Chapter 5

THE ROYAL ADVENTURERS AND THE PLANTATIONS

The early trade of the English to the coast of Africa was very largely in exchange for products which could be sold in England. Among these may be mentioned elephants' teeth, wax, malaguetta and gold. As has been shown, the hope of discovering gold mines was the principal cause of the first expedition sent to Africa by the Royal Adventurers in December, 1660. When this scheme to mine gold was abandoned the company's agents traded for gold which was brought down from the interior or washed out by the slow and laborious toil of the natives. The other African products, especially elephants' teeth, were brought to London where they sold quite readily for very good prices.

Although this direct trade between England and Africa was never neglected, the slave trade with the English colonies in the West Indies was destined to absorb the company's attention because the supply of indentured servants[1] was never great enough to meet the needs of the rapidly growing sugar and indigo plantations. From the planters point of view, moreover, slaves had numerous advantages over white servants as plantation laborers. Slaves and their children after them were chattel property for life. The danger of rebellion was very small because often the slaves could not even converse with one another, since they were likely to be from different parts of Africa and therefore to speak a different dialect. Finally, neither the original outlay for slaves nor the cost of feeding and clothing them was great, and therefore slaves were regarded as more economical than indentured servants. Moreover, there was much to be said against encouraging the lower classes of England to come to the plantations, where they often engaged engaged in disturbances of one kind and another. Also, after a service of a few years, it was necessary to allow them to go where they pleased. Nevertheless, with all their disadvantages, it may be truly said that the planters preferred the white servants to any others. It was, however, impossible to obtain the needed supply of labor from this source and therefore it was always necessary to import slaves from Africa.

Previous to the accession of Charles II not many slaves were imported into the English possessions in the West Indies. Of this small number all but a few had been brought by the ships of the Dutch West India Company. The Dutch centered their West India trade at the island of Curaçao, whence they could supply not only their own colonies with slaves but those of the French, English and even the Spanish when opportunity offered. So great was the demand for slaves and other necessities procured from the Dutch that the English planters in the West Indies regarded this trade as highly desirable. For instance, when the island of Barbadoes surrendered to the Parliamentary forces, January 11, 1652, it stipulated that it should retain its freedom of trade and that no company should be formed which would monopolize its commodities.[2] Nevertheless, by the Navigation Act of 1660 colonial exports, part of which had to be carried only to England, were confined to English ships. This was a sufficient limitation of their former freedom of trade to incense the planters in the West Indies but, as a matter of greater importance to them, the king granted to the Company of Royal Adventurers the exclusive trade to the western coast of Africa, thus limiting their supply of Negro slaves to this organization. The company therefore undertook this task, realizing that in the Negro trade it would find by far its most lucrative returns. Not only did the company supply the planters with slaves, their greatest necessity, but in exchange for these it took sugar and other plantation products which it carried to England. It was natural that the company should endeavor to make a success of its business, but, on the other hand, it was to be expected that the planters would regard the company as a monopoly and a nuisance to be outwitted if possible.

In 1660 Barbadoes was in much the same condition as is true of every rapidly expanding new country. The settlers occupied as much land as they could obtain and directed every effort toward its cultivation and improvement. The growing of sugar had proved to be very profitable and every planter saw his gains limited only by the lack of labor to cultivate his lands. Every possible effort was therefore made to obtain laborers and machinery. Although the planters had little ready capital, they made purchases with a free hand, depending upon the returns from their next year's crop to pay off their debts. As a result, the planters were continually in debt to the merchants. The merchants greatly desired that Barbadoes should be made as dependent on England as possible in order that the constantly increasing amount of money which the planters owed them might be better secured. Moreover, they wished to prevent the planters from manipulating the laws of the island in such a way as to hinder the effective collection of debts.[3] The planters, on the other hand, appreciated very keenly the ill effects upon themselves of the laws which were passed in England for the regulation of commerce. They bitterly complained of the enumerated article clause of the Navigation Act of 1660, which provided that all sugars, indigo and cotton-wool should be carried only to England. Already the planters were very greatly in debt to the merchants and they saw in this new law the beginning of the restrictions by which the merchants intended to throttle their trade. Indeed it seemed to the planters as if they were completely at the mercy of the merchants, who paid what they pleased for sugar, and charged excessive prices for Negroes, cattle and supplies.[4] Among those who were regarded as oppressors were the factors of the Royal Company, which controlled the Negro supply upon which the prosperity of the plantations depended.

Sir Thomas Modyford, speaker of the assembly, also became the agent for the Royal Adventurers in Barbadoes. Modyford was very enthusiastic about the company's prospects for a profitable trade in Negroes with the Spanish colonies. The people of Barbadoes neither shared Modyford's enthusiasm for this trade nor for the company's monopoly because they believed that thereby the price of slaves was considerably increased. On December 18, 1662, the council and assembly of Barbadoes resolved to ask the king for a free trade to Africa or to be assured that the factors of the Royal Company would sell their slaves for the same price as other merchants.[5] Very shortly, the duke of York, the company's governor, informed Governor Willoughby that the company had made arrangements to provide Barbadoes and the Caribbee Islands with 3,000 slaves per annum and that the needs of the islands would be attended to as conditions changed. Moreover, the company pledged itself to see that all Negroes imported into the island should be sold by lots, as had been the custom, at the average rate of seventeen pounds per head or for commodities of the island rated at that price.[6] The duke of York also requested Governor Willoughby to ascertain if possible how many Negroes were desired by the planters at that rate, and to see that any planters who wished to become members of the company should be given an opportunity to do so.[7]

When the company's factors, Sir Thomas Modyford and Sir Peter Colleton, began to sell Negroes to the planters they encountered endless trouble and litigation in the collection of debts. In a vivid description of their difficulties to the company they declared that Governor Willoughby did nothing to assist them until he received several admonitions from the king. To be sure the governor's power in judicial matters was limited by the council, which in large part was made up of landholders who naturally attempted to shield the planters from their creditors. In case an execution on a debt was obtained from a local court the property remained in the hands of the debtor for eighty days. During this time the debtor often made away with the property, if it was in the form of chattel goods. If the judgment was against real estate the land also remained in the hands of the debtor for eighty days, during which time a committee, usually neighbors of the debtor, appraised the land, often above its real value. If this sum exceeded the debt, the creditor was compelled to pay the difference. As the factors declared, therefore, it was a miracle if the creditors got their money.[8]

In 1664, Sir Thomas Modyford was called from Barbadoes to become governor of Jamaica.[9] In his place the Royal Adventurers selected John Reid, who had resided for several years in Spain and was therefore conversant with the needs of the Spanish colonies concerning slaves. Reid also obtained the office of sub-commissioner of prizes in Barbadoes.[10]

After Modyford's departure from Barbadoes the factors still experienced great difficulty in collecting the company's debts. Since Willoughby had not exerted himself in its behalf the company informed the king that it had supplied the planters liberally with slaves, but that the planters owed the company £40,000,[11] and that by reason of the intolerable delays in the courts it was impossible to collect this sum. Thereupon the earl of Clarendon wrote to Governor Willoughby admonishing him to take such measures as would make a renewal of the company's complaints unnecessary. In this letter Clarendon also declared that while the king had shown great care for the planters by restraining the company from charging excessive prices for slaves, he should also protect the interests of the merchants. Willoughby, therefore, was recommended to see speedy justice given to the company, and to use his influence in obtaining a better law for the collection of debts.[12]

To add to the company's difficulties private traders began to infringe upon the territory included in the company's charter. As an instance of this Captain Pepperell, in charge of one of the company's ships, seized an interloper called the "William" and "Jane" off the coast of New Callabar in Guinea. When Pepperell appeared at Barbadoes with his prize, one of the owners of the captured ship brought suit in a common law court against the company's commander for damages to the extent of 500,000 pounds of sugar. The company's factors at once went bail for Pepperell. Ordinarily the case would have been tried by a jury of planters from whom the company's agents could expect no consideration. The factors, therefore, petitioned to have the case removed from the common law courts to the admiralty court where the governor was the presiding officer. A jury of sympathetic islanders would thus be dispensed with and, if necessary, the case could be appealed to a higher court in England with greater ease. When Willoughby called the admiralty court on June 17, 1665, the factors cited the company's royal charter which justified the seizure of interlopers. Notwithstanding the clear case which the company's agents seemed to have the case was adjourned for a week. Fearing that the governor might take action adverse to the company's interests the factors succeeded in sending the ship in question to Jamaica where it was not under the jurisdiction of Lord Willoughby.[13] The bail bonds against Pepperell were not withdrawn, and therefore he stood in as great danger of prosecution as ever. When the company learned of this situation it immediately petitioned Secretary Arlington that Willoughby be commanded not to permit any further procedures against Pepperell and to transmit the whole case to the Privy Council. It also requested that those who had transgressed the company's charter should be punished.[14] The Privy Council issued an order in accordance with the company's desires.[15] Willoughby accused the factors of having reported the case falsely and of having affronted him grossly by taking the vessel in question away from the island by stealth. Moreover, he declared that he would have made them understand his point of view "if they had not been employed by soe Royall a Compagnie."[16]

Since Willoughby persistently neglected to send Pepperell's bail bonds to England, the Royal Company finally reported the matter again to the king.[17] Once more the case was heard in the Privy Council where it was referred to the committee on trade and plantations.[18] On January 31, 1668, the Privy Council issued an order to Governor Willoughby, brother of the former incumbent, commanding him to stop all proceedings against the Royal Company and commanding him to send everything in regard to the case to England without delay.[19] Lord Willoughby replied that so far as he could ascertain all the records had been sent to England and that if any others were found he would also despatch them.[20] Thus ended this contest in regard to the maintenance of the company's privileges. The king had not allowed his royal prerogative to be interfered with and the company's charter was regarded as intact. Theoretically the victory was all in favor of the company, but on account of the losses which it was incurring in the Anglo-Dutch war, it was impossible for the company to furnish a sufficient supply of Negroes to Barbadoes, that is, if Lord Willoughby's heated protests can be trusted.

Speaking of the general prohibitions on their trade, the governor exclaimed, May 12, 1666, that he had "come to where itt pinches, and if yor Maty gives not an ample & speedy redress, you have not onely lost St. Christophers but you will lose the rest, I (aye) & famous Barbadoes, too, I feare." In bitter terms he spoke of the poverty of the island, protesting that anyone who had recommended the various restraints on the colony's trade was "more a merchant than a good subject." The restriction on the trade to Guinea, he declared, was one of the things that had brought Barbadoes to its present condition; and the favoritism displayed toward the Royal Company in carrying on the Negro trade with the Spaniards had entirely deprived the colonial government of an export duty on slaves.[21]

The decision of the company to issue licenses to private traders did not allay the storm of criticism that continued to descend on the company from Barbadoes. The new governor, as his brother had done, urged a free trade to Guinea for Negroes, maintaining that slaves had become so scarce and expensive that the poor planters would be forced to go to foreign plantations for a livelihood.[22] He complained that the Colletons, father and son, the latter of whom was one of the company's factors, had helped to bring about this critical condition.[23] On September 5, 1667, representatives of the whole colony petitioned the king to throw open the Guinea trade or to force the company to supply them with slaves at the prices promised in the early declaration, although even those prices seemed like a canker of usury to the much abused planters.[24]

Following these complaints Sir Paul Painter and others submitted a petition to the House of Commons in which they asserted that an open trade to Africa was much better than one carried on by a company. They maintained that previous to the establishment of the Royal Adventurers Negroes had been sold for twelve, fourteen and sixteen pounds per head, or 1,600 to 1,800 pounds of sugar, whereas now the company was selling the best slaves to the Spaniards at eighteen pounds per head, while the planters paid as high as thirty pounds for those of inferior grade. This, they declared, had so exasperated the planters that they often refused to ship their sugar and other products to England in the company's ships no matter what freight rates the factors offered.

In reply to the petition of Sir Paul Painter, Ellis Leighton, the company's secretary, admitted that as a natural result of the Anglo-Dutch war the price of slaves like all other products in Barbadoes, had increased considerably. He denied that this increase could be attributed to the sale of Negroes to the Spaniards since the company had not disposed of more than 1,200 slaves to them. He contended that the company had been thrown into a critical financial condition, partly as the result of the losses incurred from DeRuyter in Africa, but mostly by the constantly increasing debts which the planters owed to the company. Notwithstanding these difficulties Secretary Leighton maintained that since the formation of the company Barbadoes had been supplied more adequately with slaves than at any previous time. As for the planters' having refused to ship their goods on the company's ships, he declared that this was nothing more than they had consistently done since the formation of the company.[25]

In answer to the planters' representation of September 5, 1667, Sir Ellis Leighton admitted that if Barbadoes alone was being considered, a free trade to Guinea was preferable to any other, but since the trade of the whole nation had to be given first consideration the idea was pernicious. He asserted that the company was willing to furnish the planters with all the Negroes they desired at the rates already published, seventeen pounds per head, provided security was given for payment in money or sugar; that instead of a lack of Negroes in Barbadoes there had been so large a number left on the hands of the factors that many had died; and that if the planters were sincere in their complaints they would be willing to agree with the company on a definite number of slaves which they would take annually.[26]

Since the importance of the Royal Company was by this time definitely on the wane Sir Paul Painter succeeded in presenting his petition regarding affairs in Barbadoes to the House of Commons, in September, 1667. Although the Royal Company was ordered to produce its charter no further action was taken. The planters were by no means discouraged and again requested the Privy Council to consider the matter of granting a free trade to Guinea.[27] Later the people of Barbadoes once more represented to the king the inconceivable poverty caused by the lack of free trade to Guinea and other places.[28] Some of the Barbadoes assemblymen even suggested that all the merchants be excluded from the island, and that an act be passed forbidding any one to sue for a debt within four years.[29]

Finally, on May 12, 1669, in answer to the numerous complaints of Barbadoes, the Privy Council informed the islanders that the king would not infringe upon the charter granted to the African Company; and that sufficient Negroes would be furnished to the planters at reasonable prices providing the company was assured of payment.[30] The company was pleased at the king's favorable decision and at once represented to him its critical financial condition because the planters refused to pay their just debts.[31] The complaint of the company was considered in the Council September 28, 1669, at which time an order was issued requiring that henceforth land as well as chattel property in Barbadoes might be sold at public auction for the satisfaction of debts. The governor was directed to see that this order not only became a law in Barbadoes, but that after it had been passed it was to be executed.[32]

Thus it became clear that the planters of Barbadoes could hope for no relief from the king and, therefore, during the few remaining years in which the company was in existence they made no other consistent effort to convince the king of their point of view. On the other hand, if the company expected the king's instructions to be of great assistance it was sorely disappointed. On August 2, 1671, John Reid reported that they had been unable to recover the company's debts,[33] and further appeals to the king for relief were of no avail.[34]

It is difficult to ascertain whether Barbadoes was in as great need of slaves as the planters often asserted. The records kept by the factors in the island have nearly all disappeared. From an early ledger kept by the Barbadoes factors it appears that from August 11, 1663, to March 17, 1664, the usual time for the chief importation of the year, 3,075 Negroes were received by the company's factors. These slaves, 1,051 men, 1,018 women, 136 boys and 56 girls, were sold in return partly for sugar and partly for money. Estimating 2,400 pounds of sugar as equal to seventeen pounds it appears that the average price for these Negroes was a little over sixteen pounds per head.[35] This comparatively low price is to be accounted for by the fact that the women and children are averaged with the men, who sold for a higher price. These figures show therefore that the company's factors were selling adult slaves at about seventeen pounds each, as the company had publicly declared that it would do.

