Treatise on the Intellectual Character and Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the U. States

by Rev. Hosea Easton

CHAPTER  IV.
On the Claims of the Colored People to all the Civil, Religious, and Social Privileges of this Country.

THIS PROPOSITION is in part embraced within the province of those of a preceding chapter. In following it, therefore, I shall be able to fulfill a promise therein contained.

The claims set up are founded in the fact that they are Americans by birth and blood. Complexion has never been made the legal test of citizenship in any age of the world. It has been established generally by birth and blood, and by purchase, or by the ceding of a province or territory from one nation to another. But as they are denied those privileges principally on the ground of their complexion and blood, it shall be my business in this concluding chapter to show-that though their complexion is as truly American as the complexion of the whites, yet it has nothing to do in settling the question. If blood has any thing to do with it, then we are able to prove that there is not a drop of African blood, according to the general acceptation of the term, flowing in the veins of an American born child, though black as jet. Children of African parents, recently arrived in this country, who have not undergone what is called seasoning, may partake of the characteristics of its African parents; such as the hair, complexion, and such like appendages, but the child’s blood has nothing African about it, and for the following reasons. The blood of the parents in seasoning to this climate becomes changed-also, the food of the mother being the production of this country, and congenial to the climate-the atmosphere she breathes-the surrounding objects which strike her senses-all are principles which establish and give character to the constitutional principles of the child, among which the blood is an essential constituent; hence every child born in America, even if it be as black as jet, is American by birth and blood. The kind of root called Irish potatoes, is in truth American, if the potatoes are the production of American soil; and thus remain American potatoes, though they be red or deep scar-let. Some eagle-eyed philosophers, who possess great acuteness of smelling powers, think there is a difference of smell between the Africans and Europeans. Suppose that idea to be correct-would it prove any difference of smell between Americans who are constitutionally alike, and whose corporeals are sustained by the same ailment? In philosophically contemplating those constitutional properties, the color of the skin can no more be included than that of the eyes or the length of the nose.

It is the settled opinion of most people in this country, as I mentioned in a former chapter, that black Americans can endure the heat better than white Americans. This opinion is founded in the fact that black will retain heat while white emits it. I admit the proposition, but I doubt the correctness of the conclusions with respect to the color of animals.

Some minerals and dye-stuffs, and other black substances, will retain heat, which is owing to their not possessing any reflecting ingredient or property, by which the light or heat is thrown back. Heated iron will retain heat longer than heated brass, for the same reason—i.e. iron is not possessed of as much reflection as brass—or in other words, it has not the properties of reflection. I believe these are the considerations, and these only, that are capable of sustaining the proposition.

But these considerations do not and cannot embrace those connected with animal color, for that has neither the power of retaining nor emiting heat—and for the very good reason it possesses no properties; hence no efficient cause in itself to produce any effect what-ever. The principle as it exists in relation to minerals and other sub-stances, depends entirely upon the nature of the properties of which these several bodies are composed; but can the principle be made to apply to animal color?

Analyze black iron, and black properties are found in the iron. Analyze black dye-stuff, and black properties are found in the stuff. Analyze light brass, and light reflecting properties are found in the brass.

Analyze a black man, or anatomize him, and the result of research is the same as analyzing or anatomizing a white man. Before the dissecting knife passes half through the outer layer of the skin, it meets with the same solids and fluids, and from thence all the way through the body. Now I should like to have some modern philosophers, who have got more sense than common school-boys, to tell the world how it is that two bodies of matter, the one exactly similar to the other, in every minute principle of their composition, should produce different effect by the one emiting heat, and the other retaining it.

If it is contended that those properties exist in the animal color itself, then, if they will be good enough to analyze it and give us a knowledge of its parts-Le. if they think a black head can receive and understand it-they will do the world a great favor, as well as ourselves.

If the foregoing considerations are reconcilable, then it may be taken for granted that a black man can work better in the hot sun than a white man-but if they are not reconcilable, then the whole theory is only calculated to dupe the black people, and make knaves of the white people.

But to return. The colored people being constitutionally Americans, they are depending on American climate, American aliment, American government, and American manners, to sustain their American bodies and minds; a withholding of the enjoyment of any American principle from an American man, either governmental, ecclesiastical, civil, social or alimental, is in effect taking away his means of subsistence; and consequently. taking away his life. Every ecclesiastical body which denies an American the privilege of participating in its benefits, becomes his murderer. Every state which denies an American a cit-izenship with all its benefits, denies him his life. Every community which denies an American the privilege of public conveyances, in common with all others, murders him by piece-meal. Every communitywhich withholds social intercourse with an American, by which he may enjoy current information, becomes his murderer of the worst kind. The claims the colored people set up, therefore, are the claims of an American.

They ask priests and people to withhold no longer their inalienable rights to seek happiness in the sanctuary of God, at the same time and place that other Americans seek happiness. They ask statesmen to open the way whereby they, in common with other Americans, may aspire to honor and worth as statesmen-to place their names with other Americans-subject to a draft as jurymen and other functionary appointments, according to their ability. They ask their white Ameri-can brethren to think of them and treat them as American citizens, and neighbors, and as members of the same American family. They urge their claims in full assurance of their being founded in immutable justice. They urge them from a sense of patriotism, from an interest they feel in the well being of their common country. And lastly, they urge them from the conviction that God, the judge of all men, will avenge them of their wrongs, unless their claims are speedily granted.

There are some objections urged against these claims. One is, that the greater part of the colored people are held as property, and if these claims are granted, their owners would be subject to great loss. In answer to this objection, I would remark, that were I to accede to the right of the master to his property in man, still I should conceive the objection groundless, for it is a well known fact that a far greater portion of the colored people who are free, purchased their freedom, and the freedom of their families. Many of them have purchased themselves several times over. Thousands of dollars have been paid over to masters annually, which was the proceeds of extra labor, in consideration of their expected freedom. My colored acquaintances are numerous who have thus done, some of whom were under the necessity ofrunning away to obtain their freedom after all.

