[Footnote 1: This correspondence, and much more bearing on the point, may be found in House Document 327 of the Second Session of the Twenty-fifth Congress.]

Important in this general connection was the fate of the deputation that the influential John Ross, chief of the Cherokees, was persuaded to send from his nation to induce the Seminoles to think more favorably of migration. Micanopy, twelve other chieftains, and a number of warriors accompanied the Cherokee deputation to the headquarters of the United States Army at Fort Mellon, where they were to discuss the matter. These warriors also Jessup seized, and Ross wrote to the Secretary of War a dignified but bitter letter protesting against this "unprecedented violation of that sacred rule which has ever been recognized by every nation, civilized and uncivilized, of treating with all due respect those who had ever presented themselves under a flag of truce before the enemy, for the purpose of proposing the termination of warfare." He had indeed been most basely used as the agent of deception.

This chapter, we trust, has shown something of the real nature of the points at issue in the Seminole Wars. In the course of these contests the rights of Indian and Negro alike were ruthlessly disregarded. There was redress for neither before the courts, and at the end in dealing with them every honorable principle of men and nations was violated. It is interesting that the three representatives of colored peoples who in the course of the nineteenth century it was most difficult to capture—Toussaint L'Ouverture, the Negro, Osceola, the Indian, and Aguinaldo, the Filipino—were all taken through treachery; and on two of the three occasions this treachery was practiced by responsible officers of the United States Army.



CHAPTER VI

EARLY APPROACH TO THE NEGRO PROBLEM

1. The Ultimate Problem and the Missouri Compromise

In a previous chapter[1] we have already indicated the rise of the Negro Problem in the last decade of the eighteenth and the first two decades of the nineteenth century. And what was the Negro Problem? It was certainly not merely a question of slavery; in the last analysis this institution was hardly more than an incident. Slavery has ceased to exist, but even to-day the Problem is with us. The question was rather what was to be the final place in the American body politic of the Negro population that was so rapidly increasing in the country. In the answering of this question supreme importance attached to the Negro himself; but the problem soon transcended the race. Ultimately it was the destiny of the United States rather than of the Negro that was to be considered, and all the ideals on which the country was based came to the testing. If one studied those ideals he soon realized that they were based on Teutonic or at least English foundations. By 1820, however, the young American republic was already beginning to be the hope of all of the oppressed people of Europe, and Greeks and Italians as well as Germans and Swedes were turning their faces toward the Promised Land. The whole background of Latin culture was different from the Teutonic, and yet the people of Southern as well as of Northern Europe somehow became a part of the life of the United States. In this life was it also possible for the children of Africa to have a permanent and an honorable place? With their special tradition and gifts, with their shortcomings, above all with their distinctive color, could they, too, become genuine American citizens? Some said No, but in taking this position they denied not only the ideals on which the country was founded but also the possibilities of human nature itself. In any case the answer to the first question at once suggested another, What shall we do with the Negro? About this there was very great difference of opinion, it not always being supposed that the Negro himself had anything whatever to say about the matter. Some said send the Negro away, get rid of him by any means whatsoever; others said if he must stay, keep him in slavery; still others said not to keep him permanently in slavery, but emancipate him only gradually; and already there were beginning to be persons who felt that the Negro should be emancipated everywhere immediately, and that after this great event had taken place he and the nation together should work out his salvation on the broadest possible plane.

[Footnote 1: IV, Section 3.]

Into the agitation was suddenly thrust the application of Missouri for entrance into the Union as a slave state. The struggle that followed for two years was primarily a political one, but in the course of the discussion the evils of slavery were fully considered. Meanwhile, in 1819, Alabama and Maine also applied for admission. Alabama was allowed to enter without much discussion, as she made equal the number of slave and free states. Maine, however, brought forth more talk. The Southern congressmen would have been perfectly willing to admit this as a free state if Missouri had been admitted as a slave state; but the North felt that this would have been to concede altogether too much, as Missouri from the first gave promise of being unusually important. At length, largely through the influence of Henry Clay, there was adopted a compromise whose main provisions were (1) that Maine was to be admitted as a free state; (2) that in Missouri there was to be no prohibition of slavery; but (3) that slavery was to be prohibited in any other states that might be formed out of the Louisiana Purchase north of the line of 36 deg. 30'.

By this agreement the strife was allayed for some years; but it is now evident that the Missouri Compromise was only a postponement of the ultimate contest and that the social questions involved were hardly touched. Certainly the significance of the first clear drawing of the line between the sections was not lost upon thoughtful men. Jefferson wrote from Monticello in 1820: "This momentous question, like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. But this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.... I can say, with conscious truth, that there is not a man on earth who would sacrifice more than I would to relieve us from this heavy reproach, in any practicable way. The cession of that kind of property, for so it is misnamed, is a bagatelle that would not cost me a second thought, if, in that way, a general emancipation and expatriation could be effected; and, gradually, and with due sacrifices, I think it might be."[1] For the time being, however, the South was concerned mainly about immediate dangers; nor was this section placed more at ease by Denmark Vesey's attempted insurrection in 1822.[2] A representative South Carolinian,[3] writing after this event, said, "We regard our Negroes as the Jacobins of the country, against whom we should always be upon our guard, and who, although we fear no permanent effects from any insurrectionary movements on their part, should be watched with an eye of steady and unremitted observation." Meanwhile from a ratio of 43.72 to 56.28 in 1790 the total Negro population in South Carolina had by 1820 come to outnumber the white 52.77 to 47.23, and the tendency was increasingly in favor of the Negro. The South, the whole country in fact, was more and more being forced to consider not only slavery but the ultimate reaches of the problem.

[Footnote 1: Writings, XV, 249.]

[Footnote 2: See Chapter VII, Section 1.]

[Footnote 3: Holland: A Refutation of Calumnies, 61.]

Whatever one might think of the conclusion—and in this case the speaker was pleading for colonization—no statement of the problem as it impressed men about 1820 or 1830 was clearer than that of Rev. Dr. Nott, President of Union College, at Albany in 1829.[1] The question, said he, was by no means local. Slavery was once legalized in New England; and New England built slave-ships and manned these with New England seamen. In 1820 the slave population in the country amounted to 1,500,000. The number doubled every twenty years, and it was easy to see how it would progress from 1,500,000 to 3,000,000; to 6,000,000; to 12,000,000; to 24,000,000. "Twenty-four millions of slaves! What a drawback from our strength; what a tax on our resources; what a hindrance to our growth; what a stain on our character; and what an impediment to the fulfillment of our destiny! Could our worst enemies or the worst enemies of republics, wish us a severer judgment?" How could one know that wakeful and sagacious enemies without would not discover the vulnerable point and use it for the country's overthrow? Or was there not danger that among a people goaded from age to age there might at length arise some second Toussaint L'Ouverture, who, reckless of consequences, would array a force and cause a movement throughout the zone of bondage, leaving behind him plantations waste and mansions desolate? Who could believe that such a tremendous physical force would remain forever spell-bound and quiescent? After all, however, slavery was doomed; public opinion had already pronounced upon it, and the moral energy of the nation would sooner or later effect its overthrow. "But," continued Nott, "the solemn question here arises—in what condition will this momentous change place us? The freed men of other countries have long since disappeared, having been amalgamated in the general mass. Here there can be no amalgamation. Our manumitted bondmen have remained already to the third and fourth, as they will to the thousandth generation—a distinct, a degraded, and a wretched race." After this sweeping statement, which has certainly not been justified by time, Nott proceeded to argue the expediency of his organization. Gerrit Smith, who later drifted away from colonization, said frankly on the same occasion that the ultimate solution was either amalgamation or colonization, and that of the two courses he preferred to choose the latter. Others felt as he did. We shall now accordingly proceed to consider at somewhat greater length the two solutions that about 1820 had the clearest advocates—Colonization and Slavery.

[Footnote 1: See "African Colonization. Proceedings of the Formation of the New York State Colonization Society." Albany, 1829.]

