servants were required to serve one year.[22] Further restriction of the right of marriage appeared in Virginia in 1662. When a woman-servant and a Negro slave were married in Maryland, the woman was, in some instances, reduced to slavery, as she was required to serve her master during the life of her husband.[23] The effect of this law was, in certain instances, to complete practically the transition from servitude to slavery. Children resulting from such marriages were either made slaves for life, or required to serve until they were thirty years of age. Fornication also was made punishable by an addition of time. The woman-servant, who gave birth to illegitimate offspring, received an addition of time of one and a half to two and a half years.[24] When the offspring was by a Negro, mulatto, or Indian, she was required to serve the colony or the master for an additional time of four, five, or seven years. The children in these cases were bound out for thirty-one years.[25] With marriage restricted as it was, the family life of the servants was likely to be disorderly. Morals of servants were notably loose, and masters sometimes took advantage of their position to corrupt their servants still further.[26]
The servants were also restricted in political affairs. In the earliest period of servitude in the colonies, servants, as "inhabitants," enjoyed with the other "inhabitants" whatever suffrage there was.[27] Later on, however, this rare privilege dwindled to _nil_. For the "first sixteen years of the settlement" in Massachusetts the servants exercised the franchise.[28] In Virginia they voted until 1646 and the freedservant until 1670.[29] In Maryland in 1636, in the first assembly of the colony, only "freemen" seemed to hold sway.[30] Disfranchisement became the rule, however, after the middle of the seventeenth century.[31] The very noticeable scarcity of information on the servant's exercise of the suffrage seems to suggest that as a matter of understanding he did not enjoy the franchise. Evidently there prevailed a certain suspicion concerning not only the servant's ability to use the suffrage, but also his proper use of it; and this attitude was also always fairly pronounced toward the recently freedservant.[32]
The final remedy of the servant, then, was flight. From the beginning of indented servitude, the servants invariably deserted their master's service. While in all cases they did not run away on account of abuses, the practice brought on abuses and other incidents which, during the first part of servitude, became more and more intolerable.
The number of runaways increased as the servants continued coming in. It was comparatively easy for them to escape to the more northern colonies, since the country about them was convenient for hiding and clandestine traveling; and the fugitives themselves, on account of having no physical characteristics distinguishable from those of the other colonists, could not easily be identified.[33] Thus North Carolina became popularly known as the "Refuge of Runaways" and that colony, Maryland, and the Dutch plantations were to fugitive servants what Massachusetts, Ohio, and Canada were later to runaway slaves.[34] The "under-ground railroad," too, had a forerunner in the early period of indentured servitude.[35] Methods of dealing with the runaways necessarily grew more strict, and precautions similar to those of slavery inevitably appeared. "Unlawful assembling," "plotting," and tentative insurrections became a source of apprehension.[36] Then came methods of pursuit, return, and punishment of the fugitives. Sometimes the master made the pursuit; at other times the sheriff and his posse did it; and often the constable with a search warrant went in quest of the fugitive. Everyone who traveled was required to have a pass or a certificate of freedom to show his status;[37] and this no doubt afforded the servants a means of using forgery to facilitate their escape to freedom.[38] Again, whenever it was possible, advertisements for runaways were put in the newspapers.[39] During this time, too, there were enacted colonial statutes providing for the return of fugitives by one colony to the other. Colonial governments often accused each other of unduly holding and protecting the runaways.[40]
The greatest abuses in servitude occurred in the punishment of fugitive servants. These abuses, moreover, gradually increased in number and intensified in character.[41] The expense of the servant's capture, return, and loss of time from work, and the desire to prevent running away led to stringent punishment and evident abuses.[42] In Virginia before 1643, some runaways were punished with "additional terms from two to seven years, served in irons, to the public."[43] The act of 1643 in Virginia provided that runaways from their "master's service shall be lyable to make satisfaction by service at the end of their tymes by indenture (vizt.) double the tyme of service soe neglected, and in some cases more if the commissioners ... find it requisite and convenient."[44] The laws of 1639 and of 1641-42 made running away in Maryland punishable with death, but the proprietor or governor could commute this penalty to servitude of seven years or less.[45] Corporal punishment, too, scathed the fugitives.[46]
Plainly, then, the fugitive servant tended to assimilate the status of the servant to that of the slave and tended to become mere property. The servant could be transferred as property from one person to another, for from the beginning his services were bought and sold. The custom of purchasing and disposing of apprentices and servants was early practiced in Virginia and out of this practice grew the more definite and far-reaching custom of signing the servant's contract. Begun in 1623, it was resented by servants and deprecated by England; and yet with no question of its legality, the selling of servants' time became a common practice.[47] Later on, upon securing the servant in England, the indenture was often made out to the shipmaster or his assigns, and the servant was sold by him to the planters in America. To sell the servants, merchants were sometimes invited on board the ship, where they could look over the human cargo and select those who were desirable. Often it happened that the servants were brought over without indentures. They were made to believe that their lot would be made easy by the master who would buy them.[48] These, too, were sold by the captain to the highest bidder.[49] That the servants were dealt with in this way eventually made the indentures as a rule negotiable, and this led to further degradation of the servants' status. The theory that the servant's time was property was tenable as late as 1756 in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, for during the war with the French and Indians, when the governments and officers were recruiting the servants of the masters, the masters protested, resisted, and won.[50]
The servant, then, gradually became property, not principally because of a tendency to consider the Negro servant as such, but because of the incidents necessarily arising from the methods which had to be used to make white servitude possible in the colonies. These methods, then, the custom of using them, and finally the tentative legal sanction of them, were fairly well practiced before the Negro's arrival and long before he was considered as chattel.[51]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Nieboer, _Slavery as an Industrial Institution_, p. 42.
[2] Doyle, _Hist. of Eng. Col. in Am._, p. 385.
[3] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 42.
[4] McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, pp. 9, 60, 61, 63.
[5] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 15.
[6] _Ibid._, pp. 19, 31, 24.
[7] "We see, then, that the colonist, while in theory only a Virginia member of the London Company, and entitled to equal rights and privileges with other members or adventurers, was, from the nature of the case, practically debarred from exercising these rights.... He was kept by force in the colony, and could have no communication with his friends in England.... Under the arbitrary administration of the Company and of its deputy governors he was as absolutely at its disposal as a servant at his master's. His conduct was regulated by corporal punishment or more extreme measures. He could be hired out by the Company to private persons, or by the Governor for his personal advantage." _Ibid._, p. 26.
[8] _Ibid._, p. 23.
[9] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 23, 24, 25, 43 note.
[10] McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, pp. 48, 49.
[11] _Ibid._, pp. 38, 43; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 40, 49.
[12] "Where no contract but a verbal one existed there was always room for controversy between master and servant, each trying to prove an agreement that would be to his advantage." _Ibid._, p. 50.
[13] "Where the servants were ignorant, which was usually the case, it was to the advantage of the master that there should be no written contract, as there was then a chance of extending the term of service." McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 44.
"The Palatines and other German races, who, in the later years formed nearly all of the servant population, knew little of the laws and language and were an easy prey to the abuses of traders and harsh masters. They had been used to very little liberty at home and were slow to assert their rights in America." _Ibid._, p. 61.
[14] Ante, p. 268.
[15] Henning, _Statutes at Large_, I, pp. 127, 130, 192; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 45.
[16] _Ibid._, p. 77.
[17] _Ibid._, pp. 58, 59.
[18] Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, p. 81.
[19] "In this we have the germ of addition of time, a practice which later became the occasion of a very serious abuse of the servants rights by the addition of terms altogether incommensurate with the offenses for which they were imposed." Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 45.
[20] Henning, _Statutes at Large_, I, p. 438, II, p. 114, III, pp. 87, 140, 450; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 57.
[21] Henning, _Statutes at Large_, p. 257; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 50-51.
[22] Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, p. 34.
[23] "Instead of preventing such marriages, this law enabled avaricious and unprincipled masters to convert many of their servants to slaves. While this act continued in force, it did more to lower the standard of servitude than any other law passed during the whole period." McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, pp. 68-69.
[24] Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p. 30; Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, p. 83; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 57.
[25] _Ibid._, 57; Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, pp. 83-84; Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p. 30; McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 70.
[26] "If she should be delivered of a child by her master during this period she should be sold by the church wardens for the benefit of the church for one year after the term of service.... Here again there was no punishment for the seducing master. It is also evident that the sin of the servant would be an advantage of the master, since he would thereby secure her service for a longer period. We have not the least evidence that such a thing did happen, yet it is possible that a master might for this reason have compassed the sin of his serving-woman." Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, pp. 83-84.
"By the acts giving the master additions of time for the birth of a bastard child to his servant a premium was actually put upon immorality, and there appear to have been masters base enough to take advantage of it." Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 79.
The master also encouraged marriage between servants and Negroes. McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 68.
