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t
THE CRISIS
E M A N C IP A TI ON
AMERICA;
A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF EMANCIPATION, FROM THE BEGINNING
OF THE AMERICAN WAR TO THE ASSASSINATION OF
PRESIDENT LIN COLN.
s
By F. SEE Bo H.M.
... [PRINTED FOR THE “cENTRAL coxſyſ ITTEE or THE sociFTY OF FRIENDS
* FOR THE RELIEF OF THE EMANCIPATED SLAVES OF
NoRTH AMERICA.”]
. . . L O N D () N :
. ALFRED w BENNETT, 5, BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHOUT,
t
|
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:
Af
unyRRSITY OF MICHIGAN 4.S. 3
GENERAL LIBRARY p 545
Aïn ARBQR, MICHigº4N
Y. 2 2.5.3
THE CRISIS
OF
EMANCIPATION IN AMERICA.
T the moment that the fall of Richmond and the The crisis
surrender of Lee had apparently sealed the final *
doom of slavery in the United States, the assassina-
tion of President Lincoln has struck down the leader,
on whose guidance the success of the great revolution
in the negro's condition seemed so much to depend.
While the cry of indignant grief is rising from all
hearts in England at the loss inflicted upon America
and the world by this cowardly deed, it may be well
to consider whether our country has not a duty to
discharge at this juncture to the nation of whom
Mr. Lincoln was the chosen chief, and to the race of
whose exodus out of bondage he was taking the
lead.
For not only was Britain herself once guilty of the
crime of slavery, but it was she who introduced it into
America against the wishes of her colonies, and left
it as an heirloom to them when they ceased to form
a portion of her Empire.
&
England's
duty.
B
2
The slaves, too, of the United States still wear the
fetters riveted by England on their fathers’ limbs.
By far the greater part of them are direct descendants
of British slaves. It was during British rule, in
British slave-ships, and under British law, that
three-fourths of all the negroes ever imported into
the United States were stolen and enslaved. If, then,
Our Country Once shared so largely in the crime of
their enslavement, Surely she ought now to care about
their freedom |
*ipa Emancipation involves two things:–
tion in- e tº tº tº
volves two First, a revolution in the tone of feeling both of
revolu-
i. the White people and of government as regards the
...a negro, ending in his being declared free by law.
º, Secondly, a revolution in the negro's own condi-
actual tion—an actual transition from a state of forced
“ labour to one of habitual free industry.
How far have these two revolutions already been
accomplished ?
º That great changes have been wrought in the
iº" legal and social status of the slave, since Mr. Lincoln,
... just about three years ago, talked of the deportation
of the negroes to Some unknown land, no one will
deny. Without tracing the Several steps which have
led to them, look at the results of the changes
Wrought during these three years in these par-
ticulars.
Each State has, by the constitution, a right by its
own vote to put down slavery, and emancipate its
slaves. Of the slave-states which have remained in
or been restored to the Union and reorganized, the
3
following have already voted for immediate and un-
conditional emancipation:—
t No. of Slaves in 1860.
Maryland . . . (Jan., 1865) 87,189
West Virginia . (March, 1865) 12,761
Missouri . . . (Jan., 1865) 114,931
Arkansas . . (March, 1864) 111,115
Louisiana . . (Spring of 1864) 331,726
Tennessee . . . (Jan., 1865) 275,719
Total . . 933,441
So that by the constitutional State action of these six states
six States, 933,441 slaves, or Such of them as now º,
survive, are already free in point of law; although, .te
inasmuch as Federal authority has not yet been fully emancipal
restored over portions of the States of Arkansas and *
Louisiana, by no means all their slaves are free in
point of fact.
New Jersey, with 18 slaves in 1860, still pursues
her policy of gradual emancipation.
Delaware, with 1798 slaves in 1860, and Kentucky,
with 225,483 slaves in 1860, alone of all the slave-
states under Federal authority still cling to slavery.
But being now surrounded on all sides by free-states,
their able-bodied men are leaving them so fast, that
finding that they cannot stem the tide, even these others
two States are beginning to discuss the policy of ac-.”
cepting compensation for their slaves, while yet they
have any. * &
Thus, the constitutional emancipation of the
227,281 negroes of these two undecided States is
at least projected, if not yet Secured.
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SELLVÍS E AWTS







5
It may be said, therefore, that, speaking roughly,
all the slaves north-west of the great Alleghany range
are either already free, or in course of being freed in
point of law; and these slaves numbered considerably
more than a million in 1860.
Finally, by virtue of Mr. Lincoln's proclamation Mr. Lin.
of January, 1863, all those slaves which come within †.
the lines of Northern armies are free by law. Several
hundreds of thousands, probably half a million or
more, have already in this way been freed. And the
remainder, from two to two-and-a-half millions
remain still in bondage, to be freed whenever Northern
arms prevail. In the eye of Federal law, they are
free-men already.
To crown the legal work of freedom, the constitu- The consti.
tional amendment, prohibiting slavery throughout .
the whole United States, has already passed the re- *
quisite majority in each house of Congress. The
ratification by three-fourths of the individual States
is yet required to make it law. But should it thus
be ratified (and sooner or later it surely will) by
three-fourths of all the States, including those not
yet reconquered, then not only will all the slaves
of the United States be constitutionally free, but no
separate State will have the power at any future time
to re-establish slavery.
Add to this, that slavery has been for ever pro- 9thºr
steps in
hibited in all the territories, – that Kansas and the legal
Nevada have been admitted as Free States, that º
Colorada and Nebraska have been provisionally orga- *
nized as Free States, that the fugitive slave-law
has been abolished,—and it will be hard to deny that
the crisis of emancipation has come, so far at least as
regards the legal aspects of the question.
6
‘.... This change in the legal status of the negro has
tº: been accompanied also by a change in his social
” status. To say that the prejudice against colour has
disappeared, would be false—to say that it is giving
way, would be to assert what every mail brings
Something to confirm. The enlistment of negro
soldiers; the admission of black lawyers to the
bar, and of a black minister to preach in the hall
of the House of Representatives; the admission of
persons of colour into railway cars; the recognition
of the black Republics of Hayti and Liberia; the
new treaty with Great Britain for the more effectual
Suppression of the Slave-trade ; such messages as
that of the Governor of Massachusetts to the
Legislature at Boston, January 6, 1865, in which he
said, “Let the colour of African ea traction so long the
badge of slavery cease to be the badge of eacclusion from
any of the privileges of citizenship ;”—these all are
indications of the great change which has been
Wrought by the experience of these years of trial in
the tone and feelings of the North in relation to the
negro. -
The crisis “I came to this city,” writes Mr. M'Kim from Washington, in
º last October, “twenty-seven years ago, and found the reign of
the legal slavery absolute. It was supreme and almost undisputed in the
question is White House, in the Senate, in the House of Representatives, in
concerned the Supreme Court, in hotels, boarding-houses, private houses,
everywhere. The home slave-trade was at its acmé. The slave-
dealers advertised their human wares in the chief organs of the
Government. Slavery covered the whole land, so far as it could
be seen from this point of view, as with a pall. Abolitionism was
“a grain of mustard-seed;" it was not even a cloud ‘as big as ‘a
man's hand.” *
“Now, what do I see to-day ? FREEDOM, FREEDOM, FREEDOM
everywhere ! In the presidential mansion, in both houses of
7
Congress, in the Supreme Court (for the author of the Dred Scott
decision is dead, and the court is anti-slavery), in the hotels, in
the public parks, on the streets, everywhere is freedom. I tell you,
my friend, slavery has received its death-wound. The chief business
of Abolitionists now is with its victims.” -
“The chief business of abolitionists now is with The revo.
&" & & - gº º lution in
the victims” of slavery—with that practical revolution inju
condition
in the actual habits and condition of the freed negro, .
which remains to be considered. negro now
to be con-
sidered.