2. Colonization

Early in 1773, Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Newport, called on his friend, Rev. Ezra Stiles, afterwards President of Yale College, and suggested the possibility of educating Negro students, perhaps two at first, who would later go as missionaries to Africa. Stiles thought that for the plan to be worth while there should be a colony on the coast of Africa, that at least thirty or forty persons should go, and that the enterprise should not be private but should have the formal backing of a society organized for the purpose. In harmony with the original plan two young Negro men sailed from New York for Africa, November 12, 1774; but the Revolutionary War followed and nothing more was done at the time. In 1784, however, and again in 1787, Hopkins tried to induce different merchants to fit out a vessel to convey a few emigrants, and in the latter year he talked with a young man from the West Indies, Dr. William Thornton, who expressed a willingness to take charge of the company. The enterprise failed for lack of funds, though Thornton kept up his interest and afterwards became a member of the first Board of Managers of the American Colonization Society. Hopkins in 1791 spoke before the Connecticut Emancipation Society, which he wished to see incorporated as a colonization society, and in a sermon before the Providence society in 1793 he reverted to his favorite theme. Meanwhile, as a result of the efforts of Wilberforce, Clarkson, and Granville Sharp in England, in May, 1787, some four hundred Negroes and sixty white persons were landed at Sierra Leone. Some of the Negroes in England had gained their freedom in consequence of Lord Mansfield's decision in 1772, others had been discharged from the British Army after the American Revolution, and all were leading in England a more or less precarious existence. The sixty white persons sent along were abandoned women, and why Sierra Leone should have had this weight placed upon it at the start history has not yet told. It is not surprising to learn that "disease and disorder were rife, and by 1791 a mere handful survived."[1] As early as in his Notes on Virginia, privately printed in 1781, Thomas Jefferson had suggested a colony for Negroes, perhaps in the new territory of Ohio. The suggestion was not acted upon, but it is evident that by 1800 several persons had thought of the possibility of removing the Negroes in the South to some other place either within or without the country.

[Footnote 1: McPherson, 15. (See bibliography on Liberia.)]

Gabriel's insurrection in 1800 again forced the idea concretely forward. Virginia was visibly disturbed by this outbreak, and in secret session, on December 21, the House of Delegates passed the following resolution: "That the Governor[1] be requested to correspond with the President of the United States,[2] on the subject of purchasing land without the limits of this state, whither persons obnoxious to the laws, or dangerous to the peace of society may be removed." The real purpose of this resolution was to get rid of those Negroes who had had some part in the insurrection and had not been executed; but not in 1800, or in 1802 or 1804, was the General Assembly thus able to banish those whom it was afraid to hang. Monroe, however, acted in accordance with his instructions, and Jefferson replied to him under date November 24, 1801. He was not now favorable to deportation to some place within the United States, and thought that the West Indies, probably Santo Domingo, might be better. There was little real danger that the exiles would stimulate vindictive or predatory descents on the American coasts, and in any case such a possibility was "overweighed by the humanity of the measures proposed." "Africa would offer a last and undoubted resort," thought Jefferson, "if all others more desirable should fail."[3] Six months later, on July 13, 1802, the President wrote about the matter to Rufus King, then minister in London. The course of events in the West Indies, he said, had given an impulse to the minds of Negroes in the United States; there was a disposition to insurgency, and it now seemed that if there was to be colonization, Africa was by all means the best place. An African company might also engage in commercial operations, and if there was cooeperation with Sierra Leone, there was the possibility of "one strong, rather than two weak colonies." Would King accordingly enter into conference with the English officials with reference to disposing of any Negroes who might be sent? "It is material to observe," remarked Jefferson, "that they are not felons, or common malefactors, but persons guilty of what the safety of society, under actual circumstances, obliges us to treat as a crime, but which their feelings may represent in a far different shape. They are such as will be a valuable acquisition to the settlement already existing there, and well calculated to cooeperate in the plan of civilization."[4] King accordingly opened correspondence with Thornton and Wedderbourne, the secretaries of the company having charge of Sierra Leone, but was informed that the colony was in a languishing condition and that funds were likely to fail, and that in no event would they be willing to receive more people from the United States, as these were the very ones who had already made most trouble in the settlement.[5] On January 22, 1805, the General Assembly of Virginia passed a resolution that embodied a request to the United States Government to set aside a portion of territory in the new Louisiana Purchase "to be appropriated to the residence of such people of color as have been, or shall be, emancipated, or may hereafter become dangerous to the public safety." Nothing came of this. By the close then of Jefferson's second administration the Northwest, the Southwest, the West Indies, and Sierra Leone had all been thought of as possible fields for colonization, but from the consideration nothing visible had resulted.

[Footnote 1: Monroe.]

[Footnote 2: Jefferson.]

[Footnote 3: Writings, X, 297.]

[Footnote 4: Writings, X, 327-328.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., XIII, 11.]

Now followed the period of Southern expansion and of increasing materialism, and before long came the War of 1812. By 1811 a note of doubt had crept into Jefferson's dealing with the subject. Said he: "Nothing is more to be wished than that the United States would themselves undertake to make such an establishment on the coast of Africa ... But for this the national mind is not yet prepared. It may perhaps be doubted whether many of these people would voluntarily consent to such an exchange of situation, and very certain that few of those advanced to a certain age in habits of slavery, would be capable of self-government. This should not, however, discourage the experiment, nor the early trial of it; and the proposition should be made with all the prudent cautions and attentions requisite to reconcile it to the interests, the safety, and the prejudices of all parties."[1]

[Footnote 1: Writings, XIII, 11.]

From an entirely different source, however, and prompted not by expediency but the purest altruism, came an impulse that finally told in the founding of Liberia. The heart of a young man reached out across the sea. Samuel J. Mills, an undergraduate of Williams College, in 1808 formed among his fellow-students a missionary society whose work later told in the formation of the American Bible Society and the Board of Foreign Missions. Mills continued his theological studies at Andover and then at Princeton; and while at the latter place he established a school for Negroes at Parsippany, thirty miles away. He also interested in his work and hopes Rev. Robert Finley, of Basking Ridge, N.J., who "succeeded in assembling at Princeton the first meeting ever called to consider the project of sending Negro colonists to Africa,"[1] and who in a letter to John P. Mumford, of New York, under date February 14, 1815, expressed his interest by saying, "We should send to Africa a population partly civilized and christianized for its benefit; and our blacks themselves would be put in a better condition."

[Footnote 1: McPherson, 18.]

In this same year, 1815, the country was startled by the unselfish enterprise of a Negro who had long thought of the unfortunate situation of his people in America and who himself shouldered the obligation to do something definite in their behalf. Paul Cuffe had been born in May, 1759, on one of the Elizabeth Islands near New Bedford, Mass., the son of a father who was once a slave from Africa and of an Indian mother.[1] Interested in navigation, he made voyages to Russia, England, Africa, the West Indies, and the South; and in time he commanded his own vessel, became generally respected, and by his wisdom rose to a fair degree of opulence. For twenty years he had thought especially about Africa, and in 1815 he took to Sierra Leone a total of nine families and thirty-eight persons at an expense to himself of nearly $4000. The people that he brought were well received at Sierra Leone, and Cuffe himself had greater and more far-reaching plans when he died September 7, 1817. He left an estate valued at $20,000.

[Footnote 1: First Annual Report of American Colonization Society.]

Dr. Finley's meeting at Princeton was not very well attended and hence not a great success. Nevertheless he felt sufficiently encouraged to go to Washington in December, 1816, to use his effort for the formation of a national colonization society. It happened that in February of this same year, 1816, General Charles Fenton Mercer, member of the House of Delegates, came upon the secret journals of the legislature for the period 1801-5 and saw the correspondence between Monroe and Jefferson. Interested in the colonization project, on December 14 (Monroe then being President-elect) he presented in the House of Delegates resolutions embodying the previous enactments; and these passed 132 to 14. Finley was generally helped by the effort of Mercer, and on December 21, 1816, there was held in Washington a meeting of public men and interested citizens, Henry Clay, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, presiding. A constitution was adopted at an adjourned meeting on December 28; and on January 1, 1817, were formally chosen the officers of "The American Society for Colonizing the Free People of Color of the United States." At this last meeting Henry Clay, again presiding, spoke in glowing terms of the possibilities of the movement; Elias B. Caldwell, a brother-in-law of Finley, made the leading argument; and John Randolph, of Roanoke, Va., and Robert Wright, of Maryland, spoke of the advantages to accrue from the removal of the free Negroes from the country (which remarks were very soon to awaken much discussion and criticism, especially on the part of the Negroes themselves). It is interesting to note that Mercer had no part at all in the meeting of January 1, not even being present; he did not feel that any but Southern men should be enrolled in the organization. However, Bushrod Washington, the president, was a Southern man; twelve of the seventeen vice-presidents were Southern men, among them being Andrew Jackson and William Crawford; and all of the twelve managers were slaveholders.

