The most influential people who gave thought to this question finally decided that the colonization of the Negro in Africa was the only solution of the problem. The plan of African colonization appealed more generally to the people of both North and South than the other efforts, which, at best, could do no more than to offer local or temporary relief. The African colonizationists proceeded on the basis that the Negroes had no chance for racial development in this country. They could secure no kind of honorable employment, could not associate with congenial white friends whose minds and pursuits might operate as a stimulus upon their industry and could not rise to the level of the successful professional or business men found around them. In short, they must ever be hewers of wood and drawers of water.[2]

To emphasize further the necessity of emigration to Africa the advocates of deportation to foreign soil generally referred to the condition of the migrating Negroes as a case in evidence. "So long," said one, "as you must sit, stand, walk, ride, dwell, eat and sleep here and the Negro there, he cannot be free in any part of the country."[3] This idea working through the minds of northern men, who had for years thought merely of the injustice of slavery, began to change their attitude toward the abolitionists who had never undertaken to solve the problem of the blacks who were seeking refuge in the North. Many thinkers controlling public opinion then gave audience to the colonizationists and circles once closed to them were thereafter opened.[4]

There was, therefore, a tendency toward a more systematic effort than had hitherto characterized the endeavors of the colonizationists. The objects of their philanthropy were not to be stolen away and hurried off to an uncongenial land for the oppressed. They were in accordance with the exigencies of their new situation to be prepared by instruction in mechanic arts, agriculture, science and Biblical literature that some might lead in the higher pursuits and others might skilfully serve their fellows.[5] Private enterprise was at first depended on to carry out the schemes but it soon became evident that a better method was necessary. Finally out of the proposals of various thinkers and out of the actual colonization feats of Paul Cuffe, a Negro, came a national meeting for this purpose, held in Washington, December, 1816, and the organization of the American Colonization Society. This meeting was attended by some of the most prominent men in the United States, among whom were Henry Clay, Francis S. Key, Bishop William Meade, John Randolph and Judge Bushrod Washington.

The American Colonization Society, however, failed to facilitate the movement of the free Negro from the South and did not promote the general welfare of the race. The reasons for these failures are many. In the first place, the society was all things to all men. To the anti-slavery man whose ardor had been dampened by the meagre results obtained by his agitation, the scheme was the next best thing to remove the objections of slaveholders who had said they would emancipate their bondsmen, if they could be assured of their being deported to foreign soil. To the radical proslavery man and to the northerner hating the Negro it was well adapted to rid the country of the free persons of color whom they regarded as the pariahs of society.[6] Furthermore, although the Colonization Society became seemingly popular and the various States organized branches of it and raised money to promote the movement, the slaveholders as a majority never reached the position of parting with their slaves and the country would not take such radical action as to compel free Negroes to undergo expatriation when militant abolitionists were fearlessly denouncing the scheme.[7]

The free people of color themselves were not only not anxious to go but bore it grievously that any one should even suggest that they should be driven from the country in which they were born and for the independence of which their fathers had died. They held indignation meetings throughout the North to denounce the scheme as a selfish policy inimical to the interests of the people of color.[8] Branded thus as the inveterate foe of the blacks both slave and free, the American Colonization Society effected the deportation of only such Negroes as southern masters felt disposed to emancipate from time to time and a few others induced to go. As the industrial revolution early changed the aspect of the economic situation in the South so as to make slavery seemingly profitable, few masters ever thought of liberating their slaves.

Scarcely any intelligent Negroes except those who, for economic or religious reasons were interested, availed themselves of this opportunity to go to the land of their ancestors. From the reports of the Colonization Society we learn that from 1820 to 1833 only 2,885 Negroes were sent to Africa by the Society. Furthermore, more than 2,700 of this number were taken from the slave States, and about two thirds of these were slaves manumitted on the condition that they would emigrate.[9] Later statistics show the same tendency. By 1852, 7,836 had been deported from the United States to Liberia. 2,720 of these were born free, 204 purchased their freedom, 3,868 were emancipated in view of their going to Liberia and 1,044 were liberated Africans returned by the United States Government.[10] Considering the fact that there were 434,495 free persons of color in this country in 1850 and 488,070 in 1860, the colonizationists saw that the very element of the population which the movement was intended to send out of the country had increased rather than decreased. It is clear, then, that the American Colonization Society, though regarded as a factor to play an important part in promoting the exodus of the free Negroes to foreign soil, was an inglorious failure.

Colonization in other quarters, however, was not abandoned. A colony of Negroes in Texas was contemplated in 1833 prior to the time when the republic became independent of Mexico, as slavery was not at first assured in that State. The New York Commercial Advertiser had no objection to the enterprise but felt that there were natural obstacles such as a more expensive conveyance than that to Monrovia, the high price of land in that country, the Catholic religion to which Negroes were not accustomed to conform, and their lack of knowledge of the Spanish language. The editor observed that some who had emigrated to Hayti a few years before became discontented because they did not know the language. Louisiana, a slave State, moreover, would not suffer near its borders a free Negro republic to serve as an asylum for refugees.[11] The Richmond Whig saw the actual situation in dubbing the scheme as chimerical for the reason that a more unsuitable country for the blacks did not exist. Socially and politically it would never suit the Negroes. Already a great number of adventurers from the United States had gone to Texas and fugitives from justice from Mexico, a fierce, lawless and turbulent class, would give the Negroes little chance there, as the Negroes could not contend with the Spaniard and the Creole. The editor believed that an inferior race could never exist in safety surrounded by a superior one despising them. Colonization in Africa was then urged and the efforts of the blacks to go elsewhere were characterized as doing mischief at every turn to defeat the "enlightened plan" for the amelioration of the Negroes.[12]

It was still thought possible to induce the Negroes to go to some congenial foreign land, although few of them would agree to emigrate to Africa. Not a few Negroes began during the two decades immediately preceding the Civil War to think more favorably of African colonization and a still larger number, in view of the increasing disabilities fixed upon their class, thought of migrating to some country nearer to the United States. Much was said about Central America, but British Guiana and the West Indies proved to be the most inviting fields to the latter-day Negro colonizationists. This idea was by no means new, for Jefferson in his foresight had, in a letter to Governor Edward Coles, of Illinois, in 1814, shown the possibilities of colonization in the West Indies. He felt that because Santo Domingo had become an independent Negro republic it would offer a solution of the problem as to where the Negroes should be colonized. In this way these islands would become a sort of safety valve for the United States. He became more and more convinced that all the West Indies would remain in the hands of the people of color, and a total expulsion of the whites sooner or later would take place. It was high time, he thought, that Americans should foresee the bloody scenes which their children certainly, and possibly they themselves, would have to wade through. [13]

The movement to the West Indies was accelerated by other factors. After the emancipation in those islands in the thirties, there had for some years been a dearth of labor. Desiring to enjoy their freedom and living in a climate where there was not much struggle for life, the freedmen either refused to work regularly or wandered about purposely from year to year. The islands in which sugar had once played a conspicuous part as the foundation of their industry declined and something had to be done to meet this exigency. In the forties and fifties, therefore, there came to the United States a number of labor agents whose aim was to set forth the inviting aspect of the situation in the West Indies so as to induce free Negroes to try their fortunes there. To this end meetings were held in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston and even in some of the cities of the South, where these agents appealed to the free Negroes to emigrate.[l4]

Thus before the American Colonization Society had got well on its way toward accomplishing its purpose of deporting the Negroes to Africa the West Indies and British Guiana claimed the attention of free people of color in offering there unusual opportunities. After the consummation of British emancipation in those islands in 1838, the English nation came to he regarded by the Negroes of the United States as the exclusive friend of the race. The Negro press and church vied with each other in praising British emancipation as an act of philanthropy and pointed to the English dominions as an asylum for the oppressed. So disturbed were the whites by this growing feeling that riots broke out in northern cities on occasions of Negro celebrations of the anniversary of emancipation in the West Indies.[l5]

In view of these facts, the colonizationists had to redouble their efforts to defend their cause. They found it a little difficult to make a good case for Liberia, a land far away in an unhealthy climate so much unlike that of the West Indies and British Guiana, where Negroes had been declared citizens entitled to all privileges afforded by the government. The colonizationists could do no more than to express doubt that the Negroes would have there the opportunities for mental, moral and social betterment which were offered in Liberia. The promoters of the enterprise in Africa did not believe that the West Indian planters who had had emancipation forced upon them would accept blacks from the United States as their equals, nor that they, far from receiving the consideration of freedmen, would be there any more than menials. When told of the establishment of schools and churches for the improvement of the freedmen, the colonizationists replied that schools might be provided, but the planters could have no interest in encouraging education as they did not want an elevated class of people but bone and muscle. As an evidence of the truth of this statement it was asserted that newspapers of the country were filled with disastrous accounts of the falling off of crops and the scarcity of labor but had little to say about those forces instrumental in the uplift of the people.[16]

