The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

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

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"Where can that happiness spring from? Is it from the midst of a
community divided against itself, or from one blessed with peace
and harmony?

"In what particular have our relations changed? In what case have
our interests in the general welfare been divided? Is not today
the colored man as essential to our prosperity as he was before?

"Is not our soil calling for the energetic efforts of his sinewy
arms? Can we, in fact, live without him? But while we want his
labor he wants our lands, our capital, our industry, our
influence in the commerce and finances of the world.

"And if, coming down from those higher functions in society, we
descend to our domestic relations, where do we find that those
relations are changed?

"Does not the intelligent freedman know that neither he nor we
are accountable to God for the condition in which we were
respectively born?

"Does he not know that, for generations past, the institution of
slavery had been forced upon us by the avarice, the love of power
of the North? Does he not know that to-day we have in him the
same implicit faith and reliance we had before?"[532]

FOOTNOTES:

[513] _Boston Evening Post_, Aug. 3, 1761. This issue carries an
advertisement for such Negroes.

[514] Ford, "Washington's Writing," II, 211.

[515] _Ibid._, VI, 349.

[516] Ford, "Washington's Writings," VII, 371.

[517] _Ibid._, X, 48.

[518] Ford, "Washington's Writings," IX, 392-393.

[519] _Ibid._, X, 200.

[520] In the letter here mentioned, Sir Guy Carleton had requested
that Congress would empower some person or persons to go into New
York, and assist such persons as he should appoint to inspect and
superintend the embarkation of persons and property, in fulfilment of
the seventh article of the provisional treaty, and "that they would be
pleased to represent to him every infraction of the letter of spirit
of the treaty, that redress might be immediately ordered." _Diplomatic
Correspondence_, Vol. XI, p. 335. The commissioners appointed by
General Washington for this purpose were Egbert Benson, William S.
Smith, and Daniel Parker. Their instructions were dated the 8th of
May.

[521] This gives further light on the subject: "The breach of that
(article) which stipulated a restoration of negroes, will be made the
subject of a pointed remonstrance from our minister in Europe to the
British Court, with a demand of reparation; and in the meantime Genl.
Washington is to insist on a more faithful observance of that
stipulation at New York."--Virginia Delegates in Congress to the
Governor of Virginia, 27 May, 1783.

"Some of my own slaves, and those of Mr. Lund Washington who lives at
my house, may probably be in New York, but I am unable to give you
their description--their names being so easily changed, will be
fruitless to give. If by chance you should come at the knowledge of
any of them, I will be much oblige by your securing them, so that I am
obtain them again."--_Washington to Daniel Parker_, 28 April, 1783.
Ford, "Washington's Writings," X, 246-247.

[522] Ford, "Washington's Writings," X, 241-243.

[523] _Ibid._, X, 220.

[524] _The Philanthropist_, March 4, 1836.

[525] _The Philanthropist_, March 4, 1836.

[526] _The Philanthropist_, March 4, 1836.

[527] Ford, "Washington's Writings," XIV, 196-197.

[528] "On 22d April 1785, when acting as chain bearer, while
Washington was surveying a tract of land on Four Mile Run, William
fell, and broke his knee pan; 'which put a stop to my surveying; and
with much difficulty I was able to get jim to abingdon, being obliged
to get a sled to carry him on, as he could neither walk, stand or
ride.'"--_Washington's Diary_. _See Spurious Letters Attributed to
Washington_, 8.

[529] "The mulatto fellow, William, who has been with me all the war,
is attached (married he says) to one of his own color, a free woman,
who during the war, was also of my family. She has been in an infirm
condition for some time, and I had conceived that the connextion
between them had ceased; but I am mistaken it seems; they are both
applying to get her here, and tho' I never wished to see her more, I
cannot refuse his request (if it can be complied with on reasonable
terms) as he has served me faithfully for many years.

"After premising this much, I have to beg the favor to procure her
passage to Alexandria, either by Sea, in the Stage, or in the passage
of boat from the head of the Elk, as you shall think cheapest and
best, and her situation will admit; the cost of either I will pay. Her
name is Margaret Thomas allias Lee (the name by which _he_ calls
himself). She lives in Philada. with Isaac and Hannah Sile--black
people, who are oftern employ'd by families in the city as
cooks."--_Washington to to Clement Biddle_, 28 July, 1784.

