Of one thing I am certain, that as the passage of slaves from one State to another, would not make a slave of a single human being who would not be so without it, so their diffusion over a greater surface would make them individually happier, and proportionally facilitate the accomplishment of their emancipation, by dividing the burden on a greater number of coadjutors. An abstinence, too, from this act of power would remove the jealousy excited by the undertaking of Congress to regulate the condition of the different descriptions of men composing a State, which nothing in the Constitution has taken from them and given to the General Government. Could Congress, for example, say that the non-freemen of Connecticut shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other State?[129]

During the closing years of his life he expressed little hope of seeing his plan of gradual emancipation carried out.

It was found that the public mind would not bear the proposition (gradual emancipation), nor will it bear it even at this day (1821). Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people are to be free; nor is it less certain, that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion have drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degree, as that the evil will wear off insensible, and their place be, pari passu, filled up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the Spanish deportation, or deletion of the Moors. This precedent would fall far short of our case.[130]

* * * * *

In 1769, I became a member of the legislature by the choice of the country in which I live (Albemarle), and so continued until it was closed by the Revolution. I made one effort in that body for the permission of the emancipation of slaves, which was rejected; and indeed, during the regal government, nothing liberal could expect success. Our minds were circumscribed within narrow limits, by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate to the mother country in all matters of government, to direct all our labors in subservience to her interests, and even to observe a bigoted intolerance for all religions but hers. The difficulties with our representatives were of habit and despair, not of reflection and conviction. Experience soon proved that they could bring their minds to rights on the first summons of their attention. But the King's Council, which acted as another house of legislature, held their places at will, and were in most humble obedience to that will; the Governor, too, who had a negative on our laws, held by the same tenure, and with still greater devotedness to it; and, last of all, the royal negative closed the last door to every hope of ameloration.—Autobiography.[131]

The first establishment (of slavery) in Virginia which became permanent, was made in 1607. I have found no mention of negroes in the Colony until about 1650. The first brought here as slaves were by a Dutch ship; after which the English commenced the trade, and continued it until the Revolutionary war. That suspended, ipso facto, their further importation for the present, and the business of the war pressing constantly on the legislature, this subject was not acted on finally until the year '78, when I brought in a bill to prevent their further importation. This passed without opposition, and stopped the increase of the evil by importation, leaving to future efforts its final eradication.—Autobiography.[132]

Our only blot is becoming less offensive by the great improvement in the condition and civilization of that race, who can now more advantageously compare their situation with that of the laborers of Europe. Still it is a hideous blot, as well from the heteromorph peculiarities of the race, as that, with them, physical compulsion to action must be substituted for the moral necessity which constrains the free laborers to work equally hard. We feel and deplore it morally and politically, and we look without entire despair to some redeeming means not yet specifically foreseen. I am happy in believing that the conviction of the necessity of removing this evil gains ground with time. Their emigration to the westward lightens the difficulty by dividing it, and renders it more practicable on the whole. And the neighborhood of a government of their color promises a more accessible asylum than that from whence they came.[133]

Showing the difficulty of purchase in case of the adoption of the policy, Jefferson wrote Jared Sparks in 1824:

Actual property has been lawfully vested in that form (negroes) and who can lawfully take it from the possessors?[134]

Who would estimate its blessed effects? I leave this to those who will live to see their accomplishment, and to enjoy a beatitude forbidden to my age. But I leave it with this admonition,—to rise and be doing. A million and a half are within our control; but six millions (which a majority of those now living will see them attain), and one million of these fighting men, will say, "we will not go."[135]

The separation of infants from their mothers would produce some scruples of humanity. But this would be straining at a gnat, and swallowing a camel.[136]

Jefferson became interested in the schemes of Miss Fanny Wright, who was endeavoring to promote gradual emancipation through an Emancipating Labor Society. He wrote her in 1825:

The abolition of the evil is not impossible; it ought never, therefore, to be despaired of. Every plan should be adopted, every experiment tried, which may do something towards the ultimate object. That which you propose is well worthy of trial. It has succeeded with certain portions of our white brethren, under the care of a Rapp and an Owen; and why may it not succeed with the man of color?

At the age of eighty-two, with one foot in the grave and the other uplifted to follow it, I do not permit myself to take part in any new enterprises, even for bettering the condition of man, not even in the great one which is the subject of your letter, and which has been through life that of my greatest anxieties.[137] The march of events has not been such as to render its completion practicable within the limits of time allotted to me; and I leave its accomplishment as the work of another generation.[138]

Although Jefferson lost hope of seeing his plans carried out, this letter to Edward Everett, written near the close of his career, shows that he had not changed his attitude.

On the question of the lawfulness of slavery, that is of the right of one man to appropriate to himself the faculties of another without his consent, I certainly retain my early opinions. On that, however, of third persons to interfere between the parties, and the effect of conventional modifications of that pretension, we are probably nearer together.[139]

FOOTNOTES:

[48] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, III, p. 102.

[49] "Rights of British America," Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, I, p. 440.

[50] "This clause," says Jefferson, in his Autobiography (I, p. 19), "was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren, also, I believe, felt a little tender under those censures; for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."

[51] "Their amalgamation with the other color," said he, "produces a degradation to which no lover of excellence in the human character can innocently consent."—Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, IX, p. 478.

[52] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, III, p. 243.

[53] Ibid., III, p. 250.

[54] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, IX, p. 303.

[55] Ibid., IX, p. 304.

[56] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, IX, p. 303.

[57] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, X, p. 290.

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

[59] Ibid., X, p. 291.

[60] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, X, p. 292.

[61] To General Chastellux, who had proposed to publish in a French scientific paper certain extracts from Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, he wrote the following in 1785:

The strictures on slavery (in the Notes on Virginia) ... I do not wish to have made public, at least till I know whether their publication would do most harm or good. It is possible, that in my own country, these strictures might produce an irritation, which would indispose the people towards (one of) the two great objects I have in view; that is, the emancipation of their slaves.—Ford edition of the Writings of Jefferson, III, p. 71.

[62] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, III, p. 154.

[63] Ibid., III, p. 192.

[64] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, II, p. 247.

[65] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, II, p. 249.

[66] Ibid., III, p. 266.

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

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

[69] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, III, p. 267.

[70] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, III, p. 244.

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

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

[73] Ibid., III, p. 245.

[74] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, III, p. 245.

[75] Ibid., III, p. 245.

[76] Ibid., III, p. 246.

[77] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, III, p. 246.

[78] Ibid., III, p. 247.

[79] Ibid., III, p. 247.

[80] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, III, p. 249.

[81] Ibid., III, p. 249.

[82] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, III, p. 138.

[83] Ibid., V, p. 377.

[84] Ibid., V, p. 379.

[85] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, V, p. 377.

[86] Ibid., IX, p. 246.

[87] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, IX, p. 261.

[88] Ibid., X, p. 344.

[89] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, II, p. 26.

[90] Ibid., III, p. 325.

[91] Ibid., III, p. 409.

[92] Ibid., III, p. 471.

[93] Ibid., IV, p. 410

[94] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, IV, p. 82.

[95] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, IV, p. 127.

[96] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, IV, p. 185.

[97] Ibid., IV, pp. 181-185.

[98] Ibid., IV, p. 342.

[99] Ibid., IV, p. 343.

[100] Ibid., V, p. 31.

[101] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, V, p. 66.

[102] Ibid., V, p. 67.

[103] Ibid., IX, p. 329.

[104] Ibid., IX, p. 477.

[105] Ibid., IX, p. 479.

[106] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, V, p. 6.

[107] This refers to "Avenia; or, A Tragical Poem on the Oppression of the Human Species," an antislavery work printed in Philadelphia in 1805.—Note in the Ford edition.

[108] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, VIII, p. 351.

[109] Ibid., V, p. 296.

[110] Ibid., V, p. 296.

[111] Ibid., VI, p. 349.

[112] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, VII, p. 168.

[113] Ibid., VII, p. 167.

[114] Ibid., VIII, p. 340.