We shall greatly err if we regard the freeing of
these slaves as though it were an easy thing—as
though a State Convention, by a vote, or an army by
a victory, could in a moment translate the negro
from a state of forced labour to a condition of volun-
tary industry. “Sir,” wrote the Joint Committee of
the Freedmen's Aid Societies to Lincoln, “nothing can
prevent the ea:odus of four million slaves from being through
a wilderness.” The process needs must be a slow one.
Few, comparatively, have as yet passed really through
it. No One dreams that many have yet reached the
promised land. But the crisis has arrived, and hundreds
of thousands, if not millions, are now passing
through it. Let us try to gather a few facts together
which may enable us to realize in Some Small measure
what the nature of this “middle passage” out of
slavery may be.
In the first periods of the war, freedom was only The freed.
to be secured by what was literally an “exodus.” ***
into Northern cities. During the repeated raids of ***
the Confederate troops into Missouri in 1861 and
1862, multitudes of slaves fled to St. Louis, Cairo,
and other neighbouring cities.
8
In the same way Philadelphia and Washington
became filled with fugitives from the seat of war in
Virginia. -
For many months, the tens of thousands of fugi-
tive slaves were nobly assisted by the free black
population of the cities into which they fled.
In 1860, there were about 488,000 free blacks
scattered over the Union. These free negroes, cut
off from many sources of relief open to indigent
whites, had for long been thrown upon their own
TěSOUll'CéS.
“Scarcely any beggars are found among them. Like the Quakers
they maintain their own poor. When a case occurs in which a
family is unable to meet the expenses of sickness, or perhaps the
cost of a funeral, it is among themselves alone that a subscription
paper, usually called a ‘pony purse,' passes in aid of the sufferers.”
—Freedman's Inquiry Commission. Report, 1864, p. 100.
This charity on the part of the free blacks, which
had been freely extended to fugitive slaves before the
war had commenced, was continued even when the
numbers were increased by the War, and fugitives
flocked into the cities by thousands.
Thus, when, owing to the raids already alluded
to, great distress prevailed in Missouri, and many
fugitives, both white and black, flocked to St. Louis,
although large sums, private and public, Were
expended to keep the unemployed from starving,
and though no distinction was made as to colour,
out of 10,000 persons receiving relief only two were
blacks, and one of them was bedridden and the other
a Cripple.
“These facts [say the Commission,] were communicated to us
by the registrar of the City of St. Louis—a gentleman who was
himself one of the managers in the distribution of the relief funds
9
referred to. The testimony of all the gentlemen concerned in the
management of the various relief societies was, he said, to the
same effect—that the coloured people asked for nothing.”—
Ib. 100.
But as the war proceeded, the numbers increased
too fast to make it possible for this noble generosity
of the free blacks to do the work alone.
In the spring of 1862, the ladies of Philadelphia,
“with a promptness and earnestness of sympathy
which did them honour, formed an Association, and
laboured early and late, buying materials, cutting out
garments, making them up, spending their time and
money freely on behalf of a destitute people, and
meeting as best they could the demands of the
hour.”
In most of the chief cities associations have since
been formed to supply the physical wants of the
fugitives; and under the auspices of these voluntary
agencies, Schools have arisen, and the work of the
Christian civilization of the freed negroes has been
steadily progressing. As an example of what is now
going on in the cities, take the following statement
from the letter of Mr. J. M. M'Kim of Philadelphia,
already referred to, and bearing date “Washington,
Oct. 30, 1864.”
“I am organizing schools in this city and district for the ex-
slaves and their children. As the instrument of our Pennsylvanian
Association—to the funds of which you and your friends have so
kindly contributed—I have in the last few months gathered and put
in operation here five large and flourishing schools. They are
taught by devoted and well-educated ladies from the North. The
good they are doing is manifest to all, is incalculable. There are
not less than 40,000 blacks in this city and neighbourhood. Most
* Report of Executive Board of the Friends' Association of Philadelphia, p. 3.
10.
General
result of
emancipa-
tion to re-
fugees to
the cities
of the
North.
Experi-
ment tried
in North
Carolina.
of them are refugees from Virginia. Every new success of Grant,
and every fresh advance of Sheridan, adds to their number. This
city is filled with them.
“This is at present perhaps the most important field of any we
occupy; it is in the centre of the hation, under the eye of Govern-
ment, and challenges the attention of all who come here. Here
we have at hand ocular proof of all we assert. Here, in wretched
hovels, in the outer boundaries and inner purlieus of this over-
crowded, half-military city, are hundreds of newly arrived “ con-
trabands,” torn, scarred, ragged, Wretched, just as they come from
their masters. Here are ladies going from hovel to hovel, distri-
buting garments to the naked, orders for farina, beef-tea, and the
like, for the sick, and telling them where they will find schools for
their children. And here are our schools in full operation.”
This, then, may be said to be the result of eman-
cipation as regards those negroes who succeed in
making an actual exodus from their place of bondage
into the free cities of the North. The demand for
labour is so great, that those who are able-bodied,
and do not enter the army, very soon become self-
supporting. There will always be suffering so often
as fresh refugees arrive from the South. But their
physical distress will only be temporary. There
remains, however, the great work of education,
intellectual and moral; and this is not to be
effected by a few months' labour. Earnest and
sustained efforts will be needed on the part of those
who at so much self-sacrifice have put their shoulders
to the wheel. Earnest and Sustained support of the
efforts of these noble workers is needed, and will for
a long time be needed on the part of those who do
not personally engage in the work.
But the temper of the Northern States was ill
inclined to submit to the prospect of any exodus on
a large scale from the South to the North. The
11
question what was to be done with freed negroes was
raised by these tens of thousands of refugees into
Northern cities; but it was a question the answer to
which must embrace, not “tens of thousands alone,
but all the four millions of slaves yet to be freed. In
the spring of 1862, while the President was planning
and talking about their “deportation” to some un-
known distant land, and the people of the North were
closing their hearts against further refugees, necessity
provided a practical Solution for a problem which
invention had failed to solve. On the 8th February,
1862, Roanoke Island, in North Carolina, fell into
the hands of the Northern armies, and with it about
1,000 slaves. The battle of Newbern soon followed,
and the result was that General Burnside found within
his lines about 10,000 negroes, 7,500 of whom were
women and children.
He promptly appointed Mr. Vincent Collyer super-
intendent as well of these freed negroes as of the
poor whites, with Orders to employ as many negro
men as he could get up to the number of 5,000,
offering them 8 dollars a month, one ration, and
clothes, to work on the building of forts.
So far from being a burden upon his hands, he
could not get enough of them. 2,500 men were soon
set to work. Some of them laboured at the forts;
others loaded and unloaded cargoes, served as
crews on the steamers, or were formed into gangs
of labourers, and, as carpenters, blackSmiths, and
wheelwrights, did effective work at bridge-building,
Ship-joining, &c. Some clever negroes, whose expe-
rience of life in the swamps and woods fitted them for
the task, were employed as Scouts, and took secret
journeys, sometimes of hundreds of miles, into the
12
enemy's country to obtain information. One fine
fellow who, being sold to go South, had escaped by
leaping from a moving railway train, and had lived
five years secretly in the jungles of North Carolina
as near as he dared to the cabin of his wife and chil-
dren, took advantage of the proximity of Northern
armies and fled to Newbern. Having worked a month
on the fort, and saved 8 dollars, and hearing that his
wife's master had run away, he asked for a pass to
go up into the country to bring down his family.
The pass was given on condition of his acting as a
Scout, and bringing intelligence of the enemy's move-
ments. He went on his double errand, and in about
a fortnight returned with valuable information, his
wife, and four children. “Sir,” said he, when he
stood before Mr. Collyer, “this is the first time in
five years I have dared to stand before a white man
and call my wife and my children my own.”