In 1667 the company asserted that it had furnished the plantations with about 6,000 slaves each year. This statement is to be doubted since the Anglo-Dutch war had practically disrupted the company's entire trade on the African coast. On the other hand, there is reason to think that the need for slaves in Barbadoes was not so pressing as might be inferred from the statements of the planters.[36] They naturally insisted on a large supply of slaves in order to keep the prices as low as possible. There seems no doubt, however, that the islanders were able to obtain more Negroes than they could pay for and were therefore hopelessly in debt to the company. On July 9, 1668, Governor Willoughby estimated the total population of Barbadoes at 60,000, of which 40,000 were slaves.[37] Indeed some merchants declared that the slaves outnumbered the white men twenty to one.[38]

As compared to its trade with Barbadoes and Jamaica the company's trade in slaves to the Leeward Islands was insignificant. The company located at Nevis a factor who reported to the agents in Barbadoes[39] and also at Antigua and Surinam where Governor Byam acted as agent.[40] In Surinam, the lack of slaves was attributed to the prominent men of Barbadoes who were supposed to be influential with the Royal Company.[41] Later, during the Anglo-Dutch war, one of the company's ships in attempting to go to Surinam with Negroes, was captured by the Dutch.[42]

After the war the company seems to have neglected the islands altogether. Upon one occasion the planters of Antigua pleaded unsuccessfully to have Negroes furnished to them on credit.[43] At another time they asserted that the company treated them much worse than it did the planters of Barbadoes because the latter were able to use their influence with the company to divert the supply of slaves to Barbadoes. Their condition, they declared, seemed all the more bitter when they considered the thriving trade in Negroes which the Dutch carried on from the island of Curaçao.[44]

The history of the slave trade to Jamaica from 1660 to 1672 does not present the varied number of problems which arose during the same time in Barbadoes. Jamaica was as yet more sparsely settled than Barbadoes and therefore unable to take as large a number of Negroes. Nevertheless, even before 1660, there was a need for servants in Jamaica,[45] and there, as in Barbadoes, the Dutch had furnished the planters with Negroes. When a Dutch ship laden with 180 slaves appeared at the island in June, 1661, Colonel d'Oyley, the governor, who was desirous of making a personal profit out of the sales, was strongly in favor of permitting the vessel to land its Negroes. The Jamaica council, however, realized that the Navigation Act made the Negro trade with the Dutch illegal, and therefore it refused to accede to the governor's desire. This action so enraged the governor that on his own responsibility he purchased the whole cargo of slaves, some of which he sold to a Quaker in the island, while the others he disposed of at considerable profit to a Spaniard.[46] Again, in February, 1662, d'Oyley bought a number of Negroes from another Dutchman. When one of the king's ships attempted to seize the Dutch vessel for infringing the Navigation Act, the governor even contrived to get it safely away from the island.[47]

When Colonel Modyford became governor of Jamaica in 1664, he was instructed to do all that he possibly could to encourage the trade which the Royal Company was endeavoring to set on foot in the West Indies.[48] In the instructions mention was also made of Modyford's previous interest in managing the affairs of the Royal Company in Barbadoes for which company, it was said, he undoubtedly retained great affection. Shortly thereafter he issued a proclamation promising extensive freedom of commerce except in the Negro trade which was in the hands of the Royal Company.[49]

Although Modyford's proclamation indicated a continued interest in the company's trade, he gave his first consideration to the welfare of the colony. This appears from a list of the island's needs which he submitted to the king, May 10, 1664, in which he asked among other things that the Royal Company be obliged to furnish annually whatever Negroes were necessary, and that the poorer planters be accorded easy terms in paying for them. Furthermore he requested that indentured servants be sent from England and that the island might have freedom of trade except in Negroes.[50] His desires for a free trade were denied, but the Privy Council agreed to consult with the Royal Company and to recommend that it be obliged to furnish Jamaica with a sufficient supply of Negroes.[51]

There is no evidence that the Privy Council called the company's attention to Modyford's request, nor is there any indication that it endeavored to send very many Negroes to Jamaica. Modyford attended to a plantation which the company had bought in Jamaica[52] and he sold a few slaves to the Spaniards,[53] but all the company's affairs in the aggregate really amounted to little in that island. There was a continual call for a greater supply of Negroes than the company sent.[54] Two ledgers used by the factors show that 690 Negroes were sold in 1666 and in the following year,[55] 170. Although this number was inadequate to meet the colony's needs, it is doubtful whether the company sent any slaves to Jamaica after 1667.

Under these circumstances Modyford lost interest in the company's affairs and therefore it resolved, April 6, 1669, to dispense with his services. Modyford had received a pension of three hundred pounds per year up to Michaelmas, 1666, but after that time the company's financial condition no longer warranted this expense. The company does not seem to have been displeased with Modyford because it requested that he use his good offices as governor to assist it in every possible way. At the same time the services of the other factor, Mr. Molesworth, were discontinued and he was requested to send an inventory of the company's affairs.[56]

Modyford thus free from his connection with the company probably represented the desires of the Jamaica people in a more unbiased manner. On September 20, 1670, he enumerated a number of needs of the island and asked Secretary Arlington that licenses to trade to Africa for Negroes be granted free of charge or at least at more moderate rates. For this privilege he declared that security could be given that the slaves would be carried only to Jamaica. The Royal Company itself could not complain when it realized how much this freedom of trade would mean toward the prosperity of Jamaica, and thus ultimately to the entire kingdom.[57] Modyford admitted that the Anglo-Dutch war had been a great hindrance to Jamaica's prosperity but that the lack of Negroes since 1665 had been a much greater obstruction.[58]

The more insistent demands which Governor Modyford made in 1670 for freedom of trade to Africa show that the company's failure to send Negroes to Jamaica after 1667 was beginning to be resented. Although there had been a constant demand for Negroes in Jamaica there was up to 1670 less need for slaves there than in Barbadoes. At least the demands made by the planters of Jamaica were not so frequent and so insistent as they were in Barbadoes. To a certain extent the planters of Jamaica may have been deterred from representing the lack of labor supply while Governor Modyford was one of the company's factors. Modyford had been very much interested in the company's trade, especially with the Spanish colonies. As soon as it became clear, however, that the losses incurred in the Anglo-Dutch war, would make it impossible for the company to continue the slave trade to the West Indies, Modyford undoubtedly voiced a genuine demand on the part of the planters for more slaves. By the year 1670 the island was better developed than it had been ten years before and the need for slaves was beginning to be acute.[59]

About the first of March, 1662, two Spaniards made their appearance at Barbadoes to make overtures for a supply of slaves, which they intended to transport to Peru. If they received encouragement, the Spaniards asserted that they would come every fortnight with large supplies of bullion to pay for the slaves which they exported. Sir Thomas Modyford, the company's factor and the speaker of the Barbadoes assembly, was enthusiastic about this proposition and pointed out that the trade with the Spanish colonies would increase the king's revenue and at the same time would deprive the Dutch of a lucrative trade.[60] Since they were well treated on their first visit to Barbadoes the Spaniards returned in April, 1662, at which time they bought four hundred Negroes for which they paid from 125 to 140 pieces of eight.[61] When the Spaniards came to export their Negroes, however, they found that Governor Willoughby had levied a duty of eleven pieces of eight on each Negro. The assembly under Modyford's leadership at once declared the imposition of such a tax illegal. This resolution was carried to the council where, against the opposition of the governor, it was also passed. Governor Willoughby, nevertheless, had the temerity to collect the tax on some of the Negroes then in port, and a little later when one of the ships of the Royal Adventurers sold its Negroes to the Spaniards, he again enforced the payment of the export tax.[62] Notwithstanding the governor's actions, Modyford despatched one of his own ships with slaves to Cartagena where it arrived safely and was well treated by the Spaniards.[63] Modyford was now more than ever convinced of the possibilities of the trade with the Spanish colonies, but believing that it could not be conducted successfully by private individuals, he recommended that it be settled on the Royal Company.[64]

When the Royal Company learned that the trade in Negroes to the Spanish colonies offered many possibilities it was very much interested. A petition was immediately submitted to the king requesting that, if the Spaniards were allowed to come to Barbadoes for slaves, the whole trade be conferred on the Royal Company. The company declared that the planters in the colonies had no reason to object to this arrangement because they had not engaged in this trade, and moreover an opportunity was being offered to them to become members of the company.[65]

The Privy Council was favorable to the company's proposition, and on March 13, 1663, the king instructed Lord Willoughby to permit the Spaniards to trade at Barbadoes for slaves notwithstanding any letters of marque that had been issued against them, or any provisions of the Navigation Act. He declared that the Spaniards were to be allowed to import into Barbadoes only the products of their own colonies, and were not to be permitted to carry away the produce of the English colonies. The effect of this provision was that in addition to slaves the Spaniards might obtain any products imported into Barbadoes from England.[66] The king settled the question of duties on slaves by ordering that ten pieces of eight on each Negro should be paid by all persons who exported slaves from Barbadoes or Jamaica to the Spanish colonies, except the agents of the Royal Company. The company was to pay no export duties on Negroes especially when the Spaniards had made previous contracts for them in England.[67]

Probably on account of the export duty on slaves which Willoughby had levied in 1662, the Spaniards were not anxious to return to Barbadoes. The company's factors therefore sent one of their ships with slaves to Terra Firma in order to convince the Spaniards that their desire for a Negro trade was genuine. On this occasion Lord Willoughby and the council of the island exacted £320 in customs from the factors. When the company heard of this procedure it immediately asked the king to enforce the order allowing it to export Negroes free of duty.[68] Thereupon the king ordered Willoughby to make immediate restitution of the £320 and to give the company's factors as much encouragement as possible.[69] Willoughby finally obeyed in a sullen manner. On May 20, 1665 he declared that the company had finally monopolized the Spanish trade for Negroes and that, because the king refused to permit an export duty to be levied on them, there was no revenue from that source.[70] The king's concessions to the Royal Company were of little avail, however, because the Anglo-Dutch war effectually stopped most of the company's trade in Negroes including that from Barbadoes to the Spanish colonies.

In considering the trade in slaves from Jamaica to the Spanish colonies it is well to keep in mind that this island lay far to the west of all other English possessions in the West Indies. It was located in the very midst of the Spanish possessions from which it had been wrested in 1655 by the expedition of Sir William Penn and Admiral Venables. The people of the island realized their isolation and occasionally attempted to break down the decrees of the Spanish government, which forbade its colonies to have any intercourse with foreigners. Although the English government began a somewhat similar policy with respect to its colonies in the Navigation Act of 1660, it was generally agreed that some exception should be made for the island of Jamaica in connection with the Spanish trade.

When Lord Windsor became governor of Jamaica in 1662 he was instructed to endeavor to secure a free commerce with the Spanish colonies. If the governors of the Spanish colonies refused to grant this trade voluntarily, Lord Windsor and the council of the island were given permission to compel the Spanish authorities to acquiesce by the use of force or any other means at their disposal.[71] Accordingly a letter embodying this request was written to the governors of Porto Rico and Santo Domingo, but unfavorable replies were received. In accordance with the king's instructions the Jamaica council determined to obtain a trade by force.[72] This was done by issuing letters of marque to privateers for the purpose of preying upon Spanish ships.[73]

In the following year, 1663, as has already been mentioned, Charles II commanded the governors of Barbadoes and Jamaica to permit the Spaniards to buy goods and Negroes in their respective islands, and to refrain from charging duties on these Negroes in case they were reexported by the agents of the Royal Adventurers.[74] This was followed by a royal order of April 29, 1663, commanding the governor to stop all hostile measures against the Spaniards. Sir Charles Lyttleton, the deputy governor, replied that he hoped the attempt to begin a trade with the Spaniards would be successful, especially in Negroes, which the Spaniards could not obtain more easily than in Jamaica.[75]

When Sir Charles Modyford became governor of Jamaica in 1664, the king repeated his desire to promote trade and correspondence with the Spanish plantations. Indeed Modyford's previous success in selling Negroes to the Spaniards probably influenced his appointment to this office. As soon as Modyford reached Jamaica he wrote a letter to the governor of Santo Domingo informing him that the king had ordered a cessation of hostilities and desired a peaceful commerce with the Spanish colonies.[76] Modyford instructed the two commissioners by whom the letter was sent to emphasize the trade in Negroes and to induce the Spaniards, if possible, to negotiate with him in regard to this matter.[77] Again the answer of the governor of Santo Domingo was unfavorable. He pointed out that it was not within his power to order a commerce with Jamaica, but that this was the province of the government in Spain. The governor, moreover, complained that the people of Jamaica had acted in the same hostile manner toward the Spaniards since the Restoration as they had in Cromwell's time, and therefore his people were little inclined to begin a trade with Jamaica.

The refusal of the Spanish governor to consider Modyford's proposition seemed all the more bitter since it was well known at that time that the Spaniards were obtaining many Negroes from the Dutch West India Company. The Genoese also had a contract with the Spaniards to deliver 24,500 Negroes in seven years nearly all of whom they expected to obtain from the Dutch at that "cursed little barren island" of Curaçao, as Sir Thomas Lynch called it. Lynch also observed that if the Royal Company desired to participate in the Spanish trade it would either have to sell to the Genoese or drive the Dutch out of Africa, because he did not believe it was possible to call in the privateers without the assistance of several men-of-war.[78] Just how much weight should be attached to this opinion is doubtful since Lynch was probably so much interested in continuing privateering against the Spaniards, that he cared little how much this would interfere with the company's attempt to develop the Negro trade.

Lynch's opinion was not shared by the king, who had heard that the privateers were continuing their hostilities against the Spaniards. He therefore informed Modyford that he could not adequately express his dissatisfaction at the daily complaints made by the Spaniards about the violence of ships said to belong to Jamaica. Modyford was strictly commanded to secure and punish any such offenders.[79] The governor issued a proclamation in accordance with the king's instructions,[80] and also notified the governor of Havana that offenders against Spanish commerce would hereafter be punished as pirates.[81]

After the Anglo-Dutch war began the company imported very few Negroes to Jamaica for the Spanish trade or for any other purpose. The king's stringent orders regarding privateers were gradually allowed to go unnoticed. Modyford again began to issue letters of marque, a procedure which naturally destroyed all possibility of commerce between the Spanish colonies and the Royal Company.

At the time the desultory trade in Negroes was being started with the Spaniards at Barbadoes, Richard White, of Spain, came to England as an agent for two Spaniards, Domingo Grillo and Ambrosio Lomoline.[82] These two men had been granted the assiento in Spain, that is, the privilege of furnishing the Spanish colonies with Negro slaves. In order to wrest some of this trade from the Dutch West India Company the Royal Company entered into a contract with White, in the year 1663, to furnish the Spanish assientists with 3,500 Negroes per year for a definite number of years. According to this contract the slaves were to be delivered to the vessels of the assientists in Barbadoes and Jamaica; one of the company's factors was to be placed on board such ships; and the necessary safe conducts were to be procured for their voyage to and from the port of Cadiz.[83] Sir Ellis Leighton, secretary of the Royal Adventurers, obtained permission for Grillo's agents to reside in Jamaica and Barbadoes.[84] Sir Martin Noell, one of the most important West Indian merchants, as well as a prominent member of the African Company, seems to have been intrusted with the collection of the money due on this contract.[85]

Not long after this agreement was made the possibility of a war with the Dutch began to appear. The company considered ways by which Grillo might be induced to mitigate the contract.[86] Complications concerning the security to be given arose, and Grillo complained that the required number of Negroes was not being furnished to him. Under the circumstances this was almost impossible because the outbreak of the Anglo-Dutch war made it very difficult to obtain slaves. Nevertheless, on May 26, 1665, the company resolved to procure as many Negroes as possible to fill the contract, providing Grillo made prompt payments.[87]

As may be surmised no great number of slaves was exported from Barbadoes or Jamaica on this contract. Only one ship arrived at Barbadoes from Cadiz desiring to secure one thousand slaves, but the company's factors could obtain only eight hundred. Lord Willoughby carefully reported that he had complied with his Majesty's command not to exact any export duty for these slaves.[88] In Jamaica fewer Negroes are known to have been sold on this contract to Spanish ships which came from Cartagena.[89] There may have been other instances of sales not recorded, but it is certain that the war interfered to such an extent that the number of Negroes sold to Grillo fell far short of what the contract called for. In order to keep the agreement intact the company resolved, March 23, 1666, to lay the situation before the king, and to ask him to permit Grillo's agents to buy sufficient Negroes in the plantations to make up the required number, and that no export duties be charged on them.[90] The king complied with the company's request, and the desired orders were sent to the governors of Jamaica and Barbadoes.[91] Some trouble had arisen in Jamaica, however, between Grillo's agents and Governor Modyford. Since the company believed that Grillo's agents were primarily to blame for this, it resolved in the future to deliver Negroes only at Barbadoes in return for ready money.[92]

This was virtually the end of the contract. In 1667 the company spoke of the agreement as having been broken by the Grillos, and that it was under no further obligation to carry out its terms. Altogether, it declared, that no more than 1,200 Negroes had been delivered to Grillo's agents.[93] Thus this project which the company at first asserted would bring into the English kingdom 86,000 pounds of Spanish silver per year[94] ended in this insignificant fashion.

