The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

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_The Early History of Cuba, 1492 to 1586_. By I. A. WRIGHT. The
MacMillan Company, New York, 1916. Pp. 390.

This book begins with the discovery of Cuba by Columbus and ends with
the raid of Sir Francis Drake in the West Indies in 1586, by which it
was demonstrated that Great Britain ruled the sea and that the
retention of the Spanish possessions in the New World required that
they be provided with means of local defence rather than be left in
the position of dependence on protection from Spain. With this change
is connected the subsequent economic development of Cuba and the
success of the Spanish colonial policy.

In writing this book the author had an advantage over most historians
in this field. It was compiled from documents now available at
Seville, Spain. Miss Wright, however, did not use the documents found
in other archives. What documents she had access to, however, are
considered sufficient as they contain "letters and reports of the
island's governors, of royal officials and lesser clergy, of municipal
and ecclesiastical councils, of distinguished and humble citizens."
This large collection, too, contains some of the documents copied by
Munoz in his collection preserved at Madrid and some printed in the
unsatisfactory series of _Documentos Ineditos_. The author, therefore,
gives this book to the public as the only exhaustive treatment of
Cuban history of this period, which has hitherto been published,
despite the estimate we have placed on such works as those of De las
Casas, Oviedo, Gomara, Solis, Bernal Diaz del Costillo, and Herrera.

The introduction of slavery and the treatment of the bondmen, although
not objective points in this treatise, are given considerable space.
The slave trade was authorized in Cuba in 1513 and we hear of Bishop
Ubite in the possession of as many as 200 slaves in 1523 and later of
Bishop Maestro Miguel Ramirez with a license from the crown to take
half a dozen slaves and two white slave women. The writer shows how
the failure of the native captives to meet the demand for labor
eventually led to declaration making them the free vassals of the
crown and authorizing the enslavement of Negroes in sufficiently large
numbers to make up the deficiency. It was necessary to issue another
order rescinding the license of the slave-traders because of the fear
of servile insurrection, should the slave population too far exceed
that of the whites. This restricted importation of Negroes, however,
did not prevent their uprising in 1533, which, however, was easily
quelled, the four Negroes defending themselves to death.

The author explains too how slavery in Cuba or in the Spanish
possession differed from that of other nations in that although the
Spaniard regarded the black as socially and politically inferior, he
did not look down upon him as a "soul-less son of Cain condemned to
servitude by divine wrath" but recognized the black's equality with
him before the altar of the church. When he became free and even
before he became free the slave had rights before the law. "This
attitude of mind of the Spaniard--so very different indeed from that
of the slave-holding North American,--partly explains the facility
with which he mingled his 'pure, clean' white blood with black, so
begetting a mulatto population to be reckoned with later." Free
blacks, therefore, soon appeared. By 1568 forty in Havana had bought
their freedom. Others, though still slaves, lived independently, the
men doing such as working at trades and the women running eating
houses, but all reporting their earnings to their masters at
intervals.

C. B. WALTER.

* * * * *

_Sierra Leone: Its Peoples, Products and Secret Societies_. By H.
OSMAN NEWLAND, F. R. Hist. S., F.I.D. John Bale, Sons and Danielsson,
London, 1916. Pp. 247.

This work consists of the observations on a journey by canoe, rail and
hammock through Sierra Leone. To this is appended fifty-three pages of
matter on "Practical Planting Notes for Sierra Leone and West Africa,"
by H. Hamel Smith. Subject to sufficient demand, however, it is
proposed to issue this book, annually or biennially, with amendments
and additions to date, as a Sierra Leone Year Book and with a Who's
Who section. Accordingly, it treats of the geographic and economic
conditions of that land and the rule of 1,500,000 Africans, largely by
less than 900 Europeans. Taking up the elements of population the
author devotes much space to the Creole and Aborigine elements, giving
the characteristics of these classes. He then considers the river
system, the railroads, life in the interior, the rubber industry, the
native chiefs, the amusements of the people, native law, peculiar
customs of the people, their secret societies, the important products
and the management of estates.