An effort was made also to show that there would be no economic advantage in going to the British dominions. It was thought that as soon as the first demand for labor was supplied wages would be reduced, for no new plantations could be opened there as in a growing country like Liberia. It would be impossible, therefore, for the Negroes immigrating there to take up land and develop a class of small farmers as they were doing in Africa. Under such circumstances, they contended, the Negroes in the West Indies could not feel any of the "elevating influences of nationality of character," as the white men would limit the influence of the Negroes by retaining practically all of the wealth of the islands. The inducements, therefore, offered the free Negroes in the United States were merely intended to use them in supplying in the British dominions the need of men to do drudgery scarcely more elevating than the toil of slaves.[l7]

Determined to interest a larger number of persons in diverting the attention of the free Negroes from the West Indies, the colonizationists took higher ground. They asserted that the interests of the millions of white men in this country were then at stake, and even if it would be better for the three million Negroes of the country gradually to emigrate to the British dominions, it would eventually prove prejudicial to the interests of the United States. They showed how the Negroes immigrating into the West Indies would be made to believe that the refusal to extend to them here social and political equality was cruel oppression and the immigrants, therefore, would carry with them no good will to this country. When they arrived in the West Indies their circumstances would increase this hostility, alienate their affections and estrange them wholly from the United States. Taught to regard the British as the exclusive friends of their race, devoted to its elevation, they would become British in spirit. As such, these Negroes would be controlled by British influence and would increase the wealth and commerce of the British and as soldiers would greatly strengthen British power.[l8]

It was better, therefore, they argued, to direct the Negroes to Liberia, for those who went there with a feeling of hostility against the white people were placed in circumstances operating to remove that feeling, in that the kind solicitude for their welfare would be extended them in their new home so as to overcome their prejudices, win their confidence, and secure their attachment. Looking to this country as their fatherland and the home of their benefactors, the Liberians would develop a nation, taking the religion, customs and laws of this country as their models, marketing their produce in this country and purchasing our manufactures. In spite of its independence, therefore, Liberia would be American in feeling, language and interests, affording a means to get rid of a class undesirable here but desirable to us there in their power to extend American influence, trade and commerce.[l9]

Negroes migrated to the West Indies in spite of this warning and protest. Hayti, at first looked upon with fear of having a free Negro government near slaveholding States, became fixed in the minds of some as a desirable place for the colonization of free persons of color.[20] This was due to the apparent natural advantages in soil, climate and the situation of the country over other places in consideration. It was thought that the island would support fourteen millions of people and that, once opened to immigration from the United States, it would in a few years fill up by natural increase. It was remembered that it was formerly the emporium of the Western World and that it supplied both hemispheres with sugar and coffee. It had rapidly recovered from the disaster of the French Revolution and lacked only capital and education which the United States under these circumstances could furnish. Furthermore, it was argued that something in this direction should be immediately done, as European nations then seeking to establish friendly relations with the islands, would secure there commercial advantages which the United States should have and could establish by sending to that island free Negroes especially devoted to agriculture.

In 1836, Z. Kingsley, a Florida planter,[2l] actually undertook to carry out such a plan on a small scale. He established on the northeast side of Hayti, near Port Plate, his son, George Kingsley, a well-educated colored man of industrious habits and uncorrupted morals, together with six "prime African men," slaves liberated for that express purpose. There he purchased for them 35,000 acres of land upon which they engaged in the production of crops indigenous to that soil.

Hayti, however, was not to be the only island to get consideration. In 1834 two hundred colored emigrants went from New York alone to Trinidad, under the superintendence and at the expense of planters of that island. It was later reported that every one of them found employment on the day of arrival and in one or two instances the most intelligent were placed as overseers at the salary of $500 per annum. No one received less than $1.00 a day and most of them earned $1.50. The Trinidad press welcomed these immigrants and spoke in the highest terms of the valuable services they rendered the country.[22] Others followed from year to year. One of these Negroes appreciated so much this new field of opportunity that he returned and induced twenty intelligent free persons of color living in Annapolis, Maryland, also to emigrate to Trinidad.[23]

The New York Sun reported in 1840 that 160 colored persons left Philadelphia for Trinidad. They had been hired by an eminent planter to labor on that island and they were encouraged to expect that they should have privileges which would make their residence desirable. The editor wished a few dozen Trinidad planters would come to that city on the same business and on a much larger scale.[24] N.W. Pollard, agent of the Government of Trinidad, came to Baltimore in 1851 to make his appeal for emigrants, offering to pay all expenses.[25] At a meeting held in Baltimore, in 1852, the parents of Mr. Stanbury Boyce, now a retired merchant in Washington, District of Columbia, were also induced to go. They found there opportunities which they had never had before and well established themselves in their new home. The account which Mr. Boyce gives in a letter to the writer corroborates the newspaper reports as to the success of the enterprise.[26]

The New York Journal of Commerce reported in 1841 that, according to advices received at New Orleans from Jamaica, there had arrived in that island fourteen Negro emigrants from the United States, being the first fruits of Mr. Barclay's mission to this country. A much larger number of Negroes were expected and various applications for their services had been received from respectable parties.[27] The products of soil were reported as much reduced from former years and to meet its demand for labor some freedmen from Sierra Leone were induced to emigrate to that island in 1842.[28] One Mr. Anderson, an agent of the government of Jamaica, contemplated visiting New York in 1851 to secure a number of laborers, tradesmen and agricultural settlers.[29]

In the course of time, emigration to foreign lands interested a larger number of representative Negroes. At a national council called in 1853 to promote more effectively the amelioration of the colored people, the question of emigration and that only was taken up for serious consideration. But those who desired to introduce the question of Liberian colonization or who were especially interested in that scheme were not invited. Among the persons who promoted the calling of this council were William Webb, Martin R. Delaney, J. Gould Bias, Franklin Turner, Augustus Greene, James M. Whitfield, William Lambert, Henry Bibb, James T. Holly and Henry M. Collins.

There developed in this assembly three groups, one believing with Martin R. Delaney that it was best to go to the Niger Valley in Africa, another following the counsel of James M. Whitfield then interested in emigration to Central America, and a third supporting James T. Holly who insisted that Hayti offered the best opportunities for free persons of color desiring to leave the United States. Delaney was commissioned to proceed to Africa, where he succeeded in concluding treaties with eight African kings who offered American Negroes inducements to settle in their respective countries. James Redpath, already interested in the scheme of colonization in Hayti, had preceded Holly there and with the latter as his coworker succeeded in sending to that country as many as two thousand emigrants, the first of whom sailed from this country in 1861.[30] Owing to the lack of equipment adequate to the establishment of the settlement and the unfavorable climate, not more than one third of the emigrants remained. Some attention was directed to California and Central America just as in the case of Africa but nothing in that direction took tangible form immediately, and the Civil War following soon thereafter did not give some of these schemes a chance to materialize.

[Footnote 1: The African Repository, XVI, p. 22.]

[Footnote 2: The African Repository, XVI, p. 23; Alexander, A History of Colonization, p. 347.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid., XVI, p. 113.]

[Footnote 4: Jay, An Inquiry, pp. 25, 29; Hodgkin, An Inquiry, p. 31.]

[Footnote 5: The African Repository, IV, p. 276; Griffin, A Plea for Africa, p. 65.]

[Footnote 6: Jay, An Inquiry, passim; The Journal of Negro History, I, pp. 276-301; and Stebbins, Facts and Opinions, pp. 200-201.]

[Footnote 7: Hart, Slavery and Abolition, p. 237.]

[Footnote 8: The Journal of Negro History, I, pp. 284-296; Garrison, Thoughts on Colonization, p. 204.]

[Footnote 9: The African Repository, XXXIII, p. 117.]

[Footnote 10: The African Repository, XXIII, p. 117.]

[Footnote 11: The African Repository, IX, pp. 86-88.]

[Footnote 12: Ibid., IX, p. 88.]

[Footnote 13: "If something is not done, and soon done," said he, "we shall be the murderers of our own children. The 'murmura venturos nautis prudentia ventos' has already reached us (from Santo Domingo); the revolutionary storm, now sweeping the globe will be upon us, and happy if we make timely provision to give it an easy passage over our land. From the present state of things in Europe and America, the day which begins our combustion must be near at hand; and only a single spark is wanting to make that day to-morrow. If we had begun sooner, we might probably have been allowed a lengthier operation to clear ourselves, but every day's delay lessens the time we may take for emancipation."

As to the mode of emancipation, he was satisfied that that must be a matter of compromise between the passions, the prejudices, and the real difficulties which would each have its weight in that operation. He believed that the first chapter of this history, which was begun in St. Domingo, and the next succeeding ones, would recount how all the whites were driven from all the other islands. This, he thought, would prepare their minds for a peaceable accommodation between justice and policy; and furnish an answer to the difficult question, as to where the colored emigrants should go. He urged that the country put some plan under way, and the sooner it did so the greater would be the hope that it might be permitted to proceed peaceably toward consummation.—See Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, VI, p. 349, VII, pp. 167, 168.]

[Footnote 14: Letter of Mr. Stanbury Boyce; and The African Repository.]