Although the Grillo contract and the other attempts to begin a slave trade with the Spanish colonies had proved much less successful than the Company of Royal Adventurers had hoped, a great deal had been accomplished toward bringing to light the fundamental difficulties of this trade. In the first place not much could be accomplished in the way of developing this trade so long as the Spanish government maintained its attitude of uncompromising hostility toward all foreigners notwithstanding the fact that the Spanish colonists would gladly have welcomed the slave traders. Furthermore, although the English government had signified its willingness to disregard the restrictions of the Navigation Acts in this instance, the hostile attitude assumed by the planters toward the trade in slaves to the Spanish colonies also had to be taken into consideration. Whenever the planters were able to do so they endeavored to prevent the exportation to the Spanish colonies of slaves which they maintained were very much needed on their own plantations.

This opposition to the trade in Negroes to the Spanish colonies was only one of the several ways in which the colonists manifested their hostility toward the mercantile element in general and the Company of Royal Adventurers in particular. Freedom of trade with all the world seemed very desirable to the planters who regarded the restrictions of the Navigation Acts as gross favoritism and partiality to the rising mercantile class. The monopoly of supplying the colonies with slaves, conferred upon the Company of Royal Adventurers, was most cordially hated on account of the great degree of dependence placed upon slave labor in the plantations. As a result of this conflict of interests the planters early resorted to numerous devices such as the laws for the protection of debtors, to embarrass the company in the exercise of its monopoly. Since the company had received its exclusive privileges by a charter from the crown the English planters in the West Indies soon found that their trouble with the Company of Royal Adventurers brought them also into direct conflict with the king. In this way the planters enjoyed the distinction of being among the first to begin the opposition which later, in the Great Revolution, resulted in the overthrow of James II and the royal prerogative.

GEORGE F. ZOOK.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] These were people of the rougher and even criminal classes of the parent country who, in return for their ocean passage, agreed to work for some planter during a specified number of years, usually seven.

[2] C. S. P., Col., 1674-1675, Addenda, p. 86, articles agreed on by Lord Willoughby and Sir George Ayscue and others, January 11, 1652.

[3] C. S. P., Col., 1661-1668, p. 14, petitions of merchants and planters, March 1, 1661.

[4] C. S. P., Col., 1661-1668, pp. 29, 30, 45, 46, 47, petitions from Barbadoes, May 11, July 10, 12, 1661.

[5] _Ibid._, p. 117, minutes of the council and assembly of Barbadoes, December 18, 1662.

[6] The pieces of eight were to be accepted at four shillings each, and 2,400 pounds of muscovado sugar were to be accepted in exchange for a slave.

[7] Answer of the Company of Royal Adventurers of England ... to the Petition ... exhibited ... by Sir Paul Painter, His Royal Highness (the duke of York) and others to Lord Willoughby, January 10, 1662/3.

[8] C. O. 1: 18, ff. 85, 86, Modyford and Colleton to the Royal Adventurers, March 20, 1664.

[9] A. C. R., 75: 13, 14, J5.

[10] _Ibid._, 75: 20.

[11] On January 2, 1665, the company estimated the entire debt which was owing to it in all the plantations at £49,895. S. P., Dom., Charles II, 110, f. 18, petition of the Royal Adventurers to the king.

[12] P. C. R., Charles II, 4: 177, 190-192, August 3, 24, 1664.

[13] C. O. 1: 19, ff. 234-238, proceedings of the court of admiralty in Barbadoes, June 17, 24, 1665.

[14] _Ibid._, f. 232, petition of the Royal Adventurers to Arlington, September 14, 1665.

[15] P. C. R., Charles II, 5: 402, Privy Council to Willoughby, April 6, 1666.

[16] C. O. 1: 20, f. 209, Willoughby to Privy Council, July 16, 1666.

[17] _Ibid._, f. 335, petition of the Royal Adventurers to the king, December 7, 1666.

[18] P. C. R., Charles II, 6: 231, December 7, 1666.

[19] _Ibid._, 7: 162, 163, Privy Council to Willoughby, January 31, 1668.

[20] C. O. 1: 22, f. 191, Willoughby to Privy Council, May 30, 1668.

[21] _Ibid._, 20, f. 149, Willoughby to the king, May 32, 1666.

[22] _Ibid._, 21, f. 170, Willoughby to the king, July, 1667.

[23] C. O. 1: 21, f. 222, Willoughby to Williamson, September 17, 1667.

[24] _Ibid._, f. 209, petition of the representatives of Barbadoes to the king, September 5, 1667. This document and Willoughby's letter of September 17, 1667, also urge very strongly that the bars of the Navigation Acts be let down in order to permit servants to be imported from Scotland.

[25] The petition and these answers are printed in a pamphlet entitled, "Answer of the Company of Royal Adventurers of England trading into Africa, to the Petition and Paper of certain Heads and Particulars thereunto relating exhibited to the Honourable House of Commons by Sir Paul Painter." As to the assertion that the planters refused to ship their products in the company's ships there seems to be no very good evidence on either side. Sometimes the company's vessels were sent home from Barbadoes empty. Upon such occasions the agents always said that there were no goods with which to load them.

[26] C. O. 1: 22, f. 42, answer of Sir Ellis Leighton, secretary of the Royal Adventurers, to the petition from Barbadoes of September 5, 1667; C. O. 1: 22, f. 43, proposal of the Royal Adventurers concerning the sale of Negroes in Barbadoes, January, 1668

[27] C. O. 1: 22, f. 204, address of the merchants and planters of Barbadoes now in London, read at the committee of trade, June 16, 1668.

[28] _Ibid._, 23, f. 69, address of the representative of Barbadoes to the king, August 3, 1668.

[29] _Ibid._, f. 42, account of affairs in Barbadoes by Lord Willoughby, July 22, 1668.

[30] P. C. R., Charles II, 8: 294, May 12, 1669.

[31] _Ibid._, 8: 402, August 27, 1669.

[32] _Ibid._, 8: 424, September 28, 1669.

[33] C. O. 1: 27, f. 24, John Reid to Arlington, August 2, 1671.

[34] A. C. R., 75: 106, 108, 109, September 11, November 10, 1671.

[35] These numbers and prices are gleaned from page three of the Barbadoes ledger. A. C. R., 646.

[36] Answer of the Company of Royal Adventurers ... to the Petition ... exhibited ... by Sir Paul Painter.

[37] C. O. 29: 1, f. 116, Willoughby to the Lords of the Council, July 9, 1668.

[38] _Ibid._, 1: 25, f. 62, memorial of some principal merchants trading to the plantations, 1670.

[39] _Ibid._, 18, f. 86, Modyford and Colleton to (the Royal Adventurers); C. O. 1: 20, f. 168, Michael Smith to Richard Chaundler, June 11, 1666.

[40] _Ibid._, 22, f. 89, Willoughby to Arlington, March 2, 1668.

[41] _Ibid._, 17, f. 219, Renatus Enys to Bennet, November 1, 1663.

[42] _Ibid._, 29: 1, f. 116, Willoughby to the Lords of the Council, July 9, 1668.

[43] _Ibid._, 1: 22, f. 53, proposals of the inhabitants of Antigua to Governor Willoughby, January 31, 1668.

[44] C. S. P., Col. 1669-1674, p, 204, William Byam to Willoughby, 1670?; C. O. 1: 25, f. 138, Byam to Willoughby, n. d.

[45] C. S. P., Col., 1675-1676, Addenda, p. 125, Cornelius Burough to the Admiralty Commissioners, November 28, 1658.

[46] _Ibid._, 1661-1668, p. 36, narrative of the buying of a shipload of Negroes, June 14, 1661.

[47] C. O. 1: 16, f. 77, Captain Richard Whiting to the officers of his Majesty's navy, March 10, 1662; C. O. 1: 17, f. 236, petition of Colonel Godfrey Ashbey and others to the king, 1663.

[48] _Ibid._, 18, f. 58, instructions to Colonel Modyford, governor of Jamaica, February 18, 1664.

[49] C. O. 1: 18, f. 81, declaration of Sir Thomas Modyford, March 2, 1664.

[50] _Ibid._, f. 135, Modyford to Bennet, May 10, 1664.

[51] _Ibid._, f. 208, report of the Privy Council on Jamaica affairs, August 10, 1664.

[52] A. C. R., 75: 89.

[53] Add. MSS., 12,430, f. 31, Beeston, Journal, February 1, 1664/5.

[54] C. O. 1: 19, f. 31, Lynch to Bennet, February 12, 1665; _ibid._, f. 189, John Style to (Bennet), July 24, 1665.

[55] A. C. R., 869, entries from January 1, 1665/6 to December 31, 1666; _ibid._, 870: 62.

[56] A. C. R., 75: 14, 89.

[57] C. O. 1: 25, f. 127, Modyford to Arlington, (September 20, 1670).

[58] C. S. P., Col., 1669-1674, p. 107, additional propositions made to the Privy Council about Jamaica by Charles Modyford by order of Sir Thomas Modyford, (September 28, 1670).

[59] C. O. 1: 14, f. 56, proposal by Lord Marlborough, 1663.

[60] _Ibid._, 17, f. 28, Thomas Modyford? to his brother, March 30, 1662.

[61] _Ibid._, f. 29, Thomas Modyford? to his brother, April 30, 1662.

[62] C. O. 1: 17, ff. 29, 30, Thomas Modyford to his brother, May 26, 1662.

[63] _Ibid._, f. 32, Thomas Modyford to his brother, September 3, 13, 1662.

[64] _Ibid._, f 32, Thomas Modyford to his brother, September 13, 1662.

[65] _Ibid._, f. 20, petition of the Royal Adventurers to the king, January, 1663.

[66] C. O. 1: 17, f. 136, instructions to Lord Willoughby, June 16, 1663.

[67] _Ibid._, f. 227 (the king to the governors of Barbadoes and Jamaica). March 30, 1663. That there was some trouble in deciding just what provisions to make regarding the Spanish trade appears from several unsigned and undated letters to Willoughby with conflicting provisions, but they nearly all mention the exception made in favor of the Royal Company in the letter of March 13, 1663. C. O. 1: 17, f. 22; C. O. 1: 17, ff. 24, 25; C. O. 1: 17, ff. 26, 27; P. C. R., Charles II, 3: 336-338.

[68] C. O. 1: 17, ff. 225, 226, petition of the Royal Adventurers to the king, November, 1663.

[69] Willoughby made a restitution of the £320 in March, 1664. C. O. 1: 18, f. 86, Modyford and Colleton to (the Royal Adventurers), March 31, 1664.

[70] C. O. 1: 19, f. 124, Willoughby to the king, May 20, 1665.

[71] C. O. 1: 16, f. 112, additional instructions to Lord Windsor, governor of Jamaica, April 8, 1662.

[72] C. S. P., Col., 1661-1668, p. 106, minutes of the council of Jamaica, August 20, 1662.

[73] A full description of privateering by the English against the Spaniards from the year 1660 to 1670 may be found in an article by Miss Violet Barbour in the American Historical Review, XVI: 529-566.

[74] C. S. P., Col., 1661-1668, p. 125 (the king to the governors of Barbadoes and Jamaica), March 13, 1663.

[75] C. O. 1: 17, f. 199, Sir Charles Lyttleton, deputy governor, to Bennet, October 15, 1663.

[76] _Ibid._, 18, f. 137, Modyford to the governor of Santo Domingo, April 30, 1664.

[77] _Ibid._, f. 139, Modyford's instructions to Colonel Cary and Captain Perrott, May 2, 1664.

[78] C. O. 1: 18, ff. 152, 153, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Lynch to Bennet. May 25, 1664.

[79] C. S. P., Col., 1661-1668, p. 215, the king to Modyford, June 15, 1664.

[80] _Ibid._, p. 220, proclamation by Sir Thomas Modyford, governor of Jamaica, June 15, 1664.

[81] _Ibid._, p. 228, minutes of the council of Jamaica, August 19-22, 1664.

[82] C. S. P., Dom., 1663-1664, p. 168, Richard White to Captain Weld, June 11, 1663.

[83] As this contract cannot be discovered it is difficult to say just when it was made or what were its conditions. Georges Scelle in his book, La Traité Nègriere aux Indes de Castille, 1: 524, gives the date of this contract as February 28, 1663, and says it was for 35,000 Negroes which were to be delivered at the rate of 5,000 per year. This may be true, but on the other hand the company distinctly declares in one place that the contract was for the annual delivery of 3,500 Negroes per year. C. O. 1: 19, ff. 7, 8, brief narrative of the trade and present condition of the Royal Adventurers, 1664/5.

[84] C. O. 1: 17, f. 189, memorial of Sir Ellis Leighton to the duke of York, 1663.

[85] _Ibid._, ff. 244, 247; A. C. R., 75: 48.

[86] A. C. R., 75: 15, August 5, 1664.

[87] _Ibid._, 75: 34, May 26, 1665.

[88] C. O. 1: 18, f. 165, Willoughby to the king, June 17, 1664.

[89] Add. MSS., 12,430, f. 31, Beeston, Journal, April 8, 1665.

[90] A. C. R., 75: 43, March 23, 1665/6.

[91] P. C. R., Charles II, 5: 396, March 30, 1666.

[92] A. C. R., 75: 46; Add. MSS., 12,430, f. 31, Beeston, Journal, February 7, 1664/5.

[93] Answer of the Company of Royal Adventurers ... to the Petition ... exhibited ... by Sir Paul Painter.

[94] C. O. 1: 19, ff. 7, 8, brief narrative of the trade and present condition of the Royal Adventurers, 1664/5.

BOOK REVIEWS

_Below the James. A Plantation Sketch._ By WILLIAM CABELL BRUCE. The Neale Publishing Company, New York, 1918. Pp. 157.

This book is, as its title imports, a plantation sketch dealing with that sort of life in Virginia just after the Civil War. While it is a mere story and hardly a dramatic one, it throws light on the Negro as a constituent part of the southern society of that day. As a student at Harvard before the War a southerner comes into contact with a fellow student from Massachusetts, to whom he becomes bound by such strong ties that the four years of bloody conflict between the sections are not sufficient to sever this connection. Some years after this upheaval friend thinks of friend and soon the northerner finds himself on his way to visit the southern friend.

Coming to the South at the time when the Negroes as a new class in their different situation were endeavoring to readjust themselves under difficult circumstances, the observations of the traveler are of much value to the historian. He not only saw much to admire in the colonial seats of prominent southerners like Patrick Henry and John Randolph, but showed an appreciation of the simple life of the Negroes. Their new position as freemen taking a part in the government, the rôle of the carpetbagger, and the undesirable conditions of that régime play some part in the story.

As to the Negroes themselves, however, the most interesting revelations are those dealing with the inner life of the blacks. In the language used to impersonate the blacks the reader sees a philosophy of life; in their mode of living appears the virtue of a noble peasantry; and in their worship of divinity there is the striving of a righteous people willing to labor and to wait. In this respect the book is valuable. We have known too little of the plantation, too little of the life of the Negro before the Civil War, too little of how he during the Reconstruction developed into something above and beyond the hewer of wood and drawer of water. While not primarily historical then and falling far short of being an historical novel, this book is unconsciously informing and therefore interesting and valuable to the student of Negro life and history.

