Part 4

There are few, I suppose, who are aware of the largeness of this work as carried on upon our continent, few who appreciate the amount of real labor and real suffering, I may say, endured in this direction. In order to a correct estimate, it seems to me that we ought not to lose sight of, but rather we ought to recognize, the work which has been done by our Roman Catholic friends. They began as long ago as 1611, and from that date onward until 1832, at least, they carried on an extended work among the American Indians upon eight or ten different and important fields. I find, by looking over their lists, that 170 men gave themselves to the work of saving the Indian from barbarism and elevating him to a higher and Christian level during this period.

Then, in order to a correct appreciation of this work, we must remember also what our beloved friends, the Moravians, have done—not only what they did in Greenland, not only what they did in the West Indies, but what they did within the bounds of our own nation, especially in Pennsylvania and farther west. And so, too, we must recognize the work done by the Episcopalians and the Methodists and the Presbyterians, who, through a long series of years and in varied fields, have been laboring for the conversion of the American Indian.

But in none of these fields has a more satisfactory work been done than that which has been done in this America of ours by the Congregational churches and the men whom they have sent out. The missionary work among the American Indians began with the founding of the church in New England—began under the molding hand of John Elliot in Massachusetts. A hundred years later than the day when Elliot began that work another figure arose upon the stage of history: David Brainerd, the humble, quiet young man, who gave himself for Christ and for the beloved Indians, and labored and suffered even unto death. And then, when we come down to 1813 or thereabouts, we find the American Board, newly organized, turning its attention to the Indians in the South and Southwest. In the record of their early work we have such names as Cyrus Kingsbury and Byington and Father Gleason, and in the far West Williamson and Riggs, our lamented brethren to whom reference has already been made, and many others, some of whom are still with us, including our excellent brother and my fellow committeeman Rev. Cushing Eells.

Here we have a list of heroes doing their work quietly, silently, patiently, yet a work deserving to be called heroic, as much so as that which has been done on the islands of the sea and on the other side of the globe—a work in which noble men and women have taken part. What is the result? Here is the good seed sewing. What kind of a harvest has been gathered? There are those who think—perhaps it is the common impression—that the results of Indian missions have been meagre and of little value at the best; but let us consider. It seems to me that in any such calculation some account should be made of what may be called the reciprocal effect produced in the lives of the missionaries themselves and of the churches sending them forth. I observe that Dr. Shay, author of the History of Catholic Missions in America, referring to the extinction of the Spanish missions in the southern part of our country, says that even if they have become extinct and if there are no results that we can trace to-day, that does not count for their condemnation any more than the disappearance of the works of art produced so long ago by Apelles and Zeuxis is to the condemnation of those workers. He might have gone farther and called attention to the effect produced upon the artists themselves by their contributions to ancient art, the effect produced upon the artist anywhere by the work that he does in his own field, the effect produced upon the reformer by the work of reform which he accomplishes, the results produced in the lives of missionaries who constitute so large a company in our church from their labors, their sufferings and their sorrows.

I noticed in a past number of the AMERICAN MISSIONARY published during the present year that a cut had been reproduced representing a group of Indians watching a railroad train—an impressive picture; and it suggested to me that our aim should be to bring these Indians of the West where they shall not stand suspiciously watching a railroad train, the emblem of advancing civilization, but where they shall co-operate with us and appreciate the railroad train and make it theirs. We want them to adopt as rapidly as possible all the appliances of our civilization, and above all we want them to accept the Lord Jesus Christ.

* * * * *

ADDRESS OF REV. J. C. PRICE.

