The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

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Alas! and am I born for this,
To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil, and pain?

How long have I in bondage lain,
And languished to be free!
Alas! and must I still complain,
Deprived of liberty?

* * * * *

Come, Liberty, thou cheerful sound,
Roll through my ravished ears;
Come, let my grief in joys be drowned,
And drive away my fears.

Some of Horton's friends undertook to help him publish a volume of his
poems so that from the sale of these he might purchase his freedom and
go to the new colony of Liberia. The young man now became fired with
ambition and inspiration. Thrilled by the new hope he wrote

'Twas like the salutation of the dove,
Borne on the zephyr through some lonesome grove,
When spring returns, and winter's chill is past,
And vegetation smiles above the blast.

Horton's master, however, demanded for him an exorbitant price, and
when the booklet, _The Hope of Liberty_, appeared in 1829 it had
nothing of the sale that was hoped for. He lived for years as a
janitor at the University, executed small commissions for verse from
the students, who treated him kindly, and in later years even went to
Philadelphia; but his old dreams had faded. Several reprintings of his
poems were made, however, and one of these was bound with the 1838
edition of Phillis Wheatley's poems. He died in 1880 (by other
accounts 1883). A scholarly article about him was written for the
_Southern Workman_ of October, 1914, by Mr. Stephen B. Weeks, who in
turn owed much to the researches of Prof. George S. Wills.

Horton's work showed readily the influence of his models. He used
especially the meter of the common evangelical hymns, and cultivated
the vague personification of the poets of the eighteenth century. He
himself, however, was essentially a romantic poet, as was evinced by
his fondness for Byron and Marlowe. His common style is represented by
the following lines from his poem entitled _On the Evening and
Morning_:

When Evening bids the Sun to rest retire,
Unwearied Ether sets her lamps on fire;
Lit by one torch, each is supplied in turn,
Till all the candles in the concave burn.

* * * * *

At length the silver queen begins to rise,
And spread her glowing mantle in the skies,
And from the smiling chambers of the east,
Invites the eye to her resplendent feast.

The passion in the heart of this man, his undoubted gifts as a poet,
and the bitter disappointment of his yearnings have all but added one
more to the long list of those who died with their ambitions blasted
and their most ardent hopes defeated.

In 1854 appeared the first edition of _Poems on Miscellaneous
Subjects_, by Frances Ellen Watkins, commonly known as Mrs. Frances E.
W. Harper, who was for many years before the public and who is even
now remembered by many friends. Mrs. Harper was a woman of strong
personality and could read her poems to advantage. Her verse was very
popular, not less than ten thousand copies of her booklets being sold.
It was decidedly lacking in technique, however, and much in the style
of Mrs. Hemans. _The Death of the Old Sea King_, for instance, is in
the ballad style cultivated by this poet and Longfellow; but it is not
a well-sustained effort. Mrs. Harper was best when most simple, as
when in writing of children she said:

I almost think the angels
Who tend life's garden fair,
Drop down the sweet white blossoms
That bloom around us here.

The secret of her popularity is to be seen in such lines as the
following from _Bury me in a Free Land_:

Make me a grave where'er you will,
In a lowly plain or a lofty hill;
Make it among earth's humblest graves,
But not in a land where men are slaves.

I could not rest if around my grave
I heard the steps of a trembling slave:
His shadow above my silent tomb
Would make it a place of fearful gloom.

* * * * *

I ask no monument, proud and high,
To arrest the gaze of the passers-by;
All that my yearning spirit craves
Is bury me not in a land of slaves.

Of the Emancipation Proclamation she wrote:

It shall flash through coming ages,
It shall light the distant years;
And eyes now dim with sorrow
Shall be brighter through their tears.

While Mrs. Harper was still prominently before the public appeared
Albery A. Whitman, a Methodist minister, whose important collection,
_Not a Man and Yet a Man_, appeared in 1877, and whose long and
ambitious poem, _Twasinta's Seminoles_, or _The Rape of Florida_ (the
latter title being the one most used), was issued in 1884. This writer
had great love for his work. In the preface to his second volume he
wrote of poetry as follows: "I do not believe poetry is on the
decline. I do not believe that human advancement extinguishes the
torch of sentiment. I can not think that money-getting is the whole
business of man. Rather am I convinced that the world is approaching a
poetical revolution. The subtle evolution of thought must yet be
expressed in song. Poetry is the language of universal sentiment.
Torch of the unresting mind, she kindles in advance of all progress.
Her waitings are on the threshold of the infinite, where, beckoning
man to listen, she interprets the leaves of immortality. Her voice is
the voice of Eternity dwelling in all great souls. Her aims are the
inducements of heaven, and her triumphs the survival of the Beautiful,
the True, and the Good. In her language there is no mistaking of that
liberal thought which is the health of mind. A secret interpreter, she
waits not for data, phenomena, and manifestations, but anticipates and
spells the wishes of Heaven."