[Footnote 15: Philadelphia Gazette, Aug. 2, 3, 4, 8, 1842; United States Gazette, Aug. 2-5, 1842; and the Pennsylvanian, Aug. 2, 3, 4, 8, 1842.]

[Footnote 16: The African Repository, XVI, pp. 113-115.]

[Footnote 17: The African Repository, XXI, p. 114.]

[Footnote 18: The African Repository, XVI, p. 116.]

[Footnote 19: The African Repository, XVI, p. 115.]

[Footnote 20: Ibid., XVI, p. 116.]

[Footnote 21: Speaking of this colony Kingsley said: "About eighteen months ago, I carried my son George Kingsley, a healthy colored man of uncorrupted morals, about thirty years of age, tolerably well educated, of very industrious habits, and a native of Florida, together with six prime African men, my own slaves, liberated for that express purpose, to the northeast side of the Island of Hayti, near Porte Plate, where we arrived in the month of October, 1836, and after application to the local authorities, from whom I rented some good land near the sea, and thickly timbered with lofty woods, I set them to work cutting down trees, about the middle of November, and returned to my home in Florida. My son wrote to us frequently, giving an account of his progress. Some of the fallen timber was dry enough to burn in January, 1837, when it was cleared up, and eight acres of corn planted, and as soon as circumstances would allow, sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, rice, beans, peas, plantains, oranges, and all sorts of fruit trees, were planted in succession. In the month of October, 1837, I again set off for Hayti, in a coppered brig of 150 tons, bought for the purpose and in five days and a half, from St. Mary's in Georgia, landed my son's wife and children, at Porte Plate, together with the wives and children of his servants, now working for him under an indenture of nine years; also two additional families of my slaves, all liberated for the express purpose of transportation to Hayti, where they were all to have as much good land in fee, as they could cultivate, say ten acres for each family, and all its proceeds, together with one-fourth part of the net proceeds of their labor, on my son's farm, for themselves; also victuals, clothes, medical attendance, etc., gratis, besides Saturdays and Sundays, as days of labor for themselves, or of rest, just at their option."

"On my arrival at my son's place, called Cabaret (twenty-seven miles east of Porte Plate) in November, 1837, as before stated, I found everything in the most flattering and prosperous condition. They had all enjoyed good health, were overflowing with the most delicious variety and abundance of fruits and provisions, and were overjoyed at again meeting their wives and children; whom they could introduce into good comfortable log houses, all nicely whitewashed, and in the midst of a profuse abundance of good provisions, as they had generally cleared five or six acres of their land each, which being very rich, and planted with every variety to eat or to sell on their own account, and had already laid up thirty or forty dollars apiece. My son's farm was upon a larger scale, and furnished with more commodious dwelling houses, also with store and out houses. In nine months he had made and housed three crops of corn, of twenty-five bushels to the acre, each, or one crop every three months. His highland rice, which was equal to any in Carolina, so ripe and heavy as some of it to be couched or leaned down, and no bird had ever troubled it, nor had any of his fields ever been hoed, or required hoeing, there being as yet no appearance of grass. His cotton was of an excellent staple. In seven months it had attained the height of thirteen feet; the stalks were ten inches in circumference, and had upwards of five hundred large boles on each stalk (not a worm nor red bug as yet to be seen). His yams, cassava, and sweet potatoes, were incredibly large, and plentifully thick in the ground; one kind of sweet potato, lately introduced from Taheita (formerly Otaheita) Island in the Pacific, was of peculiar excellence; tasted like new flour and grew to an ordinary size in one month. Those I ate at my son's place had been planted five weeks, and were as big as our full grown Florida potatoes. His sweet orange trees budded upon wild stalks cut off (which every where abound), about six months before had large tops, and the buds were swelling as if preparing to flower. My son reported that his people had all enjoyed good health and had labored just as steadily as they formerly did in Florida and were well satisfied with their situation and the advantageous exchange of circumstances they had made. They all enjoyed the friendship of the neighboring inhabitants and the entire confidence of the Haytian Government."

"I remained with my son all January, 1838 and assisted him in making improvements of different kinds, amongst which was a new two-story house, and then left him to go to Port au Prince, where I obtained a favorable answer from the President of Hayti, to his petition, asking for leave to hold in fee simple, the same tract of land upon which he then lived as a tenant, paying rent to the Haytian Government, containing about thirty-five thousand acres, which was ordered to be surveyed to him, and valued, and not expected to exceed the sum of three thousand dollars, or about ten cents an acre. After obtaining this land in fee for my son, I returned to Florida in February, in 1838."—See The African Repository, XIV, pp. 215-216.]

[Footnote 22: Niles Register, LXVI, pp. 165, 386.]

[Footnote 23: Niles Register, LXVII, p. 180.]

[Footnote 24: The African Repository, XVI, p. 28.]

[Footnote 25: Ibid., p. 29.]

[Footnote 26: Letter of Mr. Stanbury Boyce.]

[Footnote 27: St. Lucia and Trinidad were then considered unfavorable to the working of the new system.—See The African Repository, XXVII, p. 196.]

[Footnote 28: Niles Register, LXIII, p. 65.]

[Footnote 29: Ibid., LXIII, p. 65.]

[Footnote 30: Cromwell, The Negro in American History, pp. 43-44.]



CHAPTER V

THE SUCCESSFUL MIGRANT

The reader will naturally be interested in learning exactly what these thousands of Negroes did on free soil. To estimate these achievements the casual reader of contemporary testimony would now, as such persons did then, find it decidedly easy. He would say that in spite of the unfailing aid which philanthropists gave the blacks, they seldom kept themselves above want and, therefore, became a public charge, afflicting their communities with so much poverty, disease and crime that they were considered the lepers of society. The student of history, however, must look beyond these comments for the whole truth. One must take into consideration the fact that in most cases these Negroes escaped as fugitives without sufficient food and clothing to comfort them until they could reach free soil, lacking the small fund with which the pioneer usually provided himself in going to establish a home in the wilderness, and lacking, above all, initiative of which slavery had deprived them. Furthermore, these refugees with few exceptions had to go to places where they were not wanted and in some cases to points from which they were driven as undesirables, although preparation for their coming had sometimes gone to the extent of purchasing homes and making provision for employment upon arrival.[1] Several well-established Negro settlements in the North, moreover, were broken up by the slave hunters after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.[2]

The increasing intensity of the hatred of the Negroes must be understood too both as a cause and result of their intolerable condition. Prior to 1800 the Negroes of the North were in fair circumstances. Until that time it was generally believed that the whites and the blacks would soon reach the advanced stage of living together on a basis of absolute equality.[3] The Negroes had not at that time exceeded the number that could be assimilated by the sympathizing communities in that section. The intolerable legislation of the South, however, forced so many free Negroes in the rough to crowd northern cities during the first four decades of the nineteenth century that they could not be easily readjusted. The number seeking employment far exceeded the demand for labor and thus multiplied the number of vagrants and paupers, many of whom had already been forced to this condition by the Irish and Germans then immigrating into northern cities. At one time, as in the case of Philadelphia, the Negroes constituting a small fraction of the population furnished one half of the criminals.[4] A radical opposition to the Negro followed, therefore, arousing first the laboring classes and finally alienating the support of the well-to-do people and the press. This condition obtained until 1840 in most northern communities and until 1850 in some places where the Negro population was considerable.

We must also take into account the critical labor situation during these years. The northern people were divided as to the way the Negroes should be encouraged. The mechanics of the North raised no objection to having the Negroes freed and enlightened but did not welcome them to that section as competitors in the struggle of life. When, therefore, the blacks, converted to the doctrine of training the hand to work with skill, began to appear in northern industrial centers there arose a formidable prejudice against them.[5] Negro and white mechanics had once worked together but during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, when labor became more dignified and a larger number of white persons devoted themselves to skilled labor, they adopted the policy of eliminating the blacks. This opposition, to be sure, was not a mere harmless sentiment. It tended to give rise to the organization of labor groups and finally to that of trades unions, the beginnings of those controlling this country today. Carrying the fight against the Negro still further, these laboring classes used their influence to obtain legislation against the employment of Negroes in certain pursuits. Maryland and Georgia passed laws restricting the privileges of Negro mechanics, and Pennsylvania followed their example.[6]

Even in those cases when the Negroes were not disturbed in their new homes on free soil, it was, with the exception of the Quaker and a few other communities, merely an act of toleration.[7] It must not be concluded, however, that the Negroes then migrating to the North did not receive considerable aid. The fact to be noted here is that because they were not well received sometimes by the people of their new environment, the help which they obtained from friends afar off did not suffice to make up for the deficiency of community cooperation. This, of course, was an unusual handicap to the Negro, as his life as a slave tended to make him a dependent rather than a pioneer.