[115] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, VIII, p. 104.

[116] Ibid., VIII, p. 162.

[117] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, VIII, pp. 161, 163.

[118] Ibid., VIII, p. 119.

[119] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, VIII, p. 492.

[120] Ibid., IX, p. 477.

[121] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, IX, p. 478.

[122] Ibid., IX, p. 477.

[123] Ibid., IX, p. 478.

[124] Ibid., IX, p. 479.

[125] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, IX, p. 515.

[126] Ibid., X, p. 76.

[127] Ibid., X, p. 76.

[128] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, X, p. 157.

[129] Ibid., X, p. 158.

[130] Jefferson MSS. Rayner, 164.

[131] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, I, p. 5.

[132] Ibid., I, p. 51.

[133] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, VII, p. 310.

[134] Ibid., X, p. 200.

[135] Ibid., X, p. 292.

[136] Ibid., X, p. 293.

[137] In 1817 Jefferson had written Thomas Humphreys:

I have not perceived the growth of this disposition (to emancipate the slaves and settle them elsewhere) in the rising generation, of which I once had sanguine hopes. No symptoms inform me that it will take place in my day. I leave it, therefore, to time, and not at all without hope that the day will come, equally desirable and welcome to us as to them. Perhaps the proposition now on the carpet at Washington to provide an establishment on the coast of Africa for voluntary emigrations of people of color may be the corner stone of this future edifice.—Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, X, p. 77.

[138] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, X, p. 344.

[139] Ibid., X, p. 385.



SOME UNDISTINGUISHED NEGROES

A LITTLE SLAVE BOY was intrusted with a card which he was to bear to a person to whom it was directed and so charmed was he with the beautiful inscription drawn upon it that he was seized with an unconquerable desire to learn the mystery it contained. To this end he persuaded a little boy of his master's to teach him the letters of the alphabet. He was discovered in the act and whipped. His curiosity, however, to learn the secret, which was locked up in those mysterious characters, was only increased, and he was detected in another attempt, and accordingly chastised. By this time he had so far penetrated the secret that nothing could deter him from further effort. A third time he was detected, and whipped almost to death. Still he persevered; and then to keep the matter secret, if possible, he crept into a hogshead, which lay in a rather retired place and leaving just hole enough to let in a little light, he sat there on a little straw, and thus prosecuted his object. He knew he must be whipped for being absent; and he often had to lie to conceal the cause; but such were the strivings of his noble nature, such his irrepressible longings after the hidden treasures of knowledge, that nothing could subdue them, and he accomplished his purpose.[140]

EDWARD MITCHELL, a colored man, was brought from the South by President Brown of Dartmouth College. He soon indicated a desire for mental culture on being brought within its influence at college. At first there was some hesitation about admitting him as the children of southerners sometimes attended Dartmouth and one of them had recently instructed his son to withdraw should the institution admit a Negro to his classes. Mitchell was prepared for entering the Freshman class, was received as a regular student and was promoted through all other classes to a full honorable graduation. He was uniformly treated with respect by his fellow students throughout his collegiate career. Upon graduating in 1828 he was settled as a pastor of a Baptist church in the State of Vermont, where he rendered creditable service.[141]

LUKE MULBER came to Steubenville, Ohio, in 1802, hired himself to a carpenter during the summer at ten dollars a month, and went to school in the winter. This course he pursued for three years, at the expiration of which he had learned to do rough carpenter work. Industry and economy crowned his labors with success. In 1837 he was a contractor hiring four or five journeymen, two of whom were his sons, having calls for more work than they could do. He lived in a fine brick house which he had built for himself on Fourth Street, valued at two thousand five hundred dollars and owned other property in the city. Persons who came into contact with Mulber found him a quiet, humble, Christian man, possessing those characteristics expected of a useful member of society.[142]

SAMUEL MARTIN, a man of color, and the oldest resident of Port Gibson, Mississippi, emancipated six of his slaves in 1844, bringing them to Cincinnati where he believed they would have a better opportunity to start life anew. These were two mulatto women with their four quadroon children, the color of whom well illustrated the moral condition of that State, in that each child had a different father and they retained few marks of their partial African descent. Mr. Martin was himself a slave until 1829. He purchased his freedom for a large sum most of which he earned by taking time from sleep for work. Thereafter he acquired considerable property. He was not a slaveholder in the southern sense of that word. His purpose was to purchase his fellowmen in bondage that he might give them an opportunity to become free.[143]

FOOTNOTES:

[140] The Philanthropist, July 28, 1837.

[141] Ibid.

[142] The Philanthropist, June 2, 1837.

[143] Cincinnati Morning Herald, June 1, 1844.



BOOK REVIEWS

Negro Education, A Study of Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States. By THOMAS JESSE JONES. United States Bureau of Education in Cooperation with the Phelps-Stokes Fund. Issued as Bulletins, 1916, Nos. 38 and 39. Government Printing Office, Washington, 1917. Vol. I, pp. 700. Vol. II, pp. 700.

This report is the result of a survey of Negro education made during the past four years under the direction of Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, specialist in the education of racial groups, United States Bureau of Education. This is the most comprehensive and authoritative report relating to Negro education that has been made. The report covers all Negro private schools above the elementary grades. The total number of schools described is 748, of which 635 are private schools, 28 are state institutions, 68 are public high schools, and 27 are county training schools. Reports are also made on 43 special institutions such as hospitals, orphanages and reformatories.

It appears that no form of education for Negroes is satisfactorily equipped or supported. The striking facts in the study of the financial support of Negro education are, first, the wide divergencies in the per capita of public school expenditures for white and Negro children: $10.06 for each white child and $2.89 for each Negro child, and second, the extent to which schools for Negroes are dependent upon private aid. It also appears that the private schools provide the greater proportion of all educational opportunities above the elementary grades. They also offer practically all the instruction in agriculture, medicine and religion.

In the discussion of a program for educational development, it is pointed out that the public school authorities are responsible for elementary education and that so long as the elementary school facilities are insufficient, every phase of education above the elementary grades is seriously handicapped. With reference to secondary schools and teacher training, it is suggested that their chief effort should be to supply trained teachers for the public elementary schools. More than fifty per cent. of the teachers now in these schools have an education less than the equivalent of six elementary grades.

In the discussion of the importance of industrial education, it is pointed out that in spite of the striking progress made in the accumulation of property, the Negroes are "still a poor people." The large percentage of women and children who have to earn a living indicates the need of elevating their economic status so that more children may attend school, and the women have a better opportunity to care for the morals and hygiene of the home. Because three fourths of the Negroes live in rural districts, instruction along agricultural lines is one of the most important phases of Negro education. "Preparation for rural life," says the report, "is the greatest problem of the white and colored people of the South."

The most radical recommendations made in the report are those relating to higher education. These recommendations are along the line of improving the facilities and raising the standards of Negro college work. The schools teaching subjects of college grade, 33 in number, are classified according to the amount of college work done, into three groups: first, colleges; second, those doing secondary and college work; and third, those schools in which some college work is offered. "Only three institutions, Howard, Fisk, and Meharry Medical, have a student body, a teaching force and equipment, and an income sufficient to warrant the characterization of college. Nearly half of the college students and practically all of the professional students are in these three institutions." It is suggested that there should be concentration on the development for Negroes of two institutions of university grade. Howard and Fisk are suggested as these two institutions. It is recommended that three institutions be developed and maintained as first class colleges. One such institution would be located at Richmond, Virginia; one at Atlanta, Georgia, and one at Marshall, Texas. A number of other institutions would be developed into junior colleges or schools doing two years of college work. In these junior colleges, large provision would be made for the training of teachers.

M. N. WORK

* * * * *

Los Negros Esclavos, Estudio Sociologico Y de Derecho Publico. By FERNANDO ORTIZ, Professor in the University of Havana. Revista Bimestere Cubana, Havana, 1916. Pp. 536.

