Victor Appleton - "Tom Swift and His Airship"

Various - "Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882"

Johannes Henricus Scholten - "A Comparative View of Religions"

New York Evening Journal - "What's in the New York Evening Journal"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

V >> Various >> The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917




"Washington promised that if there was any objection on the part
of Congress he would discontinue the enlisting of colored men,
but, on January 15, 1776, Congress determined 'that the free
negroes who had served faithfully in the army at Cambridge may be
reenlisted therein, but no others.'

"The entire aspect of the affairs changed when, in 1779, the
South began to be invaded. South Carolina, especially, was unable
to make any effectual efforts with militia, by reason of the
great proportion of citizens necessary to remain at home to
prevent insurrections among the colored men and their desertions
to the enemy, who were assiduous in their endeavors to excite
both revolt and desertion.

"The result was that in all the Southern States the legislatures
passed resolutions to enlist the colored men, and the colored
patriots of the Revolution are as much entitled as their white
brethren for the ardor with which they fought the common enemy,
whether they were bondmen or freemen. It has never been possible
to give an exact statement as to the number of colored men who
served in the Revolution, for the reason that they were generally
mixed in regiments and not calculated separately."

The following was taken from the columns of the _Boston Journal_,
June, 1897, by Mr. Frederic S. Monroe.


A GALLANT NEGRO

_How Salem Poor Fought at the
Battle of Bunker Hill_

There is an interesting record in the Massachusetts Archives
(clxxx, 241) which Dr. Samuel A. Green ran across during his
historical researches, and which the _Journal_ prints below. It
relates to a colored man at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The Subscribers begg leave to Report to your Honble. House (Which
Wee do in justice to the Caracter of so Brave a Man) that under
Our Own observation, Wee declare that A Negro Man Called Salem
Poor of Col Fryes Regiment. Capt. Ames. Company in the late
Battle at Charleston, behaved like an Experienced Officer, as
Well as an Excellent Soldier, to Set forth Particulars of his
Conduct Would be Tedious, Wee Would Only begg leave to say in the
Person of this sd. Negro Centers a Brave & gallant Soldier. The
Reward due to so great and Distinguisht a Caracter, Wee submit to
the Congress----

Cambridge Decr. 5th 1775

JONA. BREWER. _Col_
THOMAS NIXON _Lt. Col_
WM PRESCOTT _Colo._
EPHM. COREY _Lieut._
JOSEPH BAKER _Lieut_
JOSHUA REED _Lieut_

To the Honorable General Court of the Massachusetts Bay.

JONAS RICHARDSON _Capt._
ELIPHELET BODWELL _Segt_
JOSIAH FOSTER _Leutn._
EBENR VARNUM _2d Lut._
WM HUDSON BALLARD _Cpt_
WILLIAM SMITH _Capn_
JOHN MARTEN _Surgt: of a Brec_:
LIEUT. RICHARD WELSH
In Council Decr. 21st. 1775
Read & Sent down
PEREZ MORTON
_Dpy Secry_

This paper is indorsed

Recommendation of
Salem Poor a free Negro
for his Bravery at ye Battle
of Charlestown
leave to withdraw it

Although histories have been written of the members and actions of
Col. Frye's regiment and Capt. Ames's company, of which Salem Poor was
a member, the account given of him shows that the story of his life
was not known. It is, however, noted in Miss Bailey's "History of
Andover" that he was a slave, owned by John Poor. At the Battle of
Bunker Hill, when Lieut. Col. Abercrombie, of the British forces,
sprang upon the redoubt, while the Americans were running in retreat,
and exclaimed, "The day is ours," Salem Poor turned, aimed his gun and
felled with a bullet the English leader. The deed was considered by
the officers of the regiment to be one of great bravery, as their
petition to the General Court of Massachusetts shows.

Other colored men serving at the Battle of Bunker Hill were Titus
Coburn, Alexander Ames, Barzillai Lew, all of Andover; Cato Howe of
Plymouth, and Peter Salem.

Among those who gave valued services in the Continental Army was
Deborah Gannett. She assumed the dress of a man, and under the name of
Robert Shurtliff, enlisted in the fourth Massachusetts Regiment,
Captain Webb, serving in the ranks without once revealing her sex from
May 20, 1782, to October 23, 1783, a period of seventeen months. By an
act of the legislature, Jan. 20, 1792, she was paid L34 by the State
for her services.