On the 1st of January, 1863, the negro was like a newly-built ship launched upon the waters without mast, sail or rudder. Pleased with liberty, he thought his happiness complete; but a few months’ experience taught him better. When the ballot was denied, when he could not—nay, more, when he cannot—claim as a right or privilege the comforts of travel; when deeply-rooted prejudice on account of his color and previous condition of servitude confronted him at every turn, he soon found that he had not reached the full stature of an American citizen, but was still in his infancy. And the question that presents itself to your minds, and to the friends of the negro and to ours, the orphaned recipients of your generosity, is, Has the negro grown any? has he made any noticeable advancement? Or is he where freedom found him and where slavery left him? January, 1863, found the negro penniless, ignorant, a homeless wanderer, his chief object to be in General Sherman’s army, or if not in it, in the wake of it; but he is now settled, fixed, and by industry and by perseverance he has purchased homes, and he and his children, through the generous aid of friends, have received some education. The land that he once sowed in slavish fear and reaped with trembling, he now sows in joy and gathers with the gladsome shout of a free and jubilant harvester. In fact, the material, as well as the intellectual and moral progress of the negro has surprised his best friends. He has gone forth without possessing the tattered garments that he wore, without a foot of soil on which to tread, and he has purchased those homes. And not only has he purchased them, but he has carried into them those things which make home what it is—the comforts of home. It is nothing strange to go into a Southern home and see a carpet on the floor. If it is not on all of it, it will be a big piece in the middle. And if you don’t find it all the way up-stairs, you will find a little as you step on the first step. That shows a disposition to do something that is elevating. And then the fact that they have purchased these homes is something. I have seen it repeated in the newspapers of the North—and I regret to say by men who do not know the negro—that he is a lazy, shiftless fellow. Well, they do not go down South, as we term it, and go into the negroes’ houses. They do not go into his colleges and universities and high schools, but they ride around by the station, they see a few at the depot—a lot of lazy negroes, as you find a lot of lazy white men under similar circumstances. They judge us unfairly. No man is judged by the worst, but by the best. Did you want Lord Chief Justice Coleridge to form an opinion of America by the men that he met by accident or saw in the slums of New York—“lazy” men, that he saw lounging around the corners of the streets? No; you wanted him to judge you by your best, and you put your best forward. Now, what we ask for the negro is that he be judged by his best and not by his worst. Of course, the best is always in the minority, but that is the way we are judged. If these same men were to go into the South and go into the negroes’ homes, they would find there very often excellent comfort. Some one has asked whether the negro has any of this race prejudice in him. No; he will give you the best bed and the fattest pig and the best chicken he has got in the yard. There is no prejudice there. And then, not only these things, but you find in many of their houses instruments of music—some with an organ, some with a piano; and you can find young girls there who can play on both, and if you want a little singing they can do that too. Negroes can sing as well as my friends the Chinamen. These things, too, are not only found in the cities but in the country places and villages.

The negro has done all this, notwithstanding that he has lost millions—yes, the negro has been defrauded of millions, yet he has accumulated millions, and in many instances he has become the owner of the farms and plantations of his former master. It was no longer than two or three years ago that the papers told us that the farm of Mr. Jefferson Davis rightly belonged not to him, but to two negroes, they having paid $200,000 for it. And these are but examples. You go through the South and you find negroes owning farms of 100 or 200 acres each; and I know of one man who owns 900 acres, all of which he has bought since the war. We have gone forth to the earth, and with the horny hands of toil we have made the earth to answer to our appeals; and these have been the results. Why, in Georgia alone there are more than 85,000 colored voters who own 500,000 acres of land valued at about $1,244,000, besides city property valued at $2,100,000, horses and mules, etc., valued at, $2,000,000, making an aggregate for Georgia alone of more than $6,000,000, which the colored people in that State now own.

But why should I enumerate? In fact, the negro has made the waste places of the South to blossom as the rose. He has built its railroads, dug its canals, erected its mansions, makes its carriages and buggies, and in 1878 produced for the American people more than $250,000,000. In the face of these evidences, who would dare question his industry, stigmatize him as “lazy,” and ridicule his unskilled labor?

But these are but the beginnings—the gray streaks of dawn ushering in a brighter day for this toiling and long-oppressed son of Ham. We are often reminded of what the negro was in ancient days, especially in Northern Africa; but to-day we are forced to see what he is in America, notwithstanding its prejudices and its political oppression and persecution; we are forced to look at him rising in his incomparable glory, the anomaly of the race and the wonder of mankind.