This work, as its title signifies, is a monograph intended to show the working out of the problems of enslaving the blacks in Cuba. The study begins with a description of the life of Cuba as conducive to the introduction of slavery and then that of the blacks themselves. Although acknowledging the difficulty of making an ethnographic study of the imported Africans, the author endeavors to trace the origin of these slaves to their native regions in Africa to determine the traits which entered into the formation of the character of the Cuban slaves. He then connects the institution with the sugar industry, which increased the demand for slaves, gave the institution an economic aspect and made the slave trade an international concern of great moment. The movement for the amelioration of the condition of the slave and the early efforts at abolition are noted only to show that these efforts proved to be insignificant when the traffic became universal and the institution reached the economic stage in the sugar colonies. The atrocities incident to the methods of the victors in the tribal wars of Africa supplying the traders frequenting the coast are duly treated. The author even gives in detail the procedure, prices and numbers.

A considerable portion of the book is concerned with the real life of the slave. Professor Ortiz believes that the punishments inflicted in Cuba were not so severe as in some other countries. He discusses the work done by the men, women and children, their habitations, food, dress and diversions. The diseases of the slave arising in adjusting themselves to the new world are also noted. Going further into the details of the life of the slaves, the author describes the urban Negroes and distinguishes this class of the bondmen from those of the plantation. He then discusses the free Negroes, who even from an early period constituted a considerable element of the black population and explains why some of them returned to Africa. The rights of all of the elements of the black population at law are mentioned so as to give the reader an idea of the black code as enforced in that island. How these classes thus kept down were moved from time to time to organize insurrections to secure their freedom, constitutes one of the chapters of the book.

On the whole it cannot be said that Professor Ortiz has shown that slavery in Cuba differed widely from what it was in some other large islands of the West Indies. He has, however, made a contribution to scholarship in showing exactly how this institution affected the life and the development of Cuba. The work is well illustrated and has an appendix of valuable documents bearing on slavery in Cuba.

C. G. WOODSON.

* * * * *

A Social History of the American Family, from Colonial Times to the Present. By ARTHUR W. CALHOUN, PH.D. Volume I, Colonial Period. The Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland, U. S. A., 1917. Pp. 348.

This work is a study in genetic sociology to be completed in three volumes. The purpose of it is to develop an understanding of the forces that have been operative in the evolution of the family institution in the United States. The author will endeavor to set forth the influences that have shaped marriage, controlled fecundity, determined the respective status of father, mother, child, attracted relative and servant, influenced sexual morality and governed the function of the family as an educational, economic, moral, and spiritual institution as also its relation to state, industry, and society in general in the matter of social control.

In this first volume of the series the effort is to show that the American family is a product of European folkways, of the economic transition to modern capitalism, and of the distinctive environment of a virgin continent. How European customs brought to America underwent modification in the new environment and how differences of population in this country may be traced to geographical differences, constitute an important part of this treatise. The reader is finally directed to see the colonial family as a property institution dominated by middle class standards and operating as an agency of social control in the midst of the social order governed by the interests of a forceful aristocracy, which shaped religion, education, politics, and all else to its own profit.

On the whole this is a valuable work. When one has finished reading this volume, however, he must get the impression that the life of the slave attached to the colonial family has not been adequately treated. Among the early colonists the African slave was connected with the family after the manner of the bondmen of families in ancient countries. The slaves, being few in number, maintained this relation until the industrial revolution throughout the modern world changed the institution from a patriarchal to an economic one. Prior to this time the slaves were treated almost as well as the children of the family. They lived under the same roof, worshipped at the same altar and in some cases were taught in the same school. Care was taken so to elevate the slave and keep him above corrupting influences as to make him not merely a tool for exploitation but a decided asset in the family economy of life. That the slave of this type had much to do with the development of the colonial family no one will doubt.

In the chapter on servitude and sexuality in the South, the Negro slave gets negative mention. The author says that the presence of African slaves and Indians early gave rise to the problem of miscegenation. He concedes that it took some time to develop in the whites the attitude of race integrity and that the intercourse between men and women of the inferior race was never eliminated. During this period white women of the indentured servant class often yielded to miscegenation with the African male slaves and, as the author states, planters sometimes married white women servants to Negroes in order to transform the women and their offspring into slaves. The author might have added that this was especially true of Maryland.

* * * * *

The Readjuster Movement in Virginia. By CHARLES CHILTON PEARSON, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science in Wake Forest College. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1917. Pp. 191.

The author undertakes here to describe one of the developments in Virginia politics during the period between the Civil War and the first administration of Grover Cleveland. He considers the last fifty years of the history of Virginia the Dark Age during which there has been a period of radicalism followed by reaction. The Readjuster Movement was one of the independent waves of thought which characterized the reactionary period. It centered around William Mahone as the leader of an efficient machine endeavoring to readjust the State debt by compelling its creditors to share in the loss caused by the expensive internal improvement policy, the misfortunes of the Civil War and the extravagance of the Reconstruction period. It was in line with the general effort to readjust the economic and social policies of the entire country. It appealed to the people for the reason that unlike radicalism it was not obstructive of "democratic advance" in that it did not alienate the western section of the state through its attitude towards the Negro. Native in its origin, the democracy of the party was primarily intended for the whites, though the Negroes were accepted as desirable supporters. Such an independent movement was impossible until the continued defeat of the Republican party sufficiently removed the fears of the whites as to conduce to development of independent thinking. Citizens were thereafter more easily won to the cause of thus elevating the ruined and indebted classes by transferring to the government their will that the burdens of the State should be shifted to other shoulders. The author believes that this party found ready support also for the reason that it was not only a party but a social code and a state of mind which bound the whites to united and temperate action. He does not take the position that the work of the party was accomplished without conflict between the aristocratic and democratic forces. It required a long time to remove the differences between the aristocrats composed of the leaders of the old regime and the "soldier cult" on one hand and, on the other, the democratic element composed of the westerners and upstarts whom the Civil War and Reconstruction brought to power in the east, the poor whites and the freedmen.

It is interesting to note how he accounts for the fate of the Negro voter. He says that the Negro rising with the tide of democracy was about to be incorporated into the body politic, but that the habit of implicit obedience to overseers and a boss proved too strong. "These results," says he, "seemed to necessitate and to anticipate the elimination of the Negro as a voter." The decline of the political power of the Negro in Virginia is unfortunately considered by many as due to this cause. The author is wrong to leave the reader to infer that the Negro's incapacity to participate intelligently in the affairs of the government actually led to his elimination. The demands of race prejudice impelled all southern States to reduce the Negro to a lower status just as soon as the North loosed its hold on the South.



NOTES

The local club of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History is now making a serious study of Negro American History under the direction of Dr. Carter G. Woodson. The work was begun in November and will be completed in February. The phases of history to be considered are: The Negro in Africa, The Enslavement of the Negro, Patriarchal Slavery in America, Slavery and the Rights of Man, The Reaction against the Negro, Slavery as an Economic Institution, The Free Negro in the United States, The Abolition Movement, The Colonization Project, Slavery and the Constitution, The Negro in the Civil War, The Reconstruction of the Southern States, The Negro in Freedom, The Negro and Social Justice.

Dodd, Mead and Company will soon publish for Professor Benjamin G. Brawley a work entitled The Genius of the Negro. The aim of the book will be to set forth what the Negro has done in literature, art and the like.

Longmans, Green and Company have published The Education of the African Native. This will throw light on the much mooted question as to what the Europeans have done to promote the mental development of the native of the dark continent.

In the seventh volume of the Documentos para la Historia Argentina are found materials bearing on the Comercio de Indias, Consualdo, Comercio de Negros y Extranjeros, 1791-1809.

The June number of the Political Science Quarterly contained an article The Negro Vote in Old New York by D. E. Fox.