The women and children supported themselves
with but little aid from the Government by Washing,
cooking, &c. And the result of the first three months’
experience was this—that while work was offered to
the poor whites at 12 dollars a month, and to the
blacks at only 8 dollars a month, the poor whites
were sixteen times as great a burden per head on the
resources of Government as the freed blacks 1
In the meantime two evening Schools were opened,
and 800 coloured people, old and young, attended
nightly, and made rapid progress. Meetings were
held for religious instruction and worship, and the
work was progressing beyond the most Sanguine ex-
pectations.
In the month of May, however, Governor Stanley
was appointed military governor of the district, and
13
being a pro-slavery man, proceeded to enforce the
laws of North Carolina; the schools were ordered to
be closed, and several fugitive slaves were returned
to their owners.
Mr. Collyer, with a promptness which did him
great honour, on the 5th of June, in company with
the Hon. Charles Sumner, sought an interview with
President Lincoln, in order to inform him how suc-
cessful this first experiment of free labour was prov-
ing, and how rudely it had been stopped by General
Stanley. “When I told the President (writes Mr.
Collyer) of the return of the freed people to their
former masters, he exclaimed, with great earnestness
of manner, “Well, this I have always maintained, and
shall insist on, that no slave who once comes within
our lines a fugitive from a rebel shall ever be returned
to his master. For my part I have hated slavery
from my childhood.’”
In June, Mr. Collyer returned to reopen his schools,
and within three months after this, Mr. Lincoln—
instead of his scheme of deportation—issued in Sep-
tember, 1862, his first Proclamation of Freedom,
which was carried more fully into effect in January,
1863. Anti-slavery feeling was in the ascendant,
and Governor Stanley resigned his post.*
Here, then, in these conquered portions of North º
Carolina the experiment of free labour was tried, and ºil."
succeeded, without “deportation,” and even without
any exodus from the South to the North. 10,000
negroes for the most part easily became self-support-
* For the above particulars, see Mr. Collyer's Report of the services ren-
dered by the freed people to the United States army in North Carolina, in the
Spring of 1862, New York, 1864. 2 -
14
ing and industrious freemen in the neighbourhood
of their former homes.
This experiment proved unmistakably that the
negro will work as well as a white man if you give
him wages; that he is eager for intellectual and
moral education, and in no way particularly difficult
to manage. And though this experiment was tried
under military auspices—the wants of the army and
the building of forts creating an immediate demand
for the freedmen's labour—its result, nevertheless,
did much to raise their character in the estimation of
the people of the North.
Experi- In the spring of 1862 another great field of labour
*... in the freedman's cause was thrown open, by the
§... conquest of Port Royal, in South Carolina.
rolina. The southern portion of the coast of South Caro-
lina is skirted by a range of islands, separated from
the mainland by narrow channels, low, flat, and un-
healthy, once the haunts of alligators, their thick
woods and rank weeds almost impenetrable. These
islands became, nevertheless, the home of about
15,000 of the most degraded of negro slaves, im-
ported to produce the required annual produce of Sea
Island cotton, for the Liverpool market.
When the Federal troops first landed they found
there about 10,000 negroes, and only one white man.
The cotton crop was happily not destroyed, and the
Confederates had left behind them considerable quan-
tities of corn and potatoes. But these latter were
taken for the use of the army, and consequently until
the next season the negroes were dependent on Go-
vernment rations. And now the work of training
15
these negro slaves into a community of Self-support-
ing free-men commenced.
In answer to a pressing call from the Government
superintendent for helpers in the work, more than 50
persons, some of them women, volunteered to go out
under the auspices of associations of friends of the
Freedmen in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
Some of them became Superintendents of plantations
under Government employ, and undertook the charge
of inaugurating the new system of labour under which
the freed people are to be trained into a self-sustain-
ing community. They found the blacks on their
arrival in an unorganized condition, destitute of the
very necessaries of life, supported as has been said
by Government rations, and clad in the rags of the
garments supplied to them by their old masters
nearly two years before. The negroes were set to
work under promise of wages when funds would
allow, and though this was a trial of patience they
adapted themselves with little difficulty to their new
position. Their first winter of freedom was one of
great suffering, but by degrees supplies of clothing
arrived from the Freedmen's Aid Societies, and the
material condition of the negroes rapidly improved
with each successive season.
The next work was to organize Schools. To supply
the wantof teachers' intelligent and cultivated women,
familiar with all the refinement and elegance of
social life, left their homes in Northern cities to .
spend their daily life in the midst of eamps and
hospitals, and all the sights and Sounds of war.
Separated from one another in these dismal islands
by deep Creeks, and all but impassable marshes, often
in remote plantations, and surrounded at first by
16
Squalidness and misery, these heroig women pursued
their work with unselfish devotedness answering the
complaints of the poor negroes, impatient to receive
the promised reward of their labour, by the appeal
“Are we not teaching your children 3”
And so the work went on.
At the end of the first year the success of the
experiment was proved by the fact that at the sale
which took place in March, 1863, four plantations,
containing about 3,500 acres, were bought by the
freedmen living upon them.
These yielding their owners considerable profit,
other negroes followed the example, and purchased
further tracts of land at the sales of 1864.
The unsold lands were to a great extent let out in
lots to the freedmen, who at future sales will have
the first option of purchase. Many of them had
during the war become owners of horses and mules.
Others had built themselves houses, while, at the
Sale of the town of Beaufort, from seventy-five to
eighty houses were bought by the blacks. All the
funds with which these purchases were made, had been
saved by the negroes out of the earnings of two years’
industry. -
During the same period 3,000 children had passed
through the schools, and many had made Satisfactory
progress.
It could now be claimed (to quote the words of a
writer in the North American Review) that the
coloured population of the Sea Islands, over 15,000
in number, had been brought in two years from a
* Future Supply of Cotton, reprinted from North American Review, No.
CCIII, page 12. April, 1864.
17
state of utter destitution and ignorance to absolute
prosperity, and partial education ; and this had been
accomplished, under all the disadvantages of military
occupation and actual war, by two comparatively
feeble societies in Boston and New York, aided by
one in Philadelphia.”
The success which has so completely attended this Reasons of
first experiment in the re-organization of negro .."
labour on the basis of freedom, has been aided no
doubt by one or two circumstances which have not
been found elsewhere.
1. The total desertion of the islands by their slave-
proprietors, had removed one great difficulty out of
the way of the trial of a system of free labour.
2. The insular position of the settlement saved it
from Confederate raids, and allowed of that imme-
diate establishment of security and law, without
which the trial could hardly have been made.
But it must be remembered, in order to do justice
to the greatness of the result, that the experiment has,
in these Sea Islands, been tried with success in the
case of a class of slaves which might have been
Selected as the most degraded and unfit for freedom
of all the slaves of the United States.
A somewhat similar experiment has been tried on jºin
OäIlORG
Roanoke Island; but the 3,000 negroes who have riº.
been located there, and provided each with his acre
* The Future Supply of Cotton-North American Review. No. CCIII., Ap.
1865–See also “Second Annual Report, of the Educational Commission of
the New England Freedmen's Aid Society (Educational Commission), 1864,”
Boston (pp. 15–22), and speech of R. Tomlinson, Esq., who was sent to
Port Royal by the Philadelphia Freedmen's Aid Association, in the summer of
1862.
C
- 18
of land on which to settle, are mostly fugitives from
other districts. It was something like an experiment
on a very small Scale near home, of the deportation
project. The condition of the colony was, and is
still, a cause of anxiety, owing to the great destitu-
tion of the freedmen on their first landing on the
island. But the experiment has proved fairly suc-
cessful; and it may already be claimed, in the words
of an eye-witness of its success, that at least “an
outlay of not more than 10,000 dollars has accom-
plished results for 3,000 freedmen, that five times
that amount expended on only 400 in the Hayti ex-
periments has utterly failed in doing.”.” '. :
Whilst, however, these experiments on the Eastern
coast have been so far attended with most unexpected
success, let it not be forgotten on how small a scale
they have yet been tried. Roanoke Island, with its
3,000 freedmen, is, indeed, but as a drop in a bucket
when compared with North Carolina, with its 331,000
slaves. The 15,000 industrious free negroes of the
Sea Islands are but a very small fraction of the
402,000 slaves of South Carolina. The experiment
tried, as it were, in the laboratory, has yet to be tried
on a large scale, and under all possible conditions.