The author undertakes to answer the questions as to whether this is a
country for a black or white man to live in, which of the two should
rule, whether the people are becoming Europeanized in their habits and
religion and whether it is a place for commerce and capital. Answering
the last question first the author asserts that there are in Sierra
Leone many possibilities for smaller capitalists and companies. As for
the climate, Sierra Leone is much maligned, especially so since
science has reclaimed its swamps and decreased the death rate. The
writer too is satisfied with the progress with which the natives are
taking over European civilization, although he is not anxious to see
the African adopt this culture _in toto_ because of the difference in
climate. Unlike some other travelers, he found the natives
industrious, honest, and truthful. Moreover, he does not share the
prejudices foreigners have against the Creoles and blacks. He believes
that the white man should rule not so long as he is white but so long
as he can prove his superiority. "The black man," says he, "will only
respect the rule of the white man as long as the latter can prove his
superiority, and consequently, reasonableness." The natives have such
a keen sense of justice that they are not blinded by hypocrisy. The
writer believes that neither the white man nor his religion must rule
because they are white and not black. The administrators, too, must
not rule for themselves but as representatives only. "It is Britain
that must rule--Britain which has one law for all, and administers it
not for white or black, but for all who own her sway whatever their
colour, race, or religion." While the portraiture of the sense of
justice of Great Britain does not square with her colonial policy, the
caution to those administering the affairs of Sierra Leone is well
put.

After all that he says, however, the writer does not seem to be so
sanguine as to future of West Africa. "Probably West Africa," says
he, "will always remain a land of romance, mystery and imagination,"
Science may reclaim the swamp. The iron railroad may open up tracks
for the engineer and planter to exploit its vast resources. But
Nature, unchecked by man, has been allowed too long to run riot there
among its impenetrable forests. Never, perhaps, will it be entirely
subdued. As with the primeval forest, so with the people.
Mohammedanism, Christianity, modern education, have all tried their
civilizing influences upon the West African, and nowhere, perhaps,
with more success than in Sierra Leone. But the old Adam dies slowly.
Civilization is too tame, too quiet for those who love noise and
mystery. And this feeling is infectious.

J. O. BURKE.

* * * * *

_Trade Politics and Christianity in Africa and the East_. By A. J.
MACDONALD, M.A. With an introduction by SIR HARRY JOHNSTON. Longmans,
Green and Co., London, 1916. Pp. 296.

This is a dissertation awarded the Maitland Prize at Cambridge in 1915
for an essay on the thesis, _Problems raised by the contact of the
West with Africa and the East and the part that Christianity can play
in their solution_. The work shows scientific treatment. The facts
used were obtained largely from the Government Blue Books, the Minutes
of Evidence attached to Reports of the Committee of Inquiry into the
Liquor Trade in Southern Nigeria together with the reports of the
United Races Committee, the Journal of the Anglo-Indian Temperance
Association, the British Quarterlies, the publications of the Society
for the Suppression of the Opium Trade, and the reports of the
Proceedings of the First Universal Race Congress.

The writer traces the development of contact with the natives by means
of trade which, supplying them with what they want rather than with
what they need, often demoralizes them. Then along with the problem of
trade comes that of labor, giving rise to labor contracts or forced
labor, and this with another problem of preventing the native
population from too far exceeding that of the whites. Then comes the
consideration of the liquor question, the opium trade, education and
self-government, and inter-racial marriage, with the merits and
demerits of the methods of those who have attacked these problems.
Caution is given in the assertion that Christianity must be the
life-principle. "Imperialism," says the author, "is a matter of
religion." The extension of the empire, therefore, is an extension of
religion. The success of an imperial policy then depends upon the
degree of attention paid religion, which lies deeper than
statesmanship, deeper than civilization, which is, indeed, the
inspiration of both. Administrators, therefore, must not neglect
Christianity, as they are only imperialists so long as they remember
that they are in spite of themselves religious men. "Translated into
practical terms," says he, "the theory means that if the black and
white races are unequal in intelligence and social capacity they are
equal on the basis of common Christianity. The old doctrine of the
'solidarity of humanity' needs to be revived and to be applied over a
wider area. The Empire can only be extended securely by the extension
of its religion, but that means that settler, trader and administrator
must realize in the black man a capacity to receive Christianity." The
Church, too, must cease to regard the propagation of the gospel as its
own task and missionaries must no longer retard the extension of the
empire by carrying on their work as members of an independent
organization.