But there is another feature. The negro’s highest powers and worthiest capabilities are not all shown in the development of sterile marshes or barren highlands. If slavery brought out his power of endurance, his patience and his unparalleled fidelity, freedom called forth his intellectual ability and causes the world to wonder at his rapid attainments. But this angel in him long ago would have sought his native heaven, but slavery clipped his wings, forbade his flight, and confined him to corn hills, cotton rows, rice marshes and pine forests. But his wings are growing again, and already he lifts himself somewhat from the earth. But you say, “Are there any signs of his educational progress?” I might answer by pointing to distinguished colored men who fill positions of responsibility and emolument in this country. But not only are there men who are educated among us, but there are also schools of high grade whose portals are anxiously crowded by young men and women thirsting for knowledge. I have taken one State as an example of our material progress; let another show our intellectual advancement. In 1861 there was not a school in North Carolina to which persons of color were admitted. But to-day, in addition to her common schools, she has Shaw University, Biddle University, St. Augustine Normal School, four State Normal Schools, Esther Seminary, Scotia Seminary, Bennett Seminary, and the Zion Wesleyan Institute—institutions of high grade; these have in them to-day an aggregate of 2,000 young men and women preparing for the great work of uplifting their brethren, and every summer they go forth throughout North Carolina and other Southern States doing what they can for the improvement of their fellows. Besides this, we have in North Carolina from twelve to fifteen newspapers, weeklies, semi-weeklies and monthlies, edited, owned and controlled by colored men. The negro has done something, and we consider it something—something that we are proud of, especially when we think of the manner in which it has been done.

But, notwithstanding this favorable aspect of the condition of the people as seen in these two States, we are forced to ask the question—in fact it comes to us as we travel among the people—what is our material progress in Georgia, what is North Carolina’s educational outlook, when we consider the masses of the people through the South? They are but a drop in the bucket. If you could travel through that section and view the condition of the people away off in the remote towns and districts, you would say so, especially when you remember that the population has increased to almost double its original number. Since 1863 the 4,000,000 have grown to nearly 7,000,000. It is nothing strange to see the need of instruction among the people, even among the ministry. It is my theory that we must get the ministry straight first; and when we have an intelligent ministry before the people, then we will soon have an intelligent people. “Like priest” _always_ “like people”.

It was truly said by President Tobey at the meeting of the A. M. A. in Chicago that the presence of the negro in the United States is of great significance, that the enthusiasms of political life in our nation have resulted from his presence, and that he has been the occasion of the most exhaustive discussion of the rights of man and the formation of a new political party and is now the most considerable element in our politics. That is true; but that is telling us our disease without a cure. What is the remedy? That is what you are here for to-night; that is what you have bean turning over in your minds ever since you assembled. What is the remedy for these existing political and social evils among us? We think it was precisely set forth by the Secretary of the Association at that same meeting when he said, “The true remedy for the existing evils is not to change the negro’s color or his party, but to change his _character_,” and that is what we ask.

Legislation cannot solve the negro problem in this country. The thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, the Civil Rights Bill and the Constitution itself cannot solve the negro problem. We must go behind the Constitution, behind the amendments; we must go to the public sentiment. What effect has a law if there is not a public sentiment to back it up? We have had the Civil Rights Bill for several years, but what did it amount to in some sections of the country? It amounted to nothing, because there was not a public sentiment to sustain it. And it seems to me that we want to educate the public sentiment and it is evident that the solution of this great vexing problem can only come through the gradual and thorough development of the negro’s mental and moral nature. I say _thorough_, because some men think that the negro need have only an elementary training, that he is not prepared for a higher training. Why is he not? If it has taken centuries of culture, with the best masters and the best teachers, to uplift the white race, why is it not necessary to uplift the black race? God has made of one blood all nations of men that dwell upon the face of the earth; and we believe that there are only individual and not race distinctions as to their mental and moral capabilities. Therefore, what one race requires another race requires; and we feel assured that, when this has been done, the millions of minds, both in this country and in Africa, that are now rough and unshapen as the rock from the quarry, will begin to show signs of symmetry under the constant hammer and steady chisel of competent workmen.

Then, and not till then, the negro’s sun of progress and prosperity, whose earliest rays already gladden his eastern horizon, will rise and climb the firmament of his glory until it reaches its zenith, and from that zenith it will shed forth a light that all the nations of the earth shall behold, whose heat shall melt away all prejudice, in whose light all indignities and all inhumanities shall vanish; and all these nations, in one united, harmonious voice, shall cry aloud, “Ethiopia, Ethopia has indeed and in truth stretched forth her hands unto God.”

* * * * *

CASTE IN AMERICA.

BY SECRETARY STRIEBY.

India has four castes, America two. The Hindoo castes are the priest, soldier, merchant and laborer or Soodra. The last is the largest and lowest and bears the weight of all the upper classes, whom it is born to serve and by whom it is despised. The highest caste may come down to the employments of the soldier or merchant, but not to those of the Soodra, but, according to Hindoo orthodoxy, the Soodra can as little enter a higher caste as a stone can become a plant.