I am sufficiently acquainted with the sentiments and views of the slave population of every slave state in the union, to warrant me in the conclusion, that if the despotic power of the master was wrested from him, and the slaves placed under a law of ever so rigid a nature, with the privilege of paying for themselves by their extra labor, there would be comparatively few slaves in the country in less than seven years. The most of them would pay the round price of their bodies, and come out freemen.

Another objection is, that the slaves, if freed at once, would not be capable of enjoying suffrages.

This objection has less foundation than the former, for the several state legislatures of the slave states are continually assisting the masters to keep them in ignorance, and why not legislate in favor of their being informed?

Some contend that they are not now fit for freedom, but ought to be prepared and then freed.

Such a calculation is preposterous. We might as well talk about educating a water machine to run against its propelling power, as to talk about educating a slave for a free man. When travelling through the state of New York, recently, I made some inquiries with respect to the colored people, who in some places are very numerous. I was there informed, by gentlemen whose veracity I cannot doubt, that they are generally indolent and dissipated, far worse than they were when they were slaves. I was told also, that many of them had enjoyed excellent opportunities to become wealthy and respectable. That be-fore the Emancipation Bill was passed in that state, they were mostly slaves, but had an opportunity of obtaining an excellent education, and the art of farming, equal, and in many instances, superior to most white men. When they became free, many of their masters, as a re-ward of former faithfulness, furnished them with means to operate for themselves on a small scale. My informants expressed much astonishment at the fact that most of those who had the best opportunity to do well, had become dissipated, and much worse in character and conduct than when they were slaves.

I have introduced this narrative for the purpose of showing that slaves cannot be educated for free men. A slave is metamorphosed into a machine, adapted to a specific operation, and propelled by the despotic power of the slave system, without any motive to attract. The influence of this power acts upon a slave the same as upon any other biased agent. By the abrogation of the propelling cause of all the acts of the machine, it ceases to move. The slave is now left, without either motive to attract, or power to coerce. A slave, as such, in undergoing the change from a moral, intelligent being, to a mere machine, lost all the innate principles of a freeman. Hence, when the principles of slavery ceases to act upon him, to the end for which he is a slave, he is left a mere out-of-use wreck of machinery; under nothing but the withering influence of the pelting rain of wickedness.

It is true, many of the slaves of New York had some education, but that education was acquired when a slave. Hence, it was only a collateral means by which he was rendered a more efficient machine. His education was the education of a slave, and not a freeman.

These conclusions may be thought by some to go against the doc-trine of immediate abolition-not so. The doctrine of immediate abolition embraces the idea of an entire reversal of the system of slavery. The work of emancipation is not complete when it only cuts off some of the most prominent limbs of slavery, such as destroying the despotic power of the master, and the laying by of the cow-hide. The man who fell among thieves was emancipated in that way. His cruel captivators, I suppose, thought they had done a great act of philanthropy when they left off beating him. But their sort of emancipation left the poor man half dead-precisely in the same way New York emancipated her slaves, after beating them several hundred years, left them, half dead, without proscribing any healing remedy for the bruises and wounds received by their maltreatment. But the good Samaritan had quite a different view of the subject. It is remembered, undoubtedly, that before he acted, there were several who passed by that way, saw the man, but passed by on the other side. Whether they were Union-ists, Colonizationists, or Abolitionists, every one must judge for them-selves. But when the good man came along, he carried out the princi-ples of immediate abolitionism. If New York had imitated him, there would have been no complaint about her emancipated negroes (as they are called,) being worse than when they were slaves.

I repeat, that emancipation embraces the idea that the emancipated must be placed back where slavery found them, and restore to them all that slavery has taken away from them. Merely to cease beating the colored people, and leave them in their gore, and call it emancipation, is nonsense. Nothing short of an entire reversal of the slave system in theory and practice-in general and in particular-will ever accomplish the work ofredeeming the colored people of this country from their present condition.

Let the country, then, no longer act the part of the thief. Let the free states no longer act the part of them who passed

by on the other side, and leaving the colored people half dead, especially when they were beaten by their own hands, and so call it emancipation-raising a wonderment why the half dead people do not heal themselves. Let them rather act the part of the good Samaritan. That only will open an effectual door through which sympathies can flow, and by which a reciprocity of sentiment and interest can take place—a proper knowledge acquired by the benefactor relative to his duty, and reciprocated on the part of the benefited.

This state of things would possess redeeming power. Every collat-eral means would be marshaled under the heaven-born principle, that requires all men to do unto others as they would that others should do unto them. It would kindle anew the innate principles of moral, civil and social manhood, in the downtrodden colored Ameri-cans; bidding them arise as from the dead, and speed their way back to the height from whence they have fallen. Nor would the call be in vain. A corresponding action on their part would respond to the cheering voice. The countenance which has been cast down, hitherto, would brighten up with joy. Their narrow foreheads, which have hitherto been contracted for the want of mental exercise, would begin to broaden. Their eye balls, hitherto strained out to prominence by a frenzy excited by the flourish of the whip, would fall back under a thick foliage of curly eyebrows, indicative of deep penetrating thought. Those muscles, which have hitherto been distended by grief and weeping, would become contracted to an acuteness, corresponding to that acuteness of perception with which business men are blessed. That interior region, the dwelling place of the soul, would be lighted up with the fires of love and gratitude to their benefactors on earth, and to their great Benefactor above, driving back those clouds of slav-ery and of prejudice which have hitherto darkened and destroyed its vision. And thus their whole man would be redeemed, rendering them fit for the associates of their fellow men in this life, and for the associ-ates of angels in the world to come.

Sons of Columbia, up get ye;
Purge you from slavery’s guilty stain, Defend the honest poor, the truth maintain.