It is evident, however, from accessible statistics that wherever the Negro was adequately encouraged he succeeded. When the urban Negroes in northern communities had emerged from their crude state they easily learned from the white men their method of solving the problems of life. This tendency was apparent after 1840 and striking results of their efforts were noted long before the Civil War. They showed an inclination to work when positions could be found, purchased homes, acquired other property, built churches and established schools. Going even further than this, some of them, taking advantage of their opportunities in the business world, accumulated considerable fortunes, just as had been done in certain centers in the South where Negroes had been given a chance.[8]

In cities far north like Boston not so much difference as to the result of this migration was noted. Some economic progress among the Negroes had early been observed there as a result of the long residence of Negroes in that city as in the case of Lewis Hayden who established a successful clothing business.[9] In New York such evidences were more apparent. There were in that city not so many Negroes as frequented some other northern communities of this time but enough to make for that city a decidedly perplexing problem. It was the usual situation of ignorant, helpless fugitives and free Negroes going, they knew not where, to find a better country. The situation at times became so grave that it not only caused prejudice but gave rise to intense opposition against those who defended the cause of the blacks as in the case of the abolition riots which occurred at several places in the State in 1834.[10]

To relieve this situation, Gerrit Smith, an unusually philanthropic gentleman, came forward with an interesting plan. Having large tracts of land in the southeastern counties of New York, he proposed to settle on small farms a large number of those Negroes huddled together in the congested districts of New York City. Desiring to obtain only the best class, he requested that the Negroes to be thus colonized be recommended by Reverend Charles B. Ray, Reverend Theodore S. Wright and Dr. J. McCune Smith, three Negroes of New York City, known to be representative of the best of the race. Upon their recommendations he deeded unconditionally to black men in 1846 three hundred small farms in Franklin, Essex, Hamilton, Fulton, Oneida, Delaware, Madison and Ulster counties, giving to each settler beside $10.00 to enable him to visit his farm.[11] With these holdings the blacks would not only have a basis for economic independence but would have sufficient property to meet the special qualifications which New York by the law of 1823 required of Negroes offering to vote.

This experiment, however, was a failure. It was not successful because of the intractability of the land, the harshness of the climate, and, in a great measure, the inefficiency of the settlers. They had none of the qualities of farmers. Furthermore, having been disabled by infirmities and vices they could not as beneficiaries answer the call of the benefactor. Peterboro, the town opened to Negroes in this section, did maintain a school and served as a station of the Underground Railroad but the agricultural results expected of the enterprise never materialized. The main difficulty in this case was the impossibility of substituting something foreign for individual enterprise.[12]

Progressive Negroes did appear, however, in other parts of the State. In Penyan, Western New York, William Platt and Joseph C. Cassey were successful lumber merchants.[13] Mr. W.H. Topp of Albany was for several years one of the leading merchant tailors of that city.[14] Henry Scott, of New York City, developed a successful pickling business, supplying most of the vessels entering that port.[15] Thomas Downing for thirty years ran a creditable restaurant in the midst of the Wall Street banks, where he made a fortune.[16] Edward V. Clark conducted a thriving business, handling jewelry and silverware.[17] The Negroes as a whole, moreover, had shown progress. Aided by the Government and philanthropic white people, they had before the Civil War a school system with primary, intermediate and grammar schools and a normal department. They then had considerable property, several churches and some benevolent institutions.

In Southern Pennsylvania, nearer to the border between the slave and free States, the effects of the achievements of these Negroes were more apparent for the reason that in these urban centers there were sufficient Negroes for one to be helpful to the other. Philadelphia presented then the most striking example of the remaking of these people. Here the handicap of the foreign element was greatest, especially after 1830. The Philadelphia Negro, moreover, was further impeded in his progress by the presence of southerners who made Philadelphia their home, and still more by the prejudice of those Philadelphia merchants who, sustaining such close relations to the South, hated the Negro and the abolitionists who antagonized their customers.

In spite of these untoward circumstances, however, the Negroes of Philadelphia achieved success. Negroes who had formerly been able to toil upward were still restricted but they had learned to make opportunities. In 1832 the Philadelphia blacks had $350,000 of taxable property, $359,626 in 1837 and $400,000 in 1847. These Negroes had 16 churches and 100 benevolent societies in 1837 and 19 churches and 106 benevolent societies in 1847. Philadelphia then had more successful Negro schools than any other city in the country. There were also about 500 Negro mechanics in spite of the opposition of organized labor.[18] Some of these Negroes, of course, were natives of that city.

Chief among those who had accumulated considerable property was Mr. James Forten, the proprietor of one of the leading sail manufactories, constantly employing a large number of men, black and white. Joseph Casey, a broker of considerable acumen, also accumulated desirable property, worth probably $75,000.[19] Crowded out of the higher pursuits of labor, certain other enterprising business men of this group organized the Guild of Caterers. This was composed of such men as Bogle, Prosser, Dorsey, Jones and Minton. The aim was to elevate the Negro waiter and cook from the plane of menials to that of progressive business men. Then came Stephen Smith who amassed a large fortune as a lumber merchant and with him Whipper, Vidal and Purnell. Still and Bowers were reliable coal merchants, Adger a success in handling furniture, Bowser a well-known painter, and William H. Riley the intelligent boot-maker.[20]

There were a few such successful Negroes in other communities in the State. Mr. William Goodrich, of York, acquired considerable interest in the branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad extending to Lancaster.[21] Benjamin Richards, of Pittsburgh, amassed a large fortune running a butchering business, buying by contract droves of cattle to supply the various military posts of the United States.[22] Mr. Henry M. Collins, who started life as a boatman, left this position for speculation in real estate in Pittsburgh where he established himself as an asset of the community and accumulated considerable wealth.[23] Owen A. Barrett, of the same city, made his way by discovering the remedy known as B.A. Fahnestock's Celebrated Vermifuge, for which he was retained in the employ of the proprietor, who exploited the remedy.[24] Mr. John Julius made himself indispensable to Pittsburgh by running the Concert Hall Cafe where he served President William Henry Harrison in 1840.[25]

The field of greatest achievement, however, was not in the conservative East where the people had well established their going toward an enlightened and sympathetic aristocracy of talent and wealth. It was in the West where men were in position to establish themselves anew and make of life what they would. These crude communities, to be sure, often objected to the presence of the Negroes and sometimes drove them out. But, on the other hand, not a few of those centers in the making were in the hands of the Quakers and other philanthropic persons who gave the Negroes a chance to grow up with the community, when they exhibited a capacity which justified philanthropic efforts in their behalf.

These favorable conditions obtained especially in the towns along the Ohio river, where so many fugitives and free persons of color stopped on their way from slavery to freedom. In Steubenville a number of Negroes had by their industry and good deportment made themselves helpful to the community. Stephen Mulber who had been in that town for thirty years was in 1835 the leader of a group of thrifty free persons of color. He had a brick dwelling, in which he lived, and other property in the city. He made his living as a master mechanic employing a force of workmen to meet the increasing demand for his labor.[26] In Gallipolis, there was another group of this class of Negroes, who had permanently attached themselves to the town by the acquisition of property. They were then able not only to provide for their families but were maintaining also a school and a church.[27] In Portsmouth, Ohio, despite the "Black Friday" upheaval of 1831, the Negroes settled down to the solution of the problems of their new environment and later showed in the accumulation of property evidences of actual progress. Among the successful Negroes in Columbus was David Jenkins who acquired considerable property as a painter, glazier and paper hanger.[28] One Mr. Hill, of Chillicothe, was for several years its leading tanner and currier.[29]

It was in Cincinnati, however, that the Negroes made most progress in the West. The migratory blacks came there at times in such large numbers, as we have observed, that they provoked the hostile classes of whites to employ rash measures to exterminate them. But the Negroes, accustomed to adversity, struggled on, endeavoring through schools and churches to embrace every opportunity to rise. By 1840 there were 2,255 Negroes in that city. They had, exclusive of personal effects and $19,000 worth of church property, accumulated $209,000 worth of real estate. A number of their progressive men had established a real estate firm known as the "Iron Chest" company which built houses for Negroes. One man, who had once thought it unwise to accumulate wealth from which he might be driven, had, by 1840, changed his mind and purchased $6,000 worth of real estate.

Another Negro paid $5,000 for himself and family and bought a home worth $800 or $1,000. A freedman, who was a slave until he was twenty-four years of age, then had two lots worth $10,000, paid a tax of $40 and had 320 acres of land in Mercer County. Another, who was worth only $3,000 in 1836, had seven houses in 1840, 400 acres of land in Indiana, and another tract in Mercer County, Ohio. He was worth altogether about $12,000 or $15,000. A woman who was a slave until she was thirty was then worth $2,000. She had also come into potential possession of two houses on which a white lawyer had given her a mortgage to secure the payment of $2,000 borrowed from this thrifty woman. Another Negro, who was on the auction block in 1832, had spent $2,600 purchasing himself and family and had bought two brick houses worth $6,000 and 560 acres of land in Mercer County, Ohio, said to be worth $2,500.[30]

The Negroes of Cincinnati had as early as 1820 established schools which developed during the forties into something like a modern system with Gilmore's High School as a capstone. By that time they had also not only several churches but had given time and means to the organization and promotion of such as the Sabbath School Youth's Society, the Total Abstinence Temperance Society and the Anti-Slavery Society. The worthy example set by the Negroes of this city was a stimulus to noble endeavor and significant achievements of Negroes throughout the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. Disarming their enemies of the weapon that they would continue a public charge, they secured the cooperation of a larger number of white people who at first had treated them with contempt.[31]

This unusual progress in the Ohio valley had been promoted by two forces, the development of the steamboat as a factor in transportation and the rise of the Negro mechanic. Negroes employed on vessels as servants to the travelling public amassed large sums received in the form of tips. Furthermore, the fortunate few, constituting the stewards of these vessels, could by placing contracts for supplies and using business methods realize handsome incomes. Many Negroes thus enriched purchased real estate and went into business in towns along the Ohio.