Already the recent march of General Sherman has
scale these opened new ground in these states. The orders
issued by him on January 16th, bear a noble testi-
**mony to the determination of Government to give
the freed negroes a fair chance, and to treat them
* Second Annual Report of the New England Freedmen's Aid Society,
(Educational Commission,) p. 30. April 21, 1864. Great destitution is still
reported from this island, arising from the causes mentioned above.
19
as free men (see the extracts given below.") But
nothing that General Sherman, or government, can
do, can prevent the transition from slavery to freedom
from being attended with sore destitution and suf-
fering.
Doubtless, each successive group of newly made
freedmen, whether fleeing themselves to the camps,
or left behind at their old homes by their fugitive
* The following order has been issued by General Sherman:—
“Headquarters, Military Division of the Mississippi,
in the field, Savannah, Ga., Jan. 16, 1865.
“1. The islands from Charleston south, the abandoned rice fields along the
rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St.
John River, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the
negroes now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President
of the United States.
“2. At Beaufort, Hilton Head, Savannah, Fernandina, St. Augustine, and
Jacksonville, the blacks may remain in their chosen or accustomed vocations
but on the islands and in the settlements hereafter to be established, no white
person whatever, unless military officers and soldiers detailed for duty, will be
permitted to reside; and the sole and exclusive management of affairs will be
left to the freed people themselves, subject only to the United States military
authority and the acts of Congress. By the laws of war and orders of the Presi-
dent of the United States, the megro is free, and must be dealt with as such. He
cammot be subject to conscription or forced military service, save by the written
orders of the highest military awthority of the department under such regulations
as the President or Congress may prescribe. Domestic servants, blackSmiths,
carpenters, ānd other mechanics, will be free to select their own work and re-
sidence; but the young and able-bodied negroes must be encouraged to enlist
as soldiers in the service of the United States, to contribute their share towards
maintaining their own freedom and securing their rights as citizens of the
United States. . . . . The bounties paid on enlistment may, with the
consent of the recruit, go to assist his family and settlement in procuring agri-
cultural implements, seed, tools, boats, clothing, and other articles necessary
for their livelihood. - -
“3. Whenever three respectable negroes, heads of families, shall desire to
settle on land, and shall have selected for that purpose an island or a locality
clearly defined, within the limits above designated, the Inspector of Settlements
and Plantations will himself, or by such subordinate officer as he may appoint,
give them license to settle such island or district, and afford them such assist-
ance as he can to enable them to establish a peaceable agricultural settlement.
C 2
20
masters, will, in time, like their predecessors, soon
become self-supporting, but in the trials of this
middle-passage, they demand, as their predecessors
did, all sympathy and aid, and how soon they may
reach the promised land, must depend very much upon
the efficiency of the help they receive in their journey
through the wilderness.”
We pass now from the mention of the successful
experiments on the east coast, to dwell for a moment
on the much more difficult one which presented itself
in Louisiana, when, in 1863, New Orleans fell into
the hands of the north.
The more
difficult ex-
periment
in Louisi-
ana, and
its only
partial suc-
G@SS.
“5. In order to carry out this system of settlement, a general officer
will be detailed as Inspector of Settlements and Plantations, whose duty it
shall be to visit the settlements, to regulate their police and general
management, and who will furnish personally to each head of a family, subject
to the approval of the President of the United States, a possessory title in
writing, giving, as near as possible, the description of boundaries, and who
shall adjust all claims or conflicts that may arise under the same, subject to the
like approval, treating such titles altogether as possessory. The same general
officer will also be charged with the enlistment and organization of the negro
recruits, and protecting their interests while so absent from their settlements,
and will be governed by the rules and regulations prescribed by the War
Department for such purpose.
“6. Brigadier-General R. Saxton is hereby appointed Inspector of Settlements
and Plantations, and will at once enter upon the performance of his duties. No
change is intended or desired in the settlement now on Beaufort Island, nor
will any rights to property heretofore acquired be affected thereby.—By
order of
“Major-General W. T. SHERMAN.
“L. M. DAYTON, Major and Assistant Adjutant-General.”
* “The result of Sherman's expedition in capturing Savannah, has thrown
upon our hands multitudes of sufferers, who have reached our lines on the
southern coast in a state of great destitution. e g tº tº *
“We are making great exertions to meet the calls upon our charity, but with
all our efforts we are not able to meet the large demands upon us, nor have we
any time to lose; thousands may perish before we can reach them. These
poor people need almost everything. The Government are, however, promptly
issuing rations.”—Letter from Mr. Tate, dated February 10, 1865.
21
The Hon. E. L. Stanley, who passed through this
state in the course of last year, writes:*—
“In Louisiana the government has had to grapple with a very
difficult question. They found themselves suddenly responsible
for 100,000 negroes who had grown up to man's estate, helpless
and ignorant, hitherto dependent for everything on their masters.
These were now suddenly cut adrift from superintendence and care,
and the maintenance of these helpless ones was a very difficult
thing. At first they flocked together in the neighbourhood of the
military posts in the occupation of the Federal armies, and, having
no employment or means of living, in many cases they were the
the victims of disease to a very large extent. It was necessary for
the government which had freed these people to do something for
their preservation; and in this perplexity General Banks, who was
commanding in that district, framed a series of regulations, which
gave rise to a good deal of discussion. Some of the extreme Aboli-
tionists, both here and in America, I know, denounced these regu-
lations as unfair to the negro, and introducing a system of serfdom
in the place of slavery. . . .
“This maligned system establishes schools free to all the negroes,
secures them wages, plots of ground for their own cultivation,
limited hours of work, medical attendance gratis, clothing, rations,
protection from their masters by independent judges, and the power
of making fresh contracts with whom they please at the end of the
year. It was not practical, I think, in the present condition of
affairs, to leave the labour question to settle itself by the ordinary
rules of supply and demand, which would be very well in peaceful
times. In conversation with the negroes themselves, I found them
fully appreciating their improved condition, and by no means think-
ing, as some would have us suppose, that their present state
differed only in name from their former slavery.
“Very soon after I came to New Orleans, I visited a depôt where
the freed negroes were assembled as soon as they came into the
Federal lines from the interior, until they could be settled upon
plantations or otherwise provided for. I visited the place one day
a few hours after a steamer had come down with about four hundred
fugitives, who had escaped to General Banks's army up the Red
River; they were nearly all old men, women, and children, as the
* Lecture reported in Macclesfield Cowrier and Herald, January 7, 1865.
22
able-bodied men had been marched off by their owners for safety to
Texas. The filth and the rags of these poor people was beyond
description. . . . .
“The tendency of the negroes is to flock into the city for security,
as they are in horrible fear of being again carried off into slavery;
and, as there is not enough of employment there for one quarter, of
the negroes who would come, unless they were compelled by the
Government to stay where they can be maintained, the city would
swarm with helpless paupers. You see these negroes are perfectly
helpless and ignorant at first, and are not fit in a moment for com-
plete self government. The efforts of the Government, however,
are directed to calling out in them, as fast as possible, habits of
self-reliance; and I have no doubt, from what I saw, that the
progress which has been made has been fully as great as could have
been expected.” -
The expe. In the district of the MISSISSIPPI WALLEY not only
i., had the experiment to be tried under the difficulties
.*.* presented in Louisiana—but on a much larger scale.