THE JOURNAL

OF

NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. III—APRIL, 1918—NO. 2



BENJAMIN BANNEKER, THE NEGRO MATHEMATICIAN AND ASTRONOMER

The city of Washington very recently celebrated the 125th anniversary of the completion of the survey and laying out of the Federal Territory constituting the District of Columbia. This was executed under the supervision of the famous French civil engineer, Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, as the head of a commission appointed by George Washington, then president of the United States. Serving as one of the commissioners, sitting in conference with them and performing an important part in the mathematical calculations involved in the survey, was the Negro mathematician and astronomer, Benjamin Banneker. As there did not appear to be during this celebration any disposition to give proper recognition to the scientific work done by Banneker, the writer has thought it opportune to present in this form a brief review of Banneker's life so as to revive an interest in him and point out some of this useful man's important achievements.

On a previous occasion the writer undertook to collect some data with the same object in view, and at that time he addressed a letter to the postmaster at Ellicott City, Maryland, asking to be put in touch with some one of the Ellicott family, who might furnish reliable data on the subject. In this way, correspondence was established with the family of Mrs. Martha Ellicott Tyson, of Baltimore. One of her descendants, Mrs. Tyson Manly, kindly came over from Baltimore, and, calling on the writer at the United States Patent Office, presented him with a copy of the life of Banneker, published in Philadelphia in 1884, and compiled from the papers of Martha Ellicott Tyson, who was the daughter of George Ellicott, a member of the noted Maryland family, who established the business that developed the town of Ellicott City.

Between George Ellicott and Benjamin Banneker, Mrs. Tyson says, there existed "a special sympathy,"[144] and she further refers to her father as "the warmest friend of that extraordinary man."[145] Her father had many of Banneker's manuscripts, from which he intended to compile a biography of his friend, but his unusually busy commercial life afforded him no leisure in which to carry out this much cherished plan. Mrs. Tyson's account, therefore, can be relied upon as coming directly from those who, personally knowing Banneker, and living in the same community in frequent contact with him, had preserved accurate data from which to publish the true record of his life.

On a farm located near the Patapsco Eiver, within about ten miles of the city of Baltimore, in the State of Maryland, on the 9th day of November, 1731, Benjamin Banneker was born. Various accounts are given of his ancestry. One of his biographers states that "there was not a drop of white blood in his veins," another asserts with positiveness that his parents and grandparents were all native Africans.[146] In still another sketch of Banneker's life, read before the Maryland Historical Society, on May 1, 1845, it is stated that "Banneker's mother was the child of natives of Africa so that to no admixture of the blood of the white man was he indebted for his peculiar and extraordinary abilities."[147] Thomas Jefferson said that Banneker was the "son of a black man born in Africa and a black woman born in the United States."[148]

According to Mrs. Tyson's account Banneker's mother and father were Negroes, but his maternal grandmother was a white woman of English birth, who had been legally married to a native African. The antecedent circumstances of this marriage were so unusual as to justify special mention. Mollie Welsh was an English woman of the servant class, employed on a cattle farm in England where a part of her daily duty was the milking of the cows. She was one day charged with having stolen a pail of milk that had, in fact, been kicked over by a cow. The charge seems to have been taken as proved, and in lieu of a severer punishment she was sentenced to be shipped to America. Being unable to pay for her passage she was sold, on her arrival in America, to a tobacco planter on the Patapsco Eiver to serve a term of seven years to pay the cost of her passage from England. At the end of her period of service, this Mollie Welsh, who is described as "a person of exceedingly fair complexion and moderate mental powers," was able to buy a portion of the farm on which she had worked.[149] In 1692, she purchased two African slaves from a ship in the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis. One of these slaves named Bannaky, subsequently Anglicized as Banneker, was the son of an African king, and was stolen by slave dealers on the coast of Africa.[150] With these two slaves as her assistants, Mollie Welsh industriously cultivated her farm for a number of years with such gratifying success that she felt impelled afterwards to release her two slaves from bondage. The slave Banneker had gained such favor in the eyes of his owner that she married him directly after releasing him from bondage, notwithstanding the fact that his record for sustained industry had not equalled that of his fellow slave, while serving their owner on her farm—a fact that was perhaps due to Banneker's natural inclination to indulge his royal prerogatives. This Banneker is described as "a man of much intelligence and fine temper, with a very agreeable presence, dignified manner and contemplative habits."[151]

There were born of this marriage four children of whom the eldest daughter, Mary, married a native African who had been purchased from a slave ship by another planter in her neighborhood. This slave was of a devout nature, and early became a member of the Church of England, receiving at his baptism the name of Robert. After baptism, Robert's master set him free. It was, therefore, as a free man that he became the husband of Mary Banneker, whose surname he adopted for his own. Four children were born to Robert and Mary Banneker, one boy and three girls, the eldest being Benjamin, the subject of this sketch.

Robert Banneker had evidently formed some of the habits of thrift evinced by his mother-in-law, Mollie Welsh, for it is on record that in 1737 within a few years after receiving his freedom he purchased a farm of 120 acres from Richard Gist, paying for it 17,000[152] pounds of tobacco, which in those days served as a legal medium of exchange. This farm, located on the Patapsco Eiver, within about ten miles of the town of Baltimore, thus became the Banneker homestead. Here it was that young Benjamin spent his early years and grew to manhood, assisting his father with the general work of the farm.

Banneker very early showed signs of precocity, which made him the special favorite of his maternal grandmother who took delight in teaching him to the extent of her own limited mental endowment. She taught him to study the Bible, and had him read it to her at regular intervals for the purpose of training him along religious lines of thought. He attended a small school in his neighborhood where a few white and colored children were taught by the same white schoolmaster. Until the cotton gin and other mechanical appliances made Negroes too valuable as tools of exploitation to be allowed anything so dangerous as education, there were to be found here and there in the South pioneer educators at the feet of whom even Negroes might sit and learn.[153]

As a boy at school young Banneker is said to have spent very little, if any, of his time in the games and frolics that constitute so large a part of the school life of the average youth. He was unusually fond of study, devoting by far the larger part of his time to reading, so that it was said of him that "all his delight was to dive into his books." His reading, however, did not take a wide range. His limited resources did not permit him to purchase the many works he desired. What Banneker lost through the lack of a variety of books, however, he tried to make up for in being a close observer of everything around him. He turned everything that he could into a channel of information and drew upon all possible sources to keep himself posted on the general activities of his community and beyond. In this way, "he became gradually possessed of a fund of general knowledge which it was difficult to find even among those who were far more favored by opportunity than he was."[154]

Although Banneker had by this time begun to ingratiate himself into the favor of the very best element in his community solely through his demonstration of mental superiority, he did not permit his unusual popularity and his love of study to render him any less helpful to his father in the cultivation of the farm. He proved himself to be just as industrious in farming as he was diligent in studying. When his father died in 1759, leaving to Benjamin and his mother, as joint heirs, the dwelling in which they lived, together with 72 acres of land,[155] Benjamin was fully prepared to assume control of affairs on the estate, and make it yield a comfortable living for him and his mother. His father had divided the remaining 28 acres of the original farm among the three daughters who also survived him. His farm was said to be one of the best kept farms in his neighborhood. It was well stocked, containing a select assortment of fruit trees, a fine lot of cattle, and a specially successful apiary.

Young Banneker's diligent reading of the books at his command served to develop his mental powers rapidly, giving him a retentive memory, correct forms of speech and a keen power of analysis. This faculty grew largely out of his special fondness for the study of mathematics, by which he acquired unusual facility in solving difficult problems. He early won the reputation of being the smartest mathematician not only in his immediate neighborhood but for miles around. He was often seen in the midst of a group of neighbors whom he constantly astounded by the rapidity and accuracy with which he would solve the mathematical puzzles put to him. This caused such widespread comment that he frequently received from scholars in different parts of the country, desiring to test his capacity, mathematical questions, to all of which, it is said, he responded promptly and correctly.[156]

His close attention to the study of mathematics led him easily into the quest of some practical form by which to give tangible expression to his thought. It is highly probable that this fact can explain the facility with which he planned and completed at the age of thirty a clock which stands as one of the wonders of his day.[157] "It is probable," says one, "that this was the first clock of which every portion was made in America; it is certain that it was as purely his own invention as if none had ever been before. He had seen a watch, but never a clock, such an article not being within fifty miles of him."[158] He completed this clock with no other tools than a pocket knife, and using only wood as his material. It stood as a perfect piece of machinery, and struck the hours with faultless precision for a period of 20 years.

