Part 2

When the few broad-minded white people in the early colonies stopped to realize that the first African people who arrived were not used to America’s new foods, unusual hard work, cold changeable climates and were without a knowledge of the white man’s language, habits and religion; it is no great wonder why that small portion of justice thinking white people so readily saw unusual good qualities and latent talents in a group of supposed brainless heathens who so quickly, peacefully and profitably stepped from the narrow paths of African savagery into the broad avenues of American civilization. But the large numbers of narrow-minded people, who then (as now) tried so hard to make themselves and others believe that Negroes were inferior human beings to themselves, put forth the explanation that the remarkable and rapid adjustments of the slaves to American surroundings were due to their childlike dispositions to imitate actions, to humbly obey orders and their great physical strength to do all kinds of hard work at all times under all conditions. Such people were entirely wrong in such ideas, just as all ill-meaning prejudiced ideas keep their owners wrong, mean and in the lowest stages of human society. When men and women allow their minds to become poisoned with hateful, envious and jealous prejudice toward other people and refuse to have anything to do with them because they are Colored, they have and show just about as much greatness in good taste and good common-sense as if they were to refuse to puff on their favorite brand of Havana cigars or to nibble on one of Mr. Huyler’s famed chocolate bon-bons just because the cigar and bon-bon are of rich brown colors. Such narrow-minded actions do not make people great except in their own home-town little social circles. And when they leave home and go out into the world to mingle among well-cultured, highly educated and broad-minded people, prejudiced men and women soon find that their supposed greatness along side of, for instance, an Abraham Lincoln or a Harriet Beecher Stowe[A] is as large as a grain of sand is along side of a mountain. If President Lincoln had not preserved the Union and signed the Emancipation Proclamation, or if Mrs. Stowe had not written Uncle Tom’s Cabin,[A] but instead, both had turned up their noses in disdain, tossed their heads in haughty proudness and snobbishly spurned well-behaved, well-dressed and intelligent people just because of their colors; the names of Lincoln and Stowe (in stead of now being enshrined in the Hall Of Fame and written in the world’s history ever to be remembered and beloved by all nations) would have been buried and forgotten a few years after their owners had died as is the case with the names of all race prejudiced people. But this point regarding the utter foolishness and ignorance of people showing race prejudice was much more ably and vividly brought out in one of Mr. McKay’s bull’s-eye-shot and soul-stirring pictures that appear in the Sunday issues of the New York American--one among several such big white journals from which the writer derives new inspiration and increased knowledge every Sunday. This picture and editorial in question, that described the “Namaqua” savage tribe of Negroes living in the African jungles, were printed in the March 6, 1921 issue of the New York American, and the following is an extract from that article titled “Shooting At The Storm.”

“The savages of Africa had first of all to fight and conquer the burning sun, hence the black skin that keeps off the deadly “actinic rays” that would quickly destroy any white race in their climate, and the thick woolly hair, saturated with grease, protecting the skull from the heat and the deadly effect of those same rays.

“As we think of different kinds of human beings, let us judge them by the conditions under which they live, whether they be Eskimos near the North Pole or men like these Namaquas at the Equator.

“Self-satisfied ignorance is horrified at the Eskimo eating enormous quantities of rank, fat whale blubber. Any race transferred to the Arctic Circle would do that or die. Ignorance despises the black skin and woolly hair of the African. Any white race transferred to the African tropics would develop such skin and hair, or it would die.

“UNDERSTAND what you are discussing, as far as possible, before discussing it. An eagle cannot understand a turtle, or a turtle an eagle. And a cow, mildly grazing, cannot understand either. Every human being that despises another, no matter what the other may be, simply represents the animal expression of prejudice based on ignorance.”

Now the real truth, as to how those strange and friendless slaves were able to so readily adapt themselves to this country and so aptly adopt the methods and customs of the colonists, is that from mere force of habits they put into their everyday lives their inherited qualities of open-friendliness, big-heartedness, broad-mindedness, trustworthiness, constant-loyalty, quick-alertness, unbounded-patience, everready-forgivefulness and undying hopefulness. These qualities (in which all civilized countries of today stand badly in need of a much broader growth and a higher culture) had been handed down to the American slaves by their African forefathers who had for centuries dwelt in the darkest and wildest torrid jungles without a knowledge of the white man’s civilization. And those black ancestors had passed to their suffering offsprings such full portions of the above named manhood and brotherhood principles that the slaves were able, as they pitifully and tearfully went back and forth to their body-torturing and spirit-crushing tasks, to shame, by their unspiteful and unrevengeful actions under such cruel treatments, just a little measure of their inherited virtues into the so-called civilized, educated and Christian white people who held them in bondage. It must be granted that their owners did teach the slaves (whose foreparents had lived in a very hot country where little clothing was needed and food was plentiful without working for it) how to properly dress and how to regularly work. And although those enslaved people were taught those good habits only as means for their selfish and greedy owners to enable themselves to get richer, nevertheless, the Colored people of to-day are glad and thankful that they are now able to turn to their own personal and racial advantages the industrial habits learned by their people in slavery. On the other hand, Colored people will always be sorry and unthankful to those brute overseers and raping slave owners who so sinfully and beastfully forced upon and taught numerous and most harmful immoral vices to their slaves. And those soul-damning and life-sapping vices are still clinging to and leaving their marks on the rapidly advancing Colored people, just as the poison ivy clings to and mars the health and beauty of the young and tender acorn sprouts as they struggle upward to become future majestic oaks in the densely foliaged forests.