The work of Whitman himself is exceedingly baffling. It is to his
credit that something about his work at once commands judgment by the
highest standards. If we consider it on this basis, we find that it is
diffuse, exhibits many lapses in taste, is faulty metrically, as if
done in haste, and shows imitation on every hand. It imitates
Whittier, Longfellow and Tennyson; Scott, Byron and Moore. _The Old
Sac Village_ and _Nanawawa's Suitors_ are very evidently _Hiawatha_
over again, and _Custer's Last Ride_ is simply another version of _The
Charge of the Light Brigade_. And yet, whenever one has about decided
that Whitman is not worthy of consideration, the poet insists on a
revision of judgment; and he certainly could not have imitated so many
writers so readily, if he had not had some solid basis in
appreciation. The fact is that he shows a decided faculty for brisk,
though not sustained, narration. This may be seen in _The House of the
Aylors_. He has, moreover, a romantic lavishness of description that
in spite of all technical faults still has some degree of merit. The
following quotations, taken respectively from _The Mowers_ and _The
Flight of Leeona_, with all their extravagance, will exemplify both
his weakness and his strength in description:

The tall forests swim in a crimson sea,
Out of whose bright depths rising silently,
Great golden spires shoot into the skies,
Among the isles of cloudland high, that rise,
Float, scatter, burst, drift off, and slowly fade,
Deep in the twilight, shade succeeding shade.

* * * * *

And now she turns upon a mossy seat,
Where sings a fern-bound stream beneath her feet,
And breathes the orange in the swooning air;
Where in her queenly pride the rose blooms fair,
And sweet geranium waves her scented hair;
There, gazing in the bright face of the stream,
Her thoughts swim onward in a gentle dream.

In _A Dream of Glory_ occur the lines,

The fairest blooms are born of humble weeds,
That faint and perish in the pathless wood;
And out of bitter life grow noble deeds
To pass unnoticed in the multitude.

_The Bards of England_ discusses many poets. The following is the
passage on Byron:

To Missolonghi's chief of singers too,
Unhappy Byron, is a tribute due--
A wounded spirit, mournful and yet mad,
A genius proud, defiant, gentle, sad;
'Twas he whose Harold won his Nation's heart,
And whose Reviewers made her fair cheeks smart;
Whose uncurbed Juan hung her head for shame,
And whose Mazeppa won unrivaled fame.
Earth had no bound for him. Where'er he strode
His restless genius found no fit abode.

Whitman's shortcomings become readily apparent when he attempts
sustained work. _The Rape of Florida_ is the longest poem yet written
by a Negro in America, and also the only attempt by a member of the
race to use the elaborate Spenserian stanza throughout a long piece of
work. The story is concerned with the capture of the Seminoles in
Florida through perfidy and the taking of them away to their new home
in the West. It centers around three characters, Palmecho, an old
chief, Ewald, his daughter, and Atlassa, a young Seminole who is
Ewald's lover. The poem is decidedly diffuse; there is too much
subjective description, too little strong characterization. Palmecho,
instead of being a stout warrior, is a "chief of peace and kindly
deeds." Stanzas of merit, however, occasionally strike the eye. The
boat-song forces recognition as genuine poetry:

"Come now, my love, the moon is on the lake;
Upon the waters is my light canoe;
Come with me, love, and gladsome oars shall make
A music on the parting wave for you,--
Come o'er the waters deep and dark and blue:
Come where the lilies in the marge have sprung,
Come with me, love, for Oh, my love is true!"
This is the song that on the lake was sung,
The boatman sang it over when his heart was young.

It is important to note in a consideration of Whitman's method that
while he is writing a story about Indians he frequently leaves this to
tell how he feels as a Negro. The following stanzas, however, are
pertinent to present-day discussion:

'Tis hard to judge if hatred of one's race,
By those who deem themselves superior-born,
Be worse than that quiescence in disgrace,
Which only merits--and _should_ only--scorn!
Oh! let me see the Negro, night and morn,
_Pressing_ and fighting in, for place and power!
If he a proud escutcheon would adorn,
All earth is place--all time th' auspicious hour,
While heaven leans forth to see, oh! can he quail or cower?