The successful completion of this clock attracted to Banneker the attention of his entire community, serving as the starting point of a more brilliant career. It was this display of mechanical genius which engaged the attention of the Ellicotts, who had lately moved into his neighborhood from Pennsylvania. They had already heard of the unusual accomplishments of this gifted Negro and lost no time in getting in touch with him, especially since one of the Ellicotts was himself a mathematician and astronomer of marked ability.[159]

The meeting with the Ellicotts was of signal advantage to Banneker, and ultimately proved the turning point in his career. They were of Quaker origin and had gone down to Maryland in 1772 in search of a desirable location for the establishment of flour mills. They were evidently persons of foresight. Being progressive, open-minded and comparatively free from the prejudices that were then mostly native to the section into which they had moved, they cordially received Banneker and frankly proclaimed his talents.[160] They did not seem to permit the differences of race to erect a single barrier between Banneker and themselves in the ordinary run of their frequent business intercourse. When the Ellicotts were erecting their mills, the foundation of Ellicott City, they purchased from Banneker's farm a large portion of the provisions needed for the workmen. His mother, Mary Banneker, attended to the marketing, bringing poultry, vegetables, fruit and honey to the Ellicott workmen.[161]

Banneker's mechanical inclination led him to take unusual interest in the building of the Ellicott Mills, and to make frequent visits there to watch the operation of the machinery. In the course of time a store was built near the mills, and it became the meeting place of nearly all the wide-awake and worth while people in the community, who would linger together to talk of the news of the day. This was the ordinary means of news exchanging in those days when there were no dailies nor bulletins nor hourly extras. Banneker was always a welcome participant in these gatherings although he was a man of modest demeanor, never injecting himself into the conversation in an unseemly manner. When, however, he permitted himself to be drawn into discussions, he always expressed his views with such clearness and intelligence that he won the respect of his hearers.[162]

The friendship between George Ellicott and Banneker grew stronger as the years went by, and their common interests in mathematics and natural science led to a fellowship which often brought them together. This interest led George Ellicott to lend Banneker a number of mathematical books and instruments. Among these books were Mayer's Tables, Ferguson's Astronomy and Leadbetter's Lunar Tables. When these books and instruments were handed to Banneker it was Ellicott's intention to remain there a while to give Banneker some personal instruction in the use of them, but he was prevented by lack of time from carrying out this intention. On calling again on Banneker shortly afterward, to offer him this instruction, Ellicott was surprised to find that Banneker had already discovered for himself the key to the use of both and was "already absorbed in the contemplation of the new world which was thus opened to his view."[163] They had literally made him fix his gaze on the stars, for the study of astronomy thus became his one absorbing passion.

He had now nearly covered his three score years, and it was no little tribute to his mental vigor that he should have determined at that age to master so abstruse a science as astronomy. But by degrees he gave himself up to its study with unusual zeal. His favorite method of studying this science was to lie out on the ground at night, gazing up at the heavens till the early hours of the morning. He then tried to restore his tired mind and body by sleeping nearly all the next day. This habit nearly caused him to fall into disrepute among his neighbors, who, ignorant of his plans, accused him of becoming lazy in his old days.

In 1789 he had advanced so far with his plan as to project a solar eclipse, the calculation of which he submitted to his friend George Ellicott. In the study of these books Banneker detected several errors of calculation, and, writing to his friend Ellicott, he made mention of two of them. On one occasion he wrote:

"It appears to me that the wisest men may at times be in error; for instance, Dr. Ferguson informs us that, when the sun is within 12 deg. of either node at the time of full, the moon will be eclipsed; but I find that, according to his method of projecting a lunar eclipse, there will be none by the above elements, and yet the sun is within 11 deg. 46' 11" of the moon's ascending node. But the moon, being in her apogee, prevents the appearance of this eclipse."

And again he wrote Ellicott:

"Errors that ought to be corrected in my astronomical tables are these: 2d vol. Leadbetter, p. 204, when anomaly is 4s 30 deg. the equation 3 deg. 30' 4" ought to have been 3 deg. 28' 41". In [Symbol: Mars] equation, p. 155, the logarithm of his distance from [Symbol: Sun] ought to have been 6 in the second place from the index, instead of 7, that is, from the time that its anomaly is 3s 24 deg. until it is 4s O deg.."

[Transcriber's Note: In above paragraph the actual astronomical symbols for Mars and the Sun appear. Also, 4s appears as 4 superscript s, and 3s appears as 3 superscript s.]

Acting upon the suggestion of one of his educated friends, Banneker now undertook to extend his calculations so as to make an Almanac, then the most comprehensive medium of scientific information. Banneker continued the work required to complete his almanac, and finished the first one to cover the year 1792, when he was sixty-one years old. This attracted to him a number of prominent men, among whom was Mr. James McHenry, of Baltimore, a member of John Adams's cabinet. This gentleman, through his high regard for Banneker's achievements, had his almanac published by the firm of Goddard and Angell of Baltimore. In his letter to this firm McHenry paid a fine tribute to the character of the author, although some of his statements as to Banneker's parentage do not harmonize with what appears to the writer as more reliable information from another source. McHenry laid special stress upon the fact that Banneker's work, in the preparation of his almanac, "was begun and finished without the least information or assistance from any person, or from any other books," than those he had obtained from Mr. Ellicott, "so that whatever merit is attached to his present performance is exclusively and peculiarly his own."[164]

That Mr. McHenry attached a wider significance to Banneker's attainments than is implied in a merely personal achievement is shown in his statement that he considered "this negro as a fresh proof that the powers of the mind are disconnected with the color of the skin, or, in other words, a striking contradiction to Mr. Hume's doctrine, that the negroes are naturally inferior to the whites, and unsusceptible of attainments in arts and sciences?" "In every civilized country," said he, "we shall find thousands of whites, liberally educated and who have enjoyed greater opportunities for instruction than this negro, (who are) his inferiors in those intellectual acquirements and capacities that form the most characteristic features in the human race.[165] But the system that would assign to these degraded blacks an origin different from the whites, if it is not ready to be deserted by philosophers, must be relinquished as similar instances multiply; and that such must frequently happen, cannot be doubted, should no check impede the progress of humanity, which, ameliorating the conditions of slavery, necessarily leads to its final extinction."[166]

Referring to their attitude, the publishers said in their editorial notice that "they felt gratified in the opportunity of presenting to the public, through their press, an accurate Ephemeris for the year 1792, calculated by a sable descendant of Africa." They flatter themselves "that a philanthropic public, in this enlightened era, will be induced to give their patronage and support to this work, not only on account of its intrinsic merit (it having met the approbation of several of the most distinguished astronomers of America, particularly the celebrated Mr. Rittenhouse), but from similar motives to those which induced the editors to give this calculation the preference, the ardent desire of drawing modest merit from obscurity and controverting the long established illiberal prejudice against the blacks."[167]

Banneker had himself not lost sight of the probable effect of his work in reshaping to some extent the public estimate concerning the intellectual capacity of his race. And this was the thought that prompted him to send a manuscript copy of his first almanac to Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State in Washington's cabinet. In his letter to Jefferson, dated August 19, 1791, Banneker made, with characteristic modesty, a polite apology for the "liberty" he took in addressing one of such "distinguished and dignified station," and then proceeded to make a strong appeal for the exercise of a more liberal attitude towards his downtrodden race, using his own achievements as a proof that the "train of absurd and false ideas and opinions which so generally prevails with respect to the Negro should now be eradicated."[168]

Thomas Jefferson took note of the moral courage and the loyalty to race evident throughout the whole of Banneker's remarkable letter and he honored it with the most courteous reply, under date of August 30, 1791. After thanking Banneker for the letter and the almanac accompanying it, Jefferson expressed the pleasure it afforded him to see such proofs "that nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing only to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa and America." He also added that he desired "ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body and mind to what it ought to be." The copy sent to Jefferson was formally transmitted to M. de Condorcet, secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic Society because, as he said, he "considered it a document to which your whole race had a right for its justification against the doubts which have been entertained of them." This recognition of Banneker's merit very naturally added greatly to his rapidly growing reputation at home, and brought to him hundreds of letters of congratulation from scholarly men throughout the civilized world.