[27] Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, I, p. 228 note.
[28] _Ibid._, p. 255.
[29] _Ibid._, pp. 232, 254; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 93.
[30] Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, I, p. 248.
[31] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 90.
[32] "Thus the liberated servant became an idler, socially corrupt, and often politically dangerous." Doyle, _Eng. Cols in Am._, I, p. 387.
"By the temporary disfranchisement of the servant during his term, common after the middle of the 17th century, a serious public danger was avoided. There could be no guarantee, of the judicious exercise of the suffrage with this class who, for the most part, had never enjoyed the privilege before. Their servitude may be regarded as preparing them for a proper appreciation of suffrage when obtained, and the duties of citizenship...." Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 90 note.
[33] "To facilitate discovery, habitual runaways had their hair cut 'close around their ears' and 'were branded on the cheek with the letter R.'" Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 55 note.
[34] _Ibid._, pp. 53-54.
[35] McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 53.
[36] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 53, 60.
[37] _Ibid._, p. 54; McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 54.
[38] _Ibid._, p. 55.
[39] _Ibid._, p. 50.
[40] _Ibid._, pp. 52-53; Bassett, _Slavery and White Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, p. 79; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 54.
[41] McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 54.
[42] "Statute after statute was passed regulating the punishment and providing for the pursuit and recapture of runaways; but although laws became severer and finally made no distinction in treatment of runaway servants and slaves, it was impossible to entirely put a stop to the habit so long as the system itself lasted." _Ibid._, p. 56; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 52, 57.
[43] _Ibid._, p. 57.
[44] _Ibid._, pp. 57-58; Henning, _Statutes at Large_, II, p. 458.
[45] McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, pp. 51-52.
[46] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 59.
[47] "As a result, (my comma) the idea of the contract and of the legal personality of the servant was gradually lost sight of in the disposition to regard him as a chattel and a part of the personal estate of his master, which might be treated and disposed of very much in the same way as the rest of the estate. He became thus rated in inventories of estate, and was disposed of both by will and by deed along with the rest of the property." Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 43, 44.
[48] Eddis, _Letters from Am._, p. 72.
[49] Example of the advertisement of the arrival of a servantship: "Just Arrived in the Sophia, Alexander Verdeen, Master, from Dublin, Twenty stout, healthy Indented Men Servents Whose Indentures will be disposed of on reasonable Terms, by the Captain on board, or the subscribers ..., etc." McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 42.
[50] _Ibid._, pp. 39, 40, 42, 52, 85-89.
[51] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 31, 33, 68; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 39-40; Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 46-47.
THE GRADUAL TRANSITION OF NEGRO SERVITUDE INTO NEGRO SLAVERY
The status of the Negro in British America was at first that of a servant. He was not held for life, but set at liberty after a term of service. It was his service, not himself, that was the property or chattel of another, and his offspring was not subject to servitude. Again, he had privileges similar to and in some cases identical with those of the other servants; in many cases the rules which governed other servants governed him as well. In short, the Negro was not the "absolute possession" of another.[1] Moreover, it was some years before he became a slave. Distinctly during this time, his status went through a gradual process of transition inevitable in the development of subjection in the colonies.[2]
"Servant" becomes "servant for life" and "perpetual servant" in colonial laws. The progress of extending the Negro servant's term is generally observed in the language of the laws of the colonies. It appears that as the servants went into slavery, "what is termed perpetual was substituted for limited service, while all the predetermined incidents of servitude, except such as referred to ultimate freedom, continued intact." Later the terms "servant for life," "perpetual servant" and "bond servant" were used interchangeably with "slave" and the words "servant" and "slave" and their liabilities were joined in the same enactments.[3] It was some time before the word "slave" was clearly and definitely used, and the servant who became slave lost all the earmarks of a servant.[4]
The practice of holding the servant after the expiration of his term was more characteristic of black servitude than white. As the Negroes increased in numbers, this practice increased. As white servitude declined, the assurance of labor waned. The extension of the Negro's term, then, for a few years longer and eventually to life service appeared a logical as well as a necessary step for the masters to take.[5] Moreover, since the public was often led to believe that when at liberty the Negroes were an uncontrollable and probably dangerous element of the population, extension of their terms in servitude gradually gained public approval.[6] Hence, the Negro servant was held whenever the occasion demanded and the opportunity presented itself.
In illustrating the gradual transition into slavery through repeated holding and attempts at holding the Negro servants for life, court cases of Virginia may be taken as typical. Brass, a Negro, whose master, a ship captain, had died, was, upon being threatened with enslavement, assigned by the General Court in 1625 as servant to the governor of the colony instead of as slave to the company of his late master's ship.[7] John Punch, who ran away in company with three white servants, was adjudged by the court, in 1640, to serve his master the "time of his natural life" while the white servants were given four additional years to serve. Anthony Johnson, a Negro to whom attention has already been called, owned a large tract of land on the Eastern Shore. In 1640 he became involved in a suit for holding John Castor, another Negro, seven years overtime. It appears that Castor was set free. Later, however, Johnson brought suit against Robert Parker, a white man, for harboring Castor as if he were a free man; and the court decided that Castor return to his master, Johnson, evidently for service for life. Sometime before 1644, a mulatto boy named Emanuel, a servant, was sold "as a slave forever" but later was adjudged by the Assembly "no slave and but to serve as other Christian servants do." In 1673, a servant, who had been unlawfully detained beyond his five-year period, won judgment against his master, George Light; the Negro servant was set free and received his freedom dues from the master.[8] In 1674 Philip Cowan petitioned the governor for freedom on the ground that Charles Lucas kept him three years overtime and then compelled him by threats to sign an indenture for twenty years.[9]
Other indications of holding the Negro servant may be shown. In Pennsylvania, Negro servants were invariably given a longer term of service than the white servants and often held after the expiration of the term;[10] so extensive was the practice of holding these servants that, in 1682 and 1693, laws were enacted against it.[11] In Georgia a road to slavery was paved by extending the servants' terms. Negroes were brought out of North Carolina into Georgia by white servants who, becoming tired of servitude, had these blacks serve out their unexpired terms with the Georgia masters. As this worked well the masters lengthened the term of the Negro servants to life.[12] In fact, on account of the reciprocal influence of white servitude and Negro servitude, wherever white servants were taken advantage of and held longer, Negro servants were subjected to harsher treatment and longer extension of term.
The mulatto class in the colonies constituted an element through which transition of Negro servitude into slavery is apparent. As the mulattoes were looked upon as the result of an "abominable mixture" of the races and as representing a troublesome element in society, local laws and colonial statutes were gradually enacted to check and control them.[13] The statutes first aimed at serving as a deterrent upon the women, and hence arose the doctrine of _partus sequitur ventrem_, which imposed the mother's status upon the offspring. However, the first statute to this effect, the act of 1662 in Virginia, was largely enacted because of fornication of Englishmen and Negro women.[14] Statutes enunciating this doctrine were enacted in the other colonies as follows: Maryland, 1663; Massachusetts, 1698; Connecticut and New Jersey, 1704; Pennsylvania and New York, 1706; South Carolina, 1712; Rhode Island, 1728; and North Carolina, 1741.[15] Thus not only Negro mulattoes, that is, the offspring of white men and Negro women, were prevented from becoming servants, but those who were already either freemen or servants were gradually reduced to slavery. To check the growth of the mulatto class, particularly through the intermixture and intermarriage of Negro men and white women, a Virginia law in 1691 provided that the woman be fined, or sold into service for five years, or given five years of added time, and the mulatto be bound out for thirty years.[16] In Maryland, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, similar laws were passed.[17] The mulatto, then, in one case was reduced from freeman and servant to slave, and in the other case made a servant for thirty or more years.[18] Thus the debasing of the status of the mulatto helped the transition to slavery.
Just as the fugitive white servant repeatedly gave occasion, through incidents growing out of his capture, return, and deterrence, to lower the status of the servant until it assumed the character of slavery, so the fugitive Negro servant made his lot harder and influenced the extension of his term to perpetuity. The Negro servant, unlike either the Indian or white servant, obviously had little to tempt him to run away from his master; his physical characteristics made detection easy, there was no free Negro population to which he could escape, the unfamiliar country around him held but poor prospects for his making a livelihood more easily than under his master, and the strangeness of his situation undoubtedly had much to do with his acceptance of it. Yet the Negro as a servant did run away. It is very probable that the practice of running away to the Indians began when he was a servant.[19] Again, it appears that he ran away not infrequently in company with white servants. In Virginia, in 1640, John Punch, a Negro servant, ran away in company with two white servants. The three were overtaken in Maryland and brought back to Virginia for trial. The court ordered that the white servants' terms be lengthened four years, and that Punch, the Negro servant, "shall serve his master or his assigns for the time of his natural life."[20]
The transition of servitude to slavery, moreover, is distinctly noticed in the change in the conception of property in the service of the Negro to that of property in his person.[21] Like that of the white and Indian servants, the Negro's service through contract, implied and expressed, was owned by the master. This ownership, however, consisted of only the right of the master to the service of the servant. Gradually, as this service necessarily became involved in wills, estates, taxation, and business transactions, the person of the servant instead of his service came more and more to be regarded, both in custom and in law, as property, so that eventually the servant, himself, was considered personal estate. Thus he was "rated in inventories of estates, was transferable both _inter vivos_ and by will, descended to the executors and administrators, and was taxable." While he was now a "contractual person," he still retained such incidents of personality as rights of limited protection, personal freedom, and possession of property.[22] As the service of the servant became more and more regarded and treated as a form of property, his personality was completely lost sight of, and his term was extended to the time of his natural life.[23] Easily, then, the Negro servant regarded at first a part of the personal estate came at length to be regarded as a chattel real.
