Your Negro Neighbor. Benjamin Brawley

this period of turmoil and tumult? The inner life of the race was one of furious ferment. Already were there sharp cries for vengeance, for economic freedom, and for the immediate granting of the full privileges of citizenship; and on the other hand there were those who tried to look far into the future with an air of conservatism and philosophy. Naturally there was the appeal to force; the only wonder is that there was not more of this. As early as 1687 a conspiracy among the Negroes in the Northern Neck in Virginia was detected just in time to prevent slaughter. In Surry County in 1710 there was a similar plot, betrayed by one of the conspirators. An attempt in New York in 1712 resulted in the execution of many Negroes. In 1740 some slaves on the coast of South Carolina, under the lead of one of their number named Cato, began an indiscriminate slaughter of the white people in which many lives were lost. Somewhat more ambitious was the effort made in Richmond in 1800 and known as Gabriel's Insurrection. In 1822 an unusually intelligent Negro, Denmark Vesey, the deepest thinker of all Negro insurrectionists, conceived a plan that contemplated nothing less than the total annihilation of the people of Charleston. His plot was divulged, and as a result thirty-five men were executed and thirty-seven banished. For the magnitude of its plan, the care with which it was matured, and the faithfulness of the leaders to one another, Vesey's insurrection was never equaled by a similar attempt for freedom in the United States. Nine years later, however, Nat Turner, the type of the emotional insurrectionist, with the assistance of five other men, actually killed fifty-seven white people before he was stopped. The effect of this revolt upon legislation was immediate. Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and other states at once passed harshly repressive measures.

      Less direct than open revolt, but more effective sometimes, was escape by running away. In general the slaves directed their way to the North or to the swamps such as those in Virginia and Florida. The Dismal Swamp became a famous hiding-place. Soldiers never ventured into the colony, and bloodhounds sent thither did not return. The first Seminole War was very largely caused by fugitives who had been befriended by the Indians, and the second was even more directly so caused than the first.

      In the ordinary social life of the Negro, however, the decade after Nat Turner's insurrection was one of the most trying in the history of the race in America. Repressive measures in the Southern states have just been remarked. In the North the free Negro was beginning to feel the force of economic ostracism. In Ohio no Negro was allowed to settle unless he gave bond for his support. When this law and others of similar import began to be put in force in 1829, serious riots prevailed in Cincinnati for three days, in the course of which several Negroes were killed. Mobs in Philadelphia at various times within the period also murdered Negroes.

      Meanwhile migration was strongly urged in some quarters as a solution of the problem. Says Dr. DuBois: "As early as 1788 a Negro union of Newport, Rhode Island, had proposed a general exodus to Africa. John and Paul Cuffe, after petitioning for the right to vote in 1780, started in 1815 for Africa, organizing an expedition at their own expense which cost four thousand dollars. Lott Carey organized the African Mission Society in 1813, and the first Negro college graduate went to Liberia in 1829 and became superintendent of public schools… About two thousand black emigrants eventually settled in Hayti."

      Even after the Civil War migration efforts were renewed, the Baptists and the Methodists of South Carolina joining hands in 1877 in the formation of the Liberian Exodus Joint Stock Company. As early as 1833, however, in his pamphlet entitled "Thoughts on African Colonization," Garrison showed the futility of the whole plan as a means of solving the problem of the Negro in the United States, and time has justified his view.

      Gradually, in spite of all the discouraging circumstances, hope appeared on the horizon. England emancipated the slaves in her colonies in 1833, and more and more conventions of free Negroes showed an interest in the welfare of the race. A strong foothold began to be gained in certain occupations, such as those of the barber and caterer. Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass appeared on the public platform; the poems of Phillis Wheatley ran through three new editions within four years; Elizabeth Greenfield sang before the royalty of Europe; and the African Methodist Church began to show what it was possible for the Negro to do in organization. By 1850, the year of the Fugitive Slave Law, when things were looking especially dark, the turning of the tide was much nearer than most people imagined. The South was still triumphant; but each new victory had to be more fiercely fought for than the last, and awakened stronger and stronger elements of opposition.

      Into the crucible of war of course fell not only slavery, but every other great question of interest to the American people. Free labor, free speech, woman suffrage, the authority of the Federal Government, were all at stake as well as the cause of the Negro. So far as the Negro himself was concerned, one of the first questions that the Northern generals had to settle was what to do with the fugitive slaves that flocked to their standards. In May, 1861, while in command at Fortress Monroe, Major-General Benjamin F. Butler put such men to work, justifying their retention on the ground that, being of service to the enemy for purposes of war, they were, like guns, powder, etc., "contraband of war," and could not be reclaimed. On August 30th of this year Major-General John C. Frémont, in command in Missouri, placed the state under martial law and declared the slaves there emancipated. The administration was embarrassed, Frémont's order was annulled, and he was relieved of his command. The next May, however, Major-General David Hunter, in charge of the Department of the South, issued his famous order freeing the slaves in his territory, and thus brought to general attention the matter of the employment of Negro soldiers in the Union armies. The Confederate government outlawed Hunter, Lincoln annulled his order, and the grace of the nation was again saved; but in the meantime a new situation had arisen. While Brigadier-General John W. Phelps was taking part in the expedition against New Orleans, a large sugar-planter near the city, disgusted with Federal interference with the affairs of his plantation, drove all the slaves away, telling them to go to their friends, the Yankees. Phelps attempted to organize the Negroes who came into troops. Accordingly he too was outlawed by the Confederates and his act disavowed by the Union, that was not ready to take this step. It was not until a great many men had been killed, and until the Emancipation Proclamation had changed the status of the Negro, that steps were taken by the Union for his employment as a soldier. Opinion in his favor gained force after the Draft Riot in New York, when Negroes in the city were mobbed and beaten by the enemies of conscription. Soon a distinct bureau was established in Washington for the recording of all matters pertaining to Negro troops, a board was organized for the examination of candidates, and recruiting stations were set up in Maryland, Missouri, and Tennessee. By the end of 1864 nearly 200,000 Negroes had been enrolled in the army. The exploits of these men at Port Hudson, Fort Wagner, and Fort Pillow are a part of the romance of American History.

      The Civil War meant more than the emancipation of four million slaves, with all the perplexing problems that that liberation brought with it; it involved the overturning of the whole economic system of the South. To educate the freedmen, to train them in citizenship, and to give them a place in the new labor system, was all a problem calling for the wisest statesmanship and the largest and most unselfish patriotism. Strange contradictions moreover were frequently in evidence to increase the practical difficulties of the situation. Some Negroes, because of personal attachment, refused to leave their former masters; while the South in general, although it laid all its ills at the door of the Negro, violently opposed any considerable effort to have him taken away.