Membership in the American Colonization Society originally consisted, first, of such as sincerely desired to afford the free Negroes an asylum from oppression and who hoped through them to extend to Africa the blessings of civilization and Christianity; second, of such as sought to enhance the value of their own slaves by removing the free Negroes; and third, of such as desired to be relieved of any responsibility whatever for free Negroes. The movement was widely advertised as "an effort for the benefit of the blacks in which all parts of the country could unite," it being understood that it was "not to have the abolition of slavery for its immediate object," nor was it to "aim directly at the instruction of the great body of the blacks." Such points as the last were to prove in course of time hardly less than a direct challenge to the different abolitionist organizations in the North, and more and more the Society was denounced as a movement on the part of slaveholders for perpetuating their institutions by doing away with the free people of color. It is not to be supposed, however, that the South, with its usual religious fervor, did not put much genuine feeling into the colonization scheme. One man in Georgia named Tubman freed his slaves, thirty in all, and placed them in charge of the Society with a gift of $10,000; Thomas Hunt, a young Virginian, afterwards a chaplain in the Union Army, sent to Liberia the slaves he had inherited, paying the entire cost of the journey; and others acted in a similar spirit of benevolence. It was but natural, however, for the public to be somewhat uncertain as to the tendencies of the organization when the utterances of representative men were sometimes directly contradictory. On January 20, 1827, for instance, Henry Clay, then Secretary of State, speaking in the hall of the House of Representatives at the annual meeting of the Society, said: "Of all classes of our population, the most vicious is that of the free colored. It is the inevitable result of their moral, political, and civil degradation. Contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all around them, to the slaves and to the whites." Just a moment later he said: "Every emigrant to Africa is a missionary carrying with him credentials in the holy cause of civilization, religion, and free institutions." How persons contaminated and vicious could be missionaries of civilization and religion was something possible only in the logic of Henry Clay. In the course of the next month Robert Y. Hayne gave a Southern criticism in two addresses on a memorial presented in the United States Senate by the Colonization Society.[1] The first of these speeches was a clever one characterized by much wit and good-humored raillery; the second was a sober arraignment. Hayne emphasized the tremendous cost involved and the physical impossibility of the whole undertaking, estimating that at least sixty thousand persons a year would have to be transported to accomplish anything like the desired result. At the close of his brilliant attack, still making a veiled plea for the continuance of slavery, he nevertheless rose to genuine statesmanship in dealing with the problem of the Negro, saying, "While this process is going on the colored classes are gradually diffusing themselves throughout the country and are making steady advances in intelligence and refinement, and if half the zeal were displayed in bettering their condition that is now wasted in the vain and fruitless effort of sending them abroad, their intellectual and moral improvement would be steady and rapid." William Lloyd Garrison was untiring and merciless in flaying the inconsistencies and selfishness of the colonization organization. In an editorial in the Liberator, July 9, 1831, he charged the Society, first, with persecution in compelling free people to emigrate against their will and in discouraging their education at home; second, with falsehood in saying that the Negroes were natives of Africa when they were no more so than white Americans were natives of Great Britain; third, with cowardice in asserting that the continuance of the Negro population in the country involved dangers; and finally, with infidelity in denying that the Gospel has full power to reach the hatred in the hearts of men. In Thoughts on African Colonisation (1832) he developed exhaustively ten points as follows: That the American Colonization Society was pledged not to oppose the system of slavery, that it apologized for slavery and slaveholders, that it recognized slaves as property, that by deporting Negroes it increased the value of slaves, that it was the enemy of immediate abolition, that it was nourished by fear and selfishness, that it aimed at the utter expulsion of the blacks, that it was the disparager of free Negroes, that it denied the possibility of elevating the black people of the country, and that it deceived and misled the nation. Other criticisms were numerous. A broadside, "The Shields of American Slavery" ("Broad enough to hide the wrongs of two millions of stolen men") placed side by side conflicting utterances of members of the Society; and in August, 1830, Kendall, fourth auditor, in his report to the Secretary of the Navy, wondered why the resources of the government should be used "to colonize recaptured Africans, to build homes for them, to furnish them with farming utensils, to pay instructors to teach them, to purchase ships for their convenience, to build forts for their protection, to supply them with arms and munitions of war, to enlist troops to guard them, and to employ the army and navy in their defense."[2] Criticism of the American Colonization Society was prompted by a variety of motives; but the organization made itself vulnerable at many points. The movement attracted extraordinary attention, but has had practically no effect whatever on the position of the Negro in the United States. Its work in connection with the founding of Liberia, however, is of the highest importance, and must later receive detailed attention.

[Footnote 1: See Jervey: Robert Y. Hayne and His Times, 207-8.]

[Footnote 2: Cited by McPherson, 22.]

3. Slavery

We have seen that from the beginning there were liberal-minded men in the South who opposed the system of slavery, and if we actually take note of all the utterances of different men and of the proposals for doing away with the system, we shall find that about the turn of the century there was in this section considerable anti-slavery sentiment. Between 1800 and 1820, however, the opening of new lands in the Southwest, the increasing emphasis on cotton, and the rapidly growing Negro population, gave force to the argument of expediency; and the Missouri Compromise drew sharply the lines of the contest. The South now came to regard slavery as its peculiar heritage; public men were forced to defend the institution; and in general the best thought of the section began to be obsessed and dominated by the Negro, just as it is to-day in large measure. In taking this position the South deliberately committed intellectual suicide. In such matters as freedom of speech and literary achievement, and in genuine statesmanship if not for the time being in political influence, this part of the country declined, and before long the difference between it and New England was appalling. Calhoun and Hayne were strong; but between 1820 and 1860 the South had no names to compare with Longfellow and Emerson in literature, or with Morse and Hoe in invention. The foremost college professor, Dew, of William and Mary, and even the outstanding divines, Furman, the Baptist, of South Carolina, in the twenties, and Palmer, the Presbyterian of New Orleans, in the fifties, are all now remembered mainly because they defended their section in keeping the Negro in bonds. William and Mary College, and even the University of Virginia, as compared with Harvard and Yale, became provincial institutions; and instead of the Washington or Jefferson of an earlier day now began to be nourished such a leader as "Bob" Toombs, who for all of his fire and eloquence was a demagogue. In making its choice the South could not and did not blame the Negro per se, for it was freely recognized that upon slave labor rested such economic stability as the section possessed. The tragedy was simply that thousands of intelligent Americans deliberately turned their faces to the past, and preferred to read the novels of Walter Scott and live in the Middle Ages rather than study the French Revolution and live in the nineteenth century. One hundred years after we find that the chains are still forged, that thought is not yet free. Thus the Negro Problem began to be, and still is, very largely the problem of the white man of the South. The era of capitalism had not yet dawned, and still far in the future was the day when the poor white man and the Negro were slowly to realize that their interests were largely identical.

The argument with which the South came to support its position and to defend slavery need not here detain us at length. It was formally stated by Dew and others[1] and it was to be heard on every hand. One could hardly go to church, to say nothing of going to a public meeting, without hearing echoes of it. In general it was maintained that slavery had made for the civilization of the world in that it had mitigated the evils of war, had made labor profitable, had changed the nature of savages, and elevated woman. The slave-trade was of course horrible and unjust, but the great advantages of the system more than outweighed a few attendant evils. Emancipation and deportation were alike impossible. Even if practicable, they would not be expedient measures, for they meant the loss to Virginia of one-third of her property. As for morality, it was not to be expected that the Negro should have the sensibilities of the white man. Moreover the system had the advantage of cultivating a republican spirit among the white people. In short, said Dew, the slaves, in both the economic and the moral point of view, were "entirely unfit for a state of freedom among the whites." Holland, already cited, in 1822 maintained five points, as follows: 1. That the United States are one for national purposes, but separate for their internal regulation and government; 2. That the people of the North and East "always exhibited an unfriendly feeling on subjects affecting the interests of the South and West"; 3. That the institution of slavery was not an institution of the South's voluntary choosing; 4. That the Southern sections of the Union, both before and after the Declaration of Independence, "had uniformly exhibited a disposition to restrict the extension of the evil—and had always manifested as cordial a disposition to ameliorate it as those of the North and East"; and 5. That the actual state and condition of the slave population "reflected no disgrace whatever on the character of the country—as the slaves were infinitely better provided for than the laboring poor of other countries of the world, and were generally happier than millions of white people in the world." Such arguments the clergy supported and endeavored to reconcile with Christian precept. Rev. Dr. Richard Furman, president of the Baptist Convention of South Carolina,[2] after much inquiry and reasoning, arrived at the conclusion that "the holding of slaves is justifiable by the doctrine and example contained in Holy Writ; and is, therefore, consistent with Christian uprightness both in sentiment and conduct." Said he further: "The Christian golden rule, of doing to others as we would they should do to us, has been urged as an unanswerable argument against holding slaves. But surely this rule is never to be urged against that order of things which the Divine government has established; nor do our desires become a standard to us, under this rule, unless they have a due regard to justice, propriety, and the general good.... A father may very naturally desire that his son should be obedient to his orders: Is he therefore to obey the orders of his son? A man might be pleased to be exonerated from his debts by the generosity of his creditors; or that his rich neighbor should equally divide his property with him; and in certain circumstances might desire these to be done: Would the mere existence of this desire oblige him to exonerate his debtors, and to make such division of his property?" Calhoun in 1837 formally accepted slavery, saying that the South should no longer apologize for it; and the whole argument from the standpoint of expediency received eloquent expression in the Senate of the United States from no less a man than Henry Clay, who more and more appears in the perspective as a pro-Southern advocate. Said he: "I am no friend of slavery. But I prefer the liberty of my own country to that of any other people; and the liberty of my own race to that of any other race. The liberty of the descendants of Africa in the United States is incompatible with the safety and liberty of the European descendants. Their slavery forms an exception—an exception resulting from a stern and inexorable necessity—to the general liberty in the United States."[3] After the lapse of years the pro-slavery argument is pitiful in its numerous fallacies. It was in line with much of the discussion of the day that questioned whether the Negro was actually a human being, and but serves to show to what extremes economic interest will sometimes drive men otherwise of high intelligence and honor.