T. R. DAVIS
WALDEN COLLEGE, NASHVILLE, TENN.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Ante, p. 266.
[2] Local conditions and circumstances dictated and directed the form of subjection. For this same reason, both servitude and slavery differed in different sections of the country. Nieboer brings out the local character of subjection when he holds that slavery does not exist as formally among fishing and hunting peoples as among agricultural and that subjection is milder in an open country than in a closed. Nieboer, _Slavery as an Industrial Institution_, p. 55.
[3] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 37.
[4] It is not meant that all Negroes became servants and then slaves. Many Negroes became servants and followed the course of servants while others became slaves and remained slaves. At any period, however, during his first three-quarter century at least in the colonies, the most pronounced status of the Negro consisted of a cross-section of a transition from servitude to slavery.
[5] On the significance of the expiration of the white servant's term, Bruce has this to say: "Unless the planter had been careful to make provision against their departure by the importation of other laborers, he was left in a helpless position without men to reap his crops or to widen the area of his new grounds.... Perhaps in a majority of cases, his object was to obtain laborers whom he might substitute for those whose term were on the point of expiring. It was this constantly recurring necessity which must have been the source of much anxiety and annoyance as well as heavy pecuniary outlay, that led the planters to prefer youths to adults among the imported English agricultural servants, for while their physical strength might have been less, yet the periods for which they were bound extended over a longer time." Bruce, _Econ. Hist. of Va._, II, pp. 58-59.
[6] Ballagh, _Hist, of Slavery in Va._, pp. 37-38. "Negro servants were sometimes compelled by threats and browbeating to sign indentures for longer terms after they had served out their original terms." (Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, p. 33.) Indian servants, too, were held and reduced to slaves whenever possible. Lauber, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times_, pp. 196-201.
[7] Ballagh, _Hist, of Slavery in Va._, pp. 29, 30, 31.
[8] Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 32, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38-39.
[9] "Petition of a negro for redress To the Rt. Hon'ble Sir William Berkeley, Knt., Goverr and Cap. Genl of Virga, with the Hon. Councell of State. The Petiti'on of Phillip Corven, a negro, in all humility showeth: That yor petr being a servant to Mrs. Annye Beazley, late of James, City County, widow, deed. The said Mrs. Beazley made her last will and testament in writing, under her hand and seal, bearing date of April, An Dom. 1664, ... that yor petr by the then name of negro boy Philip, should serve her cousin, ... the terme of eight yeares ... and then should enjoy his freedom and be paid three barrels of corne and a sute of clothes." Cowen was sold, it appears, to Lucas who kept him and forced him to sign the long indenture. Palmer, _Calendar of State Papers_, I, p. 10.
Russell corrects "Corven" to "Cowan," _The Free Negro in Va._, p. 34.
[10] "This practice of holding negroes for a longer term than white persons, which lasted for a longer time than had originally been contemplated, since it was allowed to apply to negroes brought into Pennsylvania from other states, bade fair to perpetuate itself and last longer still." Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, pp. 93, 95, 99-100.
[11] _Ibid._, 95.
[12] Stevens, _Hist. of Ga._, I, p. 306.
[13] Henning, _Statutes at Large_, pp. 145, 146, 252, 433, 551, 552; _Ibid._, II, 115; _Ibid._, III, 87, 453; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 57; Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, pp. 112-113; McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, pp. 67-70.
[14] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 57; McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 67.
[15] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 39.
[16] _Ibid._, pp. 57-58.
[17] Stroud, _Laws Relating to Slavery_, pp. 8-9; Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, pp. 24-25, 92; Moore, _Notes on the Hist. of Slavery in Mass._, p. 54.
[18] The transition is exhibited in another case still more completely. "This position rendered them especially eligible for gross purposes, both in their intimate contact with the negroes and in their relations to their employers. The law had unwittingly set a premium upon immorality, as the female mulatto not only added an additional term to her period of service, but her offspring was by a law of 1723 in its turn forced to serve the master until the age of thirty-one years. Such mulatto servants, then, were scarcely better off as to prospective freedom than the negro slave. Custom tended to reduce them to a state of slavery. About the middle of the eighteenth century (circa 1765) the practice arose of actually disposing of their persons by sale, both in the colony and without, as slaves. So flagrant was the practice that further legislation was demanded to check the illegal proceeding by appropriate penalties. It would appear that the offenders were those who were entitled to the mulattoes only as servants, but used the power of intimidation or deceit, which could be easily practiced in the case of minor bastards born in their service." Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 59-60.
[19] From the very first, the Indians and Negroes as servants came in contact. Also, there seems to have been a "common bond of union" between Indians and Negroes. Again the colony laws concerning runaway servants generally took care of the Negro and Indian servants in the same act. Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 128-129; Lauber, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times_, pp. 218, 220-221.
[20] Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 29-30.
[21] "With the change of the status of servitude to the status of slavery, certain of the attributes of the former condition were continued and connected with the latter chief of these, and the fundamental idea on which the change was effected, was the conception of property right which, from the idea of the ownership of an individual's service resting upon contract implied or expressed, came to be that of ownership of an individual's person." Lauber, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times_, p. 215.
[22] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 39-40.
[23] Lauber, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times_, pp. 226, 227, 230; Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p. 25. "With the loss of the ultimate right to freedom, the contractual element and the incidents essential to it were swept away, and as the idea of personality was obscured, the conception of property gained force, so that it became an easy matter to add incidents more strictly defining the property right and insuring its protection."
THREE ELEMENTS OF AFRICAN CULTURE
The passion for self expression is one of the most potent factors in social development. No problem of social philosophy yields to a satisfactory solution where the passion for expression is not regarded as a requisite factor. This principle is operative in the life of the individual, the race, and the nation. All human achievements are directly traceable to some inward urge, and evolution, as a theory, is but the universalization of this principle. Civilization, whether in its more perfected stages or whether in its manifestations that are crude and rudimentary, is essentially a measure of human expression. The inward urge that drives mankind onward has a variety of manifestations and the difference in the number of these manifestations is the measure of differences between various civilizations, and between civilization and barbarism or savagery. The impulse that moves the saintly worshipper in St. Peter's to kiss the rosary as he kneels low-bowed and earnest before the high altar is the same that moves the aborigine in Zululand to dance in frenzied ecstacies around his devil-bush. That there are various degrees of self-expression, with a maximum in this nation and age, and a minimum in that, is a fact that is as undeniable as it is obvious; but that there are impulses of cultural possibilities which are lavished upon some races while totally withheld from others is a thesis which finds no sanction in history or archaeology.
Archaeology is the guiding light in which we grope in our attempt to explore the life of ancient man. In Europe and in Asia we have unearthed numerous evidences of prehistoric cultures. There may have been surprise at the antiquity and variety but certainly not at the location, for it was highly probable that the present high civilization of Europe and Asia had risen from the ruins of older ones; yet it cannot be longer doubted that when archaeology as a searchlight was turned upon Africa there was occasion of surprise when that Dark Land yielded evidences of a civilization that antedated the arrival of the European. It would be just as hard to designate the African cultures as purely Negro as to designate the European cultures as purely Teuton. However, a study of African culture promises richer results when it can be identified with certain Negro tribes or such Negroid tribes as have a large extraction of Negro blood. The findings of archaeology have not only a backward look but also a meaning for the future and especially is this true of African cultures, which not only throw light upon the past of the black man but may also become prophetic of his future. It shall be the purpose of this treatise to analyze the African cultures so as to disclose their essential elements and to compare these elements with their counterparts in European cultures.
Once attention had been directed towards Africa, there arose numerous archaeological expeditions and especially noteworthy were the findings of those from Germany and England, the two European countries which had the most ambitious schemes of colonization. In details there is not always agreement among the various archaeological explorers; but, in the main, there is a unanimity that is marvelous and especially is this true when there is evidenced such keen rivalry that is at bottom doubtless economic.