Ah! I abhor his protest and complaint!
His pious looks and patience I despise!
He can't evade the test, disguised as saint,
The manly voice of freedom bids him rise,
And shake himself before Philistine eyes!
And, like a lion roused, no sooner than
A foe dare come, play all his energies,
And court the fray with fury if he can!
For hell itself respects a fearless manly man.

In 1890 Whitman brought out an edition of _Not a Man and Yet a Man_
and _The Rape of Florida_, adding to these a collection of
miscellaneous poems, _Drifted Leaves_, and in 1901 he published _An
Idyl of the South_, an epic poem in two parts. It is to be regretted
that he did not have the training that comes from the best university
education. He had the taste and the talent to benefit from such
culture in the greatest degree.

This brief review of the work of three earnest members of the race
prompts a few reflections on the whole art of poetry as this is
cultivated by the Negro in America. If we may make any reasonable
deduction from the work of the poets studied, if we may arrive at any
conclusion from the work of Paul Laurence Dunbar and the younger
writers of the day, we should say that the genius of the race is
subjective and romantic rather than objective and classic. In poetry,
least of all arts, does the Negro conceal his individuality. This is
his great gift, but also in another way the spur to further
achievement. The race should in course of time produce many brilliant
lyric poets. Dunbar was a lyric poet; so was Pushkin. The drama and
the epic obviously call for more extended information, a more
objective point of view, and a broader basis in general culture than
many members of the race have so far had the time or the talent or the
inclination to give to them.

Again, has one ever asked himself why it is that so much of the poetry
of the Negro fails to reach the ultimate standards of art? It
certainly is not because of lack of imagination, for God has been
generous in the imagery with which he has endowed the race. First of
all, last of all, is it not the matter of technique? Many booklets of
verse that have been issued show that the writers had not mastered
even the ordinary fundamentals of English grammar. For one to think of
rivalling Tennyson with his classical tradition when he can not make a
clearcut English sentence is out of the question. Further, and this is
the most important point, the work of those in question almost never
exhibits imagination expressed in intense, condensed, vivid, and
suggestive phrase--such phrasing, for instance, as one will find in
"The Eve of St. Agnes," which I am not alone in considering the most
lavishly brilliant and successful brief effort in poetry in the
language. To all of this might be added a refining of taste,
something all too frequently lacking and something that can come only
from the most arduous and diligent culture. When we further secure
such things as these the race may indeed possess not only a Horton, a
Harper, or a Whitman, but a Tennyson, a Keats, and even a Shakespeare.

BENJAMIN BRAWLEY

FOOTNOTES:

[477] This paper was read at the biennial meeting of the Association
held in Washington, D. C., on August 29, 1917.

CATHOLICS AND THE NEGRO

In order to understand and to gain an adequate idea of what Catholics
and their ancient Church have done for the American Negro, it is
necessary to take into account the facts and testimony of impartial
history in regard to human slavery among the nations, and the
influence which the Roman Catholic Church brought to bear on that
institution. We must study and remember the conditions and customs in
pre-Christian times in regard to slaves, and we should also note the
gradual transition from the state of things existing in the heathen
world to that prevailing in our modern Christian civilization.

The student of history observes that ideas and principles take their
rise and, growing, permeate society, bringing about a change in the
morals and manners of a nation. These changes, which may be for good
or evil, do not come of a sudden. Even during the Christian ages the
principles of the gospel do not always prevail in their fulness and
beauty. At times, through the passions of men, non-Christian and pagan
ideas gain ground and for a time predominate. It is only by dealing
tactfully with human nature and by persistent efforts that the Church
has been enabled to make Christian ideals prevail.