Taking up inter-racial marriage, the author raises many questions. He
does not seem to fear race fusion, as there is evidence "to prove that
the crossing of the different races does produce definite physical and
mental results in succeeding generations." He contends that the white
man's objection to connection with women of colored races and to the
children who spring from those unions has no scientific justification.
The exclusive attitude of the white man is accounted for by the
difference in degree of civilization, the so-called superiority of the
white race. Although he does not show how science has uprooted the
idea of racial superiority, the author does raise the question as to
whether the integrity of the dominant races has been maintained. As
evidence of this he cites the facts that the Pelasgii of Greece were,
according to Professor Sturgis, of African origin, that Sir Harry
Johnston traced Negro blood across India and the Malay States to
Polynesia, that a negroid race penetrated Italy and France, according
to recent discoveries, leaving traces at the present day in the
physiognomy of the people of Southern Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, and
Western France, and even in parts of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, and that even to-day there are some examples of
Keltiberian peoples of western Scotland and western Wales and southern
and western Ireland of distinctly negroid type.

W. R. WARD.

NOTES

The following letter was addressed to the _New Orleans Daily States_
by Mr. W. O. Hart:

LOUISIANA GOVERNORS.

NEW ORLEANS, LA., April 19, 1917.
EDITOR _Daily States_.

_Dear Sir_:--Recently your paper published a very interesting
account of many governors of Louisiana at one time being in the
Cosmopolitan Hotel, but in giving the names of the ex-governors
you omitted three, William P. Kellogg, P. B. S. Pinchback and
General Joseph R. Brooke.

Kellogg while never elected was inaugurated in January, 1873, and
served a full term of four years, having been upheld in office by
President Grant.

Pinchback, who was elected President of the Senate when Oscar J.
Dunn, elected lieutenant governor, died, in 1868, became acting
governor on December 10, 1872, when Governor H. C. Warmoth was
impeached and served until the inauguration of Kellogg, January
13, 1873.

There are now on the statute books ten laws passed at this extra
session and which bear the approval of Pinchback; they will be
found bound with the Acts of 1873, pages 37 to 50.

Pinchback's title as acting governor was upheld by the Supreme
Court of Louisiana, in the case of Morgan vs. Kennard, decided in
March, 1873, and reported in the 25th An. Reports, page 238,
which was a contest over the office of Justice of the Supreme
Court between John Kennard, appointed by Warmoth, and P. H.
Morgan, appointed by Pinchback, and the judgment was affirmed by
the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Kennard vs.
Morgan, reported in 92d U. S. 480. The opinion was rendered by
Chief Justice Ludeling and concurred in by Justices Taliaferro
and Howell, and Justice Wyly dissented. The case was tried in the
Superior District Court before Judge Jacob Hawkins who decided in
favor of Morgan and this judgment was affirmed by the Supreme
Court.

Judge Kennard was appointed to the Court on December 3, 1872,
vice W. W. Howe resigned; Morgan was appointed on January 4,
1873, and at the end of the litigation took his seat as a member
of the Court on February 1st, serving until the Manning Court
went into office on January 9, 1877.

After the eventful fourteenth of September, 1874, when General
Emory took charge, he appointed Colonel (now Brigadier General
retired) Joseph R. Brooke, military governor of Louisiana, but he
only served one day, because President Grant disapproved of the
appointment and ordered General Emory to reinstate Governor
Kellogg.

W. O. HART.

* * * * *

In the January number of the _South Atlantic Quarterly_ Gilbert T.
Stephenson, Judge of the Municipal Court of Winston-Salem, North
Carolina, writes on the subject, "_Education and Crime among
Negroes_." Although he accepts as facts certain unreliable statistics
concerning the criminality of Negroes, he nevertheless presents the
subject in a liberal manner. His following conclusion is interesting.

"All the available statistics and the unanimous opinion of men in
a position to know the facts would seem to be proof that
education--elementary or advanced, industrial or
literary--diminishes crime among Negroes. The alarming high rate
of Negro criminality is as much a condemnation of the community
in which it exists as of the offending Negroes themselves. Having
discovered that the Negro school is, at least, one institution
which successfully combats crime, the community cannot afford to
withhold its active interest in and generous support of its Negro
school. The more money spent in making such schools responsive to
the special needs of the race, the less will have to be spent on
crime, and if it comes to a question of cost, it is cheaper in
the long run to maintain and equip schools--Negro schools,
even--than police departments, courts, jails, penitentiaries, and
reformatories; for the school, properly conducted, makes the
Negro a greater asset, while the court finds him a liability, and
nearly always leaves him a greater liability to the community."