What are the essential elements of civilization? What are the cultural manifestations which constitute the _sine qua non_ of human progress? What is the "irreducible minimum" of civilization? A studied answer must include ethics, art and government, for without any one of these no social order can claim for itself an approach to civilization. The cultures of nations and races must be expressive of these cardinal elements of social expression. In investigating African cultures and their essential elements it is deemed best to dwell at greatest length on the positive aspects of these cultural manifestations. To attempt a negative exposition of the primitive cultures of any people will not reveal any worthwhile criterion of its worth especially when the scope of investigation is limited to three essential elements of culture. If ethics, art and government constitute the irreducible minimum of civilization which is manifested in certain cultural aspects, it is clear at the outset that specialization in ethics, art and government is the measure of a people's advancement.
I. ETHICS
Of the African peoples let us consider first their ethics. It can hardly be doubted that it was an important step in man's upward journey when he reached what anthropologists have called "the dawn of mind" but it was no less momentous an event when there was within him the dawn of morality. Morality is the highest defensive weapon which mankind can wield. So important has it become in the struggle for existence that, to man, the highest form of greatness is a moral greatness. That the highest civilizations of history have been grounded in moral strength has become an historical postulate, but what of the races and nations that live beyond their pale? Were the Africans in their crude and primitive surroundings moral beings? Tillinghast and Beauvais would doubtless answer in the negative. The former in his _The Negro in Africa and America_ is loud in his criticism of the ethical standards of the African, in fact he seriously doubts the advisability of saying that the tribes of Africa have an awakened moral sense. Frobenius, however, comes forward with an assertion to the contrary, asserting: "I cannot do otherwise than say, that these human creatures are the chastest and most ethically disposed of all the national groups in the world which have become known to me."[1] In justice to the other "national groups" we may say that Frobenius here doubtless overdraws the virtues of the Yoruban tribes, yet his assertions when taken with ever so much reserve would lead to the conclusion that the Africans have considerable moral sense. Frobenius leaves no doubt that the Yorubans are a mixed people, although certain degrees of mixtures of people are found everywhere; and the fact that they are mixed alone will not vitiate the validity of Yoruban civilization as a phase of African culture. Roscoe in writing of the Baganda tribes has been as careful to impress us with their blackness as Frobenius has been to indicate the Yoruban mixture. He says: "Sex profligacy is open and thought to be no wrong. They thought it no moral wrong to indulge the sex desire."[2] Yet Roscoe further says: "The most stringent care was exercised by the king and chiefs, but it proved inefficient to keep the sexes apart, while horrible punishment meted out to the delinquents when caught seemed to lend zest to the danger incurred."[3] The significant thing in Roscoe's account is not the open sex profligacy but the "stringent care exercised by kings and chiefs" and the "horrible punishment meted out to offenders." After all, there is abundant evidence that even in Baganda there is some ethical standard.
Roscoe continues: "Theft is not common among the people for they were deterred from stealing by fear of punishment which was certain to follow."[4] The very fact that there was fear of punishment is indicative of some conception of social morality. Fear as a preventive of crime is not the most commendable incentive to morality, but it is one that must be employed in all civilizations; for man is first an animal then a moral being. The fear referred to does not prove that the Baganda has the highest type of morality, but it proves that they have a type and this is significant for primitive peoples. The low standard in anything may be prophetic of higher ones which are approachable only by means of the lower ones as stepping stones. This is true in art, science and religion. The fact that the Bagandas were "hospitable and liberal and that real poverty did not exist"[5] shows the presence of a social consciousness which in many ways evidences a standard of ethics. According to Roscoe the thief was killed on the spot, death for adultery was certain;[6] yet he attempts to maintain his thesis as to their lack of morality in these words: "The moral ideas of the people are crude, it was not wrongdoing but detection that they feared; men were restrained from committing crimes through fear of the power of the gods."[7] It is obvious that "detection" is to be feared only where there are detectives and these are present only when they have been called forth in response to some social demands.
There is still other light to be turned on the ethical status of the African tribes. Bent, more sympathetic towards the natives of Mashonaland, delivers himself thus: "Not only has Khama established his reputation for honesty; but he is supposed to have inoculated his people with the same virtue. I must say that I looked forward with great interest to seeing a man with so wide a reputation for integrity and enlightenment as Khama in South Africa. Somehow one's spirit of skepticism is on the alert on such occasions and especially when a Negro is the case in point; and I candidly admit that I advanced towards Palapwe fully prepared to find Ba Mangwato a rascal and hypocrite and I left his capital after a week's stay there one of his fervent admirers."[8] But Dent adds: "Doubtless on the traversed roads and large centers where they are brought into contact with traders and would-be civilizers of the race, these people become thieves and vagabonds, but in their primitive state the Makalangas are naturally honest, exceedingly courteous in manner."[9]
It is plain to the impartial critic that judged by our ethical standards the peoples commended above would fall far short; but this is no less true with the earliest civilization of historic times. Standards not only vary from age to age but from people to people. In arguing to support the thesis that in Africa the lowliest tribes had some ethical standard, it is not necessary to prove that these standards compare favorably or unfavorably with those of modern times. Such is beside the question and with the testimony of the English and German archaeologists before us we are safe in saying that the African tribes had an ethical standard and thus the potentials of a civilization based upon morality. Neither can it be proved that the ethical standards of the tribes of Baganda, Mashonaland and Yoruba are without worth because they differ in so many particulars from our own. Later we shall attempt to show just why there is such disparity between their ethics and ours. Furthermore, it is not necessary to prove that ethical contacts with Europeans affords no basis for the tribesmen but it is reasonable to suppose that the ethics of the African tribes had possibilities the same as the earliest nations of Europe and Asia; and if contacts with Europeans be argued against the proposition that the Africans evolved an ethical standard, the same argument may be used to bedim the glory of our own civilization.
We, therefore, contend that whatever possibilities lie with the people who can evolve an ethical standard surely must lie with the African. It is true that the happy faculty of coordinating ethics with ideals has made nations great and civilizations splendid, and that such faculty evidenced itself in the long-dark continent of Africa. The principle of evolution is just as operative in the world of ethics as in the world of physical sciences. Ethics must grow and outgrown ethics is ethics notwithstanding. The most rabid critic does not deny to Africa ethical origins, but such authorities as Tillinghast and Beauvais would deny their practical worth. These men criticize the standard rather than deny that there are ethical manifestations of culture. Ellwood in his Sociology and Social Problems contends that the regulation of sex relations has been the greatest achievement of man. Granting the truth of this statement, we have evidences that the African made desperate efforts to regulate sex relations both by a kind of public opinion and by punishment; for Roscoe says: "It was looked upon as a great disgrace to a family if a girl was with child prior to marriage."[10] We are certain that there was "marriage" and this itself is an indication that an attempt had been made to regulate the all-important matter of sex. Roscoe further held that "the marriage vow was binding."[11] Both those writers who commended the ethics of the Africans and those who belittled their standard, then, are essentially agreed to the fact of their ethics. Although there were wide variations in the standards of different tribes, we are abundantly justified in assuming that the ethics of the Africans was as susceptible to improvement as our own. The more advanced standards were prophetic of still more advanced ones.
II. ART
What a man admires is an infallible index to his innermost soul. Whether in the adornment of some temple or the crude markings upon primitive pottery, man is ever striving to express himself in his labors. Strange to say that though the passion for self-expression is dominant in human activities, the art of expression is still in its infancy. We may divide human artifacts into two classes, namely, those of utility and those of aestheticism. That the latter has a form of utility we should in no case deny but as to the utility of aesthetics we deem it beside the point here to discuss. When we use the term "art" in this treatise it will have the specific meaning of the attempt on the part of man to express his emotions; or his attempt to satisfy the aesthetic cravings in the soul. That there are such cravings is a fact which is universally conceded. That there are many evidences of such attempts among all civilized lands none will deny. That man's attempts at artistic expression is a criterion of his civilization is an historic fact. There can be no civilization without its concomitants of aesthetics. Man seeks beauty for beauty's sake, and he alone of the animals gives evidence of such propensity to a pronounced degree. In song, upon canvas, and in marble, humanity has poured forth its innermost soul of sentiments inexpressibly sublime. There is no passion, no object that has not at some time inflamed the soul and moved some mortal to the abode of the gods.