Mºrri The distress and mortality among the refugees in
the camps on the banks of the great river, during
the year 1863 were truly appalling, Colonel Yeat-
man, who visited them in December, 1863, found in
all about 25,000 of them, not including those who
had entered the army—some 15,000 men. He
found a system of labour in force, framed on the
model of that of Louisiana; one under which the
free blacks were “treated with injustice,” continued
in a state of involuntary servitude worse than that
from which they had escaped. He found them in
the camps in the most wretched condition, dying by
hundreds and thousands; and some of them were
returning to their masters on account of their
sufferings.” *
º * At Natches. “Report of the Condition of the Freedmen of the Mississippi,
presented to the Western Sanitary Commission, December 17th 1863. By
James E. Yeatman, President of the Commission, St. Louis, 1864.”
23
But, there were, even then, the germs of better
things for the future.
The Western Freedmen's Aid Commission had
already been established at Cincinnati.
Colonel Eaton had just been appointed Superin-
tendent of Freedmen in the district; and, writes
Major Yeatman:-
“I found him hard at work. He devotes his every thought Colonel
and all his energies to the great work which has been devolved upon fººd
him, I found that his views corresponded with my own, and with
a plan which I had formed in my own mind for aiding and benefiting
the freedmen, and securing to them the rewards of their labour and
the enjoyment of their rights.”
A new era was commencing, the work was falling
into the hands of men who had at heart the good of
the negro ; and from that moment the experiment,
even under the most adverse circumstances, began to
succeed.
Colonel Eaton was an Independent minister,
chaplain in the service of the army, a hearty
Abolitionist Watching the course of emancipation
with anxiety from its earliest stages. He had
watched the gathering crowds of negro fugitives as
they followed the march of the army. He was
grieved at their sufferings, and pained still more at
the way they were spurned by the Soldiers and
generals.
The first symptom of improving feeling, was the
result of the good services which negroes did to the
army. The soldiers began to say, “Come along,”
when they found the fugitives could do the fatigue
work of the army. Then came the President's pro-
clamation, and a better feeling on the part of the
North towards the negroes. But still they were
treated almost as though they still were slaves. And
24
Colonel Eaton felt, as did Major Yeatman, that they
ought to be treated as freemen. He urged their
rights upon General Grant, and at length was ap-
pointed by him General Superintendent of Freedmen
for the district included within the lines of the army
from Cairo down the Mississippi to Red River,
together with the State of Arkansas.
He was commissioned to appoint assistants and
establish order among the negroes.
“To enter upon the duty “was,” he said, “to
forsake friends, to pass under a cloud, to have sym-
pathies taxed with the most trying forms of suffering,
and the mind racked by the severest social problems.
The path was dark: there was no highway.”
On his arrival soon after the fall of Wicksburg, in
August 1863, he writes:—
“The scenes were appalling. Crowded together, sickly, dis-
heartened, dying in the streets ; ten thousand scattered on the
opposite bank of the river, not a family of them all, either well
sheltered, clad or fed; no physicians, no medicines, no hospitals;
many of the persons who had been charged with feeding them,
either sick or dead; the only industry found among 20,000, that
performed by twelve axes. Such scenes, if any, were calculated to
make one doubt the policy of emancipation.”
And yet, in July, 1864, after one year's labour,
he writes:—
“Now : any one of a candid and unprejudiced mind, cannot look
on the same people and fail to pronounce emancipation a success l’’
He had proved (he goes on to say) that —
“The people do improve and become self-supporting, do as a
matter of fact show a capacity for freedom, and more, that there
is near at hand for them a promising future.
“Their present skill at labour on this rich soil, especially in raising
cotton at its present rates, yields fabulous profits. Freedom will
increase the productiveness of that skill by rendering the labourer
more intelligent and earnest under its clearer light and new
25
motives, and by introducing improved implements of agriculture
and more effective enterprise. The war closed, the facts indicate
that a short time — shall I say five years 7– will see this country
cut up into small farms, and glorying not only in general intelli-
gence, but a productiveness it never before attained.”
And theseviews were no mere speculation, they were
the result of actual experience. During the year,
113,650 freed men had passed as fugitives through
his hands. The following is his account of what had
become of them :—
“In military service as soldiers, laundresses, cooks,
officers' servants, and labourers in various staff de-
partments . tº * * g e g
“In cities, on plantations, and in freedmen's villages,
and cared for as under :—
“Entirely self-supporting—the same as any industrial
class anywhere, as planters, mechanics, barbers,
hackmen, draymen, &c., conducting enterprises on
their own responsibility, or as hired labourers . 62,300
“Receiving subsistence from Government as follows:—
“Members of families whose heads are carrying on
plantations, and have under cultivation 4,000 acres
of cotton, and are to pay the Government for their
subsistence from the first income of the crop & 3,000
“Paupers—those under or over the self-supporting age
the crippled and sick in hospital, &c.; and these in-
stead of being unproductive, have now under cultiva-
tion 500 acres of corn, 790 acres of vegetables,
and 1,500 acres of cotton, besides work done at
wood-chopping, &c. . e & e e o 7,200
41,150
“ Total 113,650
“There are reported, in the aggregate, something over 10,000
acres of cotton under cultivation. Of these about 7,000 acres are
leased and cultivated by blacks. Some of these are managing as
high as 300 or 400 acres.
Of the 113,650 blacks above mentioned, 13,320 have been
under instruction in letters, about 4,000 have learned to read quite
fairly, and about 2,000 to write.”*
* The above extracts are taken from a letter of Colonel Eaton to Levi Coffin,
dated from Wicksburg, Mississippi, July 5, 1864, and appended to his report.
26
And how had these results been secured 2
By treating the negroes not as slaves but as free-
men : by the adoption of more just rules as to their
labour and their occupation of land. By the Sup-
plies, sent by the Freedmen's Aid Societies, of food,
clothing and tools. Above all, by the heroic self-
Sacrifice of noble men and women, who, in this time
of the negroes' need, were found willing to leave the
luxuries of home, as Colonel Eaton himself had done,
to live and labour in the midst of all the wretched-
mess and misery of an outcast people.
Take again one instance by way of example:–
In October, 1863,” the “Friends” of Indiana ap-
pointed a committee, and raised subscriptions in aid
of the appalling distress.
One of their ministers, Elkanah Beard, soon
informed them that he and his wife Trena desired
to labour among the freed negroes, in the vicinity of
Wicksburg. A young female friend, Lizzie Bond,
an experienced teacher, threw in her lot with theirs.
They went to Wicksburg, and after consulting with
the authorities, concluded to settle at Young's Point,
about ten miles above Wicksburg. They chose
this place, because there were here, Scattered along
two or three miles of the river's bank, 2,000 or
3,000 freedmen stated to be “the most Wretched
and degraded of any on the Mississippi River.”
2,500, it was said, had died there since the previous
SUIſlíſléI’.
“Irememberwell,” writes Colonel Thomas, Assistant
Superintendent of Freedmen, “the coldwindy Sabbath
morning, when they put up a tent which I had given
Elkamah
Beard and
his work.
* The following particulars are chiefly taken from a report of the Indiana
Yearly Meeting of Friends' Dxecutive Committee for the Relief of Coloured
Freedmen, 1864.
27
them on the bank of the river in front of the camp,
and cheerfully began their work without any of the
comforts and with few of the necessaries of life.”
With no covering but this miserable tent, and with
the ground for their bed, they commenced their
labours. - ... "
. They built a cabin for their dwelling, and a
schoolhouse for Lizzie Bond. Their friends at home
sent clothes and other necessaries for the destitute.
They tried to teach the negroes to help themselves.
A village of new cabins sprung up round them.
Lizzie Bond taught the people to read.