* * * * *

_The Emancipated and Freed in American Sculpture. A Study in Interpretation._ By FREEMAN HENRY MORRIS MURRAY. Murray Brothers, incorporated, Washington, D. C., 1916. Pp. 228.

This work is to some extent a compilation of matter which on former occasions have been used by the author in lectures and addresses bearing on the Negroes in art. There is in it, however, much that is new, for even in this formerly used material the author has incorporated additional facts and more extensive comment. This work is not given out as the last word. It is one of a series to appear under the caption of the "Black Folk in Art" or an effort to set forth the contributions of the blacks to art in ancient and modern times. This work itself is, as the author calls it, "A Study in Interpretation." His purpose, he says, is to indicate as well as he can, what he thinks are the criteria for the formation of judgment in these matters. Yet his interpretation is to be different from technical criticism, as his effort is primarily directed toward intention, meaning and effect. This thought is the keynote to the comments on the various sculptures illustrated in the work. While one may not agree with the author in his arrangement and may differ from his interpretation, it must be admitted that the book contains interesting information and is a bold step in the right direction. It is a portraiture of freedom as a motive for artistic expression and an effort to symbolize this desire for liberation to animate the citizenry in making. It brings to light numerous facts as to how the thought of the Negro has been dominant in the minds of certain artists and how in the course of time race prejudice has caused the pendulum to swing the other way in the interest of those who would forget what the blacks have thought and felt and done.

The many illustrations constitute the chief value of the work. There appears _The Greek Slave_ by Hiram Powers, _Freedom_ on the dome of the Capitol, _The Libyan Sibyl_ by W. W. Story, _The Freedman_ by J. I. A. Ward, _The Freedwoman_ by Edmonia Lewis, _Emancipation_ in Washington by Thomas Ball, _Emancipation_ in Edinburgh, Scotland, by George E. Bissell, _Emancipation_ panel on the Military Monument in Cleveland by Levi T. Scofield, _Emancipation_ by Meta Warrick Fuller, _The Beecher Monument_ in Brooklyn by J. I. A. Ward, _Africa_ by Randolph Rogers, _Africa_ by Daniel C. French, _The Harriet Tubman Tablet, The Frederick Douglass Monument_ in Rochester, _The Attucks Monument_ in Boston by Robert Kraus, _The Faithful Slaves Monument_ in Fort Mill, South Carolina, _l'Africane_ by E. Caroni, _l'Abolizione_ by R. Vincenzo, _Ethiopia_ and _Toussaint L'Ouverture_ by Anne Whitney, _The Slave Auction_, _The Fugitive's Story_, _Taking the Oath and Drawing Rations_, _The Wounded Scout_, and _Uncle Ned's School_ by John Rogers, _The Slave Memorial_ by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and _The Death of Major Montgomery_.

* * * * *

_The Question Before Congress. A consideration of the Debates and final action by Congress upon various Phases of the Race Question in the United States._ By GEORGE W. MITCHELL. The A. M. E. Book Concern, Philadelphia, 1918. Pp. 237.

This book contains little which has not been extensively treated in various other works of standard authors. It goes over the ground covered in books easily accessible in most local libraries. Yet there is in it something which the historian does not find in these other works. It is this same drama of history as it appears to an intelligent man of color well read in the history of this country although lacking the attitude of a scientific investigator. Whether he has written an accurate book is of little value here. These facts are already known. He has enabled the public to know the Negro's reaction on these things and that in itself is a contribution to history.

As to exactly what the author has treated little needs to be said. He begins with the slavery question in the Federal Convention of 1787 which framed the Constitution of the United States. Then comes the treatment of the slave trade, the debate on the Missouri Compromise, the exclusion of abolition literature from the mails, the attack on the right of petition, the exodus of antislavery men from the South, the murder of Lovejoy, the coming of Giddings to Congress, the Wilmot Proviso, the formation of the Free Soil party, antislavery men in Congress, the effort to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, the slavery question in California, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas Nebraska trouble, the organization of the Republican Party, the Dred Scott Decision, John Brown's Raid and the election of Abraham Lincoln.

Then follows a discussion of facts still more familiar. The author takes up the upheaval of the Civil War and the difficulty with which the Negroes effected a readjustment because of the large number of refugees. He next discusses the rôle of the Negro in politics during the Reconstruction period, the outrages which followed and the failure of the carpetbagger régime. The remaining portion of the book is devoted to the treatment of the Negroes in freedom and the problem of social justice. In fact, almost every phase of Negro political history from the formation of the Union to the present time has been treated by the author.

* * * * *

_Negro Population: 1790-1915._ By JOHN CUMMINGS, Ph.D., Expert Special Agent, Bureau of Census. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1918. Pp. 844.

This volume is unique in that never before in the history of the Bureau of the Census has it devoted a whole volume to statistics bearing on the Negro. This work, moreover, is more important than the average census report in that it covers a period of 125 years. The compiler has used not only previously published documents but various unpublished schedules, tables and manuscripts which give this work a decidedly historical value. Never before has the public been given so many new figures concerning the development and progress of the Negroes in this country. It is a cause of much satisfaction then that these facts are available so that many questions which have hitherto been puzzling because of the lack of such statistics may now be easily cleared up.

What the work comprehends is interesting. It is a statistical account of the "growth of the Negro population from decade to decade; its geographical distribution at each decennial enumeration; its migratory drift westward in the early decades of the last century, when Negroes and whites were moving forward into the East and West South Central States as cultivators of virgin soil; its drift northward and cityward, and in more recent decades southward out of the "black belt," in response to the universal gravity pull of complex economic and social forces; its widespread dispersion on the one hand, and on the other its segregation with reference to the white population; its sex and age composition and marital condition; its fertility, as indicated by the proportion of children to women of child-bearing age in different periods--again, under social conditions varying from the irresponsible relations of slavery to the more exacting institutions of freedom; its intermixture with other races, as shown by the increase in the proportion mulatto; its annual mortality in the registration area; its educational progress since emancipation, in so far as it can be measured by elementary schooling and by increasing literacy; its criminality, dependency, and physical and mental defectiveness--those characteristics of individual degeneracy which Negroes manifest in common with other racial classes in all civilized communities; finally, its economic progress, as indicated by increasing ownership of homes, by entrance into skilled trades and professions, and primarily and fundamentally by the rapid development of Negro agriculture."

Although this report goes as far back as 1790 most of the facts herein assembled bear on the life of the Negro since emancipation. This is not due, however, to the tendency to neglect the early period, but to the fact that earlier in our history statistics concerning Negroes were not considered valuable. It is only recently that public officials have directed attention to the importance of keeping these records and in many parts of the South certain statistics regarding Negroes are not yet considered worth while. The United States Government, however, as this volume indicates, has taken this matter seriously and from such volumes as this the public will expect more valuable information.

NOTES

To increase our circulation and the membership of the Association the management has employed as Field Agent Mr. J. E. Ormes, formerly connected with the business department of Wilberforce University. Mr. Ormes will appoint agents to sell books and solicit subscriptions to the JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY. He will also organize clubs for the study of Negro life and history.

Any five persons desiring to prosecute studies in this field intensively may organize a club and upon the payment of two dollars each will be entitled not only to receive free of further charge the JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, but may call on the Director for such instruction as can be given by mail. Members will be supplied with a quarterly outline study of the current numbers of the JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY and with a topical outline of the contents of the back numbers.

Clubs will be left free to work out their own organization and plans. The management, however, follows the plan of a group working under the simplest restrictions. There should be elected a president, a secretary, a treasurer, and an instructor. The last named official should be the most intelligent and the best informed member of the group.

* * * * *

E. Payen's _Belgique et Congo_ and P. Daye's _Les Conquetes Africaniques des Belge_ have been published by Berger-Levrault in Paris.

The Cornhill Publishing Company has brought out _Twenty-five Years in the Black Belt_ by W. J. Edwards.

P. A. Means has published through Marshall Jones _Racial Factors in a Democracy_.

The following significant articles have appeared in recent numbers of periodicals: _The Worth of an African_, by R. Keable in the July number of the International Review of Missions; _How Germany treats the Natives_ by Evans Lewis and M. Montgomery-Campbell; _Germany and Africa_ by Ethel Jollie in the June number of the United Empire; _International Interference in African Affairs_ by Sir. H. H. Johnson in the April number of the Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law; _The Native Question in British East Africa_ in the April number of the Contemporary Review; and _The Christian Occupation of Africa_ in the Proceedings of the African Conference.

THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. IV--JULY, 1919--NO. 3

THE EMPLOYMENT OF NEGROES AS SOLDIERS IN THE CONFEDERATE ARMY

The problem of arming the slaves was of far greater concern to the South, than to the North. It was fraught with momentous consequences to both sections, but pregnant with an influence, subtle yet powerful, which would affect directly the ultimate future of the Confederate Government. The very existence of the Confederacy depended upon the ability of the South to control the slave population. At the outbreak of the Civil War great fear as to servile insurrection was aroused in the South and more restrictive measures were enacted.[1]

Most of the Negro population was living in the area under rebellion, and in many cases the slaves outnumbered the whites. To arm these slaves would mean the lighting of a torch which, in the burning, might spread a flame throughout the slave kingdom. If the Negro in the midst of oppression had been in possession of the facts regarding the war, whether the slaves would have remained consciously faithful would have been a perplexing question.[2]

The South had been aware of its imminent danger and with its traditional methods strove to prevent the arming of the Negroes. With the memories of Negro insurrections ever fresh in the public mind, quite a change of front would be required to bring the South to view with favor such a radical measure. The South, however, was not alone in its unwillingness to employ Negroes as soldiers. For the first two years of the war, the North represented by President Lincoln and Congress refused to consider the same proposal. In the face of stubborn opposition loyal Negroes had been admitted into the Engineer and Quartermaster Departments of the Union armies, but their employment as soldiers under arms was discountenanced during the first years of the war.

In the North this discrimination caused much discontent among the Negroes but those living in the States in rebellion did not understand the issues in the war, and of necessity could not understand until the Union forces had invaded the hostile sections and spread the information which had gradually developed the point of view that the war was for the extermination of the institution of slavery. It may be recalled that during the opening days of the war, slaves captured by the Union forces were returned to their disloyal masters. Here there is sufficient evidence in the concrete that slavery was not the avowed cause of the conflict.[3] If there was this uncertain notion of the cause of the war among northern sympathizers, how much more befogged must have been the minds of the southern slaves in the hands of men who imagined that they were fighting for the same principles involved in our earlier struggle with Great Britain! To the majority of the Negroes, as to all the South, the invading armies of the Union seemed to be ruthlessly attacking independent States, invading the beloved homeland and trampling upon all that these men held dear[4].

The loyalty of the slave while the master was away with the fighting forces of the Confederacy has been the making of many orators of an earlier day, echoes of which we often hear in the present[5]. The Negroes were not only loyal in remaining at home and doing their duty but also in offering themselves for actual service in the Confederate army. Believing their land invaded by hostile foes, they were more than willing under the guidance of misguided southerners to offer themselves for the service of actual warfare. So that during the early days of the war, Negroes who volunteered were received into the fighting forces by the rebelling States, and particularly during those years in which the North was academically debating the advisability of arming the Negro.[6]

In the first year of the war large numbers were received into the service of the Confederate laboring units. In January, a dispatch from Mr. Riordan at Charleston to Hon. Percy Walker at Mobile stated that large numbers of Negroes from the plantations of Alabama were at work on the redoubts. These were described as very substantially made, strengthened by sand-bags and sheet-iron.[7] Negroes were employed in building fortifications, as teamsters and helpers in army service throughout the South.[8] In 1862, the Florida Legislature conferred authority upon the Governor to impress slaves for military purposes, if so authorized by the Confederate Government. The owners of the slaves were to be compensated for this labor, and in turn they were to furnish one good suit of clothes for each of the slaves impressed. The wages were not to exceed twenty-five dollars a month.[9] The Confederate Congress provided by law in February, 1864, for the impressment of 20,000 slaves for menial service in the Confederate army.[10] President Davis was so satisfied with their labor that he suggested, in his annual message, November, 1864, that this number should be increased to 40,000[11] with the promise of emancipation at the end of their service.

Before the outbreak of the war and the beginning of actual hostilities, the local authorities throughout the South had permitted the enrollment for military service of organizations formed of free Negroes, although no action had been taken or suggested by the Confederate Government. It is said that some of these troops remained in the service of the Confederacy during the period of the war, but that they did not take part in any important engagements.[12] There may be noted typical instances of the presence of Negroes in the State Militia. In Louisiana, the Adjutant-General's Office of the Louisiana Militia issued an order stating that "the Governor and the Commander-in-Chief relying implicitly upon the loyalty of the free colored population of the city and State, for the protection of their homes, their property and for southern rights, from the pollution of a ruthless invader, and believing that the military organization which existed prior to February 15, 1862, and elicited praise and respect for the patriotic motives which prompted it, should exist for and during the war, calls upon them to maintain their organization and hold themselves prepared for such orders as may be transmitted to them."[13]

These "Native Guards" joined the Confederate forces but they did not leave the city with these troops, when they retreated before General Butler, commanding the invading Union army. When General Butler learned of this organization after his arrival in New Orleans, he sent for several of the most prominent colored men of the city and asked why they had accepted service "under the Confederate Government which was set up for the purpose of holding their brethren and kindred in eternal slavery." The reply was that they dared not to refuse; that they had hoped, by serving the Confederates, to advance nearer to equality with the whites; and concluded by stating that they had longed to throw the weight of their class with the Union forces and with the cause in which their own dearest hopes were identified[14].

An observer in Charleston at the outbreak of the war noted the preparation for war, and called particular attention to "the thousand Negroes who, so far from inclining to insurrections, were grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of shooting the Yankees[15]." In the same city, one of the daily papers stated that on January 2, 150 free colored men had gratuitously offered their services to hasten the work of throwing up redoubts along the coast[16]. At Nashville, Tennessee, April, 1861, a company of free Negroes offered their services to the Confederate Government and at Memphis a recruiting office was opened[17]. The Legislature of Tennessee authorized Governor Harris, on June 28, 1861, to receive into the State military service all male persons of color between the ages of fifteen and fifty. These soldiers would receive eight dollars a month with clothing and rations. The sheriff of each county was required to report the names of these persons and in case the number of persons tendering their services was not sufficient to meet the needs of the county, the sheriff was empowered to impress as many persons as were needed[18]. In the same State, a procession of several hundred colored men marching through the streets attracted attention. They marched under the command of Confederate officers and carried shovels, axes, and blankets. The observer adds, "they were brimful of patriotism, shouting for Jeff Davis and singing war songs."[19] A paper in Lynchburg, Virginia, commenting on the enlistment of 70 free Negroes to fight for the defense of the State, concluded with "three cheers for the patriotic Negroes of Lynchburg."[20]

Two weeks after the firing on Fort Sumter, several companies of volunteers of color passed through Augusta on their way to Virginia to engage in actual war. Sixteen well-drilled companies of volunteers and one Negro company from Nashville composed this group.[21] In November of the same year, a military review was held in New Orleans. Twenty-eight thousand troops passed before Governor Moore, General Lowell and General Ruggles. The line of march covered over seven miles in length. It is said that one regiment comprised 1,400 free colored men.[22] _The Baltimore Traveler_ commenting on arming Negroes at Richmond, said: "Contrabands who have recently come within the Federal lines at Williamsport, report that all the able-bodied men in that vicinity are being taken to Richmond, formed into regiments, and armed for the defense of that city."[23]

During February, 1862, the Confederate Legislature of Virginia was considering a bill to enroll all free Negroes in the State for service with the Confederate forces.[24] The Legislatures of other States seriously considered the measure. Military and civil leaders, the Confederate Congress and its perplexed War Department debated among themselves the relative value of employing the Negroes as soldiers. Slowly the ranks of those at home were made to grow thin by the calls to the front. In April, 1862, President Davis was authorized to call out and place in service all white men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five; in September the ages were raised to include the years of thirty-five and forty-five; and finally in February, 1864, all male whites between the years of seventeen and fifty were made liable to military service. The Negroes were liable for impressment in the work of building fortifications, producing war materials, and the like.[25]