"The President would thank you to propose to Will to return to Mount
Vernon when he can be removed for he cannot be of any service here,
and perhaps will require a person to attend upon him constantly. If he
should be incline to return to Mount Vernon, you will be so kind as to
have him sent in the first Vessel that sails for Alexandria after he
can be removed with safety--but if he is still anxious to come on here
the President would gratify him Altho' he will be troublesome--He has
been an old faithful Servant, this is enough for the President to
gratify him in every reasonable wish."--_Lear to Biddle_, 3 March,
1789. Ford, "Washington's Writings," XIV, 272-274.

[530] Knox, "An Historical Account of St. Thomas, West Indies," pp.
255-261.

[531] This document and the Will of Robert Pleasants were collected by
Mr. M. N. Work.

[532] Annual Cyclopedia, 1867, pp. 19, 20.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

_History of South Africa from 1795 to 1872._ By GEORGE MCCALL THEAL,
Litt.D., LL.D. George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., London.

This work is intended to be a general history of South Africa in
detail. It is to be completed as a revised edition in five volumes,
three of which have already appeared. Each volume contains about 500
pages, is neatly printed and substantially bound. The work is well
supplied with maps and charts reflecting the growth and development of
the country.

The author of this history has lived in South Africa and has served as
keeper of the archives of the Cape Colony. The preparation of this
history has occupied his almost undivided attention during the last
fifty years. He says that he has made the closest possible research
among official documents of all kinds. Apparently he has had little
use for secondary material, but his large collection of books on South
Africa has served him as a guide. The author asserts that to the
utmost of human ability he has striven to write without fear, favor or
prejudice, to do equal justice to all with whom he had to deal. For
this reason, he offers his work to the public as "not alone the only
detailed history of South Africa yet prepared, but as a true and
absolutely unbiased narrative." The work shows, however, that it is
written in the attitude of arrogating to himself the privileges of the
superior group, exhibiting occasionally a bit of sympathy for the
inferior, who had to be exterminated to make room for those chosen of
God.

The first volume of the work deals largely with the conquest of the
colony. It is mainly a narrative of the deeds of the conquering
leaders of the colonists, closing with an account of the destruction
of the Bantu tribes. In succession, we read here about the exploits of
James Henry Craig, Earl McCartney, Major General Dundas, Sir George
Younge, Jacob Abraham De Mist, J.W. Janssens, General David Baird, Du
Pre Alexander, Lord Charles Somerset, Sir Rufane Shaw, and General
Richard Bourke.

The second volume adheres in the beginning to the same sort of style,
making the history of the whole colony center largely around the life
of a single man, mentioning such characters as Sir Lowry Cole, Sir
Benjamin D'Urban, Sir George Napier, and Sir Peregrine Maitland. In
the 32d chapter, however, the work becomes more nearly historical in
taking up the emigration from Cape Colony, and the abandonment of that
country by many thousands of substantial burghers, who were intent
upon seeking homes in the wilderness. This movement is further
illuminated by a treatment of the emigrant farmers in Natal, the
republic of Natal, its overthrow, its transitory state, and movements
north of the Orange.

The third volume maintains the standard of the last part of the second
in dealing with the Kaffir Wars, and sketching the conditions leading
up to the grant of a liberal constitution. It returns to the District
of Natal from 1845 to 1857, discusses the creation of the Orange River
Sovereignty, the abandonment of the Sovereignty, and the events north
of the Vaal, in the South African Republic and Orange Free State from
1854 to 1857. In these last chapters the author brings out more
prominently than elsewhere the conflict between the whites and the
blacks, the correlated problems arising therefrom, and measures
brought forward to solve them. The reader easily learns that the
handling of the question in South Africa has not been very different
from the method of attack in the United States. The South African
method has, in some respects, been more cruel than that of the United
States.

J. O. BURKE.

* * * * *

_Native Life in South Africa, before and since the European War and
the Boer Rebellion._ By SOLOMON T. PLAATJE. P.S. King and Son, Ltd.,
London, 1916. Pp. 352.