America’s two castes are simply the white and the colored races. The latter are the Soodras, and in the orthodox theology of slavery they were born to serve the whites. But while that high orthodoxy suffered a rude shock in the Proclamation of Emancipation, caste comes in to save it from utter overthrow, and has fixed a great gulf between the races, so that especially “they cannot pass to us that would come from thence.”

This proscription of the colored races includes the Indian and the Chinaman, but for the sake of simplicity of presentation I shall refer mainly to the most numerous race in this country—the Negro.

By caste prejudice they are denied fellowship which Christ enjoins—rights which the Constitution grants, access to trades, professions and schools where they could compete with the whites.

Caste is a worse sin in America than in India. In practicing it the Hindoo obeys his gods and his veda; the American dishonors his God and disobeys his Bible. The Hindoo is a heathen and is degraded by caste; the American sends missionaries to convert him and to denounce his caste, and yet sustains caste at home. The Hindoo is consistent in denying equal rights to all men; the American boasts that God made of one blood all nations, and that all men are free and equal, and yet tolerates caste.

In sustaining caste the American perpetuates the inconsistency and shame of slavery. No greater inconsistency was ever shown than in holding slaves in America after the Declaration of Independence; and no greater shame than in the zealous defense of slavery by the press, the pulpit and the theological seminaries—at the imperious bidding of the slaveholder. Caste is the tap root of slavery, and the defense of it is a repetition—nay, an aggravation—of the apologies formerly made for slavery. Men will live to be ashamed of this defense.

Caste is a curse to America.

It injures those who cherish it. Caste-prejudice is a sin. All prejudice is narrow, born of ignorance and hate. Caste-prejudice, therefore, by narrowing the mind and embittering the heart, harms the American citizen both as a man and a Christian. It hinders the progress of its victims. The slaves are emancipated—their continued degradation is the nation’s danger, their elevation the nation’s hope, and yet caste shuts up the avenues of trades, professions, schools and churches, through which alone they can escape from ignorance and degradation. If they rise it must be in spite of all the obstacles that caste can throw in their way.

It creates race antagonisms. The foreign immigration into this country creates no antagonisms. It flows into the great river of American life like brooklets, bringing down often their turbid waters, but these are soon mingled and purified in the mightier stream. But caste renders the colored races an opposing tide now indeed overflowed and borne under, yet resisting their fate. That they are overborne is seen in the nullifying of their vote in the South and in denying them access to the rights, immunities and privileges of the dominant class. But they are neither silent nor submissive. We know how prompt and deadly is the resentment of the Indian; the negro and the Chinaman are more quiet, but they resist as best they can and await the time, in the conflict of tides, when their volume and momentum will give them the preponderance.

Nor is that awaiting vain, nor that time distant, in view of the astonishingly rapid increase of the colored population—an increase of over 500 per day—an increase of 35 per cent. in ten years, as against 28 per cent. in the white population of the South. It is easy to estimate in how few years the colored population will equal the whites, and it is easy to see that, as this growth goes on and long before the equal numbers are reached, the sense of growing strength and of continued wrong will stimulate the negative resistance of the present to the determined hostility of the future; and when that race conflict comes, what human ken can foretell the issue? But we may be sure that when it comes the North, the whole nation, can no more keep out of it than it could keep out of the dreadful conflict with slavery, out of which this impending struggle grows.

Special significance is given to all this by the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States pronouncing the Civil Rights Bill unconstitutional. This takes from the colored man the last shadow of legal protection to rights which he, and all men for themselves, consider essential to their manhood, and will stimulate him to more determined resistance unless the conscience and good sense of the white races shall speedily end this needless, yet dangerous conflict.

This leads me to ask: Is there a remedy for all this, and what is it? Not in dragging the white man down, but in lifting the colored man up. Both races must coöperate. The white man must let down the ladder; the black man must climb. The white man must open the door of the shop, and the black man must go in and do as good work as the white man can. The white man must open the school house and the black man must go in and become as good a scholar as the white man is. The black man can never attain positions and honors by demanding them simply because he is a black man; he must fairly win them by being worthy of them. The white man cannot maintain his superiority by denying the black man the chance of becoming his equal. He cannot hold it by force. Slavery for a time enabled him to do so, for then he had superior numbers and the aid of the Government, but he has no longer that aid and he cannot always have the weight of superior numbers. The white man must give the chance, and the black man must take it and win his position.