Part 1 (1/2)
An Address to Free Coloured Americans.
by An Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women.
BELOVED BRETHREN AND SISTERS--
The sympathy we feel for our oppressed fellow-citizens who are enslaved in these United States, has called us together, to devise by mutual conference the best means for bringing our guilty country to a sense of her transgressions; and to implore the G.o.d of the oppressed to guide and bless our labors on behalf of our ”countrymen in chains.”
All of us have some idea what slavery is: we have formed some faint conceptions of the horrors of a system based on irresponsible power, violence, and injustice; but _to know_ what slavery is, we must see it worked out in practice--we must see the heart-strings severed one by one, and witness all the refinement of cruelty which is exercised on the body, soul, and mind of the enslaved. ”Let any man of feeling,” says a Southern gentleman, ”cast his thoughts over this land of slavery, think of the nakedness of some, the hungry yearnings of others, the wailings and wo, the b.l.o.o.d.y cut of the keen lash, and the frightful scream that rends the very skies--and all this to gratify l.u.s.t, pride, avarice, and other depraved feelings of the human heart. THE WORST IS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN. Were all the miseries and horrors of slavery to burst at once into view, a peal of seven-fold thunder could scarce strike greater alarm.” (Swain's Address, 1830.)
We can readily believe this testimony to the physical sufferings of the slave: we apprehend these most easily, because all of us are alive to bodily pain, whilst few comparatively appreciate the mental and spiritual degradation to which our oppressed brethren are subjected; yet this is the most appalling feature of American bondage. Slavery seizes a rational and immortal being crowned by Jehovah with glory and honor, and drags him down to a level with the beasts that perish. It makes him a thing, a chattel personal, a machine to be used to all intents and purposes for the benefit of another, without reference to the good, the happiness, or the wishes of the man himself. It introduces violence and disorder, where G.o.d established harmony and peace. It would annihilate the individual worth and responsibility conferred upon man by his Creator. It deprives him of the power of self-improvement, to which he is bound by the unchangeable laws of his Maker. It prevents him from laboring in a sphere to which his capacities are adapted. It abrogates the seventh commandment, by annulling the obligations of marriage, and obliging the slaves to live in a state of promiscuous intercourse, concubinage, and adultery; thus setting at nought an inst.i.tution established by Jehovah himself, and designed to promote the happiness and virtue of his creatures. It dooms its victims to ignorance, and consequently to vice. ”I think I may safely a.s.sert,” says Mr. Moore, ”that ignorance is the inseparable companion of slavery, and that the desire of freedom is the inevitable consequence of implanting in the human mind any useful degree of intelligence: it is therefore the policy of the master that the ignorance of his slaves should be as profound as possible; and such a state of ignorance is wholly incompatible with the existence of any moral principles or exalted feeling in the breast of the slave. (Speech of Mr. Moore, House of Delegates, Va., 1832.)
”How horrible must be that system which demands as the necessary condition of its existence, that knowledge should be shut out from the minds of those who live under it--that they should be reduced as nearly as possible to the level of brutes, or living machines--that the powers of their souls should be crushed! Let each one of us ask, Can such a system be aided, or even tolerated, without deep criminality?” (Ad. to the Pres. of Ken. by a committee of the synod of Kentucky.)
But even if slavery could be divested of all its horrible accompaniments, its ignorance, licentiousness, and other nameless abominations, we should still regard the circ.u.mstance of man holding his brother man as property as one of the blackest crimes which corrupt human nature ever invented. Mr. Moore, in the speech from which we have already quoted, is compelled to acknowledge the iniquity of this system.
”It cannot be denied,” he says, ”as a general principle, that it is an act of tyranny, injustice, and oppression, to hold any part of the human race in bondage against their consent.... The right to the enjoyment of liberty is one of those perfect, inherent, and inalienable rights which pertain to the whole human race, and of which they can never be divested, except by an act of gross injustice.” If we would rightly estimate the wretchedness in which the perpetration of this ”act of gross injustice” has involved one sixth part of the population of Republican America, we must compare the condition of our slaves with that of the freemen of their own age and country. ”Things are estimated by comparison; and the man who is deprived of every natural, civil, and social right, while all around him are basking in the suns.h.i.+ne of freedom, must feel the fangs of slavery much more poignantly than the one who, though subjected to similar privations, beholds his lot but little below that of those who surround him.” We must not, therefore, compare the situation of slaves in the United States with that of the slaves of heathen Greece and Rome, where equal laws never existed, and where the beams of liberty and Christianity never shone; but to form a correct judgment of the miseries endured by our slaves, we must compare them with the laboring cla.s.s of our population in the free states, and we may then comprehend the debasing influence of a system which produces such dreadful results as are exhibited on almost every Southern plantation, where the lash is the princ.i.p.al, if not the only stimulus.