Sons of pilgrim sires, up get ye;
Purge you from slavery’s guilty stain,
Your country’s stained with blood all o’er the main.

Priests of the altar, up get ye;
Purge you from slavery’s guilty stain,
Cease to be slavery’s vassals—dupes to gain.

Priests of the altar up get ye;
Purge you from slavery’s guilty stain,
No more the holy name of God profane.

Priests of the altar, up get ye;
Purge you from slavery’s guilty stain,
Come ye from under slavery’s prejudicial reign.

Priests of the altar, up get ye;
Purge you from slavery’s guilty stain,
The trump of God has sounded—Hark—it sounds again.

Daughters of freedom, up get ye;
Purge you from slavery’s guilty stain,
Shall violated chastity call for help in vain?

Daughters of freedom, up get ye;
Purge you from slavery’s guilty stain,
Ere thy sisters’ grief’gainst thee in heaven complain.

Statesmen of Columbia, up get ye;
Hark! Jefferson presuag’d from first,
Trembling for his country-proclaimed-God is just!!

Priests and people, all, up get ye;
Hark! hear the prophets tell,
How nations forgetting God are sent to hell.

Priests and people, all, up get ye;
Purge you from that dreadful sin,
Prejudice—of dev’lish extract-hellish fiend.

Priests and people, all, up get ye;
Repent ye while you may,
An awful judgment is at hand—God’s vengeful day.

 

Public domain.

Treatise on the Intellectual Character and Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the U. States

by Rev. Hosea Easton

CHAPTER III.
On the Nature of the Prejudice of the White Population of the United States, in Its Malignant Exercise towards the Colored People.

MALIGNANT prejudice is a principle which calls into action the worst passions of the human heart. There are cases, however, in which the exercise of prejudice is perfectly harmless. A person may prepossess favorable opinions of another, and such opinions may be just and right. Unfavorable opinions may be formed, also, of persons whose conduct is censurable; and a just prejudice may be exercised towards them, as they stand related to their own bad conduct, without a dis-play of any malignity.

Again, prejudicial feelings may be exercised towards another, through an error of judgment, for the want of means of knowing the true character of those against whom a prejudice is indulged; in which case, it possesses nothing malignant, because its possessor entertains no purpose of injury. Great caution should be exercised, however, in judging the motives and conduct of another, especially when such conduct relates somewhat to ourselves-because it is very natural for us to be governed by our interest, or imaginary interest, which is liable to lead us into errors of the worst kind. It is also natural, on being convicted of wrong, to plead ignorance. But such a plea will not always excuse the pleader in strict justice. For if the prejudiced person has the means of knowing, or if he has any doubt with regard to the justness of his opinions of his neighbors, and still neglects to use the means of informing himself, and to solve his doubts on the subject, but persists in the exercise of his prejudice, he is equally guilty of all the mischief produced thereby, as he would be if he knew ever so well, and persisted in his wrong course in the light of that knowledge.

Prejudice seems to possess a nature peculiar to itself. It never possesses any vitiating qualities, except when it is exercised by one who has done, or intends to do, another an injury. And its malignity is heightened in proportion as its victim in any way recovers, or has a manifest prospect of recovering the injury; or if there is apparently a door open by which a superior power to that which he possesses, may bring him to an account for the wrong done to his neighbor, all have a direct tendency to heighten the malignity of prejudice in the heart of its possessor.

The colored population are the injured party. And the prejudice of the whites against them is in exact proportion to the injury the colored people have sustained. There is a prejudice in this country against the Irish, who are flocking here by thousands. Still there is nothing malignant in the nature and exercise of that prejudice, either national or personal. It grows out of the mere circumstance of their different manners and religion. The moment an Irishman adopts the maxims and prevailing religion of the country, he is no longer regarded an Irishman, other than by birth. It is to be remembered, also, that the Irish are not an injured, but a benefited party; therefore, it is not possible that the bestower of benefits could be at the same time malignantly exercising prejudice towards those he is benefiting.

There exists, therefore, no injurious prejudice against the Irish. There exists a prejudice against the Indians, but it is almost entirely national, and for the very reason that the injury they have sustained is essentially national. The jealous eye of this nation is fixed upon them as a nation, and has ever exercised the rigor of its prejudice towards them, in proportion as they attempted to recover their rightful possessions; or, in other words, just in proportion as the physical powers of the Indians, have dwindled to inefficiency, prejudice against them has become lax and passive. It revives only as they show signs of national life.

The injury sustained by the colored people, is both national and
personal; indeed, it is national in a twofold sense. In the first place, they are lineally stolen from their native country, and detained for centuries, in a strange land, as hewers of wood and drawers of water. In this situation, their blood, habits, minds, and bodies, have under-gone such a change, as to cause them to lose all legal or natural relations to their mother country. They are no longer her children; therefore, they sustain the great injury of losing their country, their birthright, and are made aliens and illegitimates. Again, they sustain a national injury by being adopted subjects and citizens, and then being denied their citizenship, and the benefits derivable therefrom—accounted as aliens and outcasts, hence, are identified as belonging to no country-denied birthright in one, and had it stolen from them in another—and, I had like to have said, they had lost title to both worlds; for certainly they are denied all title in this, and almost all advantages to prepare for the next. In this light of the subject, they belong to no people, race, or nation; subjects of no government-citizens of no country—scattered surplus remnants of two races, and of different nations—severed into individuality—rendered a mass of broken fragments, thrown to and fro, by the boisterous passions of this and other ungodly nations. Such, in part, are the national injuries sustained by this miserable people.

I am aware that most people suppose the existence of color to be the cause of malignant prejudice. Upon this supposition an argument is founded, that color is an insurmountable barrier, over which there can be no social or political relation formed between white and colored Americans. To show the folly of which, I shall lay down and sustain the following principles.