The demand became so urgent for men that quite a controversy arose over the advisability of employing the Negroes as soldiers. Some said that the Negro belonged to an inferior race and, therefore, could not be a good soldier; that the Negro could do menial work in the army, but that fighting was the white man's task. Those who supported the idea in its incipiency always urged the necessity of employing Negroes in the army. A native Georgian supported the employment of these troops in a letter to the Secretary of War, recommending freedom after the war was over to those who fought, compensation to the owners and the retention of the institution of slavery by continuing as slaves "boys and women, and exempted or detailed men." The statement concludes with "our country requires a quick and stringent remedy. Don't stop for reforms."[26]

In November, 1864, Jefferson Davis in his message to the Confederate Congress recognized that the time might come when slaves would be needed in the Confederate army: "The subject," said he, "is to be viewed by us, therefore, solely in the light of policy and our social economy. When so regarded, I must dissent from those who advise a general levy and arming of slaves for the duty of soldiers. Until our white population shall prove insufficient for the armies we require and can afford to keep the field, to employ as a soldier the Negro, who has merely been trained to labor, and as a laborer under the white man, accustomed from his youth to the use of firearms, would scarcely be deemed wise or advantageous by any; and this is the question before us. But should the alternative ever be presented of subjugation or of the employment of the slave as a soldier, there seems no reason to doubt what should be our decision."[27] In the same month, J. A. Seddon, Secretary of War, refused permission to Major E. B. Briggs of Columbus, Georgia, to raise a regiment of Negro troops, stating that it was not probable that any such policy would be adopted by Congress.[28]

In response to an inquiry from Seddon, the Secretary of War, as to the advisability of arming slaves, General Howell Cobb presented the point of view of one group of the Confederates, when he opposed the measure to arm the Negroes. "I think," said he "that the proposition to make soldiers of our slaves is the most pernicious idea that has been suggested since the war began ... you cannot make soldiers of slaves or slaves of soldiers. The moment you resort to Negro soldiers, your white soldiers will be lost to you, and one secret of the favor with which the proposition is received in portions of the army is the hope when Negroes go into the army, they (the whites) will be permitted to retire. It is simply a proposition to fight the balance of the war with Negro troops. You can't keep white and black troops together and you can't trust Negroes by themselves.... Use all the Negroes you can get for all purposes for which you need them but don't arm them. The day you make soldiers of them is the beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong."[29] General Beauregard, Commander of the Department of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, wrote to a friend in July, 1863, that the arming of the slaves would lead to the atrocious consequences which have ever resulted from the employment of "a merciless servile race as soldiers."[30] General Patton Anderson declared that the idea of arming the slaves was a "monstrous proposition revolting to southern sentiment, southern pride and southern honor."[31]

The opposite point of view was expressed by the group of southerners led by General Pat Cleburne who in a petition presented to General Joseph E. Johnson by several Confederate Officers wrote: "Will the slaves fight?--the experience of this war has been so far, that half-trained Negroes have fought as bravely as many half-trained Yankees."[32] J. P. Benjamin, Secretary of State, urged that the slave would be certainly made to fight against them, if southerners failed to arm them for southern defense. He advocated also the emancipation of those who would fight; if they should fight for southern freedom. According to Benjamin, they were entitled to their own. In keeping with the necessity of increasing the army, the editor of a popular newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, was besought to commence a discussion on this point in his paper so that "the people might learn the lesson which experience was sternly teaching."[33]

In a letter to President Davis, another argued that since the Negro had been used from the outset of the war to defend the South by raising provisions for the army, that the sword and musket be put in his hands, and concluding the correspondent added: "I would not make a soldier of the Negro if it could be helped, but we are reduced to this last resort."[34] Sam Clayton of Georgia wrote: "The recruits should come from our Negroes, nowhere else. We should away with pride of opinion, away with false pride, and promptly take hold of all the means God has placed within our reach to help us through this struggle--a war for the right of self-government. Some people say that Negroes will not fight. I say they will fight. They fought at Ocean Pond (Olustee, Fla.), Honey Hill and other places. The enemy fights us with Negroes, and they will do very well to fight the Yankees."[35]

The pressure to fill the depleted ranks of the Confederate forces became greater as the war continued. It was noted above that Congress and the State legislatures had called into service all able-bodied whites between the ages of seventeen and fifty years; later the ages were extended both ways to sixteen and sixty years. Grant remarked that the Confederates had robbed "the cradle and the grave" in order to fill the armies[36]. Jefferson Davis began to see the futility of a hypothetical discussion as to the advisability or values in the use of Negroes as soldiers and in a letter to John Forsythe, February, 1865, stated "that all arguments as to the positive advantage or disadvantage of employing them are beside the question, which is simply one of relative advantage between having their fighting element in our ranks or in those of the enemy."[37]

A strong recommendation for the use of Negroes as soldiers was sent to Senator Andrew Hunter at Richmond by General Robert E. Lee, in January, 1865. "I think, therefore," said he, "we must decide whether slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the slaves be used against us, or use them ourselves at the risk of the effects which may be produced upon our social institutions. My own opinion is that we should employ them without delay. I believe that with proper regulations they may be made efficient soldiers. They possess the physical qualifications in a marked degree. Long habits of obedience and subordination coupled with the moral influence which in our country the white man possesses over the black, furnish an excellent foundation for that discipline which is the best guaranty of military efficiency. Our chief aim should be to secure their fidelity. There have been formidable armies composed of men having no interest in the cause for which they fought beyond their pay or the hope of plunder. But it is certain that the surest foundation upon which the fidelity of an army can rest, especially in a service which imposes hardships and privations, is the personal interest of the soldier in the issue of the contest. Such an interest we can give our Negroes by giving immediate freedom to all who enlist, and freedom at the end of the war to the families of those who discharge their duties faithfully (whether they survive or not), together with the privilege of residing at the South. To this might be added a bounty for faithful service."[38] This was an influential word, coming as it did from the Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate forces. The Confederate Congress did not act immediately upon this suggestion, but even if this had been done, the measure would have been enacted too late to be of any avail.[39]

The Confederate Senate refused on February 7, 1865, to pass a resolution calling on the committee on military affairs to report a bill to enroll Negro soldiers. Later in the same month the Senate indefinitely postponed the measure.[40] As the House and Senate met in secret session much of the debate can not be found. General Lee wrote Representative Barksdale of Mississippi another letter in which the employment of Negro soldiers was declared not only expedient but necessary. He reiterated his opinion that they would make good soldiers as had been shown in their employment in the Union armies.[41] With recommendations from General Lee and Governor Smith of Virginia, and with the approval of President Davis an act was passed by the Congress, March 13, 1865, enrolling slaves in the Confederate army.[42] Each State was to furnish a quota of the total 300,000.[43] The Preamble of the act reads as follows:

"An Act to increase the Military Force of the Confederate States: The Congress of the Confederate States of America so enact, that, in order to provide additional forces to repel invasion, maintain the rightful possession of the Confederate States, secure their independence and preserve their institution, the President be, and he is hereby authorized to ask for and accept from the owners of slaves, the services of such number of able-bodied Negro men as he may deem expedient, for and during the war, to perform military service in whatever capacity he may direct...." The language used in other sections of the act seems to imply also that volunteering made one a freedman.[44]

After the passage of the measure by the Confederate Congress, General Lee coöperated in every way with the War Department in facilitating the recruiting of Negro troops.[45] Recruiting officers were appointed in each State. Lieutenant John L. Cowardin, Adjutant, 19th Batallion, Virginia Artillery was ordered to proceed on April 1, 1865, to recruiting Negro troops according to the act. On March 30, 1865, Captain Edward Bostick was ordered to raise four companies in South Carolina. Others were ordered to raise companies in Alabama, Florida, and Virginia.[46] Lee and Johnson, however, surrendered before this plan could be carried out. If the Confederate Congress could have accepted the recommendation in the fall of 1864, the war might have been prolonged a few months, to say the least, by the use of the Negro troops. It was the opinion of President Davis, on learning of the passage of the act, that not so much was accomplished as would have been, if the act had been passed earlier so that during the winter the slaves could have been drilled and made ready for the spring campaign of 1865.

Under the guidance of the local authorities, thousands of Negroes were enlisted in the State Militias and in the Confederate Army. They served with satisfaction, but there is no evidence that they took part in any important battles. The Confederate Government at first could not bring itself to acknowledge the right or the ability of the man who had been a slave to serve with the white man as a soldier. Necessity forced the acceptance of the Negro as a soldier. In spite of the long years of controversy with its arguments of racial inferiority,[47] out of the muddle of fact and fancy came the deliberate decision to employ Negro troops. This act, in itself, as a historical fact, refuted the former theories of southern statesmen. The Negro was thus a factor in both the Union and Confederate armies in the War of the Rebellion. These facts lead to the conclusion that the Negro is an American not only because he lives in America, but because his life is closely connected with every important movement in American history.

CHARLES H. WESLEY.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Davis, _The Civil War and Reconstruction in Florida_, p. 220.

[2] For summary of such, legislation to prevent this, see J.C. Kurd, _The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States_, Vol. II. In Florida, 1827, a law was enacted to prevent trading with Negroes. In 1828, death was declared the penalty for inciting insurrection among the slaves and in 1840 there was passed an act prohibiting the use of firearms by Negroes. In Virginia as early as 1748 there was enacted a measure declaring that even the free Negroes and Indians enlisted in the militia should appear without arms; but in 1806 the law was modified to provide that free Negroes should not carry arms without first obtaining a license from the county or corporation court. One who was caught with firearms in spite of this act was to forfeit the weapon to the informer and receive thirty-nine lashes at the whipping-post. Hening, _Statutes-at-Large_, Vol. V, p. 17; Vol. XVI, p. 274.

[3] General W. S. Harney, commanding in Missouri, responded to the claims of slaveholders for the return of runaway slaves with the words: "Already, since the commencement of these unhappy disturbances, slaves have escaped from their owners and have sought refuge in the camps of the United States troops from the Northern States, and commanded by a Northern General. They were carefully sent back to their owners." General D. C. Buell, commanding in Tennessee, in reply to the same demands stated: "Several applications have been made to me by persons whose servants have been found in our camps; and in every instance that I know of, the master has removed his servant and taken him away." William Wells Brown, _The Negro in the Rebellion_, pp. 57-58.

[4] Secretary Seddon, War Department, wrote: "They [the Negroes] have, besides, the homes they value, the families they love, and the masters they respect and depend on to defend and protect against the savagery and devastation of the enemy."--_Official Rebellion Records_, Series IV, Vol. Ill, pp. 761-762.

[5] Governor Walker of Florida, himself a former slaveholder, said before the State legislature in 1865 that "the world had never seen such a body of slaves, for not only in peace but in war they had been faithful to us. During much of the time of the late unhappy difficulties, Florida had a greater number of men in her army than constituted her entire voting population. This, of course, stripped many districts of their arms-bearing inhabitants and left our females and infant children almost exclusively to the protection of our slaves. They proved true to their trust. Not one instance of insult, outrage, or indignity has ever come to my knowledge. They remained at home and made provisions for the army." John Wallace, _Carpet-Bag Rule in Florida_, p. 23.

[6] "For more than two years, Negroes had been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They had been embodied and drilled as rebel soldiers and had paraded with white troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union."--Greely, _The American Conflict_, Vol. II, p. 524.

"It was a notorious fact that the enemy were using Negroes to build fortifications, drive teams and raise food for the army. Black hands piled up the sand-bags and raised the batteries which drove Anderson out of Sumter. At Montgomery, the Capital of the Confederacy, Negroes were being drilled and armed for military duty."--W. W. Brown, _The Negro in the Rebellion_, p. 59.

[7] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 521.

[8] Jones, _A Rebel War Clerk's Diary_, Vol. I, p. 237; Schwab, _The Confederate States of America_, p. 194.

[9] _Laws of Florida, 12th Session, 1862_, Chap. 1378.

[10] _Confederate War Department, Bureau of Conscription_, Circular No. 36, December 12, 1864. _Off. Reds. Reb._, Series IV, Vol. III, p. 933.

[11] _Off. Reds. Reb._, Series IV, Vol. Ill, p. 780. Journals of Congress, IV, 260.

[12] Washington, _The Story of the Negro_, Vol. II, p. 321.

[13] _Order No. 426. Adjutant-General's Office, Headquarters Louisiana Militia, March 24, 1862._ _Cf._ Brown, _The Negro in the Rebellion_, pp. 84-85.

[14] Parton, _History of the Administration of the Gulf_, 1862-1864; _General Butler in New Orleans_, p. 517.

[15] Greely, _The American Conflict_, p. 521.

[16] _The Charleston Mercury_, January 3, 1861.

[17] The announcement of the recruiting read: "Attention, volunteers: Resolved by the Committee of Safety that C. Deloach, D. R. Cook and William B. Greenlaw be authorized to organize a volunteer company composed of our patriotic free men of color, of the city of Memphis, for the service of our common defense. All who have not enrolled their names will call at the office of W. B. Greenlaw & Co." F. W. Forsythe, Secretary. F. Titus, President. Williams, _History of the Negro_, Vol. II, p. 277.

[18] Greely, _The American Conflict_, Vol. II, p. 521.

[19] _Memphis Avalanche_, September 3, 1861.

[20] Greely, _The American Conflict_, Vol. II, p. 522.

[21] _Ibid._, p. 277.

[22] _Ibid._, Vol. II, p. 522.

[23] _The Baltimore Traveler_, February 4, 1862.

[24] Greely, _The American Conflict_, Vol. II, p. 522.

[25] Schwab, _The Confederate States of America_, p. 193. Moore, _Rebellion Records_, Vol. VII, p. 210. Jones, _Diary_, Vol. I, p. 381.

[26] An indorsement from the Secretary of War reads: "If all white men capable of bearing arms are put in the field, it would be as large a draft as a community could continuously sustain, and whites are better soldiers than Negroes. For war, when existence is staked, the best material should be used."--_Off. Reds. Rebell._, Series IV, Vol. III, pp. 693-694.

[27] _Off. Reds. Rebell._, Series IV, Vol. III, p. 799.

[28] _Ibid._, Series IV, Vol. III, p. 846. J. A. Seddon to Maj. E. B. Briggs, Nov. 24, 1864.

[29] _Ibid._, Series IV, Vol. III, p. 1009.

[30] _Off. Reds. Rebell._, Series I, Vol. XXVIII, Pt. 2, p. 13.

[31] _Ibid._, Series I, Vol. LII, Pt. 2, p. 598.

[32] Davis, _Civil War and Reconstruction in Florida_, p. 226.

[33] _Off. Reds. Rebell._, Series IV, Vol. III, pp. 959-960.

[34] _Ibid._, p. 227.

[35] _Off. Reds. Rebell._, Series IV, Vol. III, pp. 1010-1011.

[36] Rhodes, _History of the United States since the Compromise of 1850_, Vol. IV, p. 525.

[37] _Off. Reds. Rebell._, Series IV, Vol. VIII, p. 1110.

[38] _Off. Reds. Rebell._, Series IV, Vol. VIII, p. 1013.

[39] Williams, _Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion_, Journals of Congress, Vol. IV, pp. 572-573.

In the _American Historical Review_, January, 1913, N.W. Stephenson has an article upon "The Question of Arming the Slaves." The article is concerned particularly with the debate in the Confederate Congress upon this perplexing question and with the psychology of the statements made by President Davis, Secretary Benjamin, General Lee and by various Congressmen. The author has searched the Journals of the Confederate Congress, newspaper files and personal recollections and gives conclusions which show that "the subject was discussed during the last winter of the Confederate regime," and by inference the dissertation shows that the fear of the consequences of arming the slaves was alike in the minds of all southern people. The treatise is a study in historical psychology; and, as in similar works by men of the type of the author, the point of view of the South and of the Confederacy is presented and the Negro and his actual employment as a soldier is neglected. The author contends that a few southern leaders attempted to force the arming of the blacks upon an unwilling southern public. He neglects the evidence contained in the action of local authorities in arming the Negroes who were free and their attitude concerning those who were slaves. He neglects also the sentiment of southern leaders who favored the measure. The Journals of the Confederate Congress, therefore, will be more valuable to those desiring information concerning the debates on this question.