* * * * *

Some interesting articles in various publications are: "Problems of
Race Assimilation," by Arthur C. Parker, in the January number of _The
American Indian Magazine_; The Cavalry Fight at Carrizal, by Louis S.
Morey, in _The Journal of the United States Cavalry_ _Association_;
The Present Labor Situation, in the January number of _The Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences_; Physic Factors
in the New American Race Situation, in _The Journal of Race
Development_, by George W. Ellis; and La Independencia de Tejas y la
Esclavitud, by Senor V. Salado Alvarez, in the Cuban journal _La
Reforma Social_.

Other such articles in this field are: Germany's Ambition in Central
Africa, by Emile Cammaerts, in the October number of _The National
Review_; The Present System of Education in Uganda, in the July number
of _Uganda Notes_; The Gold Coast: Some Consideration of its
Structures, People, and Natural History, by A. E. Kitson, in the July
number of the _Geographic Journal_.

* * * * *

The arrangements for the biennial meeting of the Association for the
Study of Negro Life and History have been almost completed. A majority
of the members of the Executive Council desire that it be held on
Wednesday, the twenty-ninth of August, and have so ordered it. The
program has not yet been made up, but several persons of prominence
have promised to attend and speak. Among these are Mrs. Mary Church
Terrell, Dean Kelly Miller, Professor George E. Haynes, Dr. R. R.
Wright, Jr., Mr. Monroe N. Work, and Dr. Thomas J. Jones. Two of the
important topics will be _Some Values of Negro History_ and _The Negro
in the World War_.

THE AFRICAN ORIGIN OF THE GRECIAN CIVILIZATION[401]

I imagine, ladies and gentlemen, that when you first read the subject
of the address to be delivered before this society to-day, you were a
bit surprised, and, I trust, a bit interested. To claim an African
origin for the Grecian civilization is hardly in keeping with the
historical traditions inherited from our school days. It savors of a
sort of heresy and passes far beyond the limits of popular opinion.
There is a peculiar unanimity among all historians to state without
reservation that the greatest civilization the world has ever known
was pre-eminently Aryan, but historians are not always to be relied
upon. They write for their own race and times and are careful to give
as little credit as possible to races and events which fall within the
pale of their prejudices. I question, however, if there is to be
gained any ultimate good by subverting truth and popularizing error.
Indeed, I believe that if to-day our historians, authors, press and
pulpit would give the public the truth as far as it is possible to
attain it, to-morrow would find us filled with a new vigor and a fresh
determination to conquer the wrongs and inconsistencies of human life.

The old idea of the Grecian civilization was that it sprung, like
Minerva, full armed from the brow of Zeus. It seemed to have no
tangible beginning. The fabled kings and heroes of the Homeric Age,
with their palaces and strongholds, were said to have been humanized
sun-myths; their deeds but songs woven by wandering minstrels to win
their meed of bread. Yet there has always been a suspicion among
scholars that this view was wrong. The more we study the moral aspects
of humanity the more we become convinced that the flower and fruit of
civilization are evolved according to laws as immutable as those laws
governing the manifestations of physical life. Historians have written
that Greece was invaded by Aryans about 1400 B.C., and that henceforth
arose the wonderful civilization; but the student knows that such was
an impossibility and that some vital factor has been left out of the
equation. When the Aryans invaded Greece they were savages from
Neolithic Europe and could not possibly have possessed the high
artistic capacities and rich culture necessary for the unfolding of
AEgean civilization. "Of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a
bramble bush gather they grapes."