[Footnote 1: The Pro-Slavery Argument (as maintained by the most distinguished writers of the Southern states). Charleston, 1852.]

[Footnote 2: "Rev. Dr. Richard Furman's Exposition of the Views of the Baptists relative to the Coloured Population in the United States, in a Communication to the Governor of South Carolina." Second edition, Charleston, 1833 (letter bears original date, December 24, 1822).]

[Footnote 3: Address "On Abolition," February 7, 1839.]



CHAPTER VII

THE NEGRO REPLY, I: REVOLT

We have already seen that on several occasions in colonial times the Negroes in bondage made a bid for freedom, many men risking their all and losing their lives in consequence. In general these early attempts failed completely to realize their aim, organization being feeble and the leadership untrained and exerting only an emotional hold over adherents. In Charleston, S.C., in 1822, however, there was planned an insurrection about whose scope there could be no question. The leader, Denmark Vesey, is interesting as an intellectual insurrectionist just as the more famous Nat Turner is typical of the more fervent sort. It is the purpose of the present chapter to study the attempts for freedom made by these two men, and also those of two daring groups of captives who revolted at sea.

1. Denmark Vesey's Insurrection

Denmark Vesey is first seen as one of the three hundred and ninety slaves on the ship of Captain Vesey, who commanded a vessel trading between St. Thomas and Cape Francois (Santo Domingo), and who was engaged in supplying the French of the latter place with slaves. At the time, the boy was fourteen years old, and of unusual personal beauty, alertness, and magnetism. He was shown considerable favoritism, and was called Telemaque (afterwards corrupted to Telmak, and then to Denmark). On his arrival at Cape Francois, Denmark was sold with others of the slaves to a planter who owned a considerable estate. On his next trip, however, Captain Vesey learned that the boy was to be returned to him as unsound and subject to epileptic fits. The laws of the place permitted the return of a slave in such a case, and while it has been thought that Denmark's fits may have been feigned in order that he might have some change of estate, there was quite enough proof in the matter to impress the king's physician. Captain Vesey never had reason to regret having to take the boy back. They made several voyages together, and Denmark served until 1800 as his faithful personal attendant. In this year the young man, now thirty-three years of age and living in Charleston, won $1,500 in an East Bay Street lottery, $600 of which he devoted immediately to the purchase of his freedom. The sum was much less than he was really worth, but Captain Vesey liked him and had no reason to drive a hard bargain with him.

In the early years of his full manhood accordingly Denmark Vesey found himself a free man in his own right and possessed of the means for a little real start in life. He improved his time and proceeded to win greater standing and recognition by regular and industrious work at his trade, that of a carpenter. Over the slaves he came to have unbounded influence. Among them, in accordance with the standards of the day, he had several wives and children (none of whom could he call his own), and he understood perfectly the fervor and faith and superstition of the Negroes with whom he had to deal. To his remarkable personal magnetism moreover he added just the strong passion and the domineering temper that were needed to make his conquest complete.

Thus for twenty years he worked on. He already knew French as well as English, but he now studied and reflected upon as wide a range of subjects as possible. It was not expected at the time that there would be religious classes or congregations of Negroes apart from the white people; but the law was not strictly observed, and for a number of years a Negro congregation had a church in Hampstead in the suburbs of Charleston. At the meetings here and elsewhere Vesey found his opportunity, and he drew interesting parallels between the experiences of the Jews and the Negroes. He would rebuke a companion on the street for bowing to a white person; and if such a man replied, "We are slaves," he would say, "You deserve to be." If the man then asked what he could do to better his condition, he would say, "Go and buy a spelling-book and read the fable of Hercules and the wagoner."[1] At the same time if he happened to engage in conversation with white people in the presence of Negroes, he would often take occasion to introduce some striking remark on slavery. He regularly held up to emulation the work of the Negroes of Santo Domingo; and either he or one of his chief lieutenants clandestinely sent a letter to the President of Santo Domingo to ask if the people there would help the Negroes of Charleston if the latter made an effort to free themselves.[2] About 1820 moreover, when he heard of the African Colonization scheme and the opportunity came to him to go, he put this by, waiting for something better. This was the period of the Missouri Compromise. Reports of the agitation and of the debates in Congress were eagerly scanned by those Negroes in Charleston who could read; rumor exaggerated them; and some of the more credulous of the slaves came to believe that the efforts of Northern friends had actually emancipated them and that they were being illegally held in bondage. Nor was the situation improved when the city marshal, John J. Lafar, on January 15, 1821, reminded those ministers or other persons who kept night and Sunday schools for Negroes that the law forbade the education of such persons and would have to be enforced. Meanwhile Vesey was very patient. After a few months, however, he ceased to work at his trade in order that all the more he might devote himself to the mission of his life. This was, as he conceived it, an insurrection that would do nothing less than totally annihilate the white population of Charleston.

[Footnote 1: Official Report, 19.]

[Footnote 2: Official Report, 96-97, and Higginson, 232-3.]

In the prosecution of such a plan the greatest secrecy and faithfulness were of course necessary, and Vesey waited until about Christmas, 1821, to begin active recruiting. He first sounded Ned and Rolla Bennett, slaves of Governor Thomas Bennett, and then Peter Poyas and Jack Purcell. After Christmas he spoke to Gullah Jack and Monday Gell; and Lot Forrester and Frank Ferguson became his chief agents for the plantations outside of Charleston.[1] In the whole matter of the choice of his chief assistants he showed remarkable judgment of character. His penetration was almost uncanny. "Rolla was plausible, and possessed uncommon self-possession; bold and ardent, he was not to be deterred from his purpose by danger. Ned's appearance indicated that he was a man of firm nerves and desperate courage. Peter was intrepid and resolute, true to his engagements, and cautious in observing secrecy when it was necessary; he was not to be daunted or impeded by difficulties, and though confident of success, was careful in providing against any obstacles or casualties which might arise, and intent upon discovering every means which might be in their power if thought of beforehand. Gullah Jack was regarded as a sorcerer, and as such feared by the natives of Africa, who believe in witchcraft. He was not only considered invulnerable, but that he could make others so by his charms; and that he could and certainly would provide all his followers with arms.... His influence amongst the Africans was inconceivable. Monday was firm, resolute, discreet, and intelligent."[2] He was also daring and active, a harness-maker in the prime of life, and he could read and write with facility; but he was also the only man of prominence in the conspiracy whose courage failed him in court and who turned traitor. To these names must be added that of Batteau Bennett, who was only eighteen years old and who brought to the plan all the ardor and devotion of youth. In general Vesey sought to bring into the plan those Negroes, such as stevedores and mechanics, who worked away from home and who had some free time. He would not use men who were known to become intoxicated, and one talkative man named George he excluded from his meetings. Nor did he use women, not because he did not trust them, but because in case of mishap he wanted the children to be properly cared for. "Take care," said Peter Poyas, in speaking about the plan to one of the recruits, "and don't mention it to those waiting men who receive presents of old coats, etc., from their masters, or they'll betray us; I will speak to them."