What have the explorers in Darkest Africa found to indicate that the Africans loved the beautiful? What have the Africans to show as specimens of fine art? The music of Negro peoples has become proverbial. In so far as song is an expression of aesthetic propensities the African abundantly qualifies as a lover of art. Whether the strength of a Wagner or the melody of a Beethoven; whether the melody of a southern plantation or a concert in Symphony Hall, the principle of the music is the same. The crude instruments of which the explorer tells us are mute testimonials of the African's attempts to express himself in song and music. There were to be found in the Bagandaland, according to Roscoe, drums for dancing and the "royal" drum was elaborately decorated, thus showing a combination of sight and soul appreciation for beauty. He said that the harp and stringed fife were also found in this same tribe. The pottery found in this region was glazed and figures painted thereon indicated beyond doubt artistic design of no mean order. The basketry had various figures worked through the skillful manipulation of the bark fibres. Roscoe asserts that polychrome paintings were much in evidence among the Baganda tribes and their work in ivory corresponded favorably with the same kind of work found in Europe during the Neolithic Age. Whether fine art was indigenous is not a pertinent question but the significant thing is that Roscoe found these tribes actually giving expression to what seemed to be a well-developed sense of the beautiful.
When Bent reached the ruined city of Zimbabwe, he found the natives playing upon one-stringed instruments with gourds as resonators and he avers that "the sound was plaintive if not sweet."[12] That a mode of dress is primitive is no proof that it lacks taste and a subtle refinement. This is amply illustrated by the striking beauty of Egyptian costumes which now again grace the modern stage. Though four thousand years have elapsed since Egypt basked in the pristine glory that was hers, we have many evidences that what was pretty then is not ugly now. This is no less true of the remnants of those who saw the sun of glory shine upon Mashonaland. In remarking about their apparel Roscoe is positive in the assertion that "their dress evidences taste when not contaminated with a hybrid civilization."[13] Like the Cretans, they displayed artistic tendencies to the extent the simplest tool bore evidences of ornamentation. If such tendency in the Cretans was indicative of the artistic temperament, a similar tendency in the Africans must be similarly interpreted.
According to Roscoe, definite stages are well defined and can be definitely traced in their paintings. At first the themes were things and later they were men and the human body as a design for the artist is clearly portrayed. There was a "breast and furrow" type of painting that marked almost every object with which they had to do. The piano with iron keys was very much like such instruments found in Egypt. The Jews' harp was found in many quarters. There can be no doubt that music had its place in the life of the Mashonaland. But music is a fine art and its value lies largely if not wholly in its appeal to our aesthetic natures. What can be the meaning of such evidences of love of music among the African tribes? Can it not be interpreted as their response to the appeal of the beautiful?
Of the great defensive walls of Zimbabwe Bent says: "The fort is a marvel with its tortuous and well-guarded approaches; its walls bristling with monoliths and round towers, its temple decorated with tall weird-looking birds, its huge decorated bowls. The only parallel that I have seen were the long avenues of menhirs near Carnac in Brittany. One cannot fail to recognize the vastness and power of this ancient race, their greatness of constructive ingenuity and their strategic skill."[14] Of course, there is evidence that the present inhabitants of those ruined cities were not the tribes that once ruled mightily in these regions. Bent himself holds that such high culture must have come from another people. The very fact that the present population seems so far below the level of culture that once prevailed there is the only evidence upon which Bent predicates his argument that another race than the Negroes were the bearers of this great culture. However, it is hardly probable that the level of culture was foreign to the Negroes who lived in the palmy days of Zimbabwe. There must have been an overlapping of cultures even if we grant that another race produced the culture of this region. It is hardly probable that a dominant race would have wholly abdicated in favor of the natives and it is still less probable that the natives could have dislodged a race so strongly fortified. It is highly probable that the same race of people could have produced the peoples who occupied the level of these two very different cultures. No one supposes that the inhabitants of Athens today are equal to the Greeks of the days of Pericles. Yet they are connected with the same great race.
Aside from the ancient walls and temples reputed to be the products of a genius foreign to the tribes of today, Bent comments favorably upon the art such as is the product of the modern inhabitant. With regard to a beautiful bowl he says: "The work displayed in executing these bowls, the careful rounding of edges, the exact execution of the circle, the fine pointed tool marks and the subjects they chose to depict point to a race having been far advanced in artistic skill." Hunting scenes are numerous and in the processions of men, animals are often put in to make for relief, sometimes a bird is introduced for the same effect. It is quite singular that in one of the hunting scenes the sportsman is a Hottentot. Sculptoring was usually done in soapstone and the bird upon the post is a subject which is frequently depicted. The drawings found by Bent in the Mazoe Valley were simple yet beautifully executed. The magnificent hand-made pottery is decorated in patterns of red and black which colors are obtained from hemolite and plumbogo. If we turn with Bent to Mtokoland and see in the Mtoko's kraal the drawings of the Bushmen, "we can trace distinctly three different periods of execution. The first is crude and now faint representation of unknown life; the second is deeper in color and admirably executed and partly on top of this latter are animals of the best period of this art in red and yellow. The third is an inartistic representation of human beings which evidently belongs to a period of decadence and in the execution of this work the colors invariably are red, yellow and black."[15]
What significance has this manifestation of art? What coloring does it give to the cultural development of Africa? It simply means that the African like other peoples enjoys the finer sentiments that make life worth living. Among the writers there is as much unanimity on the question of African art as there is on African ethics. All told, it goes to show that in the essentials of culture the tribes of Africa are not entirely wanting and there are many close parallels between the cultural development in Africa and that in Neolithic Europe. What difference there is is one of degree and not of kind. While Lady Lugard's work savored more of politics than of archaeology, it cannot be doubted that her vote may be cast on the side of those who contend that the cultural manifestations of the African are pronounced when their background is considered. Though crude and rudimentary, though often hidden beneath brutal superstitions, there is always a cultural norm with brilliant possibilities for social betterment. At best we can be no more than fundamentally right or fundamentally good, and this lends color to the claim of the African to real culture.
III. GOVERNMENT
Much has been said about the feeble government which the African sets up. More has been said of his innate inability in matters of civic importance. The matter of government is important, for it is doubtful if there can be any approach to any civilization worthy of the name without some stable form of government. It is generally conceded that the democratic form of government is the best developed stage of the body politic; but this form even at present is far from realization. While it is a great and inspiring ideal, its presupposition is that people are capable of self-government and in many cases this is a supposition that is not based on fact and cannot be corroborated in practice. If democracy is the highest form, absolute monarchy may be the lowest form. Yet monarchy is a form of government and despite the low esteem in which it is held within recent years, it must be admitted that for ages monarchical government was the guardian and custodian of civilization. It is more necessary to have some government than it is to have good government.
Africa is no exception to this rule. Frobenius goes so far as to say that the government in the Yorubaland was fashioned after a republic.[16] With superior and subordinate officials the Yorubans had the semblance of an orderly government. There was the king with a senate which filled the function of cabinet as well. At the court were counsellors-at-law and attorneys for the state. Says Frobenius: "Before the advent of Mohammedanism, forms of civilization of equal value and significance must have been operative in the Soudan."[17] "In fact," he continues, "the government was excellent and I was delighted with the simple administration of the law and official summary punishment in Makwa."[18] Of the Great Benin tribes Roth says: "If theft is seldom heard of here, of murder we hear still less.[19] When the Arabs first visited Negroland by the western route in the eighth and ninth centuries of our era, they found the black kings of Ghana in the height of their prosperity. But the black kings of Ghana had long passed into oblivion when Edris, one of the greatest kings of Bornu, was making gunpowder for the musketeers of his army contemporary with Queen Elizabeth."[20]
El Bekri, a Spanish Arab and author of Tarikh-es-Soudan says of Mansa Musa one of the nobles of Ghana: "He was distinguished by his ability and holiness of life. The justice of his administration was such that it still lives."[21] Three hundred years later a Songhay said of him: "As a pious and equitable prince, he was unequalled for virtue and uprightness."[22]
The duration of the Soudanese empires, moreover, will bear comparison with that of others which are better known to fame. Ghana enjoyed an independent existence of about eleven hundred years--that is, a period nearly equivalent to the period of existence of the British Empire from the abolition of the Saxon Heptarchy to the present day. Melle which succeeded Ghana had a shorter national life of about two hundred and fifty years. Songhay counted its kings in regular succession from 700 to 1591--a period which almost equals the life of the Roman Empire from the foundation of the republic before the Christian era to the downfall of the empire in the second half of the fifth century. The duration of Bornu was less reputable.
The civilization represented by these empires was no doubt, if judged by modern standards, exceedingly imperfect. "The principle of freedom, as we understand it, was probably unknown; authority rested upon force of arms; industrial life was based upon slavery; social life was founded on polygamy. Side by side with barbaric splendor there was primeval simplicity. Luxury for the few took the place of comforts for the many. Study was devoted to what seems to us unprofitable ends. Yet the fact that civilization, far in excess of anything which the nations of northern Europe possessed at the earlier period of Soudanese history, existed with stability enough to maintain empire after empire through a known period of about 1500 years in a portion of the world which mysteriously disappeared in the sixteenth century from the comity of modern nations."[23]
Bent holds that "three hundred years before the Portuguese came to this country the natives were ruled over by a chief with the dynastic name of Nonomapata. From the evidence brought forward we are well within the range of probability when we say that in various parts of Africa there has been a very close approach to well-ordered government dating from ancient days. That these governments are non-existent today can not be laid to their discredit nor to their faulty organization. It is a fact that the earth has not produced the government that could very long defy the ravages of time. A journey down the wreckstrewn highway of the ages will reveal the dry bones of a thousand empires and it is not surprising that the humbler states of Africa can be numbered among them. The fact that there are evidences of decadent states in tribal Africa has its parallel in various parts of Europe today."