You are, dear friends, in a peculiar manner fellow-sufferers with those who are in bondage; because the whites, having reduced their colored brethren to slavery, with a cruelty proportioned to their unjust usurpation of power, have labored to impress on the mind of the community, the unfounded calumny that the people of color are unfit for freedom: this a.s.sertion is designed, on the part of slaveholders, as a salve for their consciences, and a plea for the continuation of slavery, and is used by the adversary of all good for the diabolical purpose of s.h.i.+elding from merited infamy the system of American slavery.
Nothing will contribute more to break the bondman's fetters, than an example of high moral worth, intellectual culture and religious attainments among the free people of color--living epistles known and read of all men--a standard of exalted piety, of dedication to the works of righteousness, of humble-mindedness, of Christian charity; to which abolitionists may confidently point, and ask those who are forging the manacles of hopeless servitude for our countrymen, what they can answer to the Judge of all the earth for thus robbing him of his immortal creatures; and demand of them, in view of what their slaves might be, to restore their victims to themselves, to the human family, and to G.o.d.
We know, and we rejoice in the knowledge, that the gift of intellect is co-extensive with the human race, and that our brethren and sisters, who are writhing under the lash of worse than Egyptian taskmasters--whose minds are beclouded by ignorance and enfeebled by suffering, need only to have the same advantages which Europeans and their descendants have enjoyed, triumphantly to refute the unfounded calumny that they are inferior in the powers of intellect, and less susceptible of mental improvement. We maintain, that the people of color are not in any respect inferior to the white man, and that under favorable circ.u.mstances they would rise again to the rank they formerly held.
The everlasting architecture of Africa still exists--the wonder of the world, though in ruins: her mighty kingdoms have yet their record in history; she has poured forth her heroes on the field, given bishops to the church, and martyrs to the fires. And for African physiognomy, as though that should shut out the light of intellect, go to your national museum, contemplate the features of the colossal head of Memnon, and the statues of the divinities on which the ancient Africans impressed their own forms, and there see, in close resemblance to their features, the mould of those countenances which once beheld as the creatures of their own immortal genius the n.o.blest and most stupendous monuments of human skill, and taste, and grandeur. In the imperishable porphyry and granite, is the unfounded and pitiful slander publicly and before all the world refuted: there we see the African under _cultivation_. If he now presents a different aspect, cultivation is wanting--that solves the whole case: for, even now, where education has been expended upon the pure and undoubted descendants of Africans, it has never been bestowed in vain. Modern times have witnessed, in their persons, Generals, Physicians, Philosophers, Linguists, Poets, Mathematicians, and Merchants--all eminent in their attainments, energetic in enterprise, and honorable in character; and the Mission schools in the West Indies exhibit a quickness of intellect, and a thirst for learning, to which the schools of this country do not always afford a parallel.” (Sermon by Richard Watson, pp. 7, 8, b.u.t.terworth, 1824.)
Sacred history bears ample testimony to the learning of the Egyptians.
”Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the East country and all the wisdom of Egypt.” Even in our own country, under the oppressive system which slavery and prejudice have reared to crush the people of color, the superiority which occasionally s.h.i.+nes out, notwithstanding all the disabilities by which we have surrounded them, proves beyond dispute that they are the gifted children of our Heavenly Father. In proof of this, we shall adduce from numerous testimonies, that of F. A. Sayre, for nine years a teacher of one of the public schools in Cincinnati.
”Facts have been developed in the progress of the day schools and Sunday schools here, which have made me believe that the colored people are not only equal to white people in natural capacity to be taught, but that they exceed them: they do not receive instruction; they seize it as a person who has long been famis.h.i.+ng for food--seize the smallest crumb.”
I several times visited the different schools for colored children and have always been gratified to observe the good order and attention to study which the pupils manifest, and particularly with the affection with which they regard their teachers. I have, however, known more particularly the school for boys which brother W---- teaches, there I have seen boys of from 9 to 12 years of age, who had learned the alphabet within a year, who were able to exhibit to advantage, in reading and spelling, to write legibly, to recite long lessons in History, which they had been a short time studying, and to undergo an examination in Arithmetic, which when I first witnessed it, perfectly astonished me. I have taught common schools for about 15 years at intervals, and have visited many taught by others, and I must candidly say, that I have never been acquainted with one which for rapid progress in the different studies pursued, and for the interests manifested by the pupils could be compared with this, nor have I ever seen so much good feeling in the intercourse of teacher and pupils.”
And, in corroboration of the above position, we shall mention a few out of many instances in which persons of color have surmounted every obstacle to mental and moral improvement. James Derham, who was originally a slave, was skilled in the languages, and became the most distinguished Physician at New Orleans. Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, says, ”I conversed with him, and found him very learned: I thought I could give him information concerning the treatment of diseases, but I learned more from him than he could expect from me.” Benjamin Bannaker was a slave in Maryland: he obtained his freedom, and removed to Philadelphia.