The extract below is from a discussion of the questions of pension and
bounty for Negro soldiers by James Croggon. It appeared in the
_Washington Star_.

"January 21 Gen. Jackson read an address to each of the commands
which had taken part in the battles, reviewing the campaign, and
saying of the engagement of January 8 that the loss of the enemy
was more than 3,000 while the American loss was but thirteen--"a
wonderful interposition of heaven! An unexampled event in the
history of war!" Gen. Jackson characterizes the event.

"In his general orders of January 21, prior to breaking camp,
Gen. Jackson complimented the various regiments and commands,
saying of the two bodies of colored volunteers: 'They have not
disappointed the hopes that were formed of their courage and
perseverence in the performance of their duty. Majs. Lacoste and
Daquin, who commanded them, have deserved well of their country.'


"REWARDS HELD UP

"Yet, although these colored troops were commended for their
coolness and bravery under fire, especially in the memorable
engagement of December 23 when they were attached to Coffee's
brigade, which opened the series of battles, recognition for
their services, by way of pension and bounty, was withheld for
several years after their discharge from the service and then was
granted only after an opinion had been given by William Wirt,
Attorney General of the United States at that time, that they
might legally be so recompensed.

"When the colored troops enlisted the act of Congress of December
24, 1811, provided a bounty of $16, with three months' pay, and a
grant of 160 acres of land to those who had served five years,
the same amount of land to the heirs of those killed in battle,
and the same amount of land to the heirs of those who had died in
the service after having served five years. The act of January
11, 1812, carried like provisions, and the act of December 10,
1814, again carried the provisions, except that the amount of
land granted was doubled.

"After the colored troops were mustered out, application was made
in their behalf for recognition under these acts, especially for
the bounty of 320 acres of land, but it was not until 1823 that
their claims were recognized.


"JACKSON PRAISED TROOPS

"This apathy and long delay ensued notwithstanding the fact that
under date of December 27, 1814, Gen. Jackson had reviewed the
first engagement in a report in which he spoke highly of the men
of color attached to Coffee's brigade. He said in this engagement
a number of prisoners were taken, and the British loss was about
100. On the night of the 23d of December, in the engagement below
New Orleans, the British left 100 killed, and 230 wounded, their
loss in prisoners taken making their total loss that night about
400.

"Again, reporting on the battle of January 8, Gen. Jackson said
that the enemy advanced in two strong columns, and that 'they
were received with a firmness which defeated all their hopes.
For upward of an hour the firing was incessant, but the enemy at
length fled in confusion from the field, their losses including
Gen. Sir Edward Pakenham.' Under date of January 19 Gen. Jackson
informed the War Department that the enemy had decamped, leaving
eighty of their wounded and fourteen pieces of heavy artillery,
and that he believed Louisiana was then 'clear.'


"ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OPINION

"It was to J. C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, that William
Wirt, then Attorney General, wrote, under date of March 27, 1823,
declaring that it was not, in his opinion, in the power of the
government to deny the colored troops and their heirs the
emoluments of their service in the army. Mr. Wirt's letter is as
follows:

"'Sir: Had I been called on a priori to give a construction to
the several acts of Congress, which are the subject of Mr.
Cutting's letters of the 21st of May, 1821, and 30th of January,
1823, of Maj. Charles J. Nourse's of the 20th of January, 1823,
and Mr. J. W. Murray's of the 22d of December, 1822, I should
have had no hesitation in expressing the opinion that it was not
the intention of Congress to incorporate negroes and people of
color with the army, any more than with the militia of the United
States. But the acts of Congress, under which this body of people
of color are understood to have been raised during the late war,
uses no other terms of description as to the recruits than that
they shall be 'effective, able-bodied men' (act 24th December,
1811), 'for completing the existing military establishment,' and
act 11th January, 1812, 'to raise an additional military force,'
of 'free, effective, able-bodied men' (act December 10, 1814),
'making further provision for filling the ranks of the army of
the United States.'


"ALL REQUIREMENTS FULFILLED

"As either of these descriptions was satisfied by the persons of
color in question; as the recruiting officers, who were quoad hoc
the agents of the United States, recruited these persons on a
contract for the pay and bounty stipulated by law, as the
officers of government recognize them as a part of the army, by
their regular returns of this corps, who received, till the close
of the war, the same pay and rations with other troops, were
subject to the same military law and performed the same military
services, it seems to me that a practical construction has been
given to the law in this particular, from which it is not in the
power of the government justly to depart.