We have shown that archaeological research has revealed that the darkness in Africa has not been from time immemorial. We have found that the "_quod novi ex Africa_" is obsolete in an archaeological sense. We have brought forward testimony deduced from reliable sources that Africa is not without an historic past. We have further shown that in eastern, central and western Africa the natives not only exhibit now these cultural manifestations, but also there is revealed abundant evidence of a prehistoric culture that compares favorably with the earlier cultures of Europe. We are candid enough to admit that in standard the cultures of Africa are inferior to our own, but we must also admit that the present high standards in our own ethics, art and government have not always prevailed and that there is a past to these standards which is not always assuring.
There is one question that demands an answer before we have concluded. It is a question that is as reasonable as it is vexatious. Why have not the nations of Africa kept pace with other mightier countries? Why is Africa at present suffering political dissection which would have been impossible had she fully developed the cardinal elements of ethics, art and government? Why is there no help for her dismemberment which constitutes the pity of the age? The answer to these questions is obvious when we shall have considered, first, one of the fundamental propositions in human psychology. The rise of one nation may hinder the rise of the other. It is not improbable that an accentuated civilization in Europe might have retarded civilization in Africa. We do know that the slave trade had a tremendous effect on their fortunes. When once a group makes unusual progress and by its ambition destroys the bridge over which it passed, it cannot be doubted that its ambitions considerably alter the fortunes of others at its mercy. Lady Lugard cannot be gainsaid when she asserts thus with regard to the slave trade: "Through the chaos of these conflicting interests, the practice of slave-raiding, carried on alike by the highest and lowest, ran like the poison of a destructive sore, destroying every possibility of peaceful and prosperous development."[24]
There may be further asked the question why did not Africa rise as did the other peoples and make her exploitation impossible. We are forced to turn from social to natural factors. The geography of Europe is quite different from that of Africa. When wave after wave of migrants left the Iranian plains and turned west and east and south, it is clear that those who turned into Africa had an endless journey before them ere they had to the margin come. Of great mountain ranges there were none. On the monotonous plains of Africa the cultural extensions must have been horizontal. The races that went into Europe were more quickly stayed in their onward march by the coldness of the north. Not only this but they were in the midst of a mountainous country where tribes and peoples could drift into human eddies and there remain out of the current of human activities for ages. Not only might they remain aloof from the busy thoroughfare of migrating myriads but within each eddy there was the possibility of a growth in culture in its simpler aspects. By and by, the culture of one eddy was crossed with the culture of other eddies that had developed in other cultural directions or farther in the same direction. In time there was by reason of the northern limit of Europe a rebound of the population and this was also a rebound of cultures. The various crosses and modification of cultures made it more probable that civilized progress would be accelerated. The culture of Europe was, by reason of the physical geography, a heterogeneous culture, while that of Africa was necessarily homogeneous in view of the geography of that continent.
In support of my contention I refer to Ripley who says: "The remarkable prehistoric civilization of Italy is due to the union of cultures, one from Hallstatt region having entered from the west via the Danube, the other coming from the southeast by sea being distinctly Mediterranean. From the fusion of these cultures came the Umbrian and Etruscan civilizations." Ripley further contends that the ancient high civilization of Mesopotamia was possible because it was a point of convergence of immigration and invasion. Civilization has always been accentuated at points where cultures could cross.[25] There are few or none such points in Africa; hence the retardation of cultures there. As Lady Lugard said, the slave trade aggravated the cultural disadvantages which grew out of the physical geography of Africa, and because of its monotony of environment there has been little or no cross fertilization of cultures, the indispensable requisite to cultural development.[26]
GORDON BLAINE HANCOCK
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Frobenius, _The Voice of Africa_, 673.
[2] _Baganda, Their Customs and Beliefs_, 10.
[3] _Ibid._
[4] Roscoe, _Baganda_, 12.
[5] _Ibid._, 120.
[6] _Ibid._, 263.
[7] _Ibid._, 267.
[8] Bent, _Mashonaland_, 22.
[9] _Ibid._, 53.
[10] Roscoe, _The Baganda_, 79.
[11] _Ibid._
[12] Bent, _Ruined Cities of Mashonaland_, 18.
[13] _Ibid._, 37.
[14] Bent, _Ruined Cities of Mashonaland_, 113.
[15] _Ibid._, 292.
[16] Frobenius, _Voice of Africa_, 180.
[17] _Ibid._, 360.
[18] _Ibid._, 388.
[19] Roth, _Great Benin_, 86.
[20] _Ibid._, 82.
[21] Roth, _Great Benin_, 128.
[22] _Ibid._, 129.
[23] _Ibid._, 217.
[24] Lugard, _A Tropical Dependency_.
[25] Ripley, _Races of Europe_.
[26] Lugard, _A Tropical Dependency_.
METHODISM AND THE NEGRO IN THE UNITED STATES
The first converted Negro Methodist was baptized by John Wesley. November 29, 1758, he wrote in his diary: "I rode to Wandsworth, and baptized two Negroes belonging to Mr. Gilbert, a gentleman lately from Antigua. One of these was deeply convinced of sin; the other is rejoicing in God, her savior, and is the first African Christian I have known. But shall not God, in his own time, have these heathen also for his inheritance?"[1] Eight years later (1766) the first Methodist congregation of five met in the private house of Philip Embury, in New York. One of that number was Betty, a Negro servant girl.
In 1816, fifty years after that first service in New York, the Methodists in the United States numbered 214,235 communicants. Of these 171,931 were white and 42,304, or nearly one-fourth, were Negroes. Two interesting facts are, that of these 42,304 Negro members, 30,000 or nearly three-fourths were in the South, and gathered principally from the slave population.[2]
These figures indicate the faithfulness of early Methodism to the Negro, whether bond or free. These words and spirit of Freeborn Garrettson only illustrate those of Coke, Asbury, and their associates. Under divine guidance, Garrettson had freed his slaves. He says: "I often set apart times to preach to the blacks, ... and precious moments have I had, while many of their sable faces were bedewed with tears, their withered hands of faith stretched out, and their precious souls made white in the blood of the Lamb."[3]
In 1786 Asbury organized the first Sunday School in the United States in the house of David Crenshaw, Maryland.[4] Both Negro and white youth attended. One of the first converts in that school was a Negro, John Charleston, who afterwards became a noted preacher.[5] Four years later the Conference provided for Sunday Schools for white and black children, with text books and volunteer teachers; and all ministers were directed to use diligence in gathering the sons and daughters of Ham into societies, and administer among them full discipline of the church. In 1800 the ordination of Negroes was authorized. Where the colored membership was large, and it was desired, especially in the cities and larger towns, separate services and churches were provided. The policy of the church, as to the association of the races in worship, is indicated by the following from the report of the Board of Missions in South Carolina, in 1832: "As a general rule for our circuits and stations, we deem it best to include the colored people in the same pastoral charge with the whites, and to preach to both classes in one congregation, as our practice has been. The gospel is the same to all men, and to enjoy its privileges in common promotes good-will."[6] There were many eminently successful Negro local preachers, whose services were very acceptable to white congregations. During these first fifty years all the Negro societies or classes were under the direct care of white churches and pastors.
At the close of the first half century of Methodism in America what is known as African Methodism had its beginning. Difficulties arose as to church seating and pastoral service, and in New York there was dissatisfaction concerning proposed legislation on church property. The outcome was a distinct and successful movement in favor of separate Negro Methodist denominations. At Wilmington, Delaware, in 1813, the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church was organized. In 1815 the African Methodist Episcopal Church had its beginning in Philadelphia and five years later the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was organized in New York. The conviction underlying these separate Negro denominations is, that there is less opportunity for friction on account of race prejudice, whether among whites or blacks, and freer and better opportunities for the development of self-help and racial capabilities.[7]
The organization of African Methodism, independent of white control or association, in the North, was the most striking event previous to 1844, when the white Methodist hosts, North and South, were to be divided. In the South the chief event of interest, outside of faithful work of itinerants in preaching to the slave population in connection with regular pastorates, was the successful founding of plantation missions. Thus far the converts had been chiefly among the more favored or house-servant class. Beyond these were vast multitudes, probably four-fifths of the two million slaves of that day, where intellectual and moral paganism reigned. Philanthropists, both in and outside of the various churches, saw and recognized the necessity of some movement beyond the regular church work, to carry the blessings of Christian civilization into the gloom of this darker Africa in America. Methodists led in this important work.