Without any encouragement but his pa.s.sion for acquiring knowledge, and with no other books than the works of Ferguson and the tables of Tobias Mayer, he applied himself to the study of Astronomy. In 1794 and '95, he published Almanacs at Philadelphia, in which are calculated and exhibited the different aspects of the planets, a table of the motions of the sun and moon, their risings and sittings, and the courses of the bodies of the planetary system. Bannaker sent his Almanac in ma.n.u.script to Thomas Jefferson, previous to its publication, accompanied by a long and interesting letter on the condition of his brethren; and the following extracts are taken from Jefferson's reply:--”Sir, I thank you sincerely for your letter, and for the Almanac it contained. n.o.body wishes more than I do, to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men; and that the appearance of the want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa and America. I have taken the liberty of sending your Almanac to Monsieur de Condorcet, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and Member of the Philanthropic Society, because I considered it a doc.u.ment to which your whole color had a right for their justification against the opinions which have been entertained of them.” A late West India paper mentions the death of Mr. Watkis, a colored lawyer in Jamaica, ”by which the bar was deprived of one of its brightest ornaments.” In the Island of St. Kitts, the proportion of colored members is increasing every year, and several of the special magistrates are colored men. The Editor of the St. Christopher Weekly Intelligencer and Advertiser is a colored man, who has been a bold advocate of liberal principles. He is described as a thorn in the side of the planters, and a great blessing to the Island. And in the United States of America, there are men and women now living whose talents, piety, and worth, are undeniable.
If we contemplate the moral character of the colored man we shall meet with even more frequent demonstrations of the kind care of our beneficent Creator who hath made of one blood all nations, and bestowed upon his rational creatures those qualities of the heart which are the brightest ornament of human nature. ”In maternal, filial and fraternal affections,” says Wadstrom, ”I scruple not to p.r.o.nounce them superior to any Europeans I was ever among.” ”Of all the people I have ever met I think they are the kindest, they will let none of their people want for victuals, they will lend and not look for it again, they will even lend clothes to each other if they want to go any where, if strangers come to them they will give them victuals for nothing, they will go out of their beds that strangers may sleep in them.”--We not unfrequently have the evidence of slaveholders themselves to the faithfulness and tender attachment of their slaves. In a sermon preached by George W. Freeman, Rector of Christ Church, Raleigh, North Carolina, in which he endeavors to prove that slavery is a Bible inst.i.tution we find the following testimony to the moral worth of those whom he calls a different race of men.” ”To _many_ of our servants, to _them_ who serve us faithfully, who are ever attentive to our wants, who cheerfully fulfil our commands, who labor abroad for us when we are in health, and who come at our call to nurse us in our sickness, and who, laying aside, as it were, all regard to their own comforts, submit without murmuring, or impatience to the most wearying and exhausting of all employments, complying with our most unreasonable whims, and meekly bearing with our fretfulness and caprices; _to them_, and I must do this cla.s.s of people the justice to say there are _many such_ among us--_to such of our domestics as these we surely owe a debt of grat.i.tude, which all our kindliest acts, should we even live beyond the age of man would scarce suffice to discharge_.
n.o.ble instances are recorded of their self-denial and liberality.--”Jasmin Thoumazeau was born in Africa, brought to St.
Domingo and sold for a slave when he was 22 years of age, but afterwards obtaining his freedom he established a Hospital at the Cape, in 1756 for poor persons of color. More than forty years were devoted by himself and his wife to this benevolent inst.i.tution, and his fortune was subservient to their wants. The only regret they felt, while their time and substance was devoted to these dest.i.tute objects, arose from a fear that after they were gone the Hospital might be abandoned.” Joseph Rachel, a trader, who resided in the island of Barbadoes went to a man who had lost his property and to whom in the early part of his life he owed some obligations and gave him the fragment of his burnt bond for 60 and his discharged account for a considerable sum, telling him he was sensibly affected with his misfortunes and releasing him from all obligation to pay the debts. The philanthropists of England take pleasure in speaking of him. Having become rich by commerce, he consecrated all his fortune to acts of benevolence. The unfortunate without DISTINCTION OF COLOR had a claim on his affections. He gave to the indigent, lent to those who could not make a return--visited prisoners, gave them good advice and endeavored to bring back the guilty to virtue.” Two slaves in New Orleans who by industry and economy had purchased their freedom and laid up about $400, bought with their earnings the freedom of another slave.--One day as the wife was sitting in the door of her cottage she said to herself ”I have so much money and if I can make it the instrument of redeeming one of my fellow-beings from slavery, then I can say to my soul 'depart in peace.' She accordingly purchased one for $250 and in order to place her in a situation where she would hear the gospel preached, she brought her to the city of New-York. A more n.o.ble instance of genuine benevolence does not adorn the annals of philanthropy than is exhibited in this illiterate daughter of Africa, who gave nearly her all to redeem one captive sister. We have in this city a colored sister well known and beloved who by the labor of her own hands has ransomed eleven slaves.--But for her they would probably have dragged out their lives in hopeless bondage.--Her ”witness is in heaven, her record is on high.[1]
Similar accounts might be multiplied but enough has been said to prove to any candid mind the truth of our position, we will therefore only add the testimony of some of our Southern sisters who affirm that they have known slaves of exalted piety, high intelligence and warm affections, who under circ.u.mstances the most trying have exhibited a degree of practical Christianity they have rarely witnessed.