The most distinguished honor that came to him from his own countrymen was the invitation to serve with the commission appointed by President Washington to define the boundary line and lay out the streets of the Federal Territory, later called the District of Columbia. This commission, was appointed by Washington, in 1789, and was composed of David Stuart, Daniel Carroll, Thomas Johnson, Andrew Ellicott and Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a famous French engineer. This personnel was given in the article on Benjamin Banneker by John R. Slattery in the Catholic World in 1883,[169] but in the Washington Evening Star of October 15, 1916, reporting an address by Fred Woodward, the commission was said to consist of "Major L'Enfant, Andrew Ellicott, Count de Graff, Isaac Roberdeau, William King, Nicholas King, and Benjamin Banneker, a free Negro."[170] It is on record that it was at the suggestion of his friend, Major Andrew Ellicott, who so thoroughly appreciated the value of his scientific attainments, that Thomas Jefferson nominated Banneker and Washington appointed him a member of the commission. In the Georgetown Weekly Ledger, of March 12, 1791, reference is made to the arrival at that port of Ellicott and L'Enfant, who were accompanied by "Benjamin Banneker, an Ethiopian whose abilities as surveyor and astronomer already prove that Mr. Jefferson's concluding that that race of men were void of mental endowment was without foundation."[171]

Speaking afterwards of his work with this commission, Banneker referred to the unfailing kindness and courtesy of the distinguished company in which he found himself. One of his biographers says that the deportment of the mathematician during this engagement was such as to secure for him the respect and admiration of the commissioners. His striking superiority over all other men of his race whom they had met led them to disregard all prejudices of caste.[172] During the stay of the commissioners at their official quarters, Banneker was invited, of course, to eat at the same table with them just as he sat with them during the conferences. This invitation, however, he declined, and provision was then, at his request, made for serving his meals at a separate table but in the same dining room and at the same hour as the others were served.

The reasons for Banneker's refusal to accept this invitation, however, are not so clear. Various of his biographers have attributed his action on this occasion to what they seemed pleased to term his "native modesty." Judging it at this distance from the time of its occurrence, it is perhaps difficult to understand fully his motive. But if we view it in the light of the consistent wisdom and high-mindedness that seemed to guide his whole life we can hope that his reasons for the self-imposed coventry on that occasion were sufficient unto himself, and that they fully excluded every element of servility.

Banneker's work with this commission was undertaken while he was still engaged in astronomical investigation, and after his services in Washington were concluded he returned to his home and resumed his work on his almanacs, which regularly appeared until 1802. He was now living alone in the home left him by his parents, and performed for himself nearly all the domestic services required for his health and comfort. Still obliged to rely mainly upon his farm for his livelihood, he tried various expedients with different tenants to rid himself of the necessity for giving so much of his time to the farm. In these efforts he was wholly unsuccessful. He finally decided, therefore, to enter into such an arrangement in the disposition of his effects as would provide him an annuity, relieving himself of all anxiety for his maintenance and at the same time affording him the leisure he wanted for study. This he was enabled to do through a contract with one of the Ellicotts, by the terms of which his friend was to take the title to Banneker's property, making the latter an annual allowance of 12 pounds for a given period of time calculated by Banneker to be the span of years he could reasonably be expected to live. Banneker was to continue to occupy and use the property during his life, after which the possession was to go to Ellicott.[173] Banneker lived, however, eight years longer than he thought he would, but Ellicott faithfully lived up to this contract. This miscalculation is said to have been the only mistake in mathematics Banneker ever made. With his domestic affairs settled to his satisfaction, and having now the desired leisure to continue his studies, he gave himself up wholly to that object.

His active mind now found time also for occasional diversion to other lines than mathematics. It was about this time that he made the calculations showing that the locust plague was recurrent in cycles of 17 years each. He also wrote a dissertation on bees which has been favorably compared with a similar contribution by Pliny on the same subject written nearly 1800 years earlier. Banneker's nature seemed tuned also to the softer notes in the song of life. He loved music, and often, as a relaxation, he would sit beneath a huge chestnut tree near his house and beguile the hours by playing on his flute or violin.[174]

The disastrous war waged in 1793 so disturbed Banneker that he devoted much time to the study of the best methods to promote peace. To this end he suggested that the United States Government establish a department in the President's cabinet to be in charge of a Secretary of Peace. He then made a strong appeal to the authorities of his government to take a broad stand based on humanity and justice and in that spirit to formulate a comprehensive plan by which A Lasting Peace[175] might be substituted for the wars that were then disturbing the world.

During these years his home was frequently visited by people who sought him because of his intellectual gifts, and who were in no wise abashed by the fact of his racial connection. To them he was merely an honored citizen in the field of achievement.[176] "During the whole of his long life," says Benjamin Ellicott, "he lived respectably and much esteemed by all who became acquainted with him, but more especially by those who could fully appreciate his genius and the extent of his acquirements. Although his mode of life was regular and extremely retired,—living alone, having never married, cooking his own victuals and washing his own clothes, and scarcely ever being absent from home,—yet there was nothing misanthropic in his character; for a gentleman who knew him thus speaks of him: 'I recollect him well. He was a brave-looking pleasant man, with something very noble in his appearance.' His mind was evidently much engrossed in his calculations; but he was glad to receive the visits which we often paid him."

Another writes: "When I was a boy I became very much interested in him, as his manners were those of a perfect gentleman: kind, generous, hospitable, humane, dignified, and pleasing, abounding in information on all the various subjects and incidents of the day, very modest and unassuming, and delighting in society at his own house. I have seen him frequently. His head was covered with a thick suit of white hair, which gave him a very dignified and venerable appearance. His dress was uniformly of superfine broadcloth, made in the old style of a plain coat, with straight collar and long waistcoat, and a broad-brimmed hat. His color was not jet-black, but decidedly negro. In size and personal appearance, the statue of Franklin at the Library of Philadelphia, as seen from the street, is a perfect likeness of him. Go to his house when you would, either by day or night, there was constantly standing in the middle of the floor a large table covered with books and papers. As he was an eminent mathematician, he was constantly in correspondence with other mathematicians in this country, with whom there was an interchange of questions of difficult solution."[177]

Mrs. Tyson describes the courtliness of his manner when receiving friendly visits from the ladies of his community, who delighted to call on him in his neat cottage, to have the pleasure of his rare conversation. On these occasions he would sometimes allude to his love of the study of astronomy as quite unsuited to a man of his class.[178]

In the earlier years of his life Banneker is said to have formed the "social drink" habit, which we can imagine was all the easier for a man of his agreeable manners, in an environment where hospitality was general, and in a day when cordiality usually expressed itself in that way. But to the credit of his strength of mind and will, it is also said that he actually overcame that habit by the mere determination that he would do it, and that on his return from his stay with the commission at Washington he is said to have declared rather proudly that he never partook once of the wines that were so freely offered him.[179]

Banneker was not a professing Christian and not an adherent of any church, but "he loved the doctrines and mode of worship of the Society of Friends, and was frequently at their meetings." A contemporary says: "We have seen Banneker in Elkridge meeting house, where he always sat on the form nearest the door, his head uncovered. His ample forehead, white hair and reverent deportment gave him a very venerable appearance, as he leaned on the long staff (which he always carried with him) in quiet contemplation."[180]

There was no blemish in the entire record of his singularly active and useful life. His whole span of years appears to have been spent with a conscience void of offense, and he approached the end with a sereneness of mind well befitting the high ideals set before him. Although his body never wandered far from the place of his birth, his mind was permitted to soar through all space and to dwell in the regions of the stars and the planets. We can never know how sorely his finer spirit grieved over the tribulations that beset his blood kinsmen in the days of their bondage in this land of their birth, but we can well believe that in the loftiness of his soul he dreamed the dream of their ultimate release.