The plan adopted was to send missionaries to the plantations, to be supported by the planters themselves, who were friendly to the work. Doctor (afterwards Bishop) Capers was the apostle of this forward movement. The importance of these efforts of this churchman are attested on a modest stone over the grave of the Bishop, at Columbia, South Carolina, by these words, "Founder of Missions to the Slaves." Under his guidance heroic itinerants were found to brave the dangers of disease and bodily discomfort, and go into the swamps and plantation cabins on a mission as holy as that which sent Cox to Africa and Carey to India. Not a few of them died as martyrs, but the places of those who fell were quickly filled. Volunteers would arise in the annual conferences and say to the Bishops, "Here are we, send us." This language is one of a sample of all: "We court no publicity; we seek no gain; we dread no sickness in going after the souls of these blacks for whom Christ died. If we may save some of them from going down to the pit, and succeed in pointing their steps to the heavenly city, all will be well."[8]
The greatest success was in South Carolina, where, in 1839, at the end of ten years, seventeen missionaries were employed. There were 97 appointments, embracing 234 plantations and 6,556 church members, to whom preaching and the sacraments were regularly given. They had also under regular catechetical instruction 25,025 Negro children.
In 1844, when the division of American Methodism became inevitable, these plantation missions were in the full tide of success. They were maintained and rejoiced in by the whole Methodist Episcopal Church. Their chief support, however, came from Methodists and other friends in the South. In the year mentioned there were 68 missions in nine of the Southern States, with 80 missionaries and 22,063 members. In that year, white southern conferences paid $22,379.25 to this work. It is estimated that the conferences in the South gave for this cause $200,000 during fifteen years, up to 1844.[9]
The "Brother in Black," however, brought the republic an irrepressible conflict, ending in frightful civil war. So, too, it must be said, that in Methodism, for nearly a century Negro slavery was the occasion of discussion and legislation, and at last of division, which Calhoun considered the beginning of the dismemberment of the Union. Methodism grew with the colonies, and at the close of the American Revolution had 84 preachers and 15,000 members in its societies. It was the first organized American church that officially gave its benediction, through Washington, to the young republic. Its spirit and itinerant system kept its organizations on the front wave of every movement of population. Its mission was salvation to rich and poor alike, regardless of race. Its only test of membership was "a sincere desire to flee from the wrath to come." Peoples of every station in life, bond and free, educated and illiterate, rich and poor, political friends and antagonists, were alike attracted by the impassioned appeals of her apostolic missionaries. Her form of government brought into annual and quadrennial conferences all questions of polity or principle involved in administration. Other churches might relegate important questions of discipline to individual societies; Methodism could not. Every important matter must be settled by a majority vote of representatives of the whole church.
On doctrines there were no divisions. Not so as to questions relating to African slavery. As to the abstract right and wrong of that institution, for many years there was but little division among Methodists. Later some in the South talked of the "divine institution," and occasionally a Northern man claimed that a Christian might buy and sell slaves without sin. The legislation of the church, however, was clear and explicit to this effect: "Slavery is contrary to the laws of God and man, and wrong and hurtful to society." All buying and selling of slaves, then, was forbidden.[10] Gradually the irrepressible conflict began in the church. The Northern section more and more taught that slavery was wrong, and could in no way be excused or tolerated by the church of Christ, without partaking of its sin. The South held that slavery was a civil institution, approved by the word of God, and that the church was not responsible for its existence or its abuses. The duty of the church in its relation to slavery was taught to be loyalty to civil government, as represented by national and State laws, and to give the gospel as far as possible to both master and slave.
For more than half a century the largest growth of the church had been in the Southern States, and Southern views as to slavery modified legislation in relation to that institution. On the other hand, with the development of the West and Northwest, the balance of legislative influence shifted northward until in the historic General Conference of 1844, Bishop Andrews of Georgia, having become related to slavery by marriage, was requested by a vote of 111 to 69 "to desist from the exercise of his episcopal office so long as this impediment remained."[11] Then followed the inevitable division, and the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Only seventeen years later the Civil War began and Southern Methodist hosts gave their sympathies, prayers, votes, money and sons to the Army of Gray; while Methodists in the North, to quote the words of Lincoln, "sent more prayers to heaven and soldiers to the field" for the Army in Blue, than any other Christian church. Thus may people of God of like faith have diverse consciences and differ, first, in sentiment and policies, then in conviction and duty, and at last prayerfully face each other at the cannon's mouth in deadly combat.
The years from 1844 to 1846 were indeed momentous in the history of the American Methodism in its relation to the Negro. That little company of five in New York in seventy-eight years had in 1845 come to be a multitude of 1,139,583 communicants, whose presence and spiritual energy were felt in every community of the republic, North, South, East and West. Of that membership, 150,120 were Negroes, chiefly in the South, and mostly gathered from among the slave population. But now there was to be division, the North to be more and more anti-slavery and the South to be more and more pro-slavery.
Then followed three Methodist divisions as related to the Negro: First, the African organizations already mentioned, with their chief strength in the Eastern States; and second, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with a total membership of 447,961 in 1846. Of these 118,904 were Negro slaves with few exceptions. This church occupied all the territory of the Southern States exclusively, except along the border. Methodists in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia, including the Baltimore and part of the Philadelphia Annual Conferences, and also many members along the border farther west, did not join in the Southern movement. In the third place, then, there remained in the Methodist Episcopal Church still (1846) a total membership of 644,558. Of these 30,516 were Negroes, of whom about 20,000 were slaves.
The following twenty years were crowded with far-reaching events in church and state, as affecting the Negro. Each of the three divisions of Methodism had its place according to its convictions during that twenty years of agitation and war. The distinctly Negro organizations in the North, while having slaves in their own communions, were, of course, anti-slavery in principle, and sought in every way to advance the cause of abolitionism. Outside of Maryland and Delaware they had no churches in the South, except one in New Orleans and one in Louisville. A church organized in Charleston was driven out, after an attempted Negro insurrection. Permission was given by the mayor of St. Louis to one of its ministers to preach in that city, but the permit was afterwards recalled on learning the sentiments of his church.[12]
During this period of twenty years the Methodist Episcopal Church had wonderful growth throughout the North and West in membership, church buildings, publishing interests, educational institutions, and in social and moral power. Her entire membership rose from 644,294 to 1,032,184. Her Negro membership, however, steadily declined. In 1846 it numbered, as we have seen, 30,516, while in 1865 at the close of the Civil War there were only 18,139. Shut away from the large Negro populations of the South, and confronted with aggressive African Methodism among the smaller Negro population in the North calling for separation from the whites in ecclesiastical organization and government, the field of operation of the Methodist Episcopal Church was necessarily proscribed among Africa's sons and daughters. She was, however, faithful to her trust and retained her Negro membership in church and conference relations, and, as the years went by, became more and more permeated with sentiments of antagonism to slavery, both as related to the church and the nation.
To this branch of Methodism, moreover, belongs the honor of establishing the first Methodist institution of higher learning for the education of colored people. In 1855 the Cincinnati Annual Conference appointed the Rev. John F. Wright as agent "to take incipient steps for a college for colored people." In two years Wilberforce University, near Xenia, Ohio, was established, with fifty-two acres of land and large and commodious buildings. The next year the Visiting Committee of the Conference reported the school in a flourishing condition, and said: "The examinations showed conclusively that the minds of the present class of students are capable of a very high degree of cultivation." Under the presidency of Rev. R. S. Rust the school was successful until financial embarrassment compelled suspension in 1863. One reason given was the War, and the consequent difficulty of obtaining funds from the South. From the beginning, the friendly co-operation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was encouraged and received. Fortunately the leaders of that denomination were able to assume the indebtedness which was a nominal sum as compared with the value of the property. The lands and buildings were transferred with the good wishes and prayers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, ministry, and people, and Wilberforce University became, and continues to be, the chief educational center of African Methodism in the United States.[13]
Freed from all embarrassments from connectional relations with abolition sentiment the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, prospered in its way. Her territory was rapidly extending westward and southwestward, population and wealth were increasing, and slavery being embedded in the national and state constitutions, pro-slavery sentiment prevailed without question. Her total membership from 1846 to 1861 advanced from 449,654 to 703,295. This was, in fifteen years, an increase of 162,749. Dividing this increase by races, we find that among white people the growth was from 330,710 in 1846 to 493,459 in 1861, being an increase of 162,749. During the same period the Negro membership went from 118,904 to 209,836, being an increase of 90,932. Efforts to increase the slave membership in connection with the regular charges were continued with encouraging results, and the plantation mission work among the slaves was prosecuted with gratifying success. The largest figures were reached in 1861, when there were 329 Negro missions throughout the South, with 327 missionaries and 66,559 members. It is estimated that the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, from 1844 to 1864, when freedom came, expended $1,800,000 in plantation work among the slaves.[14]
The sudden emancipation of almost 4,000,000 Negro slaves meant new and tremendous responsibilities for the loyal and philanthropic people of the Northern States. The churches and benevolent organizations of the South had all shared largely in the demoralization caused by the Civil War, and were without financial resources. Neither was it reasonable to expect that the Southern people would do for free Negroes what they had done for them when slaves, much less enter upon the absolutely necessary missionary movement, to prepare the newly enfranchised for the responsibilities incident to freedom.