However, all of the white people in America at that time did not approve of or own slaves (just as all of the white people in the United States today do not approve of nor take part in discriminating against respectable Colored people) because they knew it was not right. They had the kind of Christianity that was real and pure enough to make their minds fully understand and their hearts to tenderly feel that slavery in its kindest manner is the worse sin against God and the greatest crime against humanity. And it was this class of God-serving and fellowman-loving white men and women who secretly and in great danger of being caught and punished (for the laws of the country forbid the educating of slaves) taught the otherwise friendless people in bondage their first knowledge of God and Jesus Christ. When it is remembered that those African people were just a few years out of a land where the practices of their tribes for centuries had been to worship in a different religion; it is easily seen that the slaves were an unusual reasoning, sensible and broad-minded group of uncivilized people to have so quickly found the mistake in and so suddenly thrown aside their old and false religion and so readily accepted in its place the new and true Faith.

Answered Prayers

During the two hundred and forty-four years of their bitter servitude those shackled people had learned to place so much faith and trust in their newly found religion that they felt sure God in his own wisdom, time and manner would hear and answer their usually silent and always heart-rending prayers for deliverance from slavery.

So as Southern heats washed briny sweat into their sun-dazed eyes, or Northern colds checked frozen blood from flowing through their veins; the hopeful prayers of the slaves, that they and their children might some day become free, were constantly offered up from the tobacco plantations of Virginia; from the cotton belts of Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi; from the corn fields of Tennessee and Texas; from the rice swamps of South Carolina; from the orange groves of Florida; from the stone quarries of Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania; from the truck farms of Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey; from the turpentine forests of North Carolina; from the blue grass meadows of Kentucky; from the fishing banks of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and from the cane-brakes of Louisiana.

Likewise, the Colored people of today, as they patiently and gradually draw themselves up and away from the slum and slime of slavery, are constantly sending up to Heaven from the east, the west, the north and the south points of this country their hopeful and earnest prayers that God in His mysterious way will convert and bring back to Christianity those prejudiced, heathenish and uncivilized members of the Caucasian race who persecute and discriminate against all darker races just on account of their progress. As living witnesses and proofs that such prayers are already being duly heard and daily answered by God, the author will tell on the following pages of this book (mainly for the inspiration of Colored boys and girls so that they will not lose confidence in themselves, trust in mankind and faith in God) just a little of the remarkable progress and success made by the American Colored people during their fifty-eight years of freedom.

But the Negro youths who read these following pages should ever bear in mind that the members of their race who have climbed and mounted these rounds of success have only been able to do so through the guidance and care of God; through the unswerving determinations and ceaseless struggles on the part of themselves and through the hearty good-will and brotherhood helpfulness of the thousands of American white people who are today true and loyal friends of the American Colored people.

THE COLORED RACE IN THE WARS OF THE U. S.

In the Colonial, French and Indian Wars

(1704-1759)

Even farther back than 1704 Colored freemen and slaves showed their braveness and fighting abilities by taking active parts in helping the white plantation owners to protect and preserve their homes from the justly aggrieved Indians. Around the above date and the period between the years 1708 and 1718 a series of Colonial and Indian wars took place. These conflicts stretched from little but dignified Rhode Island (Queen Anne’s War) through the Tuscarora Indian War down to the Yamassee Indian War that for a time threatened to wipe away the rice and indago colony of South Carolina. Included among these military operations were the French and Indian Wars in which many Negroes gave good accounts of themselves, foremost among them being Sam Jenkins and Israel Titus who showed unusual braveness under the commands of General Washington and Braddock.

IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

(1775-1783)

Crispus Attucks

His statue stands in Boston park To tell the sacred battle mark Where first his life met death’s decree So freedom to these States could be. --_Harrison_

Although such records cannot be found on the pages of the United States histories used in the American public schools, a trip to cultured Boston will enable one to read on the monuments in public squares and in the public libraries the name and facts about the glorious deeds of that pioneer Negro patriot, Crispus Attucks who fell as the first American martyr in the Boston Massacre of 1770. It is also in the Puritan records of New England where one may learn about Peter Salem, the Colored soldier who avenged the death of the first seven American martyrs at Lexington and Concord by slaying Major Pitcairn, the British officer who in company with his men charged against the Colonists at Bunker Hill. Among the hundreds of other men of color who took parts in those fierce skirmishes were Salem Poor, reported at the Commander’s office for extraordinary bravery at Bunker Hill, and “Black Prince” cited for unexcelled gallantry at Newport. It is understood that among those who received pensions at the close of the war were Cato Howe, A. Ames and T. Coburn.

Few know that it was a Colored man, Jordan Freeman, who timely and mortally received on his ready spear point the British officer, Major Montgomery as he daringly leaped, followed by his soldiers, over the walls of Griswold, an American fort. Later on in that same battle of 1781 the Colonists were over powered and compelled to surrender, whereupon the American leader, Ledyard, courteously handed his sword to the British officer in command. That unfair Englishman upon receiving the sword immediately thrust it up to the hilt through the body of Ledyard. A Colored soldier, Lambo Latham, who was standing near and saw the dastardly act, made one mighty pantherlike leap and loyally avenged the death of his American commander by plunging his bayonet clear through the body of that ungallant Britisher. For that act of fidelity and patriotism, Lambo Latham received over thirty bayonet stabs from the enemy before he stopped fighting and gave his last breath for America and its white people who at that moment were denying their Colored slaves the same sweet freedom for which they were fighting to get from England.

Not only did “John Bull’s” subjects have to face human lions in the forms of fighting Colored men, but they also had to feel the pains and fear the death dealing blows of human tigeresses in the forms of Colored women fighters. And all Americans who are truely proud of their country and its real history should read and remember about one Molly Pitcher, who after her husband had been killed in the battle of Monmouth, bravely took his place at a cannon and nervely upheld America’s cause during the remainder of that fierce and bloody conflict. Then there was the undaunted and resourceful Deborah Gannet, who by assuming the name of “Bob Shurtliff” entered the American army and went through more than one year of actual battlefield fighting and camp life exposure. And during her entire service she successfully kept her moral purity by cleverly hiding from the officials and the soldiers the knowledge of her sex. This in other words read her war record on a pension certificate granted to her after her honorable discharge from the army. And there were doubtless many other unrecognized but noble Negro women who entered numerous conflicts and gave their last drop of blood and lives in order that the white colonists might enjoy the freedom that their Colored brothers and sisters then saw no signs of ever receiving.

In the War of 1812

(1812)

There are few people who know that one of the main causes of The War of 1812 was on account of the British forcibly taking and compelling three Americans (two Negroes and one Caucasian) to sail under the English flag. It was in that same war that a Colored soldier, Jefferys, on seeing a body of American troops retreating under heavy fires from the enemy, dashed to their front, rallied them together, led their steps back and repelled the British soldiers who were about to break through a very important but weak point in General Jackson’s defense at Mobile. That general not only noted that leadership rally but gave full credit and praise where it was due. He also expressed gratefulness to the soldier of color whose ideas first suggested the successful use of bales of cotton for breastworks in fortifications. In the battles around New Orleans he looked with soldierly pride upon the splendid fighting of his black troops.

When American school children learn from their United States histories that clean-cut and famous naval battle report, “We have met the enemy and they are ours” ..., such histories do not also inform their readers that the personal pronouns “we” and “ours” so prominent in Commodore Perry’s above message includes the heroic deeds of Colored sailors as well as white. So when in reciting these stirring words their iron-charged bloods suddenly gallop through their veins; their chests expand wide with national pride; their heads jerk erect with proud fighting spirits and their eyes sparkle bright with slumbering fires, such patriotic emotions have been unknowingly and involuntarily aroused in true American youths because of the loss of Colored blood and lives as well as of white in those lake battles. And among those weather-beaten bronze “salts” were Jack Johnson (not our present ex-champion heavyweight prize fighter of the world) and John Davis who were both especially mentioned for distinguished service on the schooner, “George Thompson.” That world known message of 1812 also included many other Negro sailors who pitted their bravery and brawn against the British “tars” in order to help Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry to break the backbone of the War of 1812 by opening up a clear passage on the Great Lakes. It was through that same newly made water path that General William Henry Harrison (the hero of Tippicanoe, Log Cabin and Hard Cider) and his seasoned famed Indian fighters were conveyed in order to enter Canada where they completely defeated the artful Proctor and slew the cunning Tecumseh in that savagely fought battle of The Thames. Thus Colored fighters helped to end the foxy and wolfish Proctor-Tecumseh partnership that had annoyed and tormented for so long the American settlers on the Northern frontiers.