"I think, therefore, that they ought to receive the promised land
bounty. But, without some further and more explicit declaration
of the purpose of Congress, I would not recommend a repetition of
such contracts on any future occasion on laws worded like those
under consideration; by which I mean, not merely the three laws
which I have cited, but the whole military system of the United
States, militia included."

* * * * *

Mrs. R. L. Pendleton has published the new edition of the _Life and
Works of Phillis Wheatley_ by G. Herbert Renfro. This volume contains
a sketch of G. Herbert Renfro and a much more detailed sketch of the
life of Phillis Wheatley by this writer. It contains the
correspondence of the poetess and a larger number of her poems than we
find in some of the other editions of her works. The book is well
printed and nicely bound and may be purchased for the small sum of
$1.50 from R. L. Pendleton, 1216 You St., Washington, D. C.

* * * * *

Longmans and Company have published A. J. McDonald's _Trade, Politics
and Christianity in Africa and the East_. It is a valuable
contribution to the British colonial policy.

H. O. Newland's _Sierra Leone; its People, Products and Secret
Societies_ has come from the press of Bale, Sons and Donnelson. The
author is a student of sociology and knows much about West Africa. To
this is appended 44 pages of information on Sierra Leone by H. Hamel
Smith.

_In the Hands of Senoussi_ has been published by Mrs. Gwatkin
Williams. This book is a collection of facts compiled from the diary
of Captain R. Gwatkin Williams, giving an account of nineteen weeks of
captivity of the survivors of H. M. S. _Tara_ in the Libyan Desert.

The tales of General Botha's desert march in Southwest Africa have
been published as _Sun, Sand and Sin_ by Hodder and Stoughton.

Articles of interest on Africa recently published are _Islam on the
Congo_ by W. J. W. Roome in the Moslem World, _L'Islam en Mauritanie
et au Senegale_ in the Revue du Monde Musulman and _Observations on
the Northern Section of the Tanganyika-Nile Rift Valley_ by Captain C.
H. Stigand in the Geographical Journal.

_The Early History of Cuba_, 1492-1586, by I. A. Wright, has been
published by MacMillan Company. The book shows evidence of extensive
research and scholarly treatment.

The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History is making
extensive preparation to bring together during the last week in August
all persons who are now seriously interested in the study of Negro
history. It is hoped that a large number of members may be able to
attend and that interest in the work may extend throughout the
country. Some of the leading historians of the United States will be
invited to address this body.




THE JOURNAL

OF

NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. II--JULY, 1917--NO. 3




THE FORMATION OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY


What to do with the Negro population has almost always been a question
before the American people. Since the early date of 1714 its removal
to some territory beyond the limits of the United States or to an
unsettled area of our public lands has been advocated. During the
century which followed the earliest mention of deportation, its
advocates published their plans as individual propaganda, sought the
approbation of religious and humanitarian organizations, and in one or
two instances tried to secure favorable State or national action on
them. But throughout this long period of one hundred years no
concerted action was taken: the period is characterized by sporadic
origins and isolated efforts; and these early projectors of plans to
remove the Negro were the trailmakers in a pioneering movement which
culminated in a national organization.[234]

Obviously private enterprise alone could make little headway in the
actual colonization of the Negroes in a territory sufficiently distant
to be beyond the pale of the white population. The one item of expense
was too serious a handicap for individual initiative to overcome.
Besides the case of Captain Izard Bacon of Virginia, who temporarily
removed his fifty-two freedmen to Pennsylvania to await a favorable
time for sending them over sea,[235] and of Mary Matthews of King
George's County, Virginia, who by will emancipated her slaves and
provided for their removal to a place where they could enjoy their
liberty,[236] there is but one significant example of actual
colonization under individual auspices. This occurred in 1815 when
Paul Cuffe took thirty-eight Negroes to the western coast of
Africa.[237] This dramatic event in Negro deportation, owing to the
wide publicity given to it, stimulated activity anew in colonization
ventures.

We shall now review these new schemes and show how representatives of
the transportation movement assembled in Washington city, and having
enlisted in their cause men most distinguished in the councils of the
nation, formed the American Society for Colonizing the Free People of
Color of the United States, an organization still in existence but now
known as the American Colonization Society and having as a monument to
its checkered career, the free Negro republic, Liberia, on the western
coast of Africa.