[Footnote 1: Official Report, 20. Note that Higginson, who was so untiring in his research, strangely confuses Jack Purcell and Gullah Jack (p. 230). The men were quite distinct, as appears throughout the report and from the list of those executed. The name of Gullah Jack's owner was Pritchard.]

[Footnote 2: Official Report, 24. Note that this remarkable characterization was given by the judges, Kennedy and Parker, who afterwards condemned the men to death.]

With his lieutenants Vesey finally brought into the plan the Negroes for seventy or eighty miles around Charleston. The second Monday in July, 1822, or Sunday, July 14, was the time originally set for the attack. July was chosen because in midsummer many of the white people were away at different resorts; and Sunday received favorable consideration because on that day the slaves from the outlying plantations were frequently permitted to come to the city. Lists of the recruits were kept. Peter Poyas is said to have gathered as many as six hundred names, chiefly from that part of Charleston known as South Bay in which he lived; and it is a mark of his care and discretion that of all of those afterwards arrested and tried, not one belonged to his company. Monday Gell, who joined late and was very prudent, had forty-two names. All such lists, however, were in course of time destroyed. "During the period that these enlistments were carrying on, Vesey held frequent meetings of the conspirators at his house; and as arms were necessary to their success, each night a hat was handed round, and collections made, for the purpose of purchasing them, and also to defray other necessary expenses. A Negro who was a blacksmith and had been accustomed to make edged tools, was employed to make pike-heads and bayonets with sockets, to be fixed at the ends of long poles and used as pikes. Of these pike-heads and bayonets, one hundred were said to have been made at an early day, and by the 16th June as many as two or three hundred, and between three and four hundred daggers."[1] A bundle containing some of the poles, neatly trimmed and smoothed off, and nine or ten feet long, was afterwards found concealed on a farm on Charleston Neck, where several of the meetings were held, having been carried there to have the pike-heads and bayonets fixed in place. Governor Bennett stated that the number of poles thus found was thirteen, but so wary were the Negroes that he and other prominent men underestimated the means of attack. It was thought that the Negroes in Charleston might use their masters' arms, while those from the country were to bring hoes, hatchets, and axes. For their main supply of arms, however, Vesey and Peter Poyas depended upon the magazines and storehouses in the city. They planned to seize the Arsenal in Meeting Street opposite St. Michael's Church; it was the key to the city, held the arms of the state, and had for some time been neglected. Poyas at a given signal at midnight was to move upon this point, killing the sentinel. Two large gun and powder stores were by arrangement to be at the disposal of the insurrectionists; and other leaders, coming from six different directions, were to seize strategic points and thus aid the central work of Poyas. Meanwhile a body of horse was to keep the streets clear. "Eat only dry food," said Gullah Jack as the day approached, "parched corn and ground nuts, and when you join us as we pass put this crab claw in your mouth and you can't be wounded."

[Footnote 1: Official Report, 31-32.]

On May 25[1] a slave of Colonel Prioleau, while on an errand at the wharf, was accosted by another slave, William Paul, who remarked: "I have often seen a flag with the number 76, but never one with the number 96 upon it before." As this man showed no knowledge of what was going on, Paul spoke to him further and quite frankly about the plot. The slave afterwards spoke to a free man about what he had heard; this man advised him to tell his master about it; and so he did on Prioleau's return on May 30. Prioleau immediately informed the Intendant, or Mayor, and by five o'clock in the afternoon both the slave and Paul were being examined. Paul was placed in confinement, but not before his testimony had implicated Peter Poyas and Mingo Harth, a man who had been appointed to lead one of the companies of horse. Harth and Poyas were cool and collected, however, they ridiculed the whole idea, and the wardens, completely deceived, discharged them. In general at this time the authorities were careful and endeavored not to act hastily. About June 8, however, Paul, greatly excited and fearing execution, confessed that the plan was very extensive and said that it was led by an individual who bore a charmed life. Ned Bennett, hearing that his name had been mentioned, voluntarily went before the Intendant and asked to be examined, thus again completely baffling the officials. All the while, in the face of the greatest danger, Vesey continued to hold his meetings. By Friday, June 14, however, another informant had spoken to his master, and all too fully were Peter Poyas's fears about "waiting-men" justified. This man said that the original plan had been changed, for the night of Sunday, June 16, was now the time set for the insurrection, and otherwise he was able to give all essential information.[2] On Saturday night, June 15, Jesse Blackwood, an aid sent into the country to prepare the slaves to enter the following day, while he penetrated two lines of guards, was at the third line halted and sent back into the city. Vesey now realized in a moment that all his plans were disclosed, and immediately he destroyed any papers that might prove to be incriminating. "On Sunday, June 16, at ten o'clock at night, Captain Cattle's Corps of Hussars, Captain Miller's Light Infantry, Captain Martindale's Neck Rangers, the Charleston Riflemen and the City Guard were ordered to rendezvous for guard, the whole organized as a detachment under command of Colonel R.Y. Hayne."[3] It was his work on this occasion that gave Hayne that appeal to the public which was later to help him to pass on to the governorship and then to the United States Senate. On the fateful night twenty or thirty men from the outlying districts who had not been able to get word of the progress of events, came to the city in a small boat, but Vesey sent word to them to go back as quickly as possible.

[Footnote 1: Higginson, 215.]

[Footnote 2: For reasons of policy the names of these informers were withheld from publication, but they were well known, of course, to the Negroes of Charleston. The published documents said of the chief informer, "It would be a libel on the liberality and gratitude of this community to suppose that this man can be overlooked among those who are to be rewarded for their fidelity and principle." The author has been informed that his reward for betraying his people was to be officially and legally declared "a white man."]

[Footnote 3: Jervey: Robert Y. Hayne and His Times, 131-2.]

Two courts were formed for the trial of the conspirators. The first, after a long session of five weeks, was dissolved July 20; a second was convened, but after three days closed its investigation and adjourned August 8.[1] All the while the public mind was greatly excited. The first court, which speedily condemned thirty-four men to death, was severely criticized. The New York Daily Advertiser termed the execution "a bloody sacrifice"; but Charleston replied with the reminder of the Negroes who had been burned in New York in 1741.[2] Some of the Negroes blamed the leaders for the trouble into which they had been brought, but Vesey himself made no confession. He was by no means alone. "Do not open your lips," said Poyas; "die silent as you shall see me do." Something of the solicitude of owners for their slaves may be seen from the request of Governor Bennett himself in behalf of Batteau Bennett. He asked for a special review of the case of this young man, who was among those condemned to death, "with a view to the mitigation of his punishment." The court did review the case, but it did not change its sentence. Throughout the proceedings the white people of Charleston were impressed by the character of those who had taken part in the insurrection; "many of them possessed the highest confidence of their owners, and not one was of bad character."[3]

[Footnote 1: Bennett letter.]

[Footnote 2: See City Gazette, August 14, 1822, cited by Jervey.]

[Footnote 3: Official Report, 44.]

As a result of this effort for freedom one hundred and thirty-one Negroes were arrested; thirty-five were executed and forty-three banished.[1] Of those executed, Denmark Vesey, Peter Poyas, Ned Bennett, Rolla Bennett, Batteau Bennett, and Jesse Blackwood were hanged July 2; Gullah Jack and one more on July 12; twenty-two were hanged on a huge gallows Friday, July 26; four more were hanged July 30, and one on August 9. Of those banished, twelve had been sentenced for execution, but were afterwards given banishment instead; twenty-one were to be transported by their masters beyond the limits of the United States; one, a free man, required to leave the state, satisfied the court by offering to leave the United States, while nine others who were not definitely sentenced were strongly recommended to their owners for banishment. The others of the one hundred and thirty-one were acquitted. The authorities at length felt that they had executed enough to teach the Negroes a lesson, and the hanging ceased; but within the next year or two Governor Bennett and others gave to the world most gloomy reflections upon the whole proceeding and upon the grave problem at their door. Thus closed the insurrection that for the ambitiousness of its plan, the care with which it was matured, and the faithfulness of the leaders to one another, was never equalled by a similar attempt for freedom in the United States.

[Footnote 1: The figure is sometimes given as 37, but the lists total 43.]