[1] In citing these instances of benevolence we wish it understood, that while we approve of _redeeming_ a captive from bondage, we utterly deny the _right_ of the master to _sell_ or _hold_ the slave as property, just as we deny the right of the Corsair to the persons of his prisoners, or the ransom which may be offered for their redemption.
We cannot forbear mentioning in connection with this subject the n.o.ble example which the colored slaveholders of Martinique have set to their white brethren by pet.i.tioning the French Chamber of Deputies to abolish slavery in that island, stating that they regarded it as an act not only of justice but of policy.--This is the only record on the page of history of such an act of mercy but we hope it may stimulate slaveholders in these United States to pet.i.tion Congress to exert her influence in destroying the horrible system of American Slavery by abolis.h.i.+ng it in the District of Columbia and in Florida, and by exterminating the interstate slave trade.
We earnestly entreat you to emulate the conduct of your brethren in Martinique by letting your righteousness exceed the righteousness of our white fellow-citizens. ”That whereas they speak evil against you as evil doers, they may by your good works which they shall behold glorify G.o.d.
For so is the will of G.o.d that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.” Your situation is in some respects more favorable to the growth of piety than that of the whites, you are in the furnace of affliction, and adversity has a much more salutary influence on the mind than prosperity. We believe that our Almighty Father has permitted your unparallelled sufferings, because he designs to bring you up to his a.s.sistance in regenerating our guilty country--he has been at infinite pains to refine you as silver is refined, that you may reflect more perfectly in your conduct and conversation the image of Jesus Christ. ”Beloved think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice in as much as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings.” You have the advantage of standing aloof from the political chicanery and wickedness which seem inseparable from public life, you are s.h.i.+elded from many of those temptations which encircle the fas.h.i.+onable world, and in a measure from the love of money, which is the root of all evil, because the acquisition of wealth is not with you as with your paler brethren, the certain means of worldly distinction. You may examine with a philosophic and impartial eye, the baneful effect of all these influences upon our white population, and as you rise from under the unhallowed prejudice which now crushes you to the earth, remember the solemn responsibilities which rest upon you and keep yourselves unspotted from the world, that your praise may be of G.o.d and not of men.
With deep regret we have heard that some of our colored brethren and sisters in our great cities frequent the theatre. This is a sink of vice from which we earnestly beseech you to keep yourselves entirely separate. Let the language of every one amongst you be, ”Oh my soul, come not thou into their secret, unto their a.s.sembly mine honor, be not thou united.” Sometimes in these scenic representations, your ”countrymen in chains” are held up to the scorn and derision of an unfeeling mult.i.tude; the poor slave is introduced to be the object of heartless mirth. Can any colored man or woman voluntarily witness these dreadful pictures of the degradation of their brethren, and does not your presence identify you with the oppressors, who thus wantonly hold up to public contempt those whom they have first debased, and then despised.
Permit us to offer you a few remarks on the subject of personal decoration--this is a snare which Satan still triumphantly lays, even for professing Christians who indulge in fas.h.i.+onable and extravagant apparel, forgetful of the apostolic injunction, ”Let your adorning not be that outward adorning, of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of G.o.d of great price.” Our hearts have been comforted in our intercourse with you, by observing that there is little gaudy or superfluous dress to be seen, in such places of wors.h.i.+p as we have visited; we regard it as one evidence of the purity of your morals, and your just sense of that decorum which ought to characterise every Christian a.s.sembly. A Christian legislator has said that the trappings of the vain world would clothe the naked, and we affectionately entreat you to cultivate such a sense of your accountability to G.o.d, and the allegiance you owe to Him, that your dress may be such as becomes men and women professing G.o.dliness. To you this branch of religious duty is of double importance. A large proportion of you are obliged to obtain a subsistence by your daily labor; some of you are filling the responsible office of teachers, and it is of great consequence that you expend in the most judicious and profitable manner what is thus hardly earned, and that you set an example of Christian moderation and simplicity to your companions and your pupils.