To begin with, it is well to point out that Thomas Jefferson, whose
advocacy of Negro colonization dates from 1773, replied in 1811, to a
request for his opinion on Ann Mifflin's proposition to make a
settlement of colored people on the west coast of Africa under the
auspices of the different States, that he considered it "the most
desirable measure which could be adopted for gradually drawing off"
the black population; and he added: "nothing is more to be wished than
that the United States should themselves undertake to make such an
establishment on the coast of Africa."[238] It requires little effort
to appreciate the weight of this Ex-President's opinion, and
colonizationists later gave wide publicity to it in order to
strengthen their cause.[239]

Additional deportation sentiment is found in the recommendations of
the Union Humane Society, an anti-slavery organization founded in
1815, in Ohio, by Benjamin Lundy. Two planks in the program of the
Society are noteworthy: first, it emphasized the necessity of common
action by all forces interested in the amelioration of the Negro race;
and, second, it recommended as a basis for common action the removal
of the Negroes beyond the pale of the white man.[240]

While the Union Humane Society was silent on national aid, the
Kentucky Colonization Society came out in strong terms for it. Taking
advantage of the close of the War of 1812 and of the existence of vast
tracts of unappropriated lands in the United States, and realizing
that the number of free blacks daily increased, and that the territory
open to them for residence was greatly restricted owing to the
prohibitory legislation existing in many States, this Society, at its
annual meeting, held in Frankfort, October 18 and 19, 1815, petitioned
Congress that a suitable territory "be laid off as an asylum for all
those negroes and mulattoes who have been, and those who may hereafter
be, emancipated within the United States; and that such donations,
allowances, encouragements, and assistance be afforded them as may be
necessary for carrying them thither and settling them therein; and
that they be under such regulations and government in all respects as
your wisdom shall direct."[241]

Another manifestation of sentiment for removing the Negroes to a
distant territory is found in a series of resolutions passed by the
Virginia Assembly on December 21, 1816. These resolutions were
introduced and sponsored by Charles Fenton Mercer, a slaveholder. In
the spring of 1816, he accidentally discovered the secret action of
the Assembly, taken in 1800, just after the Negro insurrection of that
year, the upshot of which was two resolutions directing the Governor
to correspond with the President of the United States for the purpose
of securing somewhere a suitable territory for the colonization of
emancipated slaves and free Negroes[242]. It was too near the end of
the session when Mercer found these resolutions for him to present a
program to the Assembly. In the interim, however, Mercer broke the bar
of secrecy, interviewed Francis S. Key, of Georgetown, and Elias B.
Caldwell, of Washington city, and with their advice drew up some
resolutions to introduce in the Assembly at its next session.
Moreover, while in the North that summer for the purpose of the
recuperation of his health, having made known his plan, he received
"promises of pecuniary aid, and of active cooperation."[243] At the
next session of the Virginia Assembly, Mercer introduced his
resolutions, the purport of which asked the national government to
find a territory on the North Pacific on which to settle free blacks
and those afterwards emancipated in Virginia. These resolutions having
been amended by the Senate to read on the North Pacific or the African
Coast were passed by the Assembly on December 21, 1816, the very day
on which the first public meeting of deportationists was held in
Washington and out of which grew the American Colonization Society.

A year later, speaking before this organization, Mercer stated his
reasons for supporting deportation. "Many thousand individuals in our
native State, you well know Mr. President, are restrained from
manumitting their slaves, as you and I are, by the melancholy
conviction that they cannot yield to the suggestions of humanity
without manifest injury to their country." He held that the rapidly
increasing free black population endangered the peace of the State and
impaired in a large section the value of slave property. What
banditti, consisting of the degraded, idle, and vicious free blacks,
"sally forth from their coverts, beneath the obscurity of night, and
plunder the rich proprietors of the valleys. They infest the suburbs
of the towns and cities, where they become the depositories of stolen
goods, and, schooled by necessity, elude the vigilance of our
defective police."[245] Thus a Virginia slaveholder saw in Negro
colonization a means to relieve the State of a dangerous population,
to increase the value of slave property and to make possible
manumission by that class of slaveholders in which he put himself.