2. Nat Turner's Insurrection

About noon on Sunday, August 21, 1831, on the plantation of Joseph Travis at Cross Keys, in Southampton County, in Southeastern Virginia, were gathered four Negroes, Henry Porter, Hark Travis, Nelson Williams, and Sam Francis, evidently preparing for a barbecue. They were soon joined by a gigantic and athletic Negro named Will Francis, and by another named Jack Reese. Two hours later came a short, strong-looking man who had a face of great resolution and at whom one would not have needed to glance a second time to know that he was to be the master-spirit of the company. Seeing Will and his companion he raised a question as to their being present, to which Will replied that life was worth no more to him than the others and that liberty was as dear to him. This answer satisfied the latest comer, and Nat Turner now went into conference with his most trusted friends. One can only imagine the purpose, the eagerness, and the firmness on those dark faces throughout that long summer afternoon and evening. When at last in the night the low whispering ceased, the doom of nearly three-score white persons—and it might be added, of twice as many Negroes—was sealed.

Cross Keys was seventy miles from Norfolk, just about as far from Richmond, twenty-five miles from the Dismal Swamp, fifteen miles from Murfreesboro in North Carolina, and also fifteen miles from Jerusalem, the county seat of Southampton County. The community was settled primarily by white people of modest means. Joseph Travis, the owner of Nat Turner, had recently married the widow of one Putnam Moore.

Nat Turner, who originally belonged to one Benjamin Turner, was born October 2, 1800. He was mentally precocious and had marks on his head and breast which were interpreted by the Negroes who knew him as marking him for some high calling. In his mature years he also had on his right arm a knot which was the result of a blow which he had received. He experimented in paper, gunpowder, and pottery, and it is recorded of him that he was never known to swear an oath, to drink a drop of spirits, or to commit a theft. Instead he cultivated fasting and prayer and the reading of the Bible.

More and more Nat gave himself up to a life of the spirit and to communion with the voices that he said he heard. He once ran away for a month, but felt commanded by the spirit to return. About 1825 a consciousness of his great mission came to him, and daily he labored to make himself more worthy. As he worked in the field he saw drops of blood on the corn, and he also saw white spirits and black spirits contending in the skies. While he thus so largely lived in a religious or mystical world and was immersed, he was not a professional Baptist preacher. On May 12, 1828, he was left no longer in doubt. A great voice said unto him that the Serpent was loosed, that Christ had laid down the yoke, that he, Nat, was to take it up again, and that the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first. An eclipse of the sun in February, 1831, was interpreted as the sign for him to go forward. Yet he waited a little longer, until he had made sure of his most important associates. It is worthy of note that when he began his work, while he wanted the killing to be as effective and widespread as possible, he commanded that no outrage be committed, and he was obeyed.

When on the Sunday in August Nat and his companions finished their conference, they went to find Austin, a brother-spirit; and then all went to the cider-press and drank except Nat. It was understood that he as the leader was to spill the first blood, and that he was to begin with his own master, Joseph Travis. Going to the house, Hark placed a ladder against the chimney. On this Nat ascended; then he went downstairs, unbarred the doors, and removed the guns from their places. He and Will together entered Travis's chamber, and the first blow was given to the master of the house. The hatchet glanced off and Travis called to his wife; but this was with his last breath, for Will at once despatched him with his ax. The wife and the three children of the house were also killed immediately. Then followed a drill of the company, after which all went to the home of Salathiel Francis six hundred yards away. Sam and Will knocked, and Francis asked who was there. Sam replied that he had a letter, for him. The man came to the door, where he was seized and killed by repeated blows over the head. He was the only white person in the house. In silence all passed on to the home of Mrs. Reese, who was killed while asleep in bed. Her son awoke, but was also immediately killed. A mile away the insurrectionists came to the home of Mrs. Turner, which they reached about sunrise on Monday morning. Henry, Austin, and Sam went to the still, where they found and killed the overseer, Peebles, Austin shooting him. Then all went to the house. The family saw them coming and shut the door—to no avail, however, as Will with one stroke of his ax opened it and entered to find Mrs. Turner and Mrs. Newsome in the middle of the room almost frightened to death. Will killed Mrs. Turner with one blow of his ax, and after Nat had struck Mrs. Newsome over the head with his sword, Will turned and killed her also. By this time the company amounted to fifteen. Nine went mounted to the home of Mrs. Whitehead and six others went along a byway to the home of Henry Bryant. As they neared the first house Richard Whitehead, the son of the family, was standing in the cotton-patch near the fence. Will killed him with his ax immediately. In the house he killed Mrs. Whitehead, almost severing her head from her body with one blow. Margaret, a daughter, tried to conceal herself and ran, but was killed by Turner with a fence-rail. The men in this first company were now joined by those in the second, the six who had gone to the Bryant home, who informed them that they had done the work assigned, which was to kill Henry Bryant himself, his wife and child, and his wife's mother. By this time the killing had become fast and furious. The company divided again; some would go ahead, and Nat would come up to find work already accomplished. Generally fifteen or twenty of the best mounted were put in front to strike terror and prevent escape, and Nat himself frequently did not get to the houses where killing was done. More and more the Negroes, now about forty in number, were getting drunken and noisy. The alarm was given, and by nine or ten o'clock on Monday morning one Captain Harris and his family had escaped. Prominent among the events of the morning, however, was the killing at the home of Mrs. Waller of ten children who were gathering for school.[1]

[Footnote 1: In "Horrid Massacre," or, to use the more formal title, "Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene which was Witnessed in Southampton County (Virginia) on Monday the 22d of August Last," the list below of the victims of Nat Turner's insurrection is given. It must be said about this work, however, that it is not altogether impeccable; it seems to have been prepared very hastily after the event, its spelling of names is often arbitrary, and instead of the fifty-five victims noted it appears that at least fifty-seven white persons were killed:

Joseph Travis, wife and three children 5 Mrs. Elizabeth Turner, Hartwell Peebles, and Sarah Newsum 3 Mrs. Piety Reese and son, William 2 Trajan Doyal 1 Henry Briant, wife and child, and wife's mother 4 Mrs. Catherine Whitehead, her son Richard, four daughters and a grandchild 7 Salathael Francis 1 Nathaniel Francis's overseer and two children 3 John T. Barrow and George Vaughan 2 Mrs. Levi Waller and ten children 11 Mr. William Williams, wife and two boys 4 Mrs. Caswell Worrell and child 2 Mrs. Rebacca Vaughan, Ann Eliza Vaughan, and son Arthur 3 Mrs. Jacob Williams and three children and Edwin Drewry 5 _ 55 ]

As the men neared the home of James Parker, it was suggested that they call there; but Turner objected, as this man had already gone to Jerusalem and he himself wished to reach the county seat as soon as possible. However, he and some of the men remained at the gate while others went to the house half a mile away. This exploit proved to be the turning-point of the events of the day. Uneasy at the delay of those who went to the house, Turner went thither also. On his return he was met by a company of white men who had fired on those Negroes left at the gate and dispersed them. On discovering these men, Turner ordered his own men to halt and form, as now they were beginning to be alarmed. The white men, eighteen in number, approached and fired, but were forced to retreat. Reenforcements for them from Jerusalem were already at hand, however, and now the great pursuit of the Negro insurrectionists began.

Hark's horse was shot under him and five or six of the men were wounded. Turner's force was largely dispersed, but on Monday night he stopped at the home of Major Ridley, and his company again increased to forty. He tried to sleep a little, but a sentinel gave the alarm; all were soon up and the number was again reduced to twenty. Final resistance was offered at the home of Dr. Blunt, but here still more of the men were put to flight and were never again seen by Turner.

A little later, however, the leader found two of his men named Jacob and Nat. These he sent with word to Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam to meet him at the place where on Sunday they had taken dinner together. With what thoughts Nat Turner returned alone to this place on Tuesday evening can only be imagined. Throughout the night he remained, but no one joined him and he presumed that his followers had all either been taken or had deserted him. Nor did any one come on Wednesday, or on Thursday. On Thursday night, having supplied himself with provisions from the Travis home, he scratched a hole under a pile of fence-rails, and here he remained for six weeks, leaving only at night to get water. All the while of course he had no means of learning of the fate of his companions or of anything else. Meanwhile not only the vicinity but the whole South was being wrought up to an hysterical state of mind. A reward of $500 for the capture of the man was offered by the Governor, and other rewards were also offered. On September 30 a false account of his capture appeared in the newspapers; on October 7 another; on October 8 still another. By this time Turner had begun to move about a little at night, not speaking to any human being and returning always to his hole before daybreak. Early on October 15 a dog smelt his provisions and led thither two Negroes. Nat appealed to these men for protection, but they at once began to run and excitedly spread the news. Turner fled in another direction and for ten days more hid among the wheat-stacks on the Francis plantation. All the while not less than five hundred men were on the watch for him, and they found the stick that he had notched from day to day. Once he thought of surrendering, and walked within two miles of Jerusalem. Three times he tried to get away, and failed. On October 25 he was discovered by Francis, who discharged at him a load of buckshot, twelve of which passed through his hat, and he was at large for five days more. On October 30 Benjamin Phipps, a member of the patrol, passing a clearing in the woods noticed a motion among the boughs. He paused, and gradually he saw Nat's head emerging from a hole beneath. The fugitive now gave up as he knew that the woods were full of men. He was taken to the nearest house, and the crowd was so great and the excitement so intense that it was with difficulty that he was taken to Jerusalem. For more than two months, from August 25 to October 30, he had eluded his pursuers, remaining all the while in the vicinity of his insurrection.