[40] _Journal of Congress of Confederate States_, Vol. IV, p. 528 and Vol. VII, p. 595; Jones, _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 431.

[41] _Richmond Dispatch_, February 24, 1865; Jones _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 432.

[42] _Journal of Congress of Confederate States_, Vol. VII, p. 748.

[43] _Richmond Examiner_, December 9, 1864--Gov. Smith's Message. Jones, _Diary_, Vol. II, p. 43; pp. 432-433. Schwab, _The Confederate States of America_, p. 194.

[44] _Off. Reds. Rebell., Series_ IV, Vol. III, p. 1161.

_Ibid._, Series III, Vol. V, pp. 711-712; Davis, _Confederate Government_, Vol. II, p. 660.

[45] Rhodes, _History of U. S._, Vol. V, 1864-1865, p. 81.

[46] _Off. Reds. Rebell._, Series IV, Vol. III, pp. 1193-1194 and Appendix.

[47] _Cf. Southern Correspondence throughout the Rebellion Records._

THE LEGAL STATUS OF FREE NEGROES AND SLAVES IN TENNESSEE

In 1790, the free colored population of Tennessee was 361, while the slave numbered 3,417.[1] In 1787, three years previous, Davidson County, which then, as now, comprised the most important and thickly settled part of the Cumberland Valley, had a population of 105 Negroes between the ages of 1 and 60.[2] Nashville was just a rough community in the wilderness with a few settlers from the older districts of the East, living in several hewed and framed log-houses and twenty or more rough cabins. The census of 1790 gives Davidson County 677 Negroes, a figure which compared with the 3,778 Negroes in the entire State at that enumeration, means that this frontier region had already grown important enough to draw to it nearly one-fifth of the Negro population of the commonwealth. In 1800, there were in the State 13,893 Negroes, of whom 3,104, or nearly one fourth, were in Davidson County. Thereafter, although the ratio between the county and State did not increase in favor of the county, still it kept up so that by 1850 Davidson had the largest Negro population of any county in the State. During the decade 1850-60 Shelby County, containing the important center, Memphis, gained the ascendency in number of Negro inhabitants, which it has since that time maintained. The likely cause of this shifting was the steady growth of cotton-raising districts and their rapid expansion toward the West and South. A general intimidation of the Negroes of Nashville and vicinity occurred in 1856, probably having some influence on the decline of population for that period in question. This cause, however, is not sufficient to explain the constant superiority of numbers in the Southwestern Tennessee region thereafter.

As slavery expanded from this small territory into all parts of the State, the attitude of the people of the Commonwealth with respect to the nation and slavery at various times may be shown. After Tennessee had been ceded to the United States in 1790 by North Carolina, she had a most unusual method of throwing off her territorial government for nearly three months in 1796, and existed in absolute independence for that period before being admitted into statehood by the Federal Government.[3] Nevertheless in the period of the Civil War this State was the last to secede and the first to comply with the terms of readmission. With respect to slavery the early attitude of Tennessee toward the national government was peculiar. The cession act of North Carolina provided: "That no regulation made or to be made by Congress shall tend to emancipate slaves."[4] Probably because of this fact Lincoln did not mention Tennessee in the Emancipation Proclamation.

Yet Tennessee did have a strong anti-slavery sentiment, beginning with the outspoken protest of some of the King's Mountain heroes, also expressing itself in the work of many petitioners to the State legislature in the period 1800-1820. Then in 1834, in the State constitutional convention of that year, the anti-slavery feeling developed to proportions little appreciable at the present day, since we know the general opposition to such feeling and sentiment. Any antagonism to a so strongly fixed social convention then meant unusual courage in the midst of a majority of persons of adverse opinion.

The burning question of human rights for the black inhabitants of the State still became more ardent as the years passed, and the signs of its greater intensity were clearly seen in the Anti-Slavery Convention which met in London in 1843. The chronicle of proceedings contains a speech of Joshua Leavitt of Boston, who made the interesting statement that "The people of East Tennessee, a race of hardy mountaineers, find their interests so little regarded by the dominant slave-holders of other parts of the state that they are taking measures to become a separate state. They are holding anti-slavery meetings, and meetings of political associations with great freedom, discussing their questions, rousing up the people and showing how slavery curses them, in order to bring them to the point of action."[5] At this time it was well known that both Tennessee and Kentucky were "exporting slaves largely."[6]

In 1820, Elihu Embree,[7] at Jonesboro, Tennessee, the county seat of Washington County, in the far eastern section, began to publish _The Emancipator_, an abolition journal. Later, there came from this same county a man who easily became the leader of anti-slavery sentiment in the Constitutional Convention of 1834 at Nashville, Matthew Stephenson. It may have been that as a young man Stephenson was fired with the zeal of Embree. The period of Embree's activity was also one of large interest in the North and South in behalf of emancipation. In this same year the Missouri Compromise was passed in the national legislature. The concessions made both by pro-slavery and anti-slavery adherents at this time show the relative strength of the two forces and the remarkable fact is that there could be such near-equality of fighting strength on both sides.[8] Tennessee seems to have had an epitome of this national situation within her borders. Not only the zealous work of Embree indicates this, but the general feeling of the people of eastern Tennessee toward slavery. It is interesting here to point out that _The Emancipator_ was the first abolition journal in the United States.[9]

The outcome of this anti-slavery feeling in Tennessee was that when the State Constitutional Convention met at Nashville in 1834 to consider important changes in the Constitution of 1796, there was such an outburst of sentiment against slavery that it was only with considerable resistance of the pro-slavery convention delegates that the State did not abolish it by providing for the gradual emancipation of slaves over a period of twenty years, when all should have been emancipated.[10] So significant is the public opinion of that time in Tennessee history, and so well calculated to give large insight into the Negro's condition then in the State, that it will hardly be amiss in this paper to enter into a somewhat detailed discussion of the work of the convention, and the sentiments there displayed.

The legal enactments of the slave code of Tennessee prior to 1834 will give us the right perspective here. One of the earliest enactments of the commonwealth was the absolute denial to slaves of the right to own property. Property held by them, such as horses, cattle, or anything of personal value was to be sold and one half of the proceeds given to the informer, the other half to the county.[11] Another law forbade the slave to go about armed unless he was the huntsman of the plantation. Small penalties were provided.[12] Still another made it unlawful for slaves to sell "any article whatever without permission from owner or overseer." The penalty for breaking this law was a maximum of "39 lashes on his, her, or their bare backs."[13] Many other matters were rigidly prescribed in the early statutes, chiefly concerning the slave's right to go or not to go from place to place, and to conduct himself under certain circumstances. Among slaves perjury was punished by mutilation and whipping. The brutality of the former was all the more disgusting because defended by law.[14] The slaying of a black or mulatto slave, however, was actually deemed murder and made punishable with death. It has not yet been ascertained, as far as the writer knows, whether any white citizen of Tennessee was ever indicted under the provision of this law. We do have a case of a famous old slave-holder in a community not far from Nashville being tied to his gate post and severely whipped by his neighbors, because of his brutal murder of one of his slaves.[15]

In the early laws the "hiring of one's own time," for a slave, was expressly forbidden. This practice was that of the master's allowing a slave to purchase his time for a certain amount of money, usually paid per annum. The law forbidding it was later rather generally evaded, although we cannot be sure of the evasion during the years 1796-1834. But during the later decades of the period under discussion, especially from 1840-60, there is absolute agreement among the testimonies of ex-slaves that evasion was the rule and not the exception. Various forms of this law were later enacted, but the penalties were usually light, and it may have been this fact together with the case of evasion that caused the disregard of it to become general. An ex-slave of Wilson County explains that the usual method of evasion was the declaration of the employer of the slave that he had hired the slave from the slave's master. Sometimes the owner would pretend to keep the wages of the slave, but really was holding them at the slave's disposal. In this way numbers of slaves bought themselves.

There were other laws affecting masters in regard to their treatment of their slaves and privileges of the latter. One provided that if the slave should steal food or clothing because ill-fed or destitute of apparel, the master should pay for the stolen property.[16] By the provisions of another, slaves were allowed to give testimony in trials of other slaves; the jurors, however, had to be "housekeepers" and "owners of slaves."[17] The beating or abuse of a slave without sufficient cause (no indication given as to what were the limits of "sufficient cause") was an indictable offence, and the person committing a crime of this sort was liable to the same penalties as for the commission of a similar offense on the body of a white person.[18]

Various laws of the early codes, 1813, 1819, 1829, restricting the slave from selling or vending articles under conditions apart from desire or knowledge of his owner are all evidence of his complete subjection by law to the will of his master, even in the smallest things and affairs of personal life, and disposal of belongings. Great care was taken to state specifically in these early laws that there should be no sale of liquor or any intoxicant to slaves.[19]

The provisions concerning larger questions of a slave's activity and privilege are all interesting, and it will be of value to regard, first of all, that for bringing slaves into the State. Slaves were not to be brought into Tennessee unless for use, or procured by descent, devise, or marriage.[20] This enactment was made in 1826, and prepared the way for far more severe measures later. The idea of all legislation of this nature argues clearly the discouragement of slavery as a prevailing institution, by means of preventing fresh importations for sale. Tennessee was not to be, if it could be prevented, a slave market, like Mississippi.

A citizen holding slaves might petition the county court and emancipate a slave. Bond and security were required of the owner, and the slave thus set at liberty became free to go where he chose provided that, if he became a pauper, he should be brought to the county in which he had been set free, and there taken care of at public expense.[21] But occasionally there would arise a situation which required special enactment of the legislature as in the instance of one, Pompey Daniels, a slave, who died before the emancipation of his two children, Jeremiah and Julius, whom he had purchased. This required a special act of the legislature, as there seems to have been no law covering such a case.[22] Years before, in 1801, there was enacted a law, giving power of emancipation to the owner, as we have just seen before, but not to any slave who might essay to deliver another from bondage.[23]

Once free, the Negro's status was rather precarious in some respects. He was required to have papers filled out by the clerk of the county in which he lived, specifying personal details and information intended to identify the person thoroughly. He must without fail have these emancipation records with him at any time and place in order to prove his freedom. In 1831 a law was passed which made it obligatory for the slave to leave upon his emancipation, and persons intending to emancipate their slaves were then compelled to give bond for their speedy removal.[24] Another clause of the same law stipulates that free Negroes should not be allowed to enter the State.[25] Fine and imprisonment were specified as penalties for remaining in the State as long as twenty days. This was a reaction from the provisions of State laws of 1825 when free colored persons immigrating into the State might have papers of freedom registered there, when proof of their absolute freedom had been made. Before the enactment of 1831, the increase of free Negroes was not so actively discouraged by the State, and many having their residence there, the laws concerning this class were quite as important and nearly as well detailed as the provisions of the slave code.

Among the early laws is one exacting a penalty of $500 fine for selling a "free person of color."[26] A free person imported and sold as a slave under the law might recover double the price of his sale from the seller, who might be held until he should give bond.[27] This marks a high degree of feeling of justice toward the freeman, and yet it is worthy of notice that this was not always adequate to obtaining actual justice. Record is given of three young colored men, seamen and free, "carried to Mobile and New Orleans in the steamer _New Castle_ and taken ashore by the captain to the city prison on pretext of getting hemp for the vessel, but really taken by the captain to the city prison as his slaves and sold by the jailor to three persons who carried them into Tennessee."[28] It is further stated that these unfortunates remained in slavery. One, however, was freed by the diligent work of the Friends, who had agents in the South busy gathering information concerning slavery, and planning means of combating it.

The free person of color was exempted from military duty and from the payment of a poll-tax. In accordance with an amendment to the Public Works act of 1804, he was expected to give service on public roads and highways just as other citizens.[29] It is doubtful whether any freeman of color voted under the constitution of 1796, but it seems to have been possible. The new constitution of 1834 restricted the right of voting to "free men who should be competent witnesses against a white man in a court of justice." In the courts free Negroes were legal witnesses in certain cases among their own people, but might themselves be testified against by slaves, even, if the defendants were only freedmen.[30] Otherwise slaves were not allowed to be witnesses against free men of color. Writs of error were granted to both freemen and slaves.

There were numerous small observances regarding the personal conduct of freemen. Life was at best for them a strange and circumscribed affair. They were "neither bond nor free," and probably suffered more from the provisions of the law and their ambiguous position than did their slave brothers. The freeman was not to entertain any slave over night in his home, or on the Sabbath. A small fine was the penalty.[31] Intermarriage of free persons and slaves without consent of the master of the slave was strictly forbidden. Breach of this law, also, was punishable by fine. There were penalties for whites and free Negroes alike for being in "unlawful assembly" with slaves. The word "unlawful" here seems to have had a special judicial meaning, signifying primarily for the purpose of instigating rebellion or insurrection. A law providing for voluntary enslavement of a free person of color, to any person whom he might choose, introduces a most interesting situation which probably indicates that there were more than a few free Negroes who preferred slavery to the condition of a creature living in a sort of limbo between freedom and bondage.

By an act of the legislature in 1819, encouragement was given to European immigrants to come into the State, with the idea that they would become home builders and land-tillers, and make good citizens. The colored population already had a general reputation for thrift, but the sentiment of racial sympathy in the white population just then favored more the immigrant. For a period the tide of public opinion was on this side, and it was considered best for the Negro to be taken in charge by the Tennessee Colonization Society. The State appropriated $10 for every black man removed from the State, an expense finally sanctioned by a law of 1833.[32]

Two years prior to the year of the Tennessee Constitutional Convention of 1834, Virginia in her State Legislature, had witnessed an exciting scene of debate on the question of slavery. In the District of Columbia, also, there was sent to Congress in the session of 1827-28 a petition requesting the "prospective abolition" of slavery in that district, and the repeal of certain laws authorizing the sale of runaways. Similarly in Tennessee the outbreak of antislavery sentiment, long fostered in the eastern part of the State, came into the Convention of 1834. The few details presented here concerning the convention show conclusively that there was a strong, even violent opposition to human slavery in the State. Certain representatives of counties from East Tennessee were conspicuous for their protest against the system, and maintained their convictions despite the failure to win their point at that time.

Many memorialists in the State had addressed the legislature on the question of emancipation both pro and con prior to the convention, and finally, in the convention, on June 18, Wm. Blount of Montgomery County, Northern Tennessee, offered a memorial that on the subject of slavery the General Assembly should have no power or authority to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of their owners or without paying their owners.[33] The memorial further prayed that, the legislature should not discourage the foreign immigration into the State and that certain laws providing for the owners of slaves to emancipate them should be made with the restriction that beforehand such manumitted persons should be assuredly prevented from becoming a charge to any county.

There were presented other memorials respecting the slave population at this time. Hess, of Gibson and Dyer counties, wanted no emancipation of slaves except by individual disposition of their masters as the latter saw fit, or at least never unless the price of the slave was paid, provided the master did not freely give manumission, and the good of the State seemed to demand the liberation of the slave. But memorials of a different sentiment also were coming in. On May 26, McNeal presented a memorial of sundry citizens of McMinn County, asking for the emancipation of slaves in Tennessee, and on the same date, Senter of Rhea County also brought a petition from "sundry citizens" of his district asking for emancipation.[34] On the 28th, a memorial was given by Stephenson of Washington County from citizens unhesitatingly favoring emancipation. It was read and tabled.

On May 30, Stephenson introduced a resolution to have a committee of thirteen, one from each congressional district "appointed to take in consideration the propriety of designating some period from which slavery shall not be tolerated in this state, and that all memorials on that subject that have or may be presented to the convention be referred to said committee to consider and report thereon."[35] This resolution passed without trouble.