The other force, the rise of the Negro mechanic, was made possible by overcoming much of the prejudice which had at first been encountered. A great change in this respect had taken place in Cincinnati by 1840.[32] Many Negroes who had been forced to work as menial laborers then had the opportunity to show their usefulness to their families and to the community. Negro mechanics were then getting as much skilled labor as they could do. It was not uncommon for white artisans to solicit employment of colored men because they had the reputation of being better paymasters than master workmen of the favored race. White mechanics not only worked with the blacks but often associated with them, patronized the same barber shop, and went to the same places of amusement.[33]

Out of this group came some very useful Negroes, among whom may be mentioned Robert Harlan, the horseman; A.V. Thompson, the tailor; J. Presley and Thomas Ball, contractors, and Samuel T. Wilcox, the merchant, who was worth $60,000 in 1859.[34] There were among them two other successful Negroes, Henry Boyd and Robert Gordon. Boyd was a Kentucky freedman who helped to overcome the prejudice in Cincinnati against Negro mechanics by inventing and exploiting a corded bed, the demand for which was extensive throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. He had a creditable manufacturing business in which he employed twenty-five men.[35]

Robert Gordon was a much more interesting man. He was born a slave in Richmond, Virginia. He ingratiated himself into the favor of his master who placed him in charge of a large coal yard with the privilege of selling the slake for his own benefit. In the course of time, he accumulated in this position thousands of dollars with which he finally purchased himself and moved away to free soil. After observing the situation in several of the northern centers, he finally decided to settle in Cincinnati, where he arrived with $15,000. Knowing the coal business, he well established himself there after some discouragement and opposition. He accumulated much wealth which he invested in United States bonds during the Civil War and in real estate on Walnut Hills when the bonds were later redeemed.[36]

The ultimately favorable attitude of the people of Detroit toward immigrating Negroes had been reflected by the position the people of that section had taken from the time of the earliest settlements. Generally speaking, Detroit adhered to this position.[37] In this congenial community prospered many a Negro family. There were the Williams' most of whom confined themselves to their trade of bricklaying and amassed considerable wealth. Then there were the Cooks, descending from Lomax B. Cook, a broker of no little business ability. Will Marion Cook, the musician, belongs to this family. The De Baptistes, too, were among the first to succeed in this new home, as they prospered materially from their experience and knowledge previously acquired in Fredericksburg, Virginia, as contractors. From this group came Richard De Baptiste, who in his day was the most useful Negro Baptist preacher in the Northwest.[38] The Pelhams were no less successful in establishing themselves in the economic world. Having an excellent reputation in the community, they easily secured the cooperation of the influential white people in the city. Out of this family came Robert A. Pelham, for years editor of a weekly in Detroit, and from 1901 to the present time an employee of the Federal Government in Washington.

The children of the Richards, another old family, were in no sense inferior to the descendants of the others. The most prominent and the most useful to emerge from this group was the daughter, Fannie M. Richards. She was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, October 1, 1841. Having left that State with her parents when she was quite young, she did not see so much of the antebellum conditions obtaining there. Desiring to have better training than what was then given to persons of color in Detroit, she went to Toronto where she studied English, history, drawing and needlework. In later years she attended the Teachers' Training School in Detroit. She became a public-school teacher there in 1863 and after fifty years of creditable service in this work she was retired on a pension in 1913.[39]

The Negroes in the North had not only shown their ability to rise in the economic world when properly encouraged but had begun to exhibit power of all kinds. There were Negro inventors, a few lawyers, a number of physicians and dentists, many teachers, a score of intelligent preachers, some scholars of note, and even successful blacks in the finer arts. Some of these, with Frederick Douglass as the most influential, were also doing creditable work in journalism with about thirty newspapers which had developed among the Negroes as weapons of defense.[40]

This progress of the Negroes in the North was much more marked after the middle of the nineteenth century. The migration of Negroes to northern communities was at first checked by the reaction in those places during the thirties and forties. Thus relieved of the large influx which once constituted a menace, those communities gave the Negroes already on hand better economic opportunities. It was fortunate too that prior to the check in the infiltration of the blacks they had come into certain districts in sufficiently large numbers to become a more potential factor.[41] They were strong enough in some cases to make common cause against foes and could by cooperation solve many problems with which the blacks in dispersed condition could not think of grappling.

Their endeavors along these lines proceeded in many cases from well-organized efforts like those culminating in the numerous national conventions which began meeting first in Philadelphia in 1830 and after some years of deliberation in this city extended to others in the North.[42] These bodies aimed not only to promote education, religion and morals, but, taking up the work which the Quakers began, they put forth efforts to secure to the free blacks opportunities to be trained in the mechanic arts to equip themselves for participation in the industries then springing up throughout the North. This movement, however, did not succeed in the proportion to the efforts put forth because of the increasing power of the trades unions.

After the middle of the nineteenth century too the Negroes found conditions a little more favorable to their progress than the generation before. The aggressive South had by that time so shaped the policy of the nation as not only to force the free States to cease aiding the escape of fugitives but to undertake to impress the northerner into the service of assisting in their recapture as provided in the Fugitive Slave Law. This repressive measure set a larger number of the people thinking of the Negro as a national problem rather than a local one. The attitude of the North was then reflected in the personal liberty laws as an answer to this measure and in the increasing sympathy for the Negroes. During this decade, therefore, more was done in the North to secure to the Negroes better treatment and to give them opportunities for improvement.

[Footnote 1: Cincinnati Morning Herald, July 17, 1846.]

[Footnote 2: Woodson, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, p. 242.]

[Footnote 3: Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 143; Correspondence of Dr. Benjamin Bush, XXXIX, p. 41.]

[Footnote 4: DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro, pp. 26-27.]

[Footnote 5: The Journal of Negro History, I, p. 5; and Proceedings of the American Convention of Abolition Societies.]

[Footnote 6: DuBois and Dill, The Negro American Artisan, p. 36.]

[Footnote 7: Jay, An Inquiry, pp. 34, 108, 109, 114.]

[Footnote 8: The Journal of Negro History, I, pp. 20-22.]

[Footnote 9: Delany, Condition of the Colored People, p. 106.]

[Footnote 10: The Liberator, July 9, 1835.]

[Footnote 11: Hammond, Gerrit Smith, pp. 26-27.]

[Footnote 12: Frothingham, Gerrit Smith, p. 73.]

[Footnote 13: Delany, Condition of the Colored People, pp. 107-108.]

[Footnote 14: Ibid., p. 102.]

[Footnote 15: Ibid., p. 102.]

[Footnote 16: Ibid., pp. 103-104.]

[Footnote 17: Delany, Condition of the Colored People, pp. 106-107.]

[Footnote 18: DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro, p. 31; Report of the Condition of the Free People of Color, 1838; ibid., 1849; and Bacon, Statistics of the Colored People of Philadelphia, 1859.]

[Footnote 19: Delany, Condition of the Colored People, p. 95.]

[Footnote 20: DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro, pp. 31-36.]

[Footnote 21: Delany, Condition of the Colored People, p. 109.]

[Footnote 22: Ibid., p. 101.]

[Footnote 23: Ibid., p. 104.]

[Footnote 24: Ibid., p. 105.]

[Footnote 25: Ibid., p. 107.]

[Footnote 26: The Journal of Negro History, I, p. 22.]

[Footnote 27: Hickok, The Negro in Ohio, p. 88.]

[Footnote 28: Delany, Condition of the Colored People, p. 99.]

[Footnote 29: Ibid., p. 101.]

[Footnote 30: The Philanthropist, July 21, 1840, gives these statistics in detail.]

[Footnote 31: The Philanthropist, July 21, 1840.]

[Footnote 32: The Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Sept. 14, 1841.]

[Footnote 33: Barber's Report on Colored People in Ohio.]

[Footnote 34: Delany, Condition of the Colored People, pp. 97, 98.]

[Footnote 35: Delany, Condition of the Colored People, p. 98.]

[Footnote 36: These facts were obtained from his children and from Cincinnati city directories.]

[Footnote 37: Niles Register, LXIX, p. 357.]

[Footnote 38: Letters received from Miss Fannie M. Richards of Detroit.]

[Footnote 39: These facts were obtained from clippings taken from Detroit newspapers and from letters bearing on Miss Richard's career.]

[Footnote 40: The A.M.E. Church Review, IV, p. 309; and XX, p. 137.]

[Footnote 41: Censuses of the United States; and Clark, Present Condition of Colored People.]

[Footnote 42: Minutes and Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the People of Color.]