At the dawn of Christianity, slavery was an established institution in
all countries.[478] Some pagan philosophers, like Seneca, maintained
that all men are by nature free and equal, still by the law of nations
slavery was upheld in all lands; and it was an axiom among the ruling
classes, that "the human race exists for the sake of the few."
Aristotle held that no perfect household could exist without slaves
and freemen and that the natural law, as well as the law of nations,
makes a distinction between bond and free.[479] Plato avowed that
every slave's soul was fundamentally corrupt and should not be
trusted.[480] The proportion of slaves to freemen varied in different
countries, though usually the former were largely in excess of the
free population. In Rome for a long time, according to the testimony
of Blair, the slaves were three to one. At one time they became so
formidable there that the Senate, fearing that if conscious of their
own numbers the public safety might be endangered, forbade them a
distinctive dress. Atrocious laws regulated the relations of master
and slaves. The head of the family was absolute master of his slaves,
having over them the power of life and death. Moral and social
degradation was the common lot of slaves. Their wretched condition in
pagan times was often rendered more intolerable by aggravating
circumstances. Many of them had once enjoyed the blessings of freedom,
but had been reduced to bondage by the calamities of war. Unlike the
Negro slaves of America, they were usually of the same color as their
masters; and in some instances, better educated, more refined, and of
more delicate frame, than those whom they served. Epictetus, one of
the ablest of the Stoic philosophers, was a slave. Horace and Juvenal
were the sons of freedmen.[481]

There is something of the ruthlessness of the ancient pagans in the
atrocities practiced in later times, and even in our day, by the
Mohammedans in Africa. Livingstone, Cameron, and still more recently
Cardinal Lavigerie, Archbishop of Carthage, who was furnished with
information by his missionaries, declare that at least 400,000 Negroes
are annually carried into bondage in Africa by Mussulman traders, and
that fully five times that number perish either by being massacred in
the slave hunt, or from hunger and hardship on the journey. Thus the
lives or liberty of an immense number of the human race are each year
sacrificed on the altars of lust and mammon. No pagan government of
antiquity ever framed any law aiming at the immediate or gradual
extinction of slavery. The same is true of modern nations outside the
pale of Christianity.[482]

With the life and teaching of Christ and the preaching of his gospel
by his Apostles, began a new era in the history of slavery. The
Apostles and their successors pursued a policy that without injustice,
violence or revolution, led to the gradual emancipation of the slaves.
The labors and influence of the Roman Catholic Church, which have been
that of organized Christianity, make a long story, reaching through
all the Christian ages. The early Church mitigated the condition of
the slave, by teaching him the consoling doctrines of Christ. She
taught the slave and master reciprocal duties, prescribing laws that
exercised a salutary restraint on the authority of the one, and
sanctified the obedience of the other; she contributed to the moral
elevation of the slave by leveling all distinctions between bond and
free in her temples and religious assemblies.[483] Masters were
encouraged to emancipate their slaves by a public ceremony of
manumission celebrated in the church on festival days. The dignity and
duty of labor for all is inculcated by St. Paul and the early
Christian teachers in opposition to the pagan practice, which scorned
labor as being only fit for slaves. The absolute religious equality
proclaimed in the Church was the negation of slavery as practiced by
pagan society. The Church made no account of the social condition of
the faithful. Bond and free received the same sacraments. Clerics of
servile origin were numerous. The very Chair of St. Peter was occupied
by men who had been slaves--Pius in the second century and Callistus
in the third.[484] The names of slaves are numbered among the martyrs
of the Christian faith and they are inscribed on the calendar of
saints honored by the Church.

In giving them a place in religious society, the Church restored to
slaves the family and marriage. In Roman law, neither legitimate
marriage nor regular paternity, nor even any impediment to the most
unnatural unions had existed for the slave. In upholding the moral
dignity and prerogatives of the slave, the Church was striking a blow
for his civil freedom. Though she was not charged with the framing of
the civil laws, she moved the hearts of the slaveowners by moral
suasion, and she moulded the conscience of legislators by an appeal to
the innate rights of men. In the early Fathers of the Church, like St.
Gregory of Nyssa and St. John Chrysostom, the most energetic
reprobation of slavery may be found.

The redemption of captives was another work which engaged the pious
solicitude of the Church. From the fourth to the fourteenth century
Europe was periodically a prey to northern invaders. The usual fate of
the vanquished was death or slavery. They who escaped were carried
into bondage. A more wretched fate awaited the female sex, for they
were reserved to gratify the caprices of their conquerors. Religious
orders were founded to succor and redeem them.[485] "Closely connected
with the influence of the Church," says Mr. Lecky, "in destroying
hereditary slavery, was its influence in redeeming captives from
servitude. In no other form of charity was its beneficial character
more continually and more splendidly displayed."[486]