In the Mexican War

(1845-1847)

If it were possible for General Santa Anna to bodily slip back to earth, personally mingle amid and chat with those of his soldier friends who are still living; it is more than likely that among the many things talked over they would seriously mention the fact of having caught many hasty glances of dark fighting faces under command of the American Generals Taylor and Scott who kept the Mexicans on a constant hop-step-and-a-jump around Vera Cruz, Buena Vista and other places in that section.

On account of Negroes at that period being greatly removed from the United States Army and State Militias, because of racial questions, it is not likely that many Colored fighters had a chance to get busy in that one and a half year backyard quarrel and fight. There was published in a Western paper a few years ago an account of a Mexican War Colored veteran known as Captain Jackson who died in Chicago, Ill., in 1894. And in order to have received that military title, officially or unofficially he surely must have used some brain power as well as much brawn force in helping to establish America’s boundary line on the Southern frontier.

THROUGH THE “UNDERGROUND RAILROAD”

EVERY LOCAL WAS A SPECIAL

No thundering trains on iron laid tracks: No steel made cars with cushioned backs: No tickets punched by uniformed crews: Yet a railroad it was: I’ll soon show you.

Fleet-footed horses on soft dirt roads Stole by in nights with slavery loads To stations anew further on the way Where all were hid throughout the day.

Engineers, Conductors and Agents most Were of Quaker stock--that Godly host, Who through their silent night-dark roads Transported blacks from slavery goads. --_Harrison._

Many years before the Civil War there was organized among the Northern white and Christian people, mostly Quakers, a secret society to help runaway slaves to escape from the South into the free states and Canada. This society, on account of its hidden, winding and rapid ways of carrying its fleeing and hunted passengers into places of freedom and safety, was known as the “Underground Railroad”.

“As early as 1786, there are evidences of an underground road. A letter of George Washington, written in that year, speaks of a slave escaping from Virginia to Philadelphia, and being there aided by a society of Quakers formed for the purpose of assisting in liberating slaves. It was not, however, until after the War of 1812, that escaped slaves began to find their way by the underground roads in considerable numbers to Canada.”

“From Maine to Kansas, all the northern States were dotted with the underground stations and covered with a network of the underground roads. It is estimated that between 1830 and 1860 over 9,000 slaves were aided to escape by way of Philadelphia. During this same period in Ohio, 40,000 fugitives are said to have escaped by way of the underground railroad.”

Reference (Work’s Negro Year Book; page 167, 1918-1919 edition).

Without doubt, among the greatest workers in that society and truest white friends to the freedom seeking slaves were; Calvin Fairbanks who was arrested and kept for over fifteen years in Southern jails where he was daily whipped until blood flowed from his back, just because he helped human beings to get their freedom; Thomas Garrett who was jailed and had to sell all his personal property and real estate to pay the fines imposed upon him by the Southerners for doing the works of Jesus Christ by aiding the weak and comforting the suffering. And when penniless Thomas Garrett got out of jail he continued to help runaway slaves to find their freedom; Samuel May whose Christianity helped thousands of Colored people to enjoy the freedom due all human beings instead of suffering yokes and chains belonging to dumb beasts of burden; and Levi Coffin, who was recognized as the central electrical force that so powerfully and silently drove on, and the chief consulting engineer who so watchfully kept in motion the ever welloiled and frictionless machinery of the underground railroad systems.

* * * * *

The following names are those of some of the leading free Colored people who in every way possible were foremost in helping to liberate from slavery their less fortunate race brothers and sisters in the South:

“Brown, William Wells.--Anti-slavery agitator. Agent of the underground railroad. Born a slave in St. Louis, Mo., 1816.”

“Douglass, Frederick.--Noted American anti-slavery agitator and journalist. Born a slave at Tuckahoe, near Easton, Maryland, February.., 1817. Died February 2, 1895.”

“Whipper, William.--Successful business man, anti-slavery agitator, editor of The National Reformer.”

“Forten, James.--Negro abolitionist. Born in Philadelphia, September 6, 1776; died March 4, 1842. Forten was a sail-maker by trade.”

“Harper, Mrs. Frances E. Watkins.--Distinguished anti-slavery lecturer, writer and poet. Born of free parents, 1825, Baltimore, Maryland; died February 22, 1911.”

“Hayden, Lewis.--Born 1815, died 1889. Runaway slave from Kentucky to Boston, Abolitionist.”

“Ray, Charles B.--Anti-slavery Agitator. Agent Underground Railroad. Born Falmouth, Mass., December 25, 1807; died New York City, August 15, 1886. Congregational minister and editor of the Colored American from 1839 to 1842.”