First. Effects, according to their numerous laws, partake of their
parent cause in nature and quantity; i.e. the amount of effect produced, will exactly agree with the amount of efficiency the cause contains which produced it; and their legitimacy claims for them, the nature of their parent. Apply this rule to the subject under consideration, and it will be seen, that, if color were the cause of prejudice, it follows, that just according to the variegation of the cause, {color) so would the effect variegate-Le. the clear blooded black would be subject to a greater degree of prejudice, in proportion as he was black-and those of lighter caste subject to a less degree of prejudice, as they were light. Now it is well known that the exercise of prejudice, is as intense towards those who are in fact whiter than a clear blooded American, as it is against one who is as black as jet, if they are identified as belonging to that race of people who are the injured party.

Again. That which cannot be contemplated as a principle, ab-stractly, cannot be an efficient cause of any thing. A principle which is not subject to dissection, having body and parts-a principle of config-uration is not capable of being an active cause; therefore, it only exists as a passive principle, depending entirely on an active principle for its existence. Now, if animal color can be contemplated as a cause, it must possess configurative properties; and if it possess these proper-ties, then it is an independent principle, capable of living and acting after the man is dead, or decomposed. If it is argued that each compo-nent part of the man becomes independent when decomposed, and that animal color is one of the component parts, then I would ask, why we cannot comprehend its existence, the same as other matter of which the body was made? If this cannot be done, then it cannot be regarded other than a passive principle in which there is no power of action. Color, therefore, cannot be an efficient cause of the malignant prejudice of the whites against the blacks; it is only an imaginary cause at the most. It serves only as a trait by which a principle is identified.

The true cause of this prejudice is slavery. Slavery partakes of the nature and efficiency of all, and every thing, that is bad on earth and in hell. Its effect in the character of prejudice, as displayed towards the colored people, fully sustains my position-that effects partake of their parent cause, both in nature and quantity; for certainly, nothing short of every thing evil on earth and in hell, in the form and character of slavery could be capable of producing such prejudicial injuries, as those under which the colored people are doomed to suffer. It must be admitted, that slavery assumes a most vicious character’ in its exercise towards them. Never could a people exist under greater injuries, than those under which this people have existed in this country; slavery, in its worst form, is the cause of all injury sustained by them. The system of slavery in its effects, is imposed on the injured party in two forms, or by two methods. The first method is, by a code of laws, originating in public sentiment, as in slave states. The other is, prej-udice originating in the same, as it exists in free states. The first method is prejudicial, and partakes of the corruptions of public senti-ment, which is corrupted by prejudice; but prejudice, in that case, assumes the form of law, and, therefore, is not capable of inflicting such deep injuries, as when it exists without law. Because to all law there is a limitation, whether good or bad; hence, so far as the laws of slave states are concerned, a limitation of suffering may be contem-plated, even under their direct influence. However severe slave laws may be, and however faithfully executed according to their letter and spirit-though by them the cup of injury be lavished out in full mea-sure upon the objects of its abuse to the extent of its power, still, the innate principles of the human mind, will cause it to transcend such legal abuse, where a limitation can be comprehended.

Legal codes, however oppressive, have never as yet been able to crush the aspiring principles of human nature. The real monster slavery, cannot long exist, where it is sustained by legal codes only; it is forced to stand off, and is capable of imposing its shadow only, in comparison to what it is capable of doing by collateral aid. When public sentiment, therefore, has become so morally, civilly, and politically corrupted by the principles of slavery, as to be determined in crushing the objects of its malignity, it is under the necessity of calling prejudice to its aid, as an auxiliary to its adopted formal code of wickedness, clothed like a semi-devil, with all the innate principles of the old dragon himself. This auxiliary, is all powerfully capable of accommodating itself to local circumstances and conditions, and appearing with all the nature of the old beast, slavery; it is always ready to destroy every aspiration to civil, political and moral elevation, which arises in the breast of the oppressed. There is no pretext too absurd, by which to justify the expenditures of its soul-and-body-destroying energies. The complexion, features, pedigree, customs, and even the attributes and purposes of God, are made available to its justification.

By this monster, the withering influence of slavery is directed to the very vitals of the colored people—withering every incentive to improvement—rendering passive all the faculties of the intellect—subjecting the soul to a morbid state of insensibility—destroying the body—making one universal wreck of the best work of nature’s God.

Such is its effect at the south, and scarcely less destructive at the north. The only difference is this: at the north, there is not so formal a code of laws by which to direct the energies of prejudice as at the south; still the doctrine of expediency full well makes up the deficiency of cruel laws, giving prejudice as full toleration to exercise itself, and in lavishing out its withering influence, as law at the south.

It is a remarkable fact that the moment the colored people show signs of life—any indication of being possessed with redeeming principles, that moment an unrelenting hatred arises in the mind which is inhabited by that foul fiend, prejudice; and the possessor of it will never be satisfied, until those indications are destroyed; space, time, nor circumstance, is no barrier to its exercise. Transplant the object of its malignity to Africa, or Canada, or elsewhere, and its poison is immediately transferred from local into national policy, and will exert all possible means it possesses, to accomplish its fell design. It always aims its deadly fangs at the noble and active principles of the immortal mind, which alone enables man to stand forth pre-eminent in all the works of God. (Take Hayti for an example.)

Let the oppressed assume the character of capable men in business, either mercantile, mechanical, or agricultural, —let them assume the right of exercising themselves in the use of the common privileges of the country-let them claim the right of enjoying liberty, in the general acceptation of the term—let them exercise the right of speech and of thought—let them presume to enjoy the privileges of the sanctuary and the Bible, let their souls be filled with glory and of God, and wish to bow the knee at the sacred altar, and commemorate the dying love of Christ the Lord—let them seek a decent burial for their departed friend in the church yard-and they are immediately made to feel that they are as a carcass destined to be preyed upon by the eagles of persecution. Thus they are followed from life’s dawn to death’s-doom.