Among the forces enlisted in the cause of freedom the most potent came
from the Papacy. In every age the voice of the Popes resounded clearly
throughout the world in the interests of human freedom. They either
commended the slaves to the humanity of their masters, or advocated
their manumission, and also condemned the slave trade with all its
abuses. Pope Gregory the Great, who occupied the chair of Peter from
590 to 604, wrote: "Since our Blessed Redeemer, the Author of all
life, in His goodness assumed our human flesh, in order that by
breaking the bond of servitude in which we were held, the grace of His
divinity might restore us to our original liberty, it is a wholesome
deed by the benefits of emancipation to restore the freedom in which
they were born, to men whom nature, in the beginning brought forth
free, and whom the law of nations has subjected to the yoke of
slavery."[487]

On October 7, 1462, Pope Pius II issued a letter in which he reproved
and condemned the slave trade then carried on. Again, a short time
later Leo X denounced slavery in 1537. Paul III forbade the
enslavement of the Indians. In the later centuries on the revival of
slavery by some of the nations, especially among those coming under
the power of Mohammedanism in Persia, Arabia, Turkey and Africa, as
also on account of the enslavement of Negroes and Indians in the
Americas, other Popes proclaimed the Christian law in regard to the
cruelties of the slave trade. Again Urban VIII, in 1639, and Benedict
XIV, in 1741, were defenders of the liberty of the Indians and blacks
even though they were not as yet instructed in the Christian
faith.[488] In 1815, Pius VII demanded of the Congress of Vienna the
suppression of the slave trade. In the Bull of Canonization of St.
Peter Claver, one of the most illustrious adversaries of slavery, Pius
IX speaks of the "supreme villainy" of the slave-traders. Gregory XVI,
in 1839, published a memorable encyclical in which the following
strong language occurs:

"By virtue of our Apostolic office, we warn and admonish in the
Lord all Christians of whatever conditions they may be, and
enjoin upon them that for the future, no one shall venture
unjustly to oppress the Indians, Negroes or other men whoever
they may be, to strip them of their property, or reduce them into
servitude, or give aid or support to those who commit such
excesses or carry on that infamous traffic by which the blacks,
as if they were not men, but mere impure animals reduced like
them into servitude, contrary to the laws of justice and
humanity, are bought, sold and devoted to endure the hardest
labor. Wherefore, by virtue of our Apostolic authority, we
condemn all these things as absolutely unworthy of the Christian
name."[489]

Probably the most memorable statement of the history and Catholic
position on slavery is the beautiful letter which Pope Leo XIII, in
1888, addressed to the Brazilian Bishops, exhorting them to banish
from their country the remnants of slavery--a letter to which the
Bishops responded with their most energetic efforts. Some generous
slave-owners freed their slaves in a body, as in the first ages of the
Church. Catholic Brazil emancipated its slaves without war or
bloodshed. The following are some extracts from the Pope's letter:

"The condition of slavery, in which a considerable part of the
human family has been sunk in squalor and affliction now for many
centuries, is deeply to be deplored; for the system is one wholly
opposed to that which was originally ordained by God and by
nature. The Supreme Author of all things so decreed that man
should exercise a sort of royal dominion over beasts and cattle
and fish and fowl, but never that man should exercise a like
dominion over his fellow-man. * * * * * * * * * Monuments, laws,
institutions, through a continuous series of ages, teach and
splendidly demonstrate the great love of the Church towards
slaves, whom in their miserable condition, she never left
destitute of protection, and always to the best of her power
alleviated. Therefore, praise and thanks are due to the Catholic
Church, since she has merited it in the prosperity of nations,
by the very great beneficence of Christ, our Redeemer and
banisher of slavery, and cause of true liberty, fraternity and
equality among men. Toward the end of the fifteenth century, when
the base stain of slavery was almost blotted out from among
Christian nations, the Catholic Church took the greatest care
that the evil germs of such depravity should nowhere revive.
Therefore, she directed her provident vigilance to the
newly-discovered regions of Africa, Asia and America, for a
report had reached her that the leaders of the expeditions,
Christians though they were, were wickedly making use of their
arms and ingenuity to establish and impose slavery on those
innocent nations. Indeed, since the crude nature of the soil
which they had to overcome, nor less the wealth of metals which
had to be extracted by mining, required very hard work, unjust
and inhuman plans were entered into; for a new traffic was begun,
slaves being transported for that purpose from Ethiopia, which at
that time, under the name of the _slave trade_, too much occupied
those colonies."[490]

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