The simple preaching of the good Quaker, making
its way to the poor negroes' hearts, the wish arose
among them for some church organization. Four of
their number were set apart to meet and talk the
matter over with him; and the result of it was, that
125 of the negroes gave in their names as members
of the new church, “uniting in a solemn compact as
a band of brothers and sisters fearing the Lord,
resolving to take the New Testament as their rule of
life and declaration of faith, adopting it also as their
book of discipline, and agreeing that should any be
guilty of immoral or scandalous practices, they were
to be admonished, and upon refusal to make Satis-
faction to the Church, disowned.”
After the good Quaker had taken down their names,
one of the negroes proposed that some one should be
chosen pastor, to be set “as a mouf-piece between
us poor ignorant critters and the great God, and
to preach us de blessed words of Jesus. Now think
Seriously, dear brudders and sisters, who dat man
am of all de people here.” All seemed hushed
awhile in Solemn silence, then every mouth seemed
28
to open at once, and all said, “Mr. Beard am de
man, 'cause de Lord sent him.”
When, after seven months’ labour in this field, their
health gave way, and they were thus obliged to return
bome and rest awhile, Colonel Eaton testified, that
“having made their home among a people miserably
sheltered and clad, they had not only clothed
the nakedness of the destitute, but trained and
encouraged them to help themselves, that they had
not only taught many to read, but planted in many
minds the germs of a true pure and Christian civili-
zation.” - -
When Major Young visited this station, in May,
1864, he found “buildings extending from the
canal toward the city, full half-a-mile, including a
church, School-house, blacksmiths' and carpenters'
shops, and a house for the Superintendent, gardens
and other agricultural enterprises flanking either side
of the river, and extending the full length of the
village—each family with its small tract of land
staked off, and farming on its own responsibility, So far
as to receive thenett profits of it—425 acres altogether
under cultivation by 400 persons, principally women
and children—corn and cotton and all kinds of vege-
tables growing side by side in most excellent order, the
very pea and bean vines growing according to rule.
The little colony still required Government rations,
the value of which was to be returned out of the
proceeds of their crops, but was likely soon to be not
only self-supporting, but money-making. . The only
drawback, the failure of Mr. Beard’s heath, obliging
him to go north to recruit.”
* Major G. W. Young to Colonel Eaton, dated Vicksburg, Mississippi, May
18, 1864.
29
Elkanah Beard was a young man of about thirty,
living on a good farm ; and he and his wife left a
family of little children behind them to undertake
this mission in the negro's cause.
The work is still going on. We have before us a
further report of Colonel Eaton's, dated December 31,
1864, and giving both the dark and the bright side
of the picture of emancipation in the Mississippi
Walley.
The bright side of the picture exhibits the large
profits some of the Negroes had made by their crops
of cotton during the season—the influx of Northern
planters into those districts which are secured from
Southern invasion, the fairness and often generosity
with which they treat their coloured labourers—the
good faith with which a few planters of the old regime
have fallen under the new system—the testimony of
nearly all planters, whether Southern or Northern,
that they could not have expected any set of labourers
to work better than theirs—the eagerness of the
freed blacks for education—the fact that they are
only half as burdensome to the Government as the
white refugees—these are some bright points in the
picture.
Then for its shadows. The prejudices of most of
the old planters, who acquiesce in the new arrange-
ments only from compulsion, sometimes holding
intercourse with Southern leaders, and hoping to fall
with their negroes back again under Southern rule—
the insecurity of many districts—the frequent raids
of the Confederate troops, in which thousands of
cattle and hundreds of negroes are often carried off,
the latter being resold into slavery—the consequent
breaking up, and abandonment of numbers of plan-
Results of
the experi-
ment in
the Missis-
sippi
Walley.
tations in the exposed regions—these are Some of
the dark points in the picture. * - .
The result of the whole most indubitably is to
confirm the fact illustrated by experiments tried under
better conditions, that emancipation is not only
possible, but almost certain to succeed, when those
who have charge of the experiment have their hearts
in the work, and when by the presence of Federal
troops, or the re-establishment of peace, law and
order are secured, without which no system of
industry, whether of white men or negroes, can hope
to succeed. . - r
It may be said without exaggeration, that here in
the Mississippi Valley, as in the Sea Islands of South
Carolina, wherever the experiment had a fair chance
it has thoroughly succeeded. The middle passage
out of slavery, here as elsewhere, is one of trial and
suffering; but it is short in duration, and the negro
emerges out of it with a fair capacity for freedom,
and a fair chance of success as a free citizen.
It must, however, be remarked here as elsewhere,
how much remains to be done, compared with what
has already been done. The district of Colonel Eaton
contained, he himself informs us, 770,000 slaves in
1860. Every one of them is now free in point of
law, but of how few are we in a position to assert that
they are already free in point of fact 1 113,000 only
passed through Colonel Eaton's official notice, in the
year ending July, 1864. Where are the others? How
far have the negroes in outlying districts been affected
by the new order of things? How farare they treated
as free men by their masters, when out of sight of
Colonel Eaton and his staff 2 How many have been
driven west into Texas? How many have died in the
31
camps? How many have been slain in battle 2 How
many have fallen in the wilderness before reaching
the promised land 2 How many are still undisturbed
in their old condition of bondage 2 These are ques-
tions which must be answered more exactly than we
can answer them now, before any reliable estimate
can be made of the number of negroes in the
Mississippi Valley who are really free.
From the district of the Mississippi Valley, we pass Emancipa-
on to that embracing the State of Kentucky, and the º,
eastern portion of Tennessee, not included in Colonel.
Eaton's district. &
Kentucky, as already mentioned, being a loyal
State, has retained its slavery; but, Tennessee having
since its reorganization adopted the policy of imme-
diate emancipation, it is now surrounded by Free
States, and in consequence is fast losing its slaves.
They are being fast drained out of it on all sides.
Hundreds of able-bodied men have again and again
fled to the military camps, enlisted in the army,
and thus become free. To such an extent has this
been the case, that the numbers of women and
children left behind in slavery have proved an in-
creasing burden on their owners. In many cases
enraged masters have refused to feed and clothe them,
and have brutally driven them from their estates.
The result has been that Camp Nelson, the chief
military station in Kentucky, has been crowded with
refugees. In last January, 500 of them were re-
ported in the camp, and they were pouring in at the
rate of about a dozen a day, in the greatest possible
destitution—often with the marks of great cruelty
upon them.
32
No wonder that, under these circumstances, while
slavery is thus breaking itself up, and the masters
losing and banishing their slaves so fast, the tardy
Kentuckians are beginning to talk of emancipation,
with compensation and consent of owners lº -
Tennessee, lying as it does between this lingering
slave state and the immediate seat of War, is natu-
rally filled with military camps, and these camps
with fugitives. The whole country has been wasted
by the constant march of Northern and Southern
armies, and the distress in the camps, during the winter
of 1864-5, exceeded that of any other district, both
in its severity and magnitude. But the Freedmen's
Aid Societies did their best. They poured in supplies
of food and clothing, stopping their very Schools to
concentrate their efforts in the relief of physical Suf-
fering. Here is a recent letter by way of illustra-
tion :-
“Nashville, First Month 45th, 4865.
“The worst, I trust, is over; but the suffering among these poor
people has been simply terrible. Cold, hunger, and nakedness,
sickness, misery and destitution have been the inheritance of these
patient and long-suffering people. Death and the Pennsylvania
Freedmen's Relief Association have been among their best friends.
Each has brought relief in its own way.
“We have done what we could, and it is no self-praise to say
that our labours have not been in vain. Our teachers gave up their
schools, and our whole time was devoted to ministrations to the
suffering. Several of our ladies are ill from overwork and ex-
posure. The warm clothes, stout shoes, comfortable blankets,
which you and the other Associations have sent us,—oh what good
* The Governor recently advised the ratification of the constitutional amend-
ment by the State of Kentucky, provided that the National Government should
pay 30,000,000 dols. compensation, being the estimated value of the slaves in
1864 (Freedmen's Review, 1865, p. 399); but in both houses a large majority
voted against it (Ib. p. 481) whereupon the Governor has given all his slaves
free papers |
33
they have done; what joy they have sent to the heart of the
mother, hugging to her bosom the child which she feared would
chill to death in her arms l—and how fervent have been the prayers
that have gone up that God would bless the kind givers.