For more than half a century, outside of what the general and State governments have done or attempted to do, the tide of philanthropic and Christian aid for the Negro has gone Southward, and will continue as long as needed. How many million dollars have been expended by churches, educational boards and individual philanthropists has not been computed. Neither has anyone attempted to measure the results of the work of the many consecrated men and women, who have given and are still giving their lives for the uplift of the Negro race since emancipation. The results are manifest. Already the advance of this people since freedom in morality, intellectual development and economic success has no parallel, in the same time, in the history of any other race.
The Methodist Episcopal Church and the two large branches of African Methodism were in the fore-front of this movement from the beginning. The African Methodist Episcopal Church had at first its chief increase in the South along the Atlantic Coast, especially in South Carolina and Florida. Bishop Arnett, the statistician of that denomination, estimates that 75,000 of the Negro membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, transferred their church relations to that denomination. The African Zion Church as a factor in the South had its beginning in North Carolina and Alabama. It is estimated that at least 25,000 of the Southern Negro members united with this branch. Both of these sections of African Methodism have continued to prosecute their work of evangelization and education throughout the South, as well as the North, and continue powerful factors in the evangelistic forces of American Methodism as related to the Negro. In 1921-22 the membership of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was 550,776; and that of the African M. E. Zion Church was 412,328.[15]
The policy of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, toward the Negro Freedmen took definite form in 1866. At the General Conference held that year at New Orleans, provision was made for the organization of its remaining Negro membership into "separate congregations and districts, and annual conferences." If the colored people should desire, and two or more Negro annual conferences be formed, a separate ecclesiastical autonomy would be granted. The reasons for the organization of this new separate Negro Methodism are given in its Book of Discipline over the signature of its first four Bishops. They say that the Southern Methodist Conference "found that, by revolution and the fortunes of war, a change had taken place in our political and social relations, which made it necessary that a like change should also be made in our ecclesiastical relations." The result was that, in 1871, the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of America was organized to be composed exclusively of Negroes, and officered entirely by members of this race. Here we have the beginning of a third large section of African Methodism. The new organization started with 80,000 members made up of nearly all who still remained in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
It would be very interesting to speculate as to the probable results, could the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, have continued its work among the Freedmen, which it had for years carried forward with such excellent results among the slaves. But it is no part of this paper to criticize or philosophize. This branch of Methodism, second in numbers and influence in the nation, with all but 30,000 of its members in the South, now has 2,239,151 members, a few of whom are Negroes.
Commencing with 1883, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, took definite and forward steps for the education of the Negro. A Board of Trustees was appointed in co-operation with the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1884, Paine Institute was founded at Augusta, Georgia, and contributions of over $90,000 have been contributed to that school. Lane College, Jackson, Tennessee, has also been aided. The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church has seven schools with an enrollment of 2,509 and an annual income of $113,830. Fifty-seven students of theology are taught in two schools and college courses are offered in several of their institutions.
We have yet to speak of the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church. When freedom came, as we have seen, this church had (1864) 18,139 Negro members principally in Maryland, Delaware and adjacent territory. The Negro membership in this branch of Methodism now (1923) in the United States is 385,444.
As the way opened during and following the Civil War to reach the masses of the South both white and Negro, the Methodist Episcopal Church extended its work of reorganization southward among both races. Her Bishops and other church officials organized missions and conferences and opened up schools. Each benevolent society of the church aided financially. The support of pastors was supplemented by the Missionary Society; the Board of Church Extension aided in building houses of worship; the Sunday School Union and Tract Society gave their co-operation, and the Freedmen's Aid and the Southern Educational Society, now the Board of Education for Negroes, and the Woman's Home Missionary Society developed the educational work. In 1864, the Negro work in Maryland, Delaware and adjacent territories was organized into the Washington and Delaware Annual Conferences. In the other border States where the Negro membership was small, the preachers with their congregations were admitted into white conferences. With unwavering and magnificent purpose for over half a century, with fraternity and co-operation for all other churches in the same field, and impelled by a conviction of duty to needy millions irrespective of race, this branch of Methodism has gone forward with its work of education and evangelization irrespective of race. The results have been very remarkable. The white membership has grown on what was slave territory from 87,804 in 1860 to 475,641 in 1922; while the Negro membership in the same territory has increased from 18,139 in 1864 to 370,477 in 1922.
Following the wishes of both races the policy of separate conferences, churches and schools has been carried out in the South. There are several strong Negro churches in white conferences in the North. The New Conference elected Dr. W. H. Brooks, one of its Negro pastors, a delegate to the General Conference in 1920. The Methodist Episcopal Church has thirty-seven annual conferences in the Southern States with properties in parsonages, churches, schools of different grades, hospitals, and the like valued at $63,495,130.00. In 1856 the property of this church of all kinds in the same territory was less than $2,000,000. Seventeen of these conferences include the work among white people, and nineteen, the work among Negroes; and each group of conferences covers the Southern States from Delaware to Texas.
The twenty annual conferences in the South among Negroes have properties in parsonages and churches valued at $19,767,430. There are also thirty-two Negro institutions of learning in these twenty conferences with enrollment of 8,868 and lands with buildings and equipment valued at $6,522,642. The outstanding professional and collegiate institutions for Negroes are Gammon Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, and colleges in several of the principal cities of the South. The total church properties named above, in Negro Methodist Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church on former slave territory, is $25,218,230.00. These conferences raised $1,500,000 during three years from 1870 to 1872 for general church work at home and in foreign fields outside of pastoral and other local church expenses.[16]
There is no separation on account of race in annual conferences, churches or schools in the Methodist Episcopal Church, except as desired and requested by those interested. As the result of many petitions and extended discussions the General Conference, which met in 1876, in Baltimore, passed a law that the annual conferences in the Southern States which had both Negro and white members could separate, provided each group voted in favor of it. Under this action with few exceptions the division was made, where desired. The same law prevails in reference to churches and schools. The nineteen Negro conferences have ninety-two delegates in the General Conference, the law-making body for the whole church. These delegates have representation in all legislation. One or more Negro ministers or laymen are on each of the general boards of the church--publication, education, missions--home and foreign, Epworth League, and the like. Nearly a score of able and effective Negro men and women are official representatives of the general church boards in their work among the Negro conferences.
Six Negroes have been elected bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Four were missionary bishops, with full episcopal authority on the continent of Africa. Of these Bishop Scott remains and is on the retired list. In their fields these bishops were not subordinate but coordinate with general superintendents. Their episcopal work was of the same type as that of William Taylor, James Thoburn, Oldham, Warne, and Hartzell, white missionary bishops in Africa and India.
The General Conference in 1920 elected Robert E. Jones and Matthew W. Clair general superintendents. The former has his episcopal residence in New Orleans and the latter in Liberia. They preside in turn at the semiannual conferences of the Board of Bishops and will preside at the General Conference in 1924.
The great mass of Negro Christians in the United States will continue to prefer churches made up of their own race. This is natural and on the whole the best for many reasons. On the other hand, the door of every church of Christ should be open for all. At present in twenty-nine white Protestant churches in the United States with a total membership of over 4,000,000, there are 579,690 Negro members. Nearly three-fourths of that membership are in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
The total Negro Methodist Church membership in the United States is 1,756,714. Of that number 1,330,409 are in the African Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion and the Colored Methodist Episcopal Churches; 385,444 in the Methodist Episcopal Church and 41,961 in seven smaller African bodies. If we multiply the total membership by 2-1/2 we have 4,557,117, which represents, approximately, the enrolled membership and constituency of Negro Methodism in the United States.
JOSEPH C. HARTZELL.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The fact that John Wesley organized a Sunday-school in Savannah, Ga., in 1736, is recorded on a bronze tablet seen near the entrance of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral in Savannah.
[2] _Minutes of the Methodist Conference._
[3] Matlack, _Slavery and Methodism_, 29. Coke's _Journal_, 12, 13-14.
[4] One celebrated Negro, known as "Black Harry," was Bishop Asbury's travelling companion. When for any reason the Bishop could not fill an appointment the people were pleased to hear him. Matlack, _Methodism_, 29.
[5] _Minutes of the Methodist Conference, 1832._
[6] _Ibid._
[7] Arnett, _Budget_; Woodson, _History of the Negro Church_,