A concurrent expression on Negro deportation, but apparently an
independent one, is connected with the name of Robert Finley, of
Basking Ridge, New Jersey. A graduate of Princeton, a teacher, a
Presbyterian pastor, Finley was in 1816 made president of the
University of Georgia, at Athens, where he died the following year at
the age of forty-five. As early as 1814 he wrote "a very particular
friend in Philadelphia" his ideas on Negro colonization.[246] On
February 15, 1815, he wrote a letter to John O. Mumford, of New York
City, in which he argued for the removal of the free blacks. He said
in part: "Everything connected with their condition, including their
color, is against them; nor is there much prospect that their state
can ever be greatly ameliorated, while they shall continue among us.
Could not the rich and benevolent devise means to form a colony on
some part of the Coast of Africa, similar to the one at Sierra Leone,
which might gradually induce many free blacks to go there and settle,
devising for them the means of getting there, and of protection and
support till they were established? Ought not Congress to be
petitioned to grant them a district in a good climate, say on the
shores of the Pacific Ocean? Our fathers brought them here, and we are
bound if possible to repair the injuries inflicted by our fathers.
Could they be sent to Africa, a three-fold benefit would arise. We
should be cleared of them; we should send to Africa a population
partially civilized and christianized for its benefits; our blacks
themselves would be put in better condition. Think much on this
subject, then please write me again when you have leisure."[247]

Reverend Mr. Finley participated in a colonization meeting held in
Princeton, New Jersey, November 6, 1816, which drew up a memorial
urging the legislature to use its influence in securing the adoption
of some deportation scheme by Congress. The memorialists recognized
that many slaves had been emancipated; that the same principles that
prompted past manumissions would gradually effect the freedom of all
others; that freedmen should be able "to rise to that condition to
which they are entitled by the laws of God and nature"; therefore,
they should be separated from the whites and placed in a favorable
situation, possibly Africa.[248]

A third concurrent manifestation of colonization activity is connected
with the name of Samuel J. Mills, whose indefatigable energy and
unselfish devotion to all causes missionary are scarcely paralleled in
history. Whether as an undergraduate at Williams College or as a
graduate student at Yale or Andover Theological Seminary, he was
feverishly active in projecting plans for Christian missionary work.
His mother said: "I have consecrated this child to the service of God
as a missionary,"[249] and surely he was faithful to death to this
dedication. He was the leader of the Society of Inquiry Respecting
Missions, founded in 1810, an organization which favored African
colonization.[250] As soon as his college work was over he made a
missionary tour through the Middle West and South, under the auspices
of the Society for Propagating the Gospel,[251] and in 1814-15 he made
a second tour.[252] He is credited with having originated the American
Bible Society, the United Foreign Missionary Society, and the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He took a deep interest
in the movement which about this time sent men to India, Ceylon, the
Sandwich Islands, and to the various tribes of the American Indians.
He had a hand in the formation of the Foreign Mission school at
Cornwall, Connecticut, and the establishment of the African School at
Parsippany, New Jersey, is directly attributed to him.

When Mills made his tour through the West and South he not only
preached the Gospel and distributed Bibles, he studied the condition
of the Negro as well. "We must save the Negroes or the Negroes will
ruin us," he concluded. He was convinced that if some disposition
could be made of the free Negroes, many slaveholders would gladly
emancipate their slaves. With this in view, he sought to procure a
district in Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois where the blacks might be
colonized. In this way he could test his principle and develop leaders
for a more extended settlement in the far West or in Africa.[253] This
plan did not mature, but he continued to recommend emigration both to
the blacks and whites and to provide for the training of Negro
teachers and preachers. The young missionary established a school
under the care of the synod of New York and New Jersey at Parsippany
in the latter state, which was to "qualify young men of color for
teachers of schools and preachers of the gospel, in hope of exerting
an influence in correcting morals and manners of their brethren in
cities and large towns; and also to raise up teachers for these
people, should an effort be made to settle them by themselves, either
in this country or abroad." Some gave to aid the school as an
auxiliary to the colonization effort, who would not have given, had
not that view been presented. "I am confident," Mills wrote (in 1817),
"that the people of color now in this country, that is, many of them,
will be settled by themselves, either in this country or abroad. The
teachers who may be raised up will promote this object. Whether they
remain in this country or not, much must be done to qualify them for
living in society by themselves."[254]

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