“For these people are a grateful people—they are an uncom-
plaining people. There is nothing more touching than their
suffering, except the patience with which they bearit. The contrast
between them and the “poor white” refugees is striking. The
latter are in comparison helpless; give the black refugee a chance
and he will take care of himself.
“Tell our friends in the North to be patient and not discouraged
by our appeal for physical help. Things are resuming their normal
condition. The people are being re-settled in their huts and camp.
Our schools are about to resume their work; and soon all we shall
ask of the Association, will be books and slates, pens and ink, and
additional teachers to meet the increased wants of the people.
“WILLIAM F. MITCHELL.”
Still, side by side with stories of suffering, proving
how hard and bitter the negro's middle passage out of
slavery has been and is, abundant testimony reaches
us from these, as from other districts, to the ultimate
success of emancipation in the case of those Results.
negroes who survive the trials of the transition
period.
The writer of the letter quoted above, in a still
more recent letter, emphatically says:–“ There is no
more distress among those who have been free for a year,
than among the same number of poor in Philadelphia.”
Here, however, as elsewhere, new tides of refugees
keep rolling in, to pass, in their turn, through a stage
of want and suffering. Here, as elsewhere, when the
stage of Suffering is passed, the more permanent work
of education remains to be done. Here, as else-
where, for a long time, the schools will require
liberal and sustained assistance; and a little band of
devoted workers, many of them ladies, demand no
D
34
The expe-
riment of
emancipa-
tion, where
the old
masters re-
main side
by side
with the
negroes,
Its great
difficulty.
stinted share of sympathy and aid from all, whether
in America or England, who have at heart the cause
of the negro, though not personally engaged in the
work.
To complete the Survey which has been attempted
in these pages of the different forms and circum-
stances under which the experiment of emancipation
has been, or is now being tried, there remains only
the mention of those states which now, happily
spared the miseries of active warfare, have by a
legal process set free their slaves or provided for
their ultimate freedom. This class includes the
states of Maryland, West Virginia, and Missouri. In
these states and any others which may hereafter sur-
render to the Northern Government, the experiment
will have to be tried under, perhaps, the most difficult
of all circumstances—under the eye and hand of the
old masters themselves.
It is not unlikely that, under these circumstances,
So Soon as peace is restored and the difficulties of the
change come to be practically felt, a reaction may set
in, and the old prejudice revive against the coloured
population. Even New Jersey, at this moment, with
her handful of slaves, though she long ago provided
for their gradual emancipation, is still unwilling to
accept the constitutional amendment. Democratic
members in the House of Assembly, says the Trenton
State Gazette,” distinctly and unequivocally avowed
their conviction that slavery was of divine origin,
established by the Almighty, Sanctioned by the Bible,
and approved by Our Saviour; and one of them
* Friends' Review, 1865, page 440.
35
declared “that he would like to amend the consti-
tution, so as to establish slavery as a national
institution.” In Maryland, too, it must be remem-
bered, the policy of immediate emancipation was
adopted only by a very small majority,+ out of
nearly 60,000 votes the majority was only 375. In
Missouri, it is true, the ordinance of emancipation
was carried by a vote of sixty to four; but this vote
was given when something like half her slaves had
already fled across her borders and thus freed them-
selves. And so it will be with Kentucky and
Delaware, where they follow in the same steps.
Slave-owners voting for freedom, whether with
larger or smaller majorities, as the only means left
them of keeping their slaves, will hardly be likely to
give a fair trial to the experiment of freedom.
If the tens of thousands of refugees in the camps
need not only temporary physical aid, but more per-
manent and Sustained help in education, and all
that is included in Christian civilization; so will the
hundreds of thousands of slaves who attain their freedom
without any ea.0dus, who remain on the estates of their
former owners, and those former owners are still their
71ſtSté?'S. - J
Thus, when the 87,000 slaves of Maryland were
declared legally free, it was found “that the great and
Sudden change in the coloured population, at Once
made manifest the need of immediate measures on
the part of faithful Christian citizens, to meet the
new wants of those who, long oppressed and deeply
injured, were now placed in a position capable of
receiving instruction and aid.” An association was
* Friends' Review, 1865, page 290. A citizen of Baltimore, in a private letter,
written March 28, 1865, says:—“The struggle to obtain the law was great
but the work that follows is greater, . . . . In a slave state . . there
36
formed at Baltimore “for the moral and educational
improvement of the coloured people,” and Schools
were at Once projected.
And not only in Maryland, but, also in Missouri
and West Virginia, and in Kentucky and Delaware,
when they become free, will this vast field for labour
be opened.
And if in these states where slave-owners and
slaves remain side by side, though under the altered
relations of masters and servants, the experiment of
freedom is being tried under these difficult circum-
stances, how much more difficult will it be in the
case of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
This most Mississippi, Texas and the unconquered portion of
...a, Virginia, when they come to be embraced within
sº the area of freedom l—when the slave-owners, not
bly be the by their own vote but by the defeat of their arms,
:* find themselves transformed into masters of enanci.
pated slaves
The feelings of interest and sympathy with which
We regard the course of the work in the Sea Islands
and the Mississippi Valley, give place to feelings of
anxiety and awe in view of the difficulties, and above
all of the magnitude of the field which is thus opening
before us. &
How much remains to be done, compared with
is generally but one city of any importance, and it is therefore impossible to
have effective country organizations. The planters being opposed to us, we
have to do the work of the State. Our State Legislature adjourned on the
25th inst. We were afraid we should lose the entire “Negro clause” in the
School Bill. We saved the main features, upon which we can legally establish
a complete system of education for our Freedmen. . . . . The schools are
to be sustained by private contributions, and such taxes as the freed negroes
may pay into the treasury.” The writer states that he was informed by one
of the late slaveowners that he expected the rise in the value of land consequent
on emancipation to reimburse him for the loss on his slaves, who were remaining
on the estate and working for wages.
37
what has been done! And this vast work has yet to The di.
be achieved, by a nation bowed under the pressure:
of a national trial almost unequalled in history ! º
... How is this great work to be effected 2 By a few done.
Freedmen's Aid Societies? Let them answer for
themselves.
“If the Freedmen's Aid Societies (wrote their joint committee
in their eloquent appeal to President Lincoln), generous as the
support they have received has been, are appalled at the work
now on their hands, sickened at their imperfect efforts to meet [its]
necessities, what must be their alarm in facing a future, in which
this want and misery shall be multiplied a hundred fold 7
“It is not, Mr. President, that we are seriously in doubt as to the The appeal
method to be adopted with the freedmen; for we have not been dis-j
appointed in the schemes in their favour we have already planned men's Aid
and executed. It is only that these schemes are small, and must Soºtiº.
º t º tº its to Mr. Lin-
continue so; while the demand for their adoption is large beyond jū.
even our present power to meet it, and growing with prodigious
strides every hour. It is the magnitude, not the nature of the
work, that appals us, and drives us to the Government for aid and
support. We have found the freedman easy to manage, beyond
even our best hopes—willing and able to fight as a soldier, willing
and able to work as a labourer, willing and able to learn as a pupil:
docile, patient, affectionate, grateful . . . and with an average
mental capacity above the ordinary estimates of it. We have no
doubts of the aptitude of the slave for freedom under any fair
circumstances. But we see that his circumstances must inevitably
be unfair under the best arrangements the Government can make,
and that, independently of a great and paternal care on the part of
the Government, they will be so bad as to wring cries of shame and
indignation from the civilized world, dishearten the friends and
advocates of emancipation at home, and give a new vitality to
the disloyal suggestions of the slaveholders allies in the North and
West. te e ſº o *
“We ask, then, your interposition with Congress, recommending
the immediate creation of a Bureau of Emancipation, charged with
the study of plans and the execution of measures for easing, guiding,
and in every way judiciously and humanely aiding the passage of
38
our emancipated and yet to be emancipated blacks from their old
condition of forced labour to their new state of voluntary industry.