I have no language wherewith to give slavery, and its auxiliaries, an adequate description, as an efficient cause of the miseries it is capable of producing. It seems to possess a kind of omnipresence. It follows its victims in every avenue oflife.

The principle assumes still another feature equally destructive. It makes the colored people subserve almost every foul purpose imagin-able. Negro or nigger, is an opprobrious term, employed to impose contempt upon them as an inferior race, and also to express their deformity of person. Nigger lips, nigger shins, and nigger heels, are phrases universally common among the juvenile class of society, and full well understood by them; they are early learned to think of these expressions, as they are intended to apply to colored people, and as being expressive or descriptive of the odious qualities of their mind and body. These impressions received by the young, grow with their growth, and strengthen with their strength. The term in itself, would be perfectly harmless, were it used only to distinguish one class of society from another; but it is not used with that intent; the practical definition is quite different in England to what it is here, for here, it flows from the fountain of purpose to injure. It is this baneful seed which is sown in the tender soil of youthful minds, and there culti-vated by the hand of a corrupt immoral policy.

The universality of this kind of education is well known to the
observing. Children in infancy receive oral instruction from the nurse. The first lessons given are, Johnny, Billy, Mary, Sally, (or whatever the name may be,) go to sleep, if you don’t the old nigger will carry you off; don’t you cry-Hark; the old nigger’s coming-how ugly you are, you are worse than a little nigger. This is a specimen of the first lessons given.

The second is generally given in the domestic circle; in some fam-
ilies it is almost the only method of correcting their children. To in-spire their half grown misses and masters to improvement, they are told that if they do this or that, or if they do thus and so, they will be poor or ignorant as a nigger; or that they will be black as a nigger; or have no more credit than a nigger; that they will have hair, lips, feet, or something of the kind, like a nigger. If doubt is entertained by any, as to the truth of what I write, let them travel twenty miles in any direction in this country, especially in the free States, and his own sense of hearing will convince him of its reality.

See nigger’s thick lips—see his flat nose—nigger eye shine—that slick looking nigger—nigger, where you get so much coat?—that’s a nigger priest—are sounds emanating from little urchins of Christian villagers, which continually infest the feelings of colored travellers, like the pestiferous breath of young devils; and full grown persons, and sometimes professors of religion, are not unfrequently heard to join in the concert.

A third mode of this kind of instruction is not altogether oral. Higher classes are frequently instructed in school rooms by referring them to the nigger-seat, and are sometimes threatened with being made to sit with the niggers, if they do not behave.

The same or similar use is made of nigger pews or seats in meeting-houses. Professing Christians, where these seats exist, make them a test by which to ascertain the amount of their humility. This I infer from their own language; for, say they, of the colored people, if we are only humble enough, we should be willing to sit any where to hear the word. If our hearts were right we should not care where we sit-I had as lief sit there (meaning the nigger pew,) as any where in the world. This, I admit, is all very good, but comes with rather bad grace. But, as I above observed, this kind of education is not altogether oral. Cuts and placards descriptive of the negroe’s deformity, are every where displayed to the observation of the young, with corresponding broken lingo, the very character of which is marked with design.

Many of the popular book stores, in commercial towns and cities, have their show-windows lined with them. The barrooms of the most popular public houses in the country, sometimes have their ceiling literally covered with them. This display of American civility is under the daily observation of every class of society, even in New England. But this kind of education is not only systematized, but legalized. At the south, public newspapers are teeming through the country, bear-ing negro cuts, with remarks corresponding to the object for which they are inserted.

But this system is not carried on without deep design. It has hitherto been a settled opinion of philosophers that a black man could endure the heat better than a white man. Traders in human flesh have ever taken the advantage of that opinion, by urging it as a plea of justification of their obtaining Africans, as laborers in warm climates; hence, we may naturally expect, that in a slave country like this, it would be a universally admitted axiom; and the more readily admit-ted, as it is easily construed into a plea to justify their wicked purposes. If the black can endure the heat, and the white cannot, say they, it must be that God made him on purpose for that; hence, it is no harm for us to act in accordance with the purposes of God, and make him work. These are the simple inferences drawn from the philosophical premises, the justness of which I shall hereafter examine.

The arguments founded on these premises, are many. Cotton, rice, indigo, tobacco, and sugar, are great blessings to the world, say they, and they may as well be made to make them as not; for they are a lazy crew at the best, and if they are not made to work for us, they will not work at all, &c. But to come at the truth, the whole system is founded in avarice. I believe the premises to be the production of modern philosophy, bearing date with European slavery; and it has been the almost sole cause of the present prevailing public sentiment in regard to the colored population. It has given rise to the universal habit of to the colored population. It has given rise to the universal habit of thinking that they were made for the sole end of being slaves and underlings. There could be nothing more natural, than for a slave-holding nation to indulge in a train of thoughts and conclusions that favored their idol, slavery. It becomes the interest of all parties, not excepting the clergy, to sanction the premises, and draw the conclusions, and hence, to teach the rising generation. What could accord better with the objects of this nation in reference to blacks, than to teach their little ones that a negro is part monkey?

‘The love of money is the root of all evil’; it will induce its votaries to teach lessons to their little babes, which only fits them for the destroyers of their species in this world, and for the torments of hell in the world to come. When clergymen, even, are so blinded by the god of this world, as to witness the practice of the most heinous blasphemy in the house, said to be dedicated to God, for centuries, with-out raising their warning voice to the wicked, it would not be at all surprising if they were to teach their children a few lessons in the science of anatomy, for the object of making them understand that a negro is not like a white man, instead of teaching them his catechism.