Stephenson was conspicuous for adherence to emancipation principles. It will be observed that he came from Washington County, in the far eastern portion of the State, the region already famous for its declaration of enmity toward slavery within Tennessee borders especially. An article in the _Knoxville Register_ of the year 1831, just a few years prior to this Nashville Convention, denounces slavery in no uncertain terms, but also grows bitter at the thought of free men of color even remaining in the State. "Shall Tennessee" it asks, "be made the receptacle of the vicious and desperate slave as well as the depraved and corrupting free man of color?"[36]

But while a great number of those of East Tennessee probably wanted the abolition of slavery in order to rid the State of all people of color, there were those who through their delegates expressed their opinions otherwise in this convention, as has been intimated in the three memorials from "sundry citizens" of Washington and McMinn and Rhea Counties. Finally, the report of the Committee of Thirteen was given by John A. McKinney, of Hawkins County. It will be noted as an exception to the rule that this representative of an eastern county did not vigorously stand for the emancipation of the slave, but in his report spoke at length to attempt the justification of the system prevailing at that time in the State. Some of the most interesting points of his argument are: that slavery is an evil, but hard to remove, that the physiognomy of the slave is the great barrier to successful adjustment socially as far as white citizens think and feel, that the condition of the free man of color is tragic, that beset with temptations, and denied his oath in a court of justice, he is unable to have wrongs of whites against him redressed, that any interference with slavery at this time would cause a speedy removal of Tennessee population since slave-owners would seek other States with their slaves, and that if Tennessee should free all her slaves, there would be a greater concentration of all the slaves of the United States, giving slaves more advantage in case of uprising.

Since the slave population in 1830 was 142,530, a fair estimate for 1834 would be 150,000, and this host of newly-made freedmen, thought he, would jeopardize the social safety of the white population of Tennessee, and incite the slave inhabitants of adjoining States to sedition. Slavery would not always exist, he believed, but Tennessee could abolish it then without dire results. Colonization was difficult, but possible and practicable.

This report was given on June 19. A few days later a motion was made by a Bedford County delegate to strike out that part of the report referring to the condition of the free man of color as "tragic." This did not prevail. Still later Stephenson in a set speech protested vigorously against the acceptance of the report of the Committee of Thirteen. He declared that the report was "an apology for slavery," and did not show the convention willing to discharge its duty to the memorialists, and to the people whose protests could not there be heard. His principal argument was that the principles guiding this committee in its decision were subversive of the principles of true republicanism; that they were also against the principles of the Bible. Since the committee had admitted the evil of slavery, he contended, the failure to find a remedy is unworthy of the representatives of the people of the State. He maintained that there is no soundness in the argument that because of the physical differences, the black man should be deprived of the "common rights of man," and that it is not better to have slavery distributed over a large area of country than to concentrate it, if slavery is an evil, since the spread of any evil cannot be better than its limitation.[37]

As an indirect blow at any possible suffrage right of any persons of color under the new constitution, Marr, delegate from Weakley and Obion, introduced a resolution at this time intended to restrict suffrage permanently and definitely to white males, specifically prohibiting all "mulattoes, negroes, and Indians." This was referred to the committee of the whole, but, oddly enough, failed of adoption.[38] The intermittent debate on the subject of emancipation, led on the one side by Stephenson, and on the other by McKinney, was resumed a few days later when the latter gave an additional report. He stated that the memorials with their signatures had been examined and the names attached to them had numbered 1804 in all. 105 purported to be slave-holders, said he, but by inquiry the committee had ascertained that the aggregate number of slaves in their possession was not greater than 500. He admitted that there were several counties from which memorials had come, but charged that there had been a signing of more than one memorial in some counties by the same persons, so that there was a doubling of names without a proportional increase of individual signers. He depreciated Stephenson's statement that these memorials had come from almost every part of the State as ill-founded; for the sixteen counties of Tennessee which had sent representatives with memorials favorable to the idea of emancipation were not from widely scattered portions of the State. Only five extended westward beyond the longitude of Chattanooga, and there were none of the more western counties represented. The two sections of the State seemed to bear no hostility toward each other, but decidedly disagreed on the slavery question. The question was largely an economic one with the Tennesseans of the Mississippi Valley. Cotton was coming into greater and greater importance every year. It could, they thought, be most profitably raised by large groups of workmen whose labor was cheap. The slave was the logical person, and they fastened on him the burden.

Lest the impression has been made that the only portion of the State from which the sentiment of an anti-slavery nature came was East Tennessee, it will be well to refer to the vigorous speech of Kincaid, a delegate from Bedford County, who flung a parting reply to the friends and sympathizers of the Committee of Thirteen which had succeeded in thwarting any official action upon the matter proposed by the memorialists.[39] Bedford County, in the central portion of the State, represented both economically and socially a type of citizen different from that of the mountaineer stock. Yet Kincaid fearlessly defended the plain human rights of the colored population in his speech as much as Stephenson had done, and scathingly denounced the Committee of Thirteen for its attitude toward slavery.

The pro-slavery faction, however, successfully contended that the emancipation party had no definite plan for emancipation, as those in Washington County and other districts were divided in their ideas on this subject. There were about thirty memorials besides the one from this county, one half of them asking that all children born in the State after 1835 should be free and that all slaves should be freed in 1855 and sent out of the State. The other half of the memorials favored making the slaves free in 1866 and having them colonized. As a matter of fact, Tennessee did emancipate its slaves three years earlier than this date. By the Committee of Thirteen these statements were given to show that there could be no virtue in acting in accord with the wishes of the memorialists, as they were hopelessly divided in their recommendations. The report of the committee was tabled, but the debate was by no means ended. Further detail is not of use to us here save to point out that there was no vote in the matter and that Stephenson bitterly upbraided the convention as a whole, stating that it had not made an effort to answer the prayer of the memorialists. The survey of this prolonged and unprofitable struggle shows how divided were the people of Tennessee on the question of abolishing slavery.[40]

Later in the convention there occurred some incidents which throw light on the situation of the Negro. The Bill of Rights in the amended constitution, sec. 26, provided: "That free white men of this state have a right to keep and bear arms in their own defence."[41] A delegate from Sevier County objected to the word "white" and moved that it be stricken from the record. Another member from Green County moved that the word "citizens" be inserted instead of "free white men," but this was rejected by a vote of 19 to 30, Stephenson and and others from East Tennessee voting with the ayes, and the Committee of Thirteen with others defeating the motion. A resolution was then brought forward by a delegate from Dyer County intended to prohibit the general assembly from having power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without consent of owners.[42] Immediately a memorialist sympathizer moved to lay this on the table until January, 1835. His effort was lost, and the resolution passed. Thus was the day completely won for the anti-emancipation faction.

There had been considerable discussion as to the status of free men of color, and although one provision of the constitution seemed to give the right of suffrage to all free men, yet there was a restriction limiting the privilege of voting to those who were "competent witnesses in a court of justice against a white person."[43] One commentator upon his unusual provision observes that one cannot tell how many Negroes were entitled to vote under this provision.[44] But whatever present-day students may make of this, it was recognized by the members of this convention that the free Negro had no suffrage right, for near the close of the convention there was submitted a resolution providing that since "free men of color were denied suffrage by the constitution," the apportionment of senators and representatives from their respective districts should be based on the white population alone.[45] The revised constitution contains this provision, but with different wording.

The general tendency of the whole body of legal enactments in the period 1834-65 was toward restricting the slave more and more, and at the same time, eliminating the element known as free Negroes. Probably this had an effect upon the percentage of free Negroes in the total population as seen in the years 1820 and 1850. The national percentage for these years in question was in each case six tenths of one per cent.[46] But as the total Negro population increased despite the migration southward from Tennessee, the ratio for Tennessee in 1820 was 3 per cent, and for 1850, 2.4 per cent, a period of greater repression, showing decrease, although very slight.

A general law of 1839 forbade the slave to act as a free person, that is, to hire his own time from his master, or to have merchandisable property and trade therewith.[47] Runaways were to be punished by being made to labor on the streets or alleys of towns, as well as by imprisonment. Several laws show the tendency to class free Negroes with slaves by stating that all capital offences for slaves were also capital offences for free Negroes.[48] Another plainly provides that all offences made capital in the code of that time for slaves, should also be capital for "free persons of color."[49] Further, "no free person of color might keep a grocery or tippling house" under pain of a heavy fine. It will be seen that the attitude thus was plainly more and more adverse to the free Negro. An act of 1842 had made it possible to amend all laws relating to "free persons of color," and this was freely done.[50]

Free Negroes of "good character," either resident in the State prior to 1836 or having removed to the State before that year, and preferring, in their respective county courts, petitions to remain in the same, might do so, but otherwise must leave the State under severe penalties of imprisonment and hard labor, as provided under the law of 1831, prior to the new constitution. The subjects of this legal provision were to renew this court proceeding every three years, under the same penalty for failing to perform the renewal.[51] The laws of registry of free Negroes were kept in force and made, if anything, more rigid. One provision of these enactments was that there should be in the registration papers specification of any "peculiar physical marks on the person" so registered.[52] This practice, defended by law, is exceedingly interesting to the student who compares it with what has long been common knowledge regarding the practices of slave-buyers in the markets. And here we have a measure of the complete humiliation of the "free person of color," for every free Negro or mulatto residing in any county of the State was compelled to undergo this examination before officers of the county court and be duly registered thereafter as a free person.[53]

As might be expected, the law of 1831 was followed up by enactments strictly requiring the emancipation of slaves, when allowed by the State, to be followed closely by the removal of the freedmen from the State. Also instructions for the transportation of certain Negroes to Africa were given in the same code. Those who had acquired freedom after 1836, or who should do so, together with slaves successfully suing for freedom, also free Negroes unable to give bond for good behavior although having right to reside in the State, were all to be transported to Africa, unless they went elsewhere out of the State, according to provision by law.[54]

The word "mulatto" is found often in the laws of this period, showing that this type was becoming an important factor in the race relations of white and black. As far as is known, there is no way of obtaining even the approximate proportion of white mothers to white fathers, but because of the overwhelming evidence by personal testimony of ex-slaves as to the relations of the masters and overseers of plantations to the slave women, and the corresponding power of the dominant race to prevent, at least in large degree, similar physical marriages between Negroes and the women of their race, we may be said rightly to infer that the proportion of white mothers of colored offspring to white fathers was then, as it has always been, very small. In Maryland, according to Brackett, the child of a white father and a mulatto slave could not give testimony in court against a white person, whereas the child of a white mother and a black man would be disqualified in this regard only during his term of service.[55] "A free mulatto was good evidence," says he, "against a white person."[56] The mulatto of Tennessee had no such social or legal position as either of these cases indicate, although here again personal testimony brings to light notable exceptions of the social behavior of individuals in certain localities, where this type, that is, the colored offspring of white motherhood, was regarded as a separate class, above the ordinary person of color.[57]

It is likely that in East Tennessee there was considerable prevalence of such amalgamation of African and Scotch-Irish race stocks, with white motherhood.[58] The reasons were largely economic. Many of the whites who came to live in the lower farm lands down from their first holdings on the rocky slopes and unfertile soil, were driven from these more productive lowlands by the rich white land owners who preferred to have large plantations with great numbers of blacks to raise the crops, rather than to rent or sell to small farmers. For these poorer white neighbors there was no recourse but to take to the mountains and to cultivate there the less desirable lands. The life they had to live was necessarily very rough and hard; their principal diet was corn, and often the rocky soil only yielded them that grudgingly and scantily. They frequently came in contact with the slaves, and the latter were known to steal provisions from their masters' storehouses and bring to these hill-country people appetizing additions to their meager provisions. And the slaves were also known to mingle with them in the quilting, husking, barn-raisings, and other rural festivities, being undoubtedly made welcome. It requires no immoderate imagination to state here the likelihood of much racial intermixure, as we know, from testimony, of more than a few specific cases, and we have, in this rather strange way, the account of social intermingling and the secret gifts of the black men who visited these mountain homes.

WILLIAM LLOYD IMES.

PHILADELPHIA, PA.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Compendium, U. S. Census (1870), pp. 13-15.

[2] The _Nashville American_, "City of Nashville" booklet, p. 20.

[3] Garrett and Goodpasture, _History of Tennessee_, pp. 249 sqq.

[4] _Ibid._, pp. 245-246.

[5] _Proceedings of the Anti-Slavery Convention_, London, 1843.

[6] _Ibid._, p. 300.

[7] See paper of E. E. Hoss, Tenn. Hist. Soc., Nashville.

[8] Greely, Horace, _The American Conflict_, p. 79, New York, 1864.

[9] _Journal of The Constitutional Convention_, State of Tennessee, 1834.

[10] _Journal of Constitutional Convention_, 1834.

[11] Haywood and Cobb, _Statute Laws of Tenn._, 1779, Ch. 5.

[12] _Ibid._, 1741, Ch. 21.

[13] _Ibid._, 1788, Ch. 7.

[14] _Ibid._, 1799, Ch. 9.

[15] R. T. Q., Jr., State Archives, Capitol Library, Tennessee.

[16] This is most natural, of course, but is inserted to emphasize the absolute quality of ownership, for the master was held responsible for the deed just as if he himself had committed it, and the slaves were morally irresponsible. But for other breaches of social good conduct the slave was the direct victim of the penalty, thus at once being slave and man, property and human being.

[17] _Statute Laws of Tenn._, 1819, Chap. 35.

[18] Acts, 2d Session Gen. Assembly (Knoxville), 1809.

[19] _Statute Laws_, 1813, Chap. 135.

[20] _Ibid._, 1826, Ch. 22, Sec. 1.

[21] _Ibid._, 1801, Ch. 27, Sec. 1.

[22] _Acts of Gen. Assembly_ (Tenn.), 1822, Ch. 102.

[23] Cf. 1 and 2.

[24] _Statute Laws_, 1831, Ch. 102, Sec. 2.

[25] _Ibid._, Sec. 2.

[26] _Statute Laws_, 1826, Ch. 22, Sec. 6.

[27] _Ibid._, 1741, Ch. 24, Sec. 23.

[28] _Proceedings of the Anti-Slavery Convention_, London, 1843.

[29] _Acts of the Gen. Assembly, Tennessee_, 1821, Chap. 26.

[30] _Statute Laws, Tenn._, Chap. 6, Sec. 2. Laws of 1787.

[31] _Statute Laws, Tenn._, Chap. 6, Sec. 2, Laws of 1787.

[32] _Ibid._, 1833, Chap. 4, Sec. 1.

[33] _Tenn. Constitutional Convention Journal_, 1834.

[34] _Tenn. Constitutional Convention Journal_, pp. 31-40.

[35] _Ibid._, p. 53.

[36] _Southern Statesman_ (clipping from _Knoxville Register_, Oct., 1831).

[37] _Tenn. Constitutional Convention Journal_, 1834, pp. 102-104.

[38] _Ibid._, pp. 125-126.

[39] Journal Const. Conv., _op. cit._, pp. 214 et seq.

[40] _Tennessee Constitutional Journal_, 1834, pp. 126 et seq.

[41] _Ibid._, pp. 184 et seq.

[42] _Ibid._, p. 200, p. 209.

[43] Constitution of Tenn., 1834, Art. 3, Sec. 1.

[44] Code of Tenn. '57, '58, Sec. 3809.

[45] Stephenson, _Race Distinctions in American Law_, p. 284. _Tenn. Const. Conv. Journal_, 1834, _op. cit._, p. 209.

[46] Bureau of the Census, "A Century of Pop. Growth," p. 82. Washington, 1909.

[47] _Acts of Tenn._, 1846, Chap. 47 (Nicholson).

[48] Code of 1858, Tenn., Art. IV, See. 2725.

[49] _Ibid._, Sec. 2725.

[50] _Ibid._, Sec. 2728.

[51] Nicholson, _Acts of Tenn._, 1846, Chap. 191, Sec. 1.

[52] Code of Tenn., _op. cit._, Sec. 2714.

[53] _Ibid._, Sec. 2793-2794. Cf. Statute Laws here.