While Nat Turner was in prison, Thomas C. Gray, his counsel, received from him what are known as his "Confessions." This pamphlet is now almost inaccessible,[1] but it was in great demand at the time it was printed and it is now the chief source for information about the progress of the insurrection. Turner was tried November 5 and sentenced to be hanged six days later. Asked in court by Gray if he still believed in the providential nature of his mission, he asked, "Was not Christ crucified?" Of his execution itself we read: "Nat Turner was executed according to sentence, on Friday, the 11th of November, 1831, at Jerusalem, between the hours of 10 A.M. and 2 P.M. He exhibited the utmost composure throughout the whole ceremony; and, although assured that he might, if he thought proper, address the immense crowd assembled on the occasion, declined availing himself of the privilege; and, being asked if he had any further confessions to make, replied that he had nothing more than he had communicated; and told the sheriff in a firm voice that he was ready. Not a limb or muscle was observed to move. His body, after death, was given over to the surgeons for dissection."

[Footnote 1: The only copy that the author has seen is that in the library of Harvard University.]

Of fifty-three Negroes arraigned in connection with the insurrection "seventeen were executed and twelve transported. The rest were discharged, except ... four free Negroes sent on to the Superior Court. Three of the four were executed." [1] Such figures as these, however, give no conception of the number of those who lost their lives in connection with the insurrection. In general, if slaves were convicted by legal process and executed or transported, or if they escaped before trial, they were paid for by the commonwealth; if killed, they were not paid for, and a man like Phipps might naturally desire to protect his prisoner in order to get his reward. In spite of this, the Negroes were slaughtered without trial and sometimes under circumstances of the greatest barbarity. One man proudly boasted that he had killed between ten and fifteen. A party went from Richmond with the intention of killing every Negro in Southampton County. Approaching the cabin of a free Negro they asked, "Is this Southampton County?" "Yes, sir," came the reply, "you have just crossed the line by yonder tree." They shot him dead and rode on. In general the period was one of terror, with voluntary patrols, frequently drunk, going in all directions. These men tortured, burned, or maimed the Negroes practically at will. Said one old woman [2] of them: "The patrols were low drunken whites, and in Nat's time, if they heard any of the colored folks prayin' or singin' a hymn, they would fall upon 'em and abuse 'em, and sometimes kill 'em.... The brightest and best was killed in Nat's time. The whites always suspect such ones. They killed a great many at a place called Duplon. They killed Antonio, a slave of Mr. J. Stanley, whom they shot; then they pointed their guns at him and told him to confess about the insurrection. He told 'em he didn't know anything about any insurrection. They shot several balls through him, quartered him, and put his head on a pole at the fork of the road leading to the court.... It was there but a short time. He had no trial. They never do. In Nat's time, the patrols would tie up the free colored people, flog 'em, and try to make 'em lie against one another, and often killed them before anybody could interfere. Mr. James Cole, High Sheriff, said if any of the patrols came on his plantation, he would lose his life in defense of his people. One day he heard a patroller boasting how many Negroes he had killed. Mr. Cole said, 'If you don't pack up, as quick as God Almighty will let you, and get out of this town, and never be seen in it again, I'll put you where dogs won't bark at you.' He went off, and wasn't seen in them parts again."

[Footnote 1: Drewry, 101.]

[Footnote 2: Charity Bowery, who gave testimony to L.M. Child, quoted by Higginson.]

The immediate panic created by the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia and the other states of the South it would be impossible to exaggerate. When the news of what was happening at Cross Keys spread, two companies, on horse and foot, came from Murfreesboro as quickly as possible. On the Wednesday after the memorable Sunday night there came from Fortress Monroe three companies and a piece of artillery. These commands were reenforced from various sources until not less than eight hundred men were in arms. Many of the Negroes fled to the Dismal Swamp, and the wildest rumors were afloat. One was that Wilmington had been burned, and in Raleigh and Fayetteville the wildest excitement prevailed. In the latter place scores of white women and children fled to the swamps, coming out two days afterwards muddy, chilled, and half-starved. Slaves were imprisoned wholesale. In Wilmington four men were shot without trial and their heads placed on poles at the four corners of the town. In Macon, Ga., a report was circulated that an armed band of Negroes was only five miles away, and within an hour the women and children were assembled in the largest building in the town, with a military force in front for protection.

The effects on legislation were immediate. Throughout the South the slave codes became more harsh; and while it was clear that the uprising had been one of slaves rather than of free Negroes, as usual special disabilities fell upon the free people of color. Delaware, that only recently had limited the franchise to white men, now forbade the use of firearms by free Negroes and would not suffer any more to come within the state. Tennessee also forbade such immigration, while Maryland passed a law to the effect that all free Negroes must leave the state and be colonized in Africa—a monstrous piece of legislation that it was impossible to put into effect and that showed once for all the futility of attempts at forcible emigration as a solution of the problem. In general, however, the insurrection assisted the colonization scheme and also made more certain the carrying out of the policy of the Jackson administration to remove the Indians of the South to the West. It also focussed the attention of the nation upon the status of the Negro, crystallized opinion in the North, and thus helped with the formation of anti-slavery organizations. By it for the time being the Negro lost; in the long run he gained.

3. The "Amistad" and "Creole" Cases

On June 28, 1839, a schooner, the Amistad, sailed from Havana bound for Guanaja in the vicinity of Puerto Principe. She was under the command of her owner, Don Ramon Ferrer, was laden with merchandise, and had on board fifty-three Negroes, forty-nine of whom supposedly belonged to a Spaniard, Don Jose Ruiz, the other four belonging to Don Pedro Montes. During the night of June 30 the slaves, under the lead of one of their number named Cinque, rose upon the crew, killed the captain, a slave of his, and two sailors, and while they permitted most of the crew to escape, they took into close custody the two owners, Ruiz and Montes. Montes, who had some knowledge of nautical affairs, was ordered to steer the vessel back to Africa. So he did by day, when the Negroes would watch him, but at night he tried to make his way to some land nearer at hand. Other vessels passed from time to time, and from these the Negroes bought provisions, but Montes and Ruiz were so closely watched that they could not make known their plight. At length, on August 26, the schooner reached Long Island Sound, where it was detained by the American brig-of-war Washington, in command of Captain Gedney, who secured the Negroes and took them to New London, Conn. It took a year and a half to dispose of the issue thus raised. The case attracted the greatest amount of attention, led to international complications, and was not really disposed of until a former President had exhaustively argued the case for the Negroes before the Supreme Court of the United States.

In a letter of September 6, 1839, to John Forsyth, the American Secretary of State, Calderon, the Spanish minister, formally made four demands: 1. That the Amistad be immediately delivered up to her owner, together with every article on board at the time of her capture; 2. That it be declared that no tribunal in the United States had the right to institute proceedings against, or to impose penalties upon, the subjects of Spain, for crimes committed on board a Spanish vessel, and in the waters of Spanish territory; 3. That the Negroes be conveyed to Havana or otherwise placed at the disposal of the representatives of Spain; and 4. That if, in consequence of the intervention of the authorities in Connecticut, there should be any delay in the desired delivery of the vessel and the slaves, the owners both of the latter and of the former be indemnified for the injury that might accrue to them. In support of his demands Calderon invoked "the law of nations, the stipulations of existing treaties, and those good feelings so necessary in the maintenance of the friendly relations that subsist between the two countries, and are so interesting to both." Forsyth asked for any papers bearing on the question, and Calderon replied that he had none except "the declaration on oath of Montes and Ruiz."