The effect of this instruction is most disastrous upon the mind of the community; having been instructed from youth to look upon a black man in no other light than a slave, and having associated with that idea the low calling of a slave, they cannot look upon him in any other light. If he should chance to be found in any other sphere of action than that of a slave, he magnifies to a monster of wonderful dimensions, so large that they cannot be made to believe that he is a man and a brother. Neither can they be made to believe it would be safe to admit him into stages, steam-boat cabins, and tavern dining-rooms; and not even into meeting-houses, unless he have a place prepared on purpose. Mechanical shops, stores, and school rooms, are all too small for his entrance as a man; if he be a slave, his corporeality becomes so diminished as to admit him into ladies’ parlors, and into small private carriages, and elsewhere, without being dis-gustful on account of his deformity, or without producing any other discomfiture. Thus prejudice seems to possess a magical power, by which it makes a being appear most odious one moment, and the next, beautiful-at one moment too large to be on board a steam-boat, the next, so small as to be convenient almost any where.

But prejudice is destructive to life. The public have been frequently told the operation of the slave system is destructive to the life of its victim; this statement is intended generally to be confined to those parts where slavery is legalized; and what has been said relative to the subject is but a beginning of the story. Indeed, I may say the publishers of the horrible effects of slavery in this country, have not generally had the means of knowing one half of its enormity. The extent of it will probably remain a secret until the great day of eternity. Many of us who are conversant with fugitive slaves, on their arrival to the free states, have-an opportunity of hearing a tale of woe, which for the want of adequate language, we are not able to describe. These stories are told with so much native simplicity as to defy the most stubborn incredulity of the incredulous. But, though slavery in this way is car-rying its thousands into eternity, in the southern states, yet it is doing hardly less so in the free states, as it displays itself in the character and form of prejudice.

Mind acts on matter. Contemplate the numerous free people of color under the despotic reign of prejudice—contemplate a young man in the ardor of youth, blessed with a mind as prolific as the air, aspiring to eminence and worth—contemplate his first early hopes blasted by the frost of prejudice—witness the ardor of youth inspiring him to a second and third trial, and as often repelled by this monster foe—hear him appealing to the laws of the land of his birth for protection—the haughty executives of the law spurning him from the halls of justice. He betakes to the temple of God—the last alternative around which his fading, dying hopes are hovering-but here, also, he receives a death thrust, and that by the hand of the priest of the altar of God. Yes—hear ye priests of the altar—it is the death thrust of slavery carried to the hearts of its victims by you. Yes—let it be known to the world, that the colored people who have been stolen, and have lost all allegiance to Africa, are sold in the shambles, and scouted from every privilege that makes life desirable. Under these discouragements they betake themselves to those who are called to preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound, and they are set at nought by them also. The effect of these discouragements are every where manifest among the colored people.

I will venture to say, from my own experience and observation, that hundreds of them come to an untimely grave, by no other disease than that occasioned by oppression. And why should it be otherwise? They are virtually denied all possessions on earth, and how can they stay without a place whereon to rest.

I, as an individual, have had sufficient opportunity to know something about prejudice, and its destructive effects. At an early period of my life, I was extensively engaged in mechanism, associated with a number of other colored men of master spirits and great minds. The enterprise was followed for about twenty years, perseveringly, in di-rect opposition to public sentiment, and the tide of popular prejudice. So intent were the parties in carrying out the principles of intelligent, active free men, that they sacrificed every thing of comfort and ease to the object. The most rigid economy was adhered to at home and abroad. A regular school was established for the instruction of the youth connected with the factory, and the strictest rules of morality were supported with surprising assiduity; and ardent spirits found no place in the establishment. After the expenditure of this vast labor and time, together with many thousand dollars, the enterprise ended in a total failure. By reason of the repeated surges of the tide of preju-dice, the establishment, like a ship in a boisterous hurricane at sea, went beneath its waves, richly laden, well manned, and well man-aged, and all sunk to rise no more. Such was the interest felt by the parties concerned, and such was their sense of the need of such an establishment for the benefit of colored youth, that they might acquire trades and a corresponding education, that they exerted every nerve to call it into the notice of the public, that the professed friends of the colored people might have an opportunity to save it from becoming a wreck; but all in vain; prejudice had decreed its fate. It fell, and with it fell the hearts of several of its undertakers in despair, and their bodies into their graves.

With the above, I could record the names of scores whose dissolu-tion can be traced to a cloud of obstructions thrown in their way to prevent enterprise.

I should proceed no farther with this tale of woe, were I satisfied I had done my duty in the case. But the condition of the colored people is such, even in the free states, that every effort, however feeble, should be made to redeem them from the influence of that dreadful monster-prejudice. I have recently travelled among them as a missionary, and their condition is truly lamentable. Their immortal interests, as well as their temporal, are in many places almost entirely disregarded; and in others, their warmest friends seem not to comprehend their true condition. I found several hundreds in some places, who, though the bowl of knowledge was overflowing around them, were not permitted to partake, without they receive it from the cup of contempt, the thought of which, to sensitive minds, is like a draught of wormwood and gall.

Slavery, in the form and character of prejudice, is as fatal, yea, more fatal than the pestilence. It possesses imperial dominion over its votaries and victims. It demands and receives homage from priests and people. It drinks up the spirit of the church, and gathers blackness, and darkness, and death, around her brow. Its poison chills the life blood of her heart. Its gigantic tread on the Sabbath day, pollutes the altars of the sanctuary of the Most High. It withholds the word of life from thousands of perishing immortals, and shuts the gate of heaven alike upon those whose hearts it possesses, and those marked out for its victims. It opens wide the way to hell; and as though pos-sessed with more than magic power, coerces its millions down to the pit of woe in defiance of the benevolence of a God, and the dying groans of a Saviour. 0 Prejudice, thou art slavery in disguise! and couldst thou ascend to heaven, thy pestiferous breath would darken and poison that now healthful and happy clime; and thou wouldst make its inhabitants feel the pains of the lowest hell. If there are degrees of intensity to the misery of the damned, that being must feel it in eternity, in whose heart prejudice reigned in this world. 0 Preju-dice, I cannot let thee pass without telling thee and thy possessors, that thou art a compound of all evil-of all the corrupt passions of the heart. Yea, thou art a participant in all the purposes of the wicked one-thou art the very essence of hell.