As the shadows gathered about him towards the evening of his life he abandoned those pursuits that had brought him merited distinction, and had gained for him the admiration of a host of friends chiefly among people that the world called superior. One beautiful Sabbath afternoon, in the month of October, 1806,[181] while quietly resting in the shade of a tree beside his cottage on the brow of a hill that overlooked the Patapsco Valley he seemed to hear the voices that beckoned him to the other world. And as if stirred by some sudden impulse he rose and made an effort to walk once more along the paths that had so often been his quiet retreat in the moments of his deep reflections. He had not gone far, when his strength gave way, and he sank helpless to the ground. He was assisted back to his home by a friendly neighbor, but the noon of his day having fully merged into the evening, the dark shadows of Eternal Night settled over him.

Directly after Banneker's death, in fact, on that very day, his sisters, Minta Black and Mollie Morton, undertook to carry out his wishes with respect to the disposition to be made of his personal effects. Banneker had, a few years before, directed that "all the articles which had been presented to him by George Ellicott, consisting of his books and mathematical instruments, and the table on which he made his calculations should be returned as soon as he should die."[182] He also requested that "as an acknowledgment of a debt of gratitude for Ellicott's long-continued kindness he should be given a volume of the manuscripts containing all his almanacs, his observations on various subjects, his letter to Thomas Jefferson, and the reply of that statesman." All the rest that he possessed was left to the two sisters. It was due to the faithful execution of his wishes on the very day of his death that his valuable manuscripts were preserved at all. They were all carried to George Ellicott, and this circumstance was the first notice that Ellicott received of the passing away of his friend. "Banneker's funeral took place two days afterward, and while the ceremonies were in progress at his grave, his home took fire and burned so rapidly that nothing could be saved."[183]

Some time before his death Banneker gave to one of his sisters the feather bed on which he usually slept, and this she preserved as her only keepsake of him. Years after wards she had occasion to open the bed and, feeling something hard among the feathers, she discovered that it was a purse of money. This circumstance shows that Banneker was not "in the evening of his life overshadowed by extreme poverty."[184]

In an excellent paper read on April 18, 1916, before the Columbia Historical Society of Washington, by Mr. P. Lee Phillips, of the Library of Congress, Banneker's Almanac was compared with Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac. Mr. Phillips also referred to his efforts in behalf of peace and to the friendship that existed between Banneker and such distinguished men of his time as Washington and Jefferson. He closed his article on Banneker with the broad-minded declaration that "Maryland should in some manner honor the memory of this distinguished citizen, who, notwithstanding the race prejudice of the time, rose to eminence in scientific attainments, the study of which at that early date was almost unknown."[185] The recognition of Douglass in Rochester and Boston, Pushkin in Petrograd and Moscow and Dumas in Paris, affords splendid suggestions of what we hope to see of Banneker in Baltimore. It is a sad reflection on the people of this country that practically nothing has been done to honor this distinguished man.

HENRY E. BAKER

ASSISTANT EXAMINER, UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

FOOTNOTES:

[144] The Leisure Hour, 1853, II, p. 54.

[145] Tyson, Banneker, The Afric-American Astronomer, p. 10.

[146] The Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 80

[147] In another particular this same sketch differs from several others, namely, in locating young Banneker at "an obscure and distant country school" with no mention of the oft-repeated assertion that the school was one attended by both white and colored children. The author of the last-mentioned sketch was evidently not sure of these two statements, and therefore did not include them. In fact, he appears not to have been quite sure of the propriety of submitting any sketch at all of this "free man of color" to the distinguished body constituting the Maryland Historical Society, for there was a clear note of apology in his opening declaration that "A few words may be necessary to explain why a memoir of a free man of color, formerly a resident of Maryland, is deemed of sufficient interest to be presented to the Historical Society." But he justified his effort on the grounds that "no questions relating to our country (are) of more interest than those connected with her colored population"; that that interest had "acquired an absorbing character"; that the presence of the colored population in States where slavery existed "modified their institutions in important particulars," and effected "in a greater or less degree the character of the dominant race"; and "for this reason alone," he said, "the memoir of a colored man, who had distinguished himself in an abstruse science, by birth a Marylander, claims consideration from those who have associated to collect and preserve facts and records relating to the men and deeds of the past."—J. H. B. Latrobe in Maryland Historical Society Publications, I, p. 8.

[148] Ford edition of Jefferson's Writings, V, p. 379.

[149] In the memoir of Banneker, above mentioned, read before the Maryland Historical Society in 1845, and in another memoir of Banneker, read before the same Society by Mr. J. Saurin Norris, in 1854, the estate purchased by Mollie Welsh is referred to as "a small farm near the present site of Baltimore," and "purchased at a merely nominal price." See Norris's Memoir, p. 3.

[150] Norris Memoir, p. 4; Williams's History of the Negro Race, p. 386.

[151] Tyson, Banneker, p. 10.

[152] It is elsewhere given as 7,000, but the earlier record seems to be the correct one.

[153] Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 81.

[154] Latrobe, Memoir, Maryland Historical Society Publications, I, p. 7.

[155] Ibid., I, p. 7.

[156] Banneker would frequently, in answering questions submitted to him, accompany the answers with questions of his own in rhyme. The following is an example of such a question submitted by him to another noted mathematician, his friend and neighbor, Mr. George Ellicott:

A cooper and Vintner sat down for a talk, Both being so groggy, that neither could walk, Says Cooper to Vintner, "I'm the first of my trade, There's no kind of vessel, but what I have made, And of any shape, Sir,—just what you will,— And of any size, Sir,—from a ton to a gill!" "Then," says the Vintner, "you're the man for me,— Make me a vessel, if we can agree. The top and the bottom diameter define, To bear that proportion as fifteen to nine, Thirty-five inches are just what I crave, No more and no less, in the depth, will I have; Just thirty-nine gallons this vessel must hold,— Then I will reward you with silver or gold,— Give me your promise, my honest old friend?" "I'll make it tomorrow, that you may depend!" So the next day the Cooper his work to discharge, Soon made the new vessel, but made it too large;— He took out some staves, which made it too small, And then cursed the vessel, the Vintner and all. He beat on his breast, "By the Powers!"—he swore, He never would work at his trade any more. Now my worthy friend, find out, if you can, The vessel's dimensions and comfort the man!

BENJAMIN BANNEKER.

We are indebted to Benjamin Hallowell, of Alexandria, for the solution of this problem. The greater diameter of Banneker's tub must be 24.745 inches; the less diameter 14.8476 inches. See Maryland Historical Society Publications, I, p. 20.

[157] The Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 81.

[158] The Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 81.

[159] Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 82.

[160] Southern Literary Messenger, XXIII, p. 65.

[161] Tyson's Banneker, p. 24.

[162] Tyson, Banneker, p. 26.

[163] J. H. B. Latrobe's Memoir, Maryland Historical Society Publications, I, p. 8.

[164] Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 82.

[165] Tyson, Banneker, p. 51.

[166] Mr. McHenry was not only one of the most prominent men of Baltimore, but was several times honored with positions of trust. He was Senator from Maryland in 1781; and as one of the Commissioners to frame the Constitution of the United States, he signed that instrument in 1787. He was also a member of the cabinet of President John Adams as Secretary of War in 1797.—Tyson, Banneker, pp. 50, 51, 52.

[167] Maryland Historical Society Publications, I, 1844-48, I, p. 79.

[168] A copy of Banneker's letter to Thomas Jefferson and the statesman's reply were published in the JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, III, p. 69.

[169] Catholic World, XXXVIII, December, 1883.

[170] Washington Star, October 15, 1916.

[171] Georgetown Weekly Ledger, March 12, 1791.

[172] Tyson, Banneker, p. 37.

[173] Tyson, Banneker, pp. 70-71.