CHAPTER VI

CONFUSING MOVEMENTS

The Civil War waged largely in the South started the most exciting movement of the Negroes hitherto known. The invading Union forces drove the masters before them, leaving the slaves and sometimes poor whites to escape where they would or to remain in helpless condition to constitute a problem for the northern army.[1] Many poor whites of the border States went with the Confederacy, not always because they wanted to enter the war, but to choose what they considered the lesser of two evils. The slaves soon realized a community of interests with the Union forces sent, as they thought, to deliver them from thralldom. At first, it was difficult to determine a fixed policy for dealing with these fugitives. To drive them away was an easy matter, but this did not solve the problem. General Butler's action at Fortress Monroe in 1861, however, anticipated the policy finally adopted by the Union forces.[2] Hearing that three fugitive slaves who were received into his lines were to have been employed in building fortifications for the Confederate army, he declared them seized as contraband of war rather than declare them actually free as did General Fremont[3] and General Hunter.[4] He then gave them employment for wages and rations and appropriated to the support of the unemployed a portion of the earnings of the laborers. This policy was followed by General Wood, Butler's successor, and by General Banks in New Orleans.

An elaborate plan for handling such fugitives was carried out by E.S. Pierce and General Rufus Saxton at Port Royal, South Carolina. Seeing the situation in another light, however, General Halleck in charge in the West excluded slaves from the Union lines, at first, as did General Dix in Virginia. But Halleck, in his instructions to General McCullum, February, 1862, ordered him to put contrabands to work to pay for food and clothing.[5] Other commanders, like General McCook and General Johnson, permitted the slave hunters to enter their lines and take their slaves upon identification,[6] ignoring the confiscation act of August, 1861, which was construed by some as justifying the retention of such refugees. Officers of a different attitude, however, soon began to protest against the returning of fugitive slaves. General Grant, also, while admitting the binding force of General Halleck's order, refused to grant permits to those in search of fugitives seeking asylum within his lines and at the capture of Fort Donelson ordered the retention of all blacks who had been used by the Confederates in building fortifications.[7]

Lincoln finally urged the necessity for withholding fugitive slaves from the enemy, believing that there could be in it no danger of servile insurrection and that the Confederacy would thereby be weakened.[8] As this opinion soon developed into a conviction that official action was necessary, Congress, by Act of March 13, 1862, provided that slaves be protected against the claims of their pursuers. Continuing further in this direction, the Federal Government gradually reached the position of withdrawing Negro labor from the Confederate territory. Finally the United States Government adopted the policy of withholding from the Confederates, slaves received with the understanding that their masters were in rebellion against the United States. With this as a settled policy then, the United States Government had to work out some scheme for the remaking of these fugitives coming into its camps.

In some of these cases the fugitives found themselves among men more hostile to them than their masters were, for many of the Union soldiers of the border States were slaveholders themselves and northern soldiers did not understand that they were fighting to free Negroes. The condition in which they were on arriving, moreover, was a new problem for the army. Some came naked, some in decrepitude, some afflicted with disease, and some wounded in their efforts to escape.[9] There were "women in travail, the helplessness of childhood and of old age, the horrors of sickness and of frequent deaths."[10] In their crude state few of them had any conception of the significance of liberty, thinking that it meant idleness and freedom from restraint. In consequence of this ignorance there developed such undesirable habits as deceit, theft and licentiousness to aggravate the afflictions of nakedness, famine and disease.[11]

In the East large numbers of these refugees were concentrated at Washington, Alexandria, Fortress Monroe, Hampton, Craney Island and Fort Norfolk. There were smaller groups of them at Yorktown, Suffolk and Portsmouth.[12]



Some of them were conducted from these camps into York, Columbia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, and by water to New York and Boston, from which they went to various parts seeking labor. Some collected in groups as in the case of those at Five Points in New York.[13] Large numbers of them from Virginia assembled in Washington in 1862 in Duff Green's Row on Capitol Hill where they were organized as a camp, out of which came a contraband school, after being moved to the McClellan Barracks.[14] Then there was in the District of Columbia another group known as Freedmen's village on Arlington Heights. It was said that, in 1864, 30,000 to 40,000 Negroes had come from the plantations to the District of Columbia.[15] It happened here too as in most cases of this migration that the Negroes were on hand before the officials grappling with many other problems could determine exactly what could or should be done with them. The camps near Washington fortunately became centers for the employment of contrabands in the city. Those repairing to Fortress Monroe were distributed as laborers among the farmers of that vicinity.[16]



In some of these camps, and especially in those of the West, the refugees were finally sent out to other sections in need of labor, as in the cases of the contrabands assembled with the Union army at first at Grand Junction and later at Memphis.[17]

There were three types of these camp communities which attracted attention as places for free labor experimentation. These were at Port Royal, on the Mississippi in the neighborhood of Vicksburg, and in Lower Louisiana and Virginia. The first trial of free labor of blacks on a large scale in a slave State was made in Port Royal.[18] The experiment was generally successful. By industry, thrift and orderly conduct the Negroes showed their appreciation for their new opportunities. In the Mississippi section invaded by the northern army, General Thomas opened what he called Infirmary Farms which he leased to Negroes on certain terms which they usually met successfully. The same plan, however, was not so successful in the Lower Mississippi section.[19] The failure in this section was doubtless due to the inferior type of blacks in the lower cotton belt where Negroes had been more brutalized by slavery.

In some cases, these refugees experienced many hardships. It was charged that they were worked hard, badly treated and deprived of all their wages except what was given them for rations and a scanty pittance, wholly insufficient to purchase necessary clothing and provide for their families.[20] Not a few of the refugees for these reasons applied for permission to return to their masters and sometimes such permission was granted; for, although under military authority, they were by order of Congress to be considered as freemen. These voluntary slaves, of course, were few and the authorities were not thereby impressed with the thought that Negroes would prefer to be slaves, should they be treated as freemen rather than as brutes.[21]

It became increasingly difficult, however, to handle this problem. In the first place, it was not an easy matter to find soldiers well disposed to serve the Negroes in any manner whatever and the officers of the army had no desire to force them to render such services since those thus engaged suffered a sort of social ostracism. The same condition obtained in the case of caring for those afflicted with disease, until there was issued a specific regulation placing the contraband sick in charge of the army surgeons.[22] What the situation in the Mississippi Valley was during these months has been well described by an observer, saying: "I hope I may never be called on again to witness the horrible scenes I saw in those first days of history of the freedmen in the Mississippi Valley. Assistants were hard to find, especially the kind that would do any good in the camps. A detailed soldier in each camp of a thousand people was the best that could be done and his duties were so onerous that he ended by doing nothing. In reviewing the condition of the people at that time, I am not surprised at the marvelous stories told by visitors who caught an occasional glimpse of the misery and wretchedness in these camps. Our efforts to do anything for these people, as they herded together in masses, when founded on any expectation that they would help themselves, often failed; they had become so completely broken down in spirit, through suffering, that it was almost impossible to arouse them."[23]

A few sympathetic officers and especially the chaplains undertook to relieve the urgent cases of distress. They could do little, however, to handle all the problems of the unusual situation until they engaged the attention of the higher officers of the army and the federal functionaries in Washington. After some delay this was finally done and special officers were detailed to take charge of the contrabands. The Negroes were assembled in camps and employed according to instructions from the Secretary of War as teamsters, laborers and the like on forts and railroads. Some were put to picking, ginning, baling and removing cotton on plantations abandoned by their masters. General Grant, as early as 1862, was making further use of them as fatigue men in the department of the surgeon-general, the quartermaster and the commissary. He believed then that such Negroes as did well in these more humble positions should be made citizens and soldiers.[24] As a matter of fact out of this very suggestion came the policy of arming the Negroes, the first regiment of whom was recruited under orders issued by General Hunter at Port Royal, South Carolina in 1862. As the arming of the slave to participate in this war did not generally please the white people who considered the struggle a war between civilized groups, this policy could not offer general relief to the congested contraband camps.[25]

A better system of handling the fugitives was finally worked out, however, with a general superintendent at the head of each department, supported by a number of competent assistants. More explicit instructions were given as to the manner of dealing with the situation. It was to be the duty of the superintendent of contrabands, says the order, to organize them into working parties in saving the cotton, as pioneers on railroads and steamboats, and in any way where their services could be made available. Where labor was performed for private individuals they were charged in accordance with the orders of the commander of the department. In case they were directed to save abandoned crops of cotton for the benefit of the United States Government, the officer selling such crops would turn over to the superintendent of contrabands the proceeds of the sale, which together with other earnings were used for clothing and feeding the Negroes. Clothing sent by philanthropic persons to these camps was received and distributed by the superintendent. In no case, however, were Negroes to be forced into the service of the United States Government or to be enticed away from their homes except when it became a military necessity.[26]