 

Public domain.

Treatise on the Intellectual Character and Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the U. States

by Rev. Hosea Easton

CHAPTER I. 

On the Intellectual Character of the Colored People of these United States of America. 

IN THIS country we behold the remnant of a once noble, but now heathenish people. In calling the attention of my readers to the subject which I here present them, I would have them lose sight of the African character, about which I have made some remarks in my introduction. For at this time, circumstances have established as much difference between them and their ancestry, as exists between them and any other race or nation. In the first place the colored people who are born in this country, are Americans in every sense of the word. Americans by birth, genius, habits, language, &c. It is supposed, and I think not without foundation, that the slave population labor under an intellectual and physical disability or inferiority. The justness of these conclusions, however, will apply only to such as have been subject to slavery some considerable length of time.

I have already made some remarks with regard to the cause of apparent differences between nations. I shall have cause to remark again, that as the intellectual as well as the physical properties of mankind, are subject to cultivation, I have observed that the growth or culture depends materially on the means employed to that end. In those countries in which the maxims and laws are such as are calculated to employ the physical properties mostly, such as racing, hunting, &c., there is uniformly a full development of physical properties.

We will take the American Indian for example. A habit of indolence produces a contrary effect. History, as well as experience, will justify me in saying that a proper degree of exercise is essential to the growth of the corporeal system; and that the form and size depends on the extent and amount of exercise. On comparing one who is brought up from his youth a tradesman, with one who is brought up a farmer, the difference is manifestly apparent according to the difference of their exercise. Change of public sentiment indirectly affects the form and size of whole nations, inasmuch as public sentiment dictates the mode and kind of exercise. The muscular yeomanry who once formed a majority of our country’s population, are now but seldom found; those who fill their places in society, in no way compare with them in that respect. Compare our farmer’s daughters, who have been brought up under the influence of country habits, with those brought up under city habits, and a difference is most manifest.

But there is another consideration worthy of notice. Education, says D. D. Hunter,* on the part of the mother, commences from the moment she has the prospect of being a mother. And her own health thenceforth is the first duty she owes to her child. The instructions given to the wife of Manoah, and mother of Sampson, the Nazarite, (Jud. 13, 4:) ‘Now, therefore, beware, I pray thee, drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing,’ are not merely arbitrarily adapted only to a particular branch of political economy, and intended to serve local and temporary purposes; no, the constitutions of nature, reason, and experience, which unite in recommending to those who have the prospect of being mothers, a strict attention to diet, to exercise, to temper, to every thing, which affecting the frame of their own body or mind, may communicate an important, a lasting, perhaps indelible impression, to the mind or body of their offspring. A proper regimen for themselves, is therefore the first stage of education for their children. The neglect of it is frequently found productive of effects which no future culture is able to alter or rectify.

These most just remarks confirm me in the opinion, that the laws of nature may be crossed by the misconduct or misfortune of her who has the prospect of being a mother. Apply these remarks to the condition of slave mothers, as such, and what are the plain and natural inferences to be drawn. Certainly, if they are entitled to any weight at all, the intellectual and physical inferiority of the slave population can be accounted for without imputing it to an original hereditary cause. Contemplate the exposed condition of slave mothers-their continual subjection to despotism and barbarity; their minds proscribed to the narrow bounds of servile obedience, subject to irritation from every quarter; great disappointment, and physical suffering themselves, and continual eye-witnesses to maiming and flagellation; shrieks of woe borne to their ears on every wind. Indeed, language is lame in the attempt to describe the condition of those poor daughters of affliction. Indeed, I have no disposition to dwell on the subject; to be obliged to think of it at all, is sufficiently harrowing to my feelings. But I would inquire how it can be possible for nature, under such circumstances, to act up to her perfect laws?

The approbrious terms used in common by most all classes, to describe the deformities of the offspring of these parents, is true in part, though employed with rather bad grace by those in whom the cause of their deformity originates. I will introduce those terms, not for the sake of embellishing my treatise with their modest style, but to show the lineal effects of slavery on its victims. Contracted and sloed foreheads; prominent eye-balls; projecting under-jaw; certain dis-tended muscles about the mouth, or lower parts of the face; thick lips and flat nose; hips and rump projecting; crooked shins; flat feet, with large projecting heels. This, in part, is the language used by moderns to philosophize, upon the negro character. With regard to their mind, it is said that their intellectual brain is not fully developed; malicious disposition; no taste for high and honorable attainments; implacable enemies one to another; and that they sustain the same relation to the ourang outang, that the whites do to them.

Now, as it respects myself, I am perfectly willing to admit the truth of these remarks, as they apply to the character of a slave population; for I am aware that no language capable of being employed by mortal tongue, is sufficiently descriptive to set forth in its true character the effect of that cursed thing, slavery. I shall here be under the necessity of calling up those considerations connected with the subject, which I but a little time since entertained a hope that I should be able to pass by unnoticed; I have reference to a mother who is a slave, bringing into the world beings whose limbs and minds were lineally fashioned for the yoke and fetter, long before her own immortal mind was clothed in materiality.