Meanwhile the abolitionists were insisting that protection had not been afforded the African strangers cast on American soil and that in no case did the executive arm of the Government have any authority to interfere with the regular administration of justice. "These Africans," it was said, "are detained in jail, under process of the United States courts, in a free state, after it has been decided by the District Judge, on sufficient proof, that they are recently from Africa, were never the lawful slaves of Ruiz and Montes," and "when it is clear as noonday that there is no law or treaty stipulation that requires the further detention of these Africans or their delivery to Spain or its subjects."

Writing on October 24 to the Spanish representative with reference to the arrest of Ruiz and Montes, Forsyth informed him that the two Spanish subjects had been arrested on process issuing from the superior court of the city of New York upon affidavits of certain men, natives of Africa, "for the purpose of securing their appearance before the proper tribunal, to answer for wrongs alleged to have been inflicted by them upon the persons of said Africans," that, consequently, the occurrence constituted simply a "case of resort by individuals against others to the judicial courts of the country, which are equally open to all without distinction," and that the agency of the Government to obtain the release of Messrs. Ruiz and Montes could not be afforded in the manner requested. Further pressure was brought to bear by the Spanish representative, however, and there was cited the case of Abraham Wendell, captain of the brig Franklin, who was prosecuted at first by Spanish officials for maltreatment of his mate, but with reference to whom documents were afterwards sent from Havana to America. Much more correspondence followed, and Felix Grundy, of Tennessee, Attorney General of the United States, at length muddled everything by the following opinion: "These Negroes deny that they are slaves; if they should be delivered to the claimants, no opportunity may be afforded for the assertion of their right to freedom. For these reasons, it seems to me that a delivery to the Spanish minister is the only safe course for this Government to pursue." The fallacy of all this was shown in a letter dated November 18, 1839, from B.F. Butler, United States District Attorney in New York, to Aaron Vail, acting Secretary of State. Said Butler: "It does not appear to me that any question has yet arisen under the treaty with Spain; because, although it is an admitted principle, that neither the courts of this state, nor those of the United States, can take jurisdiction of criminal offenses committed by foreigners within the territory of a foreign state, yet it is equally settled in this country, that our courts will take cognizance of civil actions between foreigners transiently within our jurisdiction, founded upon contracts or other transactions made or had in a foreign state." Southern influence was strong, however, and a few weeks afterwards an order was given from the Department of State to have a vessel anchor off New Haven, Conn., January 10, 1840, to receive the Negroes from the United States marshal and take them to Cuba; and on January 7 the President, Van Buren, issued the necessary warrant.

The rights of humanity, however, were not to be handled in this summary fashion. The executive order was stayed, and the case went further on its progress to the highest tribunal in the land. Meanwhile the anti-slavery people were teaching the Africans the rudiments of English in order that they might be better able to tell their own story. From the first a committee had been appointed to look out for their interests and while they were awaiting the final decision in their case they cultivated a garden of fifteen acres.

The appearance of John Quincy Adams in behalf of these Negroes before the Supreme Court of the United States February 24 and March 1, 1841, is in every way one of the most beautiful acts in American history. In the fullness of years, with his own administration as President twelve years behind him, the "Old Man Eloquent" came once more to the tribunal that he knew so well to make a last plea for the needy and oppressed. To the task he brought all his talents—his profound knowledge of law, his unrivaled experience, and his impressive personality; and his argument covers 135 octavo pages. He gave an extended analysis of the demand of the Spanish minister, who asked the President to do what he simply had no constitutional right to do. "The President," said Adams, "has no power to arrest either citizens or foreigners. But even that power is almost insignificant compared with that of sending men beyond seas to deliver them up to a foreign government." The Secretary of State had "degraded the country, in the face of the whole civilized world, not only by allowing these demands to remain unanswered, but by proceeding, throughout the whole transaction, as if the Executive were earnestly desirous to comply with every one of the demands." The Spanish minister had naturally insisted in his demands because he had not been properly met at first. The slave-trade was illegal by international agreement, and the only thing to do under the circumstances was to release the Negroes. Adams closed his plea with a magnificent review of his career and of the labors of the distinguished jurists he had known in the court for nearly forty years, and be it recorded wherever the name of Justice is spoken, he won his case.

Lewis Tappan now accompanied the Africans on a tour through the states to raise money for their passage home. The first meeting was in Boston. Several members of the company interested the audience by their readings from the New Testament or by their descriptions of their own country and of the horrors of the voyage. Cinque gave the impression of great dignity and of extraordinary ability; and Kali, a boy only eleven years of age, also attracted unusual attention. Near the close of 1841, accompanied by five missionaries and teachers, the Africans set sail from New York, to make their way first to Sierra Leone and then to their own homes as well as they could.

While this whole incident of the Amistad was still engaging the interest of the public, there occurred another that also occasioned international friction and even more prolonged debate between the slavery and anti-slavery forces. On October 25, 1841, the brig Creole, Captain Ensor, of Richmond, Va., sailed from Richmond and on October 27 from Hampton Roads, with a cargo of tobacco and one hundred and thirty slaves bound for New Orleans. On the vessel also, aside from the crew, were the captain's wife and child, and three or four passengers, who were chiefly in charge of the slaves, one man, John R. Hewell, being directly in charge of those belonging to an owner named McCargo. About 9.30 on the night of Sunday, November 7, while out at sea, nineteen of the slaves rose, cowed the others, wounded the captain, and generally took command of the vessel. Madison Washington began the uprising by an attack on Gifford, the first mate, and Ben Blacksmith, one of the most aggressive of his assistants, killed Hewell. The insurgents seized the arms of the vessel, permitted no conversation between members of the crew except in their hearing, demanded and obtained the manifests of slaves, and threatened that if they were not taken to Abaco or some other British port they would throw the officers and crew overboard. The Creole reached Nassau, New Providence, on Tuesday, November 9, and the arrival of the vessel at once occasioned intense excitement. Gifford went ashore and reported the matter, and the American consul, John F. Bacon, contended to the English authorities that the slaves on board the brig were as much a part of the cargo as the tobacco and entitled to the same protection from loss to the owners. The governor, Sir Francis Cockburn, however, was uncertain whether to interfere in the business at all. He liberated those slaves who were not concerned in the uprising, spoke of all of the slaves as "passengers," and guaranteed to the nineteen who were shown by an investigation to have been connected with the uprising all the rights of prisoners called before an English court. He told them further that the British Government would be communicated with before their case was finally passed upon, that if they wished copies of the informations these would be furnished them, and that they were privileged to have witnesses examined in refutation of the charges against them. From time to time Negroes who were natives of the island crowded about the brig in small boats and intimidated the American crew, but when on the morning of November 12 the Attorney General questioned them as to their intentions they replied with transparent good humor that they intended no violence and had assembled only for the purpose of conveying to shore such of the persons on the Creole as might be permitted to leave and might need their assistance. The Attorney General required, however, that they throw overboard a dozen stout cudgels that they had. Here the whole case really rested. Daniel Webster as Secretary of State aroused the anti-slavery element by making a strong demand for the return of the slaves, basing his argument on the sacredness of vessels flying the American flag; but the English authorities at Nassau never returned any of them. On March 21, 1842, Joshua R. Giddings, untiring defender of the rights of the Negro, offered in the House of Representatives resolutions to the effect that slavery could exist only by positive law of the different states; that the states had delegated no control over slavery to the Federal Government, which alone had jurisdiction on the high seas, and that, therefore, slaves on the high seas became free and the coastwise trade was unconstitutional. The House, strongly pro-Southern, replied with a vote of censure and Giddings resigned, but he was immediately reelected by his Ohio constituency.



CHAPTER VIII

THE NEGRO REPLY, II: ORGANIZATION AND AGITATION

It is not the purpose of the present chapter primarily to consider social progress on the part of the Negro. A little later we shall endeavor to treat this interesting subject for the period between the Missouri Compromise and the Civil War. Just now we are concerned with the attitude of the Negro himself toward the problem that seemed to present itself to America and for which such different solutions were proposed. So far as slavery was concerned, we have seen that the remedy suggested by Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner was insurrection. It is only to state an historical fact, however, to say that the great heart of the Negro people in the South did not believe in violence, but rather hoped and prayed for a better day to come by some other means. But what was the attitude of those people, progressive citizens and thinking leaders, who were not satisfied with the condition of the race and who had to take a stand on the issues that confronted them? If we study the matter from this point of view, we shall find an amount of ferment and unrest and honest difference of opinion that is sometimes overlooked or completely forgotten in the questions of a later day.