“The success of the measure would depend largely upon the
person placed at the head of the bureau. Moses himself required
heavenly wisdom to guide the ancient people out of Egyptian
bondage. The nation's official guide of the freedmen through their
wilderness, certainly would need a wisdom, a purity, a vigour, and
a humanity as great as is ever vouchsafed to merely human instru-
Letter of ments. The piety, the sense, the humanity of the American
the * people, will ask for nothing short of the most consummate ability,
§: the purest integrity, the broadest and tenderest humanity, the most
to Presi- profound economical and political wisdom, at the head of a bureau,
º Lin- which, if it is created, more than any other, will be the birth of our
Washing. Christian civilization, the object of the gratitude, the support, the
tºº Watchful attention, and the earnest prayers of the nation.”
1863, Since this earnest appeal was Written the Freed-
men's Inquiry Commission, previously appointed,
report of have given in their final report.” In this report they
... have reviewed the history of slavery and traced its
...” inevitable results. They have firmly condemned the
system, and declared their opinion that “its utter
eradication is the sole condition of permanent peace in
the United States.” They have combated the popular
prejudices of the North against emancipation. They
have shown that, so far from its result being likely
to be the inundation of the North with negroes,
the negro shows no tendency to move northward,
except for freedom, and that the most probable result
of freedom in the South will be the emigration of
the free negroes of the North into the Southern States.
They have shown that the mixture of the two races
has been the result of the crimes of the slave-
* Report of the Secretary of War communicating in compliance with a
resolution of the Senate of the 26th of May, 1864, a copy of the preliminary -
report, and also of the final Report of the American Freedmen's Inquiry
Commission.
39
owners, and not of the wishes of the slaves—that
“facts seem to indicate that, with the abolition of
slavery, the cases of intermarriage between the white
and coloured races, so far from increasing, will diminish.”
They have argued that the freed-man should be
treated at once as any other free-man, that though
they will need temporary aid, “the essential thing
is to secure to them the means of making their own
way;” and, finally, they have urged that “if, like
whites, they are to be self-supporting, then, like whites,
they ought to have those rights, civil and political, without
which they are but labouring as a man labours with his
hands bound.”
The prayer of the Freedmen's Aid Societies for a
“Bureau of Emancipation ” has been conceded, and
every recent act of the Federal Government has shown
that its honest intention is to discharge its duty to
the negro, and to treat him as a free man. Not even the
assassination of Mr. Lincoln will be likely to alter
what has now become its Settled policy.
Meanwhile, as we write, the end of the war seems The crisis
to draw nearer and nearer, and with it the beginning of :
the great work of emancipation on the large scale which it then come!
must then assume. And both the Government, and,
for the most part, the people of the Northern States Both Go.
too, now not only fully recognize how vast is the .
wº •º & iº and people
work which is opening before them, but are nerving in º:
g g are striving
themselves up to meet its requirements. The Freed- to meet its
require-
men's Aid Societies in America are banding them- .
selves together to meet, with united strength, the
increased claims of the future. They have already
800 teachers in the field !
40
tain do her.
duty to
America.
and to the
A megro !
And if it be so—if the facts here stated, we trust
without exaggeration, lead irresistibly to the con-
clusion that the crisis of emancipation has indeed
come—then, to recur to the point from which we
started, it surely is impossible that we, Englishmen, can
long stand by unconcerned spectators, as though we did
not care about the freedom of these slaves, whose bondage,
to so large an extent, has been the inherited result of the
wrong done by Britain to their fathers. Our country
having once had 80 large a share in their enslavement, is
there, indeed, nothing now that we can do in helping
to mitigate the trials of their “middle passage" out of
slavery 3
And yet again, if these facts bring home to us,
not alone the success of the experiment of emancipa-
tion, whenever fairly tried, but also the magnitude and
difficulty of the work which has yet to be done, can we
withhold our hearty sympathy from that noble army
of real workers in the cause of freedom—faithful men
and women, worthy of their Anglo-Saxon kindred,
who are leaving hearth and home to smooth the
pathway of the liberated negro, and working in a
spirit of Self-sacrifice and heroism rarely surpassed ?
Shall we withhold our share of help and words of cheer,
when we reflect that it was OUR nation which forced on
THEIRs that evil system, which has borne such bitter fruit
and to remove the stain of which for ever from their country
all this toil and sacrifice is needful ?
May History, on whose Scroll her share in the
great crime of slavery is written, at least record, that
Britain did her duty both to the Slave and to America
in the crisis of Emancipation
RICHARD BARRETT, Printer, 13, Mark Lane, London,
sy.
THE
Cºntral Committet of it śntity of frithms
OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRBLAND,
FOR THE
RELIEF OF THE EMANCIPATED SLAVES OF NORTH AMERICA,
*-* **-* * *-* * *-* -ºº.--ºr-º-º-º-º:
GENERAL, ORJECTS.
To stimulate the exertions of Friends and the community at large, in
the present great crisis in the History of Emancipation.
To disseminate trustworthy information, and thereby endeavour to
excite that interest which ought to be felt in regard to the physical,
moral, and religious welfare of the Freed Negroes in America.
To work in harmony with the “Freedmen's Aid Society” of London,
the “Birmingham and Midland,” and other similar Associations, in pro-
curing increased contributions towards their common object, on such a
scale as to make some return for the noble generosity shown by America
to this Country, in connexion with the Irish Famine and the Lancashire
Distress.
A. ALBRIGHT,
G. W. ALEXANDER,
W. C. ALEXANDER,
S. ALLEN,
W. ALLEN,
R. ALSOP,
J. G. BARCLAY,
A. W. BENNETT,
THOMAS BINNs,
J. B. BRAITHWAITE,
H. BROWN,
H BROWN, JUN.,
JosLAH BROWN,
HENRY CHRISTY,
|
!
(ſentral (ſommittee.
Ił. CADBURY,
R. CHARLETON,
J. FORSTER,
R. FORSTER,
W. FowlFR,
F. E. FOX,
S. HARRISON,
J. HODGRIN,
DR. HoDGKIN,
C. HOYLAND,
J. JACOBS.
W. S. LEAN,
E. MARSH,
C. MORLAND,
J. MORLAND,
J. PHILLIPS, JUN.,
W. POLLARD,
H. ROBINSON,
W. RoRINSON,
F. SEEBOHM,
J, SHARPLES,
J. SIMPSON,
E. STURGE,
W. TANNER,
J. H. TUKE,
W. white,
F. WHEELEIR.
With power to add to their number,
Öreasurer.
G. W. ALEXANDER, (Lombard Street, London.)
G. W. ALEXANDER,
ROBERT ALSop,
A. ALBRIGHT,
J. B. BRAITHWAITE,
B. CADBURY,
(Éretutiffe (ſommittee.
H. CHRISTY,
F. E. FOX,
SMITH HARRISON,
C. HOYLAND,
DR. HODGKIN,
JOHN HODGKIN,
W. POLLARD,
F. SEEBOHM,
J. H. TÜKE.
With power to add to their number.
Corresponding Committees have been formed in the following Towns:–
Dublin, Edinbro', Glasgow, Bristol, Birmingham, Kendal, Birkenhead,
Falmouth, Darlington, York, Leeds, Brighton, Luton, Croydon, Hertford,
Exeter, &c., &c.
Further subscriptions will
any member of the Executive; mmittee.
thankfully received by the Treasurer, or