I would ask my readers to think of woman as the greatest natural gift to man-think of her in delicate health, when the poor delicate fabric is taxed to the utmost to answer the demands of nature’s laws-when friends and sympathies, nutricious [sic] aliments, and every other collateral aid is needed. 0 think of poor woman, a prospective mother; and when you think, feel as a heart of flesh can feel; see her weeping eyes fixed alternately upon the object of her affections and him who accounts her a brute-think how she feels on beholding the gore streaming from the back, the naked back, of the former, while the latter wields the accursed lash, until the back of a husband, in-deed the whole frame, has become like a loathsome heap of mangled flesh. How often has she witnessed the wielding club lay him prostrate, while the purple current followed the damning blow. How the rattling of the chain, the lock of which has worn his ankles and his wrists to the bone, falls upon her ear. 0, has man fallen so far below the dignity of his original character, as not to be susceptible of feeling. But does the story stop here. I would that it were even so. But alas! this, the ornamental production of nature’s God, is not exempt, even in this state, from the task of a slave. And, as though cursed by all the gods, her own delicate frame is destined to feel the cruel scourge. When faint and weary she lags her step, the overseer, as though de-creed to be a tormenting devil, throws the coiling lash upon her naked back; and in turn, the master makes it his pleasure to despoil the works of God, by subjecting her to the rank of goods and  chattels, to be sold in the shambles. Woman, you who possess a woman’s nature, can feel for her who was destined by the Creator of you both, to fill the same sphere with yourself. You know by experience the claims of nature’s laws-you know too well the irritability of your natures when taxed to the utmost to fulfill the decree of nature’s God.

I have in part given a description of a mother that is a slave. And can it be believed to be possible for such a one to bring perfect chil-dren into the world. Ifwe are permitted to decide that natural causes produce natural effects, then it must be equally true that unnatural causes produce unnatural effects. The slave system is an unnatural cause, and has produced its unnatural effects, as displayed in the deformity of two and a half millions of beings, who have been under its soul-and-body-destroying influence, lineally, for near three hundred years; together with all those who have died their progenitors since that period.

But again, I believe it to be an axiom generally admitted, that mind acts on matter, then again, that mind acts on mind; this being the case, is it a matter of surprise that those mothers who are slaves, should, on witnessing the distended muscles on the face of whipped slaves, produce the same or similar distensions on the face of her offspring, by her own mind being affected by the sight; and so with all other deformities. Llke causes produce like effects. Ifby Jacob’s plac-ing ring-streaked elder in the trough where Laban’s flocks drank, caused their young to be ring-streaked and speckled, why should not the offspring of slave mothers, who are continually witnessing excit-ing objects, be affected by the same law; and why should they not be more affected, as the mother is capable of being more excited.

From the foregoing I draw the following conclusions, with regard to the different degrees of effect produced by slavery. Compare slaves that are African born, with those who are born in slavery, and the latter will in no wise compare with the former in point of form of person or strength of mind. The first and second generation born in this country are generally far before the fourth and fifth, in this respect. Compare such as have been house servants, as they are called, for several generations with such as have been confined to plantations the same term of time, and there will be a manifest inferiority in the latter. Observe among the nominally free, their form of person, features, strength of mind, and bent of genius, fidelity, &c., and it will evidently appear that they who sustain a relation of no further than the third generation from African birth, are in general far before those who sustain a more distant relation. The former generally ac-quire small possessions, and conform their habits of life and modes of operation with those common where they live, while those who have been enslaved for several generations, or whose progenitors in direct line were thus enslaved, cannot be induced to conform to any regular rule of life or operation. I intend this last statement as general fact, of which, however, there are exceptions; where there is a mixture of blood, as it is sometimes called, perhaps these remarks may not ap-ply. I suppose, however, that in case of a union between a degraded American slave of the last order spoken of, and a highly intelligent free American, whether white or colored, that the offspring of such parents are as likely to partake of the influence of slavery through the lineal medium of the slave parent, as to receive natural intelligence through the medium of the other.

So far as I understand, nature’s law seems not to be scrupulously rigid in this particular: there appears to be no rule, therefore, by which to determine the effect or lineal influence of slavery on a mixed race. I am satisfied with regard to one fact, however, that caste has no influence whatever: for a union between a highly cultivated black and a degraded one, produces an exact similar effect. Whatever complex-ion or nation parents thus connected may be of, the effect produced would be the same, but it would not be certain that their children would occupy a midway region between the intelligent and degraded parent, as in other cases part of a family may be below mediocrity, and part above, in point of form and intellect. One thing is certain, which may have some bearing in the case; that when nature has been robbed, give her a fair chance and she will repair her loss by her own operations, one of which is to produce variety. But to proceed further with any remarks on this point, I feel myself not at liberty. In view of what I have said on this subject, I am aware of having fallen short of giving a full description of the lineal influence and effects slavery has upon the colored population of this country. Such is the nature of the subject, that it is almost impossible to arrange our thoughts so as to follow it by any correct rule of investigation.

Slavery, in its effects, is like that of a complicated disease, typifying evil in all its variety-in its operations, omnipotent to destroy-in effect, fatal as death and hell. Language is lame in its most successful attempt, to describe its enormity; and with all the excitement which this country has undergone, in consequence of the discussion of the subject, yet the story is not half told, neither can it be. We, who are subject to its fatal effects, cannot fully realize the disease under which we labor. Think of a colored community, whose genius and temperament of minds all differ in proportion as they are lineally or personally made to feel the damning influence of slavery, and, as though it had the gift of creating tormenting pangs at pleasure, it comes up, in the character of an accuser, and charges our half destroyed, discordant minds, with hatred one towards the other, as though a body composed of parts, and systematized by the laws of nature, were capable of continuing its regular configurative movements after it has been decomposed.

When I think of nature’s laws, that with scrupulous exactness they are to be obeyed by all things over which they are intended to bear rule, in order that she may be able to declare, in all her variety, that the hand that made her is divine, and when, in this case, I see and feel how she has been robbed of her means to perform her delightful task-her laws trampled under feet with all their divine authority, despoiling her works even in her most sacred temples-I wonder that I am a man; for though of the third generation from slave parents, yet in body and mind nature has never been permitted to half finish her work. Let all judge who is in the fault, God, or slavery, or its sustainers?

 

Public domain.