[174] Tyson, Banneker, pp. 35-60.

[175] Records of the Columbia Historical Society, XX, pp. 117-119.

[176] The Atlantic Monthly, XI, p. 84.

[177] Tyson, Banneker, p. 31.

[178] Ibid., p. 31.

[179] Catholic World, XVIII, p. 354.

[180] Norris's Memoir, Maryland Historical Society Publications, II, p. 75.

[181] Federal Gazette and Baltimore Daily Advertiser, October 28, 1806.

[182] Norris's Memoir, Maryland Historical Society Publications, II, p. 64.

[183] Ibid., II, p. 73.

[184] Tyson, Banneker, p. 72.

[185] Records of the Columbia Historical Society, XX, pp. 119-120.



GEORGE LIELE AND ANDREW BRYAN, PIONEER NEGRO BAPTIST PREACHERS

Without any consideration of the merits or demerits of what is called the exceptional man theory, perhaps no two men stand out more prominently in the early history of the Negro church than George Liele and Andrew Bryan. In the days of darkest forebodings and of the greatest human sufferings these two pioneers of religion went forth to disseminate ideas and mold sentiments which were to shape the inner springs of conduct of their fellow-slaves. Sketches of these heroes must claim the attention of seekers for the truth as to this important phase of our history.

A letter dated September 15, 1790, from the late Reverend Mr. Joseph Cook of Euhaw, upper Indian Land, South Carolina, says: "A poor Negro, commonly called, among his friends, Brother George,[186] has been so highly favored of God, as to plant the first Baptist Church in Savannah, and another in Jamaica." This man was George Liele. He was born in Virginia about 1751. He knew very little of his mother, Nancy, but was informed by white and black that his father was a very devout man. The family moved much during the youth of George, but finally settled in Georgia.

As a youth George Liele had a natural fear of God, holding constantly in mind His condemnation of sin. Liele was converted through the preaching of the Reverend Matthew Moore,[188] who later baptized him. Desiring then to prove the sense of his obligations to God, Liele began to instruct his own people. Crude but firm in purpose, he soon showed ministerial gifts and after a trial sermon before a quarterly meeting of white ministers was licensed as a local preacher. He practiced preaching on different plantations, and in the church to which he belonged, on evenings when there was no regular service. After a short period he began his regular ministerial work, serving about three years at Brunton Land, and at Yamacraw, where developed a number of useful communicants.[189]

Among these early members of the Yamacraw church were Reverend David George, who later labored, with permission from the Governor, in the ministry at Nova Scotia, with sixty communicants, white and black; Reverend Amos, who preached with good results at New Providence, one of the Bahama Islands, to about three hundred members; and Reverend Jesse Gaulsing, who preached near Augusta, in South Carolina to sixty members. Preaching later from Chapter III Saint John, and the clause of verse 7, "Ye must be born again," George Liele moved to repentance a more useful man, Andrew Bryan, and a noted woman named Hagar.[190] After Liele organized this influential church at Yamacraw, then a suburb of Savannah, Mr. Henry Sharp, his master, encouraged this pioneer by giving him his freedom.

Mr. Sharp was an officer in the war and died from wounds received in the King's service.[191] Soon after the death of Mr. Sharp there arose those who were dissatisfied with George's liberation. He was taken and thrown into prison, but by producing his manumission papers was released. To extricate himself from this unpleasant situation Liele became obligated to a Colonel Kirkland. At the evacuation of Savannah by the British he was partly obliged to come to Jamaica, as an indentured servant for money he owed Colonel Kirkland, who promised to be his friend in that country. Upon landing at Kingston he was upon the recommendation of the Colonel to General Campbell, the Governor of Jamaica, employed by him two years, and, on leaving the island, the governor gave Liele a certificate of his good behavior. As soon as Liele had paid his debt to Colonel Kirkland, he obtained for himself and family a certificate of freedom from the vestry and governor, according to the law of this Island.[192] Thus by force of circumstances George Liele was compelled to leave those among whom he had labored so effectively and thrown into another field where he had opportunity for further service.

Liele's work in Jamaica began in September, 1784. He started in Kingston by preaching in a private house to a small congregation. Next, he organized a church with four other men who had come from America. His message had a telling effect especially on the slaves. The effectiveness of his work is also seen from the fact that persecutions at baptisms and meetings which were, at first, frequent, later became a less serious hindrance. Upon frequent petitions, however, the Jamaica Assembly finally granted free worship of God to all those desiring it. So successfully did Liele work that in a short while he had in the country together with well wishers and followers about fifteen hundred communicants, to whom he preached twice on each Sunday, in the morning and afternoon, and twice in the week.[193]

The work of the church was extended by a few deacons and elders, and by teachers of small congregations in the town and country. Thomas Nichols Swigle became Liele's chief assistant. His particular work was to regulate church matters, serve as deacon, and also to teach a free school opened for the instruction of free and slave children. The work continued to spread through Swigle, who became a minister after the order of Liele. He said: "About two months ago, I paid my first visit to a part of our church held at Clinton Mount, Coffee Plantation, in the Parish of Saint Andrew, about sixteen miles distance from Kingston, in the High mountains, where we have a chapel and 254 brethren." About his work in general he said: "I preach, baptize, marry, attend funerals, and go through every work of the ministry without fee or reward."[194]

It was soon evident that there must be some definite place of worship. To this end a piece of land about three acres at the east end of Kingston was purchased for the sum of about 155 pounds and on it a church building fifty-seven by thirty-seven feet was begun. Because the congregation was poor and gifts were small, Liele had a struggle to complete his building. He interested in his cause several gentlemen of influence, among whom was a Mr. Stephen Cooke, a member of the Assembly, who in turn asked help of friends in England. By January 12, 1793, he was able to say that not only was the Kingston church completed but that in Spanish Town also he had purchased land for a cemetery with a house on it which served as a church building. The Kingston church, the first of its kind in Jamaica, under the leadership of Liele had twelve trustees, all of whom were members of the congregation, whose names were specified in the title recorded in the office of the secretary of the island.[195]

While establishing the churches at Savannah and at Jamaica, Liele received nothing for his services. He was on a mission and without charge preached, baptized, administered the Lord's Supper, and travelled from one place to another to settle church affairs. He did this so as not to be misunderstood and not to hinder the progress of the church of Christ. Mr. Stephen Cooke, in giving his opinion of Liele, said that he was "a very industrious man, decent and humble in his manners, and, I think, a good man." His family life was pleasant. He had a wife and four children, three boys and a girl. Liele followed farming for a regular occupation, but because of the uncertain seasons in Jamaica, kept horses and wagons for employment in local transportation for the government by contract. He was business-like and kept the good will of the public. Although busy, Liele found time to read some of the good books which he had in his meager collection and also to write letters explaining the growth of his work in Jamaica and inquiring after the progress of the church at Savannah, then pastored by Andrew Bryan.[196]

In building up the membership of his churches Liele showed great tact. Unlike the Methodists who were rapidly coming forward at this time, he would not receive any slaves who had not permission of their owners. This not only increased the membership of the church but it made friends for their cause among the masters and overseers. So careful was Liele to get the confidence of the masters and overseers that he ordered a bell for his church just a mile and a half out of Spanish Town in Jamaica, not particularly to give warning to the slaves about the time of meeting, but to the owners of slaves that they might know the time when their slaves should return to the plantations. The church covenant, a collection of certain passages of Scripture, which was used once a month, was shown to members of the legislature, the magistrates and justices to secure their approval that they might give their slaves permission to become members of the congregation.[197]

The effect of the work of Liele is well narrated in a statement of an overseer who sat at breakfast with Swigle at Clinton Mount, sixteen miles from Kingston. He said that he did not need an assistant nor did he make use of the whip, for whether he was at home or away, everything was conducted as it should have been. The slaves were industrious, with a plenty of provision in their ground and a plenty of live stock in their barns; and they, one and all, lived together in unity, brotherly love and peace. With a mission to serve, this man then made his way into the hearts of his fellows.