Some order out of the chaos eventually developed, for as John Eaton, one of the workers in the West, reported: "There was no promiscuous intermingling. Families were established by themselves. Every man took care of his own wife and children." "One of the most touching features of our Work," says he, "was the eagerness with which colored men and women availed themselves of the opportunities offered them to legalize unions already formed, some of which had been in existence for a long time."[27] "Chaplain A.S. Fiske on one occasion married in about an hour one hundred and nineteen couples at one service, chiefly those who had long lived together." Letters from the Virginia camps and from those of Port Royal indicate that this favorable condition generally obtained.[28]

This unusual problem in spite of additional effort, however, would not readily admit of solution. Benevolent workers of the North, therefore, began to minister to the needs of these unfortunate blacks. They sent considerable sums of money, increasing quantities of clothing and even some of their most devoted men and women to toil among them as social workers and teachers.[29] These efforts also took organized form in various parts of the North under the direction of The Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association, The Tract Society, The American Missionary Association, Pennsylvania Friends Freedmen's Relief Association, Old School Presbyterian Mission, The Reformed Presbyterian Mission, The New England Freedmen's Aid Committee, The New England Freedmen's Aid Society, The New England Freedmen's Mission, The Washington Christian Union, The Universalists of Maine, The New York Freedmen's Relief Association, The Hartford Relief Society, The National Freedmen's Relief Association of the District of Columbia, and finally the Freedmen's Bureau.[30]

As an outlet to the congested grouping of Negroes and poor whites in the war camps it was arranged to send a number of them to the loyal States as fast as there presented themselves opportunities for finding homes and employment. Cairo, Illinois, in the West, became the center of such activities extending its ramifications into all parts of the invaded southern territory. Some of the refugees permanently settled in the North, taking up the work abandoned by the northern soldiers who went to war.[31] It was soon found necessary to appoint a superintendent of such affairs at Cairo, for there were those who, desiring to lead a straggling life, had to be restrained from crime by military surveillance and regulations requiring labor for self-support. Exactly how many whites and blacks were thus aided to reach northern communities cannot be determined but in view of the frequent mention of their movements by travellers the number must have been considerable. In some cases, as in Lawrence, Kansas, there were assembled enough freedmen to constitute a distinct group.[32] Speaking of this settlement the editor of the Alton Telegraph said in 1862 that although they amounted to many hundreds not one, that he could learn of, had been a public charge. They readily found employment at fair wages, and soon made themselves comfortable.[33]

There was a little apprehension that the North would be overrun by such blacks. Some had no such fear, however, for the reason that the census did not indicate such a movement. Many slaves were freed in the North prior to 1860, yet with all the emigration from the slave States to the North there were then in all the Northern States but 226,152 free blacks, while there were in the slave States 261,918, an excess of 35,766 in the slave States. Frederick Starr believed that during the Civil War there might be an influx for a few months but it would not continue.[34] They would return when sure that they would be free. Starr thought that, if necessary, these refugees might be used in building the much desired Pacific Railroad to divert them from the North.

There was little ground for this apprehension, in fact, if their readjustment and development in the contraband camps could be considered an indication of what the Negroes would eventually do. Taking all things into consideration, most unbiased observers felt that blacks in the camps deserved well of their benefactors.[36] According to Levi Coffin, these contrabands were, in 1864, disposed of as follows: "In military services as soldiers, laundresses, cooks, officers' servants and laborers in the various staff departments, 41,150; in cities, on plantations and in freedmen's villages and cared for, 72,500. Of these 62,300 were entirely self-supporting, just as any industrial class anywhere else, as planters, mechanics, barbers, hackmen and draymen, conducting enterprises on their own responsibility or working as hired laborers." The remaining 10,200 received subsistence from the government. 3,000 of these were members of families whose heads were carrying on plantations, and had undertaken cultivation of 4,000 acres of cotton, pledging themselves to pay the government for their subsistence from the first income of the crop. The other 7,200 included the paupers, that is, all Negroes over and under the self-supporting age, the crippled and sick in hospitals. This class, however, instead of being unproductive, had then under cultivation 500 acres of corn, 790 acres of vegetables, and 1,500 acres of cotton, besides working at wood chopping and other industries. There were reported in the aggregate over 100,000 acres of cotton under cultivation, 7,000 acres of which were leased and cultivated by blacks. Some Negroes were managing as many as 300 or 400 acres each.[37] Statistics showing exactly how much the numbers of contrabands in the various branches of the service increased are wanting, but in view of the fact that the few thousand soldiers here given increased to about 200,000 before the close of the Civil War, the other numbers must have been considerable, if they all grew the least proportionately.

Much industry was shown among these refugees. Under this new system they acquired the idea of ownership, and of the security of wages and learned to see the fundamental difference between freedom and slavery. Some Yankees, however, seeing that they did less work than did laborers in the North, considered them lazy, but the lack of industry was customary in the South and a river should not be expected to rise higher than its source. One of their superintendents said that they worked well without being urged, that there was among them a public opinion against idleness, which answered for discipline, and that those put to work with soldiers labored longer and did the nicer parts. "In natural tact and the faculty of getting a livelihood," says the same writer, "the contrabands are inferior to the Yankees, but quite equal to the mass of southern population."[38] The Negroes also showed capacity to organize labor and use capital in the promotion of enterprises. Many of them purchased land and cultivated it to great profit both to the community and to themselves. Others entered the service of the government as mechanics and contractors, from the employment of which some of them realized handsome incomes.

The more important development, however, was that of manhood. This was best observed in their growing consciousness of rights, and their readiness to defend them, even when encroached upon by members of the white race. They quickly learned to appreciate freedom and exhibited evidences of manhood in their desire for the comforts and conveniences of life. They readily purchased articles of furniture within their means, bringing their home equipment up to the standard of that of persons similarly circumstanced. The indisposition to labor was overcome "in a healthy nature by instinct and motives of superior forces, such as love of life, the desire to be clothed and fed, the sense of security derived from provision for the future, the feeling of self-respect, the love of family and children and the convictions of duty."[39]

These enterprises, begun in doubt, soon ceased to be a bare hope or possibility. They became during the war a fruition and a consummation, in that they produced Negroes "who would work for a living and fight for freedom." They were, therefore, considered "adapted to civil society." They had "shown capacity for knowledge, for free industry, for subordination to law and discipline, for soldierly fortitude, for social and family relations, for religious culture and aspiration. These qualities," said the observer, "when stirred, and sustained by the incitements and rewards of a just society, and combining with the currents of our continental civilization, will, under the guidance of a benevolent Providence which forgets neither them nor us, make them a constantly progressive race; and secure them ever after from the calamity of another enslavement, and ourselves from the worst calamity of being their oppressors."[40]

It is clear that these smaller numbers of Negroes under favorable conditions could be easily adjusted to a new environment. When, however, all Negroes were declared free there set in a confused migration which was much more of a problem. The first thing the Negro did after realizing that he was free was to roam over the country to put his freedom to a test. To do this, according to many writers, he frequently changed his name, residence, employment and wife, sometimes carrying with him from the plantation the fruits of his own labor. Many of them easily acquired a dog and a gun and were disposed to devote their time to the chase until the assistance in the form of mules and land expected from the government materialized. Their emancipation, therefore, was interpreted not only as freedom from slavery but from responsibility.[41] Where they were going they did not know but the towns and cities became very attractive to them.

Speaking of this upheaval in Virginia, Eckenrode says that many of them roamed over the country without restraint.[42] "Released from their accustomed bonds," says Hall, "and filled with a pleasing, if not vague, sense of uncontrolled freedom, they flocked to the cities with little hope of obtaining remunerative work. Wagon loads of them were brought in from the country by the soldiers and dumped down to shift for themselves."[43] Referring to the proclamation of freedom, in Georgia, Thompson asserts that their most general and universal response was to pick up and leave the home place to go somewhere else, preferably to a town. "The lure of the city was strong to the blacks, appealing to their social natures, to their inherent love for a crowd."[44] Davis maintains that thousands of the 70,000 Negroes in Florida crowded into the Federal military camps and into towns upon realizing that they were free.[45] According to Ficklen, the exodus of the slaves from the neighboring plantations of Louisiana into Baton Rouge, Carrollton and New Orleans was so great as to strain the resources of the Federal authorities to support them. Ten thousand poured into New Orleans alone.[46] Fleming records that upon leaving their homes the blacks collected in gangs at the cross roads, in the villages and towns, especially near the military posts. The towns were filled with crowds of blacks who left their homes with absolutely nothing, "thinking that the government would care for them, or more probably, not thinking at all."[47]

The portrayal of these writers of this phase of Reconstruction history contains a general truth, but in some cases the picture is overdrawn. The student of history must bear in mind that practically all of our histories of that period are based altogether on the testimony of prejudiced whites and are written from their point of view. Some of these writers have aimed to exaggerate the vagrancy of the blacks to justify the radical procedure of the whites in dealing with it. The Negroes did wander about thoughtlessly, believing that this was the most effective way to enjoy their freedom. But nothing else could be expected from a class who had never felt anything but the heel of oppression. History shows that such vagrancy has always followed the immediate emancipation of a large number of slaves. Many Negroes who flocked to the towns and army camps, moreover, had like their masters and poor whites seen their homes broken up or destroyed by the invading Union armies. Whites who had never learned to work were also roaming and in some cases constituted marauding bands.[48]