[54] _Statute Laws, Tenn._, 1846, Ch. 191.

[55] Brackett, "The Negro in Maryland," _Johns Hopkins Studies_, Ch. V, p. 191.

[56] _Ibid._, pp. 191-192.

[57] Personal Testimony, B. S.; J. P. Q. E.; E. S. M. Nashville, 1912.

[58] {Transcriber's Note: Missing footnote text in original.}

NEGRO LIFE AND HISTORY IN OUR SCHOOLS

The study of the ethnology and the history of the Negro has not yet extended far beyond the limit of cold-blooded investigation. Prior to the Civil War few Americans thought seriously of studying the Negro in the sense of directing their efforts toward an acquisition of knowledge of the race as one of the human family; and this field was not more inviting to Europeans, for the reduction of the Negro to the status of a tool for exploitation began in Europe. The race did receive attention from pseudo-scientists, a few historians pointed out the possibilities of research in this field, and others brought forward certain interesting sketches of distinguished Negroes exhibiting evidences of the desirable qualities manifested by other races.

There was a new day for the Negro in history after the Civil War. This rending of the nation was such an upheaval that American historians eagerly applied themselves to the study of the ante-bellum period to account for the economic, social, and political causes leading up to this struggle. In their treatment of slavery and abolition, they had to give the Negro some attention. In some cases, therefore, the historians of that day occasionally departed from the scientific standard to give personal sketches of Negroes indicating to some extent the feeling, thought and the aspiration of the whole race. Writers deeply interested in the Negroes at that time wrote eulogistic biographies of distinguished Negroes and of white persons who had devoted their lives to the uplift of the despised race. The attitude in most cases was that the Negroes had been a very much oppressed people and that their enslavement was a disgrace of which the whole country should be made to feel ashamed. As it was the people of the South who had to bear the onus of this criticism and they were not at that time sufficiently enlightened to produce historians like Hildreth, Bancroft, Prescott, Redpath and Parkman, the world largely accepted the opinions of those historians who sympathized with the formerly persecuted Negroes.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, however, there came about a change in the attitude of American scholarship effected largely by political movements. Because of the unpopularity and the blunders of the southern States reconstructed on the basis of universal suffrage and mainly under the dictation of white adventurers from the North, the majority of the influential men of the country reached the conclusion that the southern white man, in spite of his faults as a slaveholder, had not been properly treated. This unsatisfactory régime, therefore, was speedily overthrown and the freedman was gradually reduced to the status of the free Negro prior to the Civil War on the grounds that it had been proved that he was not a white man with a black skin.

Following immediately thereupon came a new day for education in the South. Many of its ambitious young men went North to study in the leading universities then devoting much attention to the preparation of scholars for scientific investigation. The investigators from the South directed their attention primarily toward the vindication of the slavery régime and the overthrow of the Reconstruction governments. As a result there have appeared a number of studies on slavery and the Reconstruction. All of this task was not done by southerners and was not altogether confined to the universities, but resulted no doubt largely from the impetus given it in these centers, especially at Johns Hopkins and Columbia. It was influenced to a great extent by the attitude of southern scholars. Ingle, Weeks, Bassett, Cooley, Steiner, Munford, Trexler, Bracket, Ballagh, Tremain, McCrady, Henry, and Russell directed their attention to the study of slavery. With the works of Deane, Moore, Needles, Harris, Washburn, Dunn, Bettle, Davidson, Hickok, Pelzer, Morgan, Northrop, Smith, Wright, and Turner dealing with slavery in the North, the study of the institution by States has been considered all but complete. In a general way the subject of slavery has been treated by A. B. Hart, H. E. von Holst, John W. Burgess, James Ford Rhodes, and U. B. Phillips.

The study of the Reconstruction has proceeded with renewed impetus and has finally been seemingly exhausted in a way peculiar to the recent investigators. Among these studies are those of Matthews, Garner, Ficklen, Eckenrode, Hollis, Flack, Woolley, Ramsdell, Davis, Hamilton, Thompson, Reynolds, Burgess, Pearson, and Hall, most of whom received their inspiration at Johns Hopkins University or Columbia. The same period has been treated in a general way by W. A. Dunning, John W. Burgess, James Schouler, J. B. MacMaster, James Ford Rhodes and W. L. Fleming. Most of these studies deal with social and economic causes as well as with the political and some of them are in their own way well done. Because of the bias in several of them, however, John R. Lynch and W.E.B. DuBois have endeavored to answer certain adverse criticisms on the record of the Negroes during the Reconstruction period.

Speaking generally, however, one does not find in most of these works anything more than the records of scientific investigators as to facts which in themselves do not give the general reader much insight as to what the Negro was, how the Negro developed from period to period, and the reaction of the race on what was going on around it. There is little effort to set forth what the race has thought and felt and done as a contribution to the world's accumulation of knowledge and the welfare of mankind. While what most of these writers say may, in many respects, be true, they are interested in emphasizing primarily the effect of this movement on the white man, whose attitude toward the Negro was that of a merchant or manufacturer toward the materials he handled and unfortunately whose attitude is that of many of these gentlemen writing the history in which the Negroes played a part as men rather than as coal and iron.

The multiplication of these works adversely critical of the Negro race soon had the desired result. Since one white man easily influences another to change his attitude toward the Negro, northern teachers of history and correlated subjects have during the last generation accepted the southern white man's opinion of the Negro and endeavor to instill the same into the minds of their students. Their position seems to be that because the American Negro has not in fifty years accomplished what the master class achieved in fifty centuries the race cannot be expected to perform satisfactorily the functions of citizenship and must, therefore, be treated exceptionally in some such manner as devised by the commonwealths of the South. This change of sentiment has been accelerated too by southern teachers, who have established themselves in northern schools and who have gained partial control of the northern press. Coming at the time when many Negroes have been rushing to the North, this heresy has had the general effect of promoting the increase of race prejudice to the extent that the North has become about as lawless as the South in its treatment of the Negro.

Following the multiplication of Reconstruction studies, there appeared a number of others of a controversial nature. Among these may be mentioned the works of A. H. Stone and Thomas Pierce Bailey adversely criticizing the Negro and those of a milder form produced by Edgar Gardner Murphy, and Walter Hines Page. Then there are the writings of William Pickens, and W. E. B. DuBois. These works are generally included among those for reference in classes studying Negro life, but they throw very little light on the Negro in the United States or abroad. In fact, instead of clearing up the situation they deeply muddle it. The chief value of such literature is to furnish facts as to sentiment of the people, which in years to come will be of use to an investigator when the country will have sufficiently removed itself from race prejudice to seek after the truth as to all phases of the situation.

The Negro, therefore, has unfortunately been for some time a negligible factor in the thought of most historians, except to be mentioned only to be condemned. So far as the history of the Negro is concerned, moreover, the field has been for some time left largely to those sympathetically inclined and lacking scientific training. Not only have historians of our day failed to write books on the Negro, but this history has not been generally dignified with certain brief sketches as constitute the articles appearing in the historical magazines. For example, the _American Historical Review_, the leading magazine of its kind in the United States, published quarterly since 1895, has had very little material in this field. Running over the files one finds Jernagan's _Slavery and Conversion in the American Colonies_, Siebert's _Underground Railway_, Stevenson's _The Question of Arming the Slaves_, DuBois's _Reconstruction and its Benefits_, and several economic studies of the plantation and the black belt by A. H. Stone and U.B. Phillips. It has been announced, however, that the Carnegie Institution for Historical Research will in the future direct attention to this neglected field.

In schools of today the same condition unfortunately obtains. The higher institutions of the Southern States, proceeding doubtless on the basis that they know too much about the Negro already, have not heretofore done much to convert the whites to the belief that the one race should know more about the other. Their curricula, therefore, as a general thing carry no courses bearing on Negro life and history.

In the North, however, the situation is not so discouraging. Some years ago classes in history in northern colleges and universities made a detailed study of slavery and abolition in connection with the regular courses in American history. There has been much neglect in this field during the last generation, since many teachers of history in the North have been converted to the belief in the justice of the oppression of the Negro, but there are still some sporadic efforts to arrive at a better understanding of the Negro's contribution to history in the United States. This is evidenced by the fact that Ohio State University offers in its history department a course on the _Slavery Struggles in the United States_, and the University of Nebraska one on the _Negro Problem under Slavery and Freedom_.

This study in the northern universities receives some attention in the department of sociology. Leland Stanford University offers a course on _Immigration and the Race Problems_, the University of Oklahoma another known as _Modern Race Problems_. The University of Missouri and the University of Chicago offer _The Negro in America_; the University of Minnesota, _The American Negro_; and Harvard University, _American Population Problems: Immigration and the Negro_. This study of the race problem, however, has in many cases been unproductive of desirable results for the reason that instead of trying to arrive at some understanding as to how the Negro may be improved, the work has often degenerated into a discussion of the race as a menace and the justification of preventative measures inaugurated by the whites.

A few Negro schools sufficiently advanced to prosecute seriously the study of social sciences have had courses in sociology and history bearing on the Negro. Tuskegee, Atlanta, Fiske, Wilberforce and Howard have undertaken serious work in this field. They have been handicapped, however, by the lack of teachers trained to do advanced work and by the dearth of unbiased literature adequate to the desired illumination. The work under these circumstances, therefore, has been in danger of becoming such a discussion of the race problem as would be expected of laymen expressing opinions without data to support them. In the reconstruction which these schools are now undergoing, history and sociology are given a conspicuous place and the tendency is to assign this work to well-informed and scientifically trained instructors. These schools, moreover, are now not only studying what has been written but have undertaken the preparation of scholars to carry on research in this neglected field.

The need for this work is likewise a concern to the enlightened class of southern whites. Seeing that a better understanding of the races is now necessary to maintain that conservatism to prevent this country from being torn asunder by Socialism and Bolshevism, they are now making an effort to effect a closer relation between the blacks and whites by making an intensive study of the Negro. Fortunately too this is earnestly urged by the group of rising scholars of the new South. To carry out this work a number of professors from various southern universities have organized what is called the University Commission on Southern Race Questions. They are calling the attention of the South to the world-wide reconstruction following in the wake of the World War, which will necessarily affect the country in a peculiar way. They point to the fact that almost 400,000 Negroes were called into the military service and thousands of others to industrial centers of the North. Knowing too that the demobilization of the Negroes and whites in the army will bring home a large number of remade men who must be adapted anew to life, they are asking for a general coöperation of the whites throughout the South in the interest of the Negro and the welfare of the land.

These gentlemen are directing this study toward the need of making the South realize the value of the Negro to the community, to inculcate a sympathy for the Negro and to enable the whites to understand that the race cannot be judged by the shortcomings of a few of the group. They are appealing to the country and especially to the scholarly men of the South for more justice and fair play for the Negroes in view of the fact that, in spite of the radical aliens who set to work among the Negroes to undermine their loyalty, the Negroes maintained their morale and supported the war. Men of thought then are boldly urged to engage in this movement for a large measure of thoughtfulness and consideration, for the control of "careless habits of speech which give needless offense and for the practice of just relations. To seek by all practicable means to cultivate a more tolerant spirit, a more generous sympathy, and a wider degree of coöperation between the best elements of both races, to emphasize the best rather than the worst features of interracial relations, to secure greater publicity for those whose views are based on reason rather than prejudice--these, they believe are essential parts of the Reconstruction program by which it is hoped to bring into the world a new era of peace and democracy. Because college men are rightly expected to be molders of opinion, the Commission earnestly appeals to them to contribute of their talents and energy in bringing this program to its consummation."

Among these are James J. Doster, Professor of Education, University of Alabama; David Y. Thomas, Professor of Political Science and History, University of Arkansas; James M. Farr, Professor of English, University of Florida; R. P. Brooks, Professor of History, University of Georgia; William O. Scroggs, Professor of Economics and Sociology, Louisiana State University; William L. Kennon, Professor of Physics, University of Mississippi; E. C. Branson, Professor of Rural Economics, University of North Carolina; Josiah Morse, Professor of Philosophy, University of South Carolina; James D. Hoskins, Dean of the University of Tennessee; William S. Sutton, Professor of Education, University of Texas; and William M. Hunley, Professor of Economics and Political Science, Virginia Military Institute.

C. G. WOODSON.

GREGOIRE'S SKETCH OF ANGELO SOLIMANN

The historical setting of this sketch is the life of the author himself. Abbé Grégoire was born in 1750 and died in 1831. He was educated at the Jesuit College at Nancy. He then became Curé and teacher at the Jesuit school at Pont-a-Mousson. In this position he had the opportunity to apply himself to study and soon attained some distinction as a scholar. In 1783 he was crowned by the Academy of Nancy for his _Éloge de La poésie_ and in 1788 by that of Metz for an _Essai sur la Régénération physique et morale des Juifs_. Throughout his career he exhibited evidences of a breadth of mind and interest in the man far down. When the French Revolution broke out, therefore, he easily became a factor in the upheaval, but endeavored always to restrain the people from fury and vandalism. In 1789, he was elected by the clergy of the bailliage of Nancy to the States-General, where he coöperated with the group of deputies of Jansenist or Gallican sympathies.

He was among the first of the clergy to join the third estate and contributed largely to the union of the three orders. He took an active part in the abolition of the privileges of the nobles of the church and under the new constitution he was one of the first to take oath. In taking this stand, however, he lost the support of most of his fellow churchmen, who, unlike Abbé Grégoire, did not think that the Catholic religion is reconcilable with modern conceptions of political liberty. Because of the changing fortunes of the revolutionists, therefore, Abbé Grégoire finally found himself often deserted and sometimes almost reduced to poverty.

To the end of his career, however, he maintained his attitude of benevolence toward the oppressed. Differing widely from most white men, who although willing to take radical measures to make democracy safe for themselves, are reluctant to extend its benefits to those of color, Abbé Grégoire earnestly labored in the Constituent Assembly to bring about the emancipation of the Negroes in the French colonies. His interest in persons of African blood, moreover, was not restricted to the mere abolition of slavery because it was a stain on the character of the whites but he endeavored also to elevate the slaves to the full status of citizenship. It was largely through his efforts that men of color in the French colonies were soon after their emancipation admitted to the same civil and political rights as the whites in those dependencies.

He made an effort, moreover, to influence public opinion in behalf of the Negroes in other lands. Having read in Jefferson's _Notes on Virginia_ his references to the so-called inferiority of the Negroes, Grégoire sent him a copy of his _De la Litterature des Nègres_. Replying to the communication transmitting this publication Jefferson expressed himself in diplomatic and flattering terms, apparently indicating that he had expressed the opinion of inferiority with much hesitation and that the argument to establish the doctrine was after all rather weak. Writing a few days later to Joel Barlow, Jefferson no doubt expressed his real opinion as to what he thought of the inferiority of the Negro and Grégoire's evidences to the contrary. The pamphlet no doubt had some effect for, "As to Bishop Grégoire," says he, "I wrote him a very soft answer. It was impossible for doubt to have been more tenderly or hesitatingly expressed than there was in the _Notes on Virginia_ and nothing was or is further from my intentions than to enlist myself as the champion of a fixed opinion where I have only expressed a doubt."

In later years, however, Abbé Grégoire's _De la Litterature des Nègres_ fell into the hands of a more sympathetic man. This was D. B. Walden of Brooklyn, New York, then secretary to the legation at Paris. Interested in the abolition of the slave trade and the welfare of the blacks, Walden translated Grégoire's _De la Litterature des Nègres_, that friends of the race unacquainted with the French language might have additional information as to what the Negro had done to demonstrate that the race is not intellectually inferior to others. This translation, however, is unfortunate because of the numerous faults throughout the work and largely on account of its omissions. Exactly why the translator did not desire to bring before the American public all of the facts set forth in this book has never been exactly cleared up. It has been said, however, that the facts omitted were too favorable to the Negro race to be received by the American public at that time. The whole work should be translated as soon as some scholar can direct his attention to it, but, in the absence of such an effort, I am submitting herewith a translation of the most striking omission,