Speaking of the two foremost Grecian states, Herodotus writes as
follows: "These are the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, the former of
Doric, the latter of Ionic blood. And, indeed, these two nations had
held from very early times the most distinguished place in Greece, the
one being Pelasgic, the other a Hellenic people, and the one having
never quitted its original seas, while the other had been excessively
migratory." "The Hellenes," wrote Professor Boughton in the _Arena_
some years ago, "were the Aryans first to be brought into contact with
these sunburnt Hamites, who, let it be remembered, though classed as
whites, were probably as strongly Nigritic as are the Afro-Americans."
"Greek art is not [Greek: autochthonus]," said Thiersch some fifty
years ago, "but we derived from the Pelasgians, who, being blood
relations of the Egyptians, undoubtedly brought the knowledge from
Egypt." "The aptitude for art among all nations of antiquity,"
remarked Count de Gobineau a few years later, "was derived from an
amalgamation with black races. The Egyptians, Assyrians and Etruscans
were nothing but half-breeds, mulattoes." In the year 1884 Alexander
Winchell, the famous American geologist, upset Americans with an
article appearing in the _North American Review_. From it I quote the
following: "The Pelasgic empire was at its meridian as early as 2500
B.C. This people came from the islands of the AEgean, and more remotely
from Asia Minor. They were originally a branch of the sunburnt Hamitic
stock that laid the basis of civilization in Canaan and Mesopotamia,
destined later to be Semitized. Danaus and his daughters--that is, the
fugitive 'shepherds' from Egypt--sought refuge among their Hamitic
kindred in the Peloponnesus about 1700 B.C. Three hundred years before
this these Pelasgians had learned the art of weaving from Aryan
immigrants. In time they occupied the whole of Greece and Thessaly.
Before 200 B.C. they established themselves in Italy. Thus do we get a
conception of a vast Hamitic empire existing in prehistoric times,
whose several nationalities were centered in Mesopotamia, Canaan,
Egypt, Northwestern Africa, Iberia, Greece, Italy, Sicily, Sardinia
and Central Europe--an intellectual ethnic family, the first of the
Adamites to emerge into historic light, but with the records of its
achievements buried in gloom almost as dense as that which covers the
ruder populations that the Hamites everywhere displaced. To this
family, chiefly, are to be traced the dark complexions of the nations
and tribes still dwelling around the shores of the Mediterranean."

It was to be expected that such statements as the foregoing would
throw the scholastic world into a ferment. There was a scramble to
bolster up the cause of Aryanism and to preserve this one
civilization, at least, to the credit of the Caucasian race. Homer was
scanned with a patience unknown to college students and the classic
myths were refined in the alembics of master minds. Yet there were
some who cared for truth more than for racial glory and among them was
Dr. Schlieman. Armed with a spade he went to the classic lands and
brought to light a real Troy; at Tiryns and Mycenae he laid to view the
palaces and tombs and treasures of Homeric kings. His message back to
scholars who waited tensely for his verdict was, "It looks to me like
the civilization of an African people." A new world opened to
archeologists and the AEgean became the Mecca of the world. Traces of
this prehistoric civilization began to make their appearance far
beyond the limits of Greece itself. From Cyprus and Palestine to
Sicily and Southern Italy, and even to the coasts of Spain, the
colonial and industrial enterprise of the Myceneans has left its mark
throughout the Mediterranean basin. The heretics were vindicated.
"Whether they like it or not," declared Sir Arthur Evans before the
London Hellenic Society a short time ago, "classical students must
consider origins. The Grecians whom we discern in the new dawn were
not the pale-skinned northerners, but essentially the dark-haired,
brown-complexioned race." Perhaps Sir Arthur's words will carry weight
with you when I remark that his wonderful discoveries in classical
lands have brought him the honor of election last year as president of
the British Association, the most notable assemblage of scholars in
the world. I might further mention that Professor Sergi, of the
University of Rome, has founded a new study of the origin of European
civilization upon the remarkable archeological finds, entitled "The
Mediterranean Race." From this masterly work I choose the following:
"Until recent years the Greeks and Romans were regarded as Aryans, and
then as Aryanized peoples; the great discoveries in the Mediterranean
have overturned all these views. To-day, although a few belated
supporters of Aryanism still remain, it is becoming clear that the
most ancient civilization of the Mediterranean is not of Aryan
origin. The Aryans were savages when they invaded Europe; they
destroyed in part the superior civilization of the Neolithic
populations, and could not have created the Graeco-Latin civilization.
The primitive populations of Europe originated in Africa and the basin
of the Mediterranean was the chief center of movement when the African
migrations reached the center and north of Europe."

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