There was, moreover, an actual drain of laborers to the lower and more productive lands in Mississippi and Louisiana.[49] This developed later into a more considerable movement toward the Southwest just after the Civil War, the exodus being from South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi to Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. Here was the pioneering spirit, a going to the land of more economic opportunities. This slow movement continued from about 1865 to 1875, when the development of the numerous railway systems gave rise to land speculators who induced whites and blacks to go west and southwest. It was a migration of individuals, but it was reported that as many as 35,000 Negroes were then persuaded to leave South Carolina and Georgia for Arkansas and Texas.[50]

The usual charge that the Negro is naturally migratory is not true. This impression is often received by persons who hear of the thousands of Negroes who move from one place to another from year to year because of the desire to improve their unhappy condition. In this there is no tendency to migrate but an urgent need to escape undesirable conditions. In fact, one of the American Negroes' greatest shortcomings is that they are not sufficiently pioneering. Statistics show that the whites have more inclination to move from State to State than the Negro. To prove this assertion,[51] Professor William O. Scroggs has shown that, in 1910, 16.6 per cent of the Negroes had moved to some other State than that in which they were born, while during the same period 22.4 per cent of the whites had done the same.[52]

The South, however, was not disposed to look at the vagrancy of the ex-slaves so philosophically. That section had been devastated by war and to rebuild these waste places reliable labor was necessary. Legislatures of the slave States, therefore, immediately after the close of the war, granted the Negro nominal freedom but enacted measures of vagrancy and labor so as to reduce the Negro again almost to the status of a slave. White magistrates were given wide discretion in adjudging Negroes vagrants.[53] Negroes had to sign contracts to work. If without what was considered a just cause the Negro left the employ of a planter, the former could be arrested and forced to work and in some sections with ball and chain. If the employer did not care to take him back he could be hired out by the county or confined in jail. Mississippi, Louisiana and South Carolina had further drastic features. By local ordinance in Louisiana every Negro had to be in the service of some white person, and by special laws of South Carolina and Mississippi the Negro became subject to a master almost in the same sense in which he was prior to emancipation.[54] These laws, of course, convinced the government of the United States that the South had not yet decided to let slavery go and for that reason military rule and Congressional Reconstruction followed. In this respect the South did itself a great injury, for many of the provisions of the black codes, especially the vagrancy laws, were unnecessary. Most Negroes soon realized that freedom did not mean relief from responsibility and they quickly settled down to work after a rather protracted and exciting holiday.[55]

During the last year of and immediately after the Civil War there set in another movement, not of a large number of Negroes but of the intelligent class who had during years of residence in the North enjoyed such advantages of contact and education as to make them desirable and useful as leaders in the Reconstruction of the South and the remaking of the race. In their tirades against the Carpet-bag politicians who handled the Reconstruction situation so much to the dissatisfaction of the southern whites, historians often forget to mention also that a large number of the Negro leaders who participated in that drama were also natives or residents of Northern States.

Three motives impelled these blacks to go South. Some had found northern communities so hostile as to impede their progress, many wanted to rejoin relatives from whom they had been separated by their flight from the land of slavery, and others were moved by the spirit of adventure to enter a new field ripe with all sorts of opportunities. This movement, together with that of migration to large urban communities, largely accounts for the depopulation and the consequent decline of certain colored communities in the North after 1865.

Some of the Negroes who returned to the South became men of national prominence. William J. Simmons, who prior to the Civil War was carried from South Carolina to Pennsylvania, returned to do religious and educational work in Kentucky. Bishop James W. Hood, of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, went from Connecticut to North Carolina to engage in similar work. Honorable R.T. Greener, the first Negro graduate of Harvard, went from Philadelphia to teach in the District of Columbia and later to be a professor in the University of South Carolina. F.L. Cardoza, educated at the University of Edinburgh, returned to South Carolina and became State Treasurer. R.B. Elliot, born in Boston and educated in England, settled in South Carolina from which he was sent to Congress.

John M. Langston was taken to Ohio and educated but came back to Virginia his native State from which he was elected to Congress. J.T. White left Indiana to enter politics in Arkansas, becoming State Senator and later commissioner of public works and internal improvements. Judge Mifflin Wister Gibbs, a native of Philadelphia, purposely settled in Arkansas where he served as city judge and Register of United States Land Office. T. Morris Chester, of Pittsburgh, finally made his way to Louisiana where he served with distinction as a lawyer and held the position of Brigadier-General in charge of the Louisiana State Guards under the Kellogg government. Joseph Carter Corbin, who was taken from Virginia to be educated at Chillicothe, Ohio, went later to Arkansas where he served as chief clerk in the post office at Little Rock and later as State Superintendent of Schools. Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback, who moved north for education and opportunity, returned to enter politics in Louisiana, which honored him with several important positions among which was that of Acting Governor.

[Footnote 1: This is well treated in John Eaton's Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen. See also Coffin's Boys of '61.]

[Footnote 2: Williams, History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, p. 70.]

[Footnote 3: Greely, American Conflict, I, p. 585.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., II, p. 246.]

[Footnote 5: Official Records of the Rebellion, VIII, p. 628.]

[Footnote 6: Williams, Negro Troops, p. 66 et seq.]

[Footnote 7: Official Records of the Rebellion, VIII, p. 370; Williams, Negro Troops, p. 75.]

[Footnote 8: Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, pp. 87, 92.]

[Footnote 9: Pierce, Freedmen of Port Royal, South Carolina, passim; Botume, First Days Among the Contrabands, pp. 10-22; and Pearson, Letters from Port Royal, passim.]

[Footnote 10: Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, p. 92.]

[Footnote 11: Ibid., pp. 2, 3.]

[Footnote 12: Report of the Committee of Representatives of the New York Yearly Meeting of Friends upon the Condition and Wants of the Colored Refugees, 1862, p. 1 et seq.]

[Footnote 13: Report of the Committee of Representatives, etc., p. 3.]

[Footnote 14: At an entertainment of this school, Senator Pomeroy of Kansas, voicing the sentiment of Lincoln, spoke in favor of a scheme to colonize Negroes in Central America.]

[Footnote 15: Special Report of the United States Commission of Education on the Schools of the District of Columbia, p. 215.]

[Footnote 16: Christian Examiner, LXXVI, p. 349.]

[Footnote 17: Eaton, Lincoln, Grant and the Freedmen, pp. 18, 30.]

[Footnote 18: Pierce, The Freedmen of Port Royal, South Carolina, Official Reports; and Pearson, Letters from Port Royal written at the Time of the Civil War.]

[Footnote 19: Christian Examiner, LXXVI, p. 354.]

[Footnote 20: Continental Monthly, II, p. 193.]

[Footnote 21: Report of the Committee of Representatives of the New York Yearly Meeting of Friends, p. 12.]

[Footnote 23: Eaton, Lincoln, Grant and the Freedmen, p. 2.]

[Footnote 23: Eaton, Lincoln, Grant and the Freedmen, p. 19. See also Botume's First Days Amongst the Contrabands. This work vividly portrays conditions among the refugees assembled at points in South Carolina.]

[Footnote 24: Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, p. 15.]

[Footnote 25: Williams, Negro in the Rebellion, pp. 90-98.]

[Footnote 26: Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, VII, pp. 503, 510, 560, 595, 628, 668, 698, 699, 711, 723, 739, 741, 757, 769, 787, 801, 802, 811, 818, 842, 923, 934; VIII, pp. 444, 445, 451, 464, 555, 556, 564, 584, 637, 642, 686, 690, 693, 825.]

[Footnote 27: Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, pp. 34-35.]

[Footnote 28: Ames, From a New England Woman's Diary, passim; and Pearson, Letters from Port Royal, passim.]

[Footnote 29: Ames, From a New England Woman's Diary in 1865, passim.]

[Footnote 30: Special Report of the United States Commissioner of Education on the Schools of the District of Columbia, p. 217.]

[Footnote 31: Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, p. 37.]

[Footnote 32: Eaton, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, p. 38.]

[Footnote 33: Ibid., p. 39.]

[Footnote 34: Starr, What shall be done with the People of Color in the United States, p. 25; Ward, Contrabands, pp. 3, 4.]

[Footnote 35: It is said that Lincoln suggested colonizing the contrabands in South America.]

[Footnote 36: Atlantic Monthly, XII, p. 308.]

[Footnote 37: Levi Coffin, Reminiscences, p. 671.]

[Footnote 38: Atlantic Monthly, XII, p. 309.]

[Footnote 39: Ibid., XII, pp. 310-311.]

[Footnote 40: Ibid., p. 311.]

[Footnote 41: Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina, pp. 156, 157.]

[Footnote 42: Eckenrode, Political History of Virginia during the Reconstruction, p. 43.]

[Footnote 43: Hall, Andrew Johnson, p. 258.]

[Footnote 44: Thompson, Reconstruction in Georgia, p. 44.]

[Footnote 45: Davis, Reconstruction in Florida, p. 341.]

[Footnote 46: Ficklen, History of Reconstruction in Louisiana, p. 118.]