Mr. Plaatje is a South African native, educated near Barkly West at a
mission school. He later studied languages and served as an
interpreter for important officials such as Duke of Connaught and Mr.
Chamberlain. He later rose to a position of some importance in the
Department of Native Affairs. He once edited a paper called _Koranta
ea Becoana_. He is now the editor of the _Tsala ea Batho_ (the
People's Friend). Although treating of questions concerning the
oppression of his people, his writings have been marked by moderation
and common sense. He is not an agitator, not a firebrand, and can,
therefore, be read with profit. Rather resenting the power of the
uneducated chiefs who rule by virtue of their birth alone, Mr. Plaatje
belongs to a new school of thought. He is making a new appeal for the
native.

Mr. Plaatje modestly disclaims any pretension to literary merit. He is
merely giving a "sincere narrative of a melancholy situation, in
which, with all its shortcomings," he "has endeavored to describe the
difficulties of South African natives under a very strange law, so as
most readily to be understood by the sympathetic reader." The author
had access to sources from which he obtained the facts presented. He
has made personal observations in the Transvaal, Orange Free State and
the Province of the Cape of Good Hope. He used other facts collected
by Attorney Msimang of Johannesburg. Organizing these facts, Mr.
Plaatje shows how the native has been maltreated and debased so as to
be considered a pariah of society in his own native land. In the
struggle between right and wrong, the latter has triumphed,
culminating in such an evil as the Native Land Act, an effort at class
legislation, the worst sort of discrimination and segregation in land
tenure.

One would have difficulty in believing that such barbarities could be
practiced within the British Empire, were it not for the fact that Mr.
Plaatje not only quotes from the act _in extenso_ but quotes also from
the debates in the Colonial Parliament to show that the intention of
the legislators was to restrict the native to their reservations or to
servitude among the white population to placate the extreme Dutch
Party in South Africa. In other words, the Colonial Parliament took
the position of Mr. J.G. Keyter, the member for Ficksburg, who said:
"They should tell the native, as the Free State told him, that it was
white man's country, that he was not going to be allowed to buy land
there or hire land there, and that if he wanted to be there, he must
be in service." The author is thankful for the assistance given the
natives by the British, but contends that the fortunes of the former
should not have been committed to the hands of the Dutch Republicans
without adequate safeguards.

The work will doubtless be successful as an appeal to the court of
public opinion, as it is intended. The case is ably and seriously put
and is supported by adequate evidence to warrant the author's
conclusions as to the enormity of the crimes against the natives. In
making this bold agitation for economic equality, this book may
materially influence future events in South Africa and in England. It
will doubtless lead British statesmen to conclude that the imperial
power cannot dissociate itself from the responsibility for native
affairs. The writer will attract attention too because of the novelty
in that this work is the product of the brains of an intelligent
native, who can think and express himself well on public questions. It
will be surprising to those Englishmen who have hitherto treated the
natives altogether as an uneducated mass incapable of thinking and
will certainly excite sympathy among those who believe in the
principles of liberty and justice.

* * * * *

_The Danish West Indies under Company Rule, 1671-1754._ With a
Supplementary Chapter, 1755-1917. By WALDEMAR WESTERGAARD, Assistant
Professor of History at Pomona College. Introduction by H. MORSE
STEPHENS. Macmillan Company, New York, 1917. Pp. 359.

This work is the history of a company of Danish merchants desiring to
avail themselves of the commercial opportunities of the New World. The
work was undertaken prior to the recent negotiations of the United
States for the purchase of the islands. It is the result of an attempt
to "identify and appraise" a number of official and other papers found
in the Bancroft Collection at the University of California. The study
of these documents led to further research in the Danish libraries and
archives, especially the archives of the Danish West India and Guinea
Company. The work then becomes a treatise on the rise and fall of a
great corporation with business as its objective rather than the
sketch of a mere colony. It has a number of helpful maps and
illustrations.

In writing this work, the author easily realized that treated as an
isolated subject it would be worthless. It is, therefore, dealt with
as a part of European history, that phase commonly characterized as
commercial expansion. He, therefore, in accounting for the Danish
interest in colonization and in estimating the part that nation
actually played, finds that the experiences of the Danes were fairly
typical of those of the Dutch, the French, the English and the
Spanish. The narrative then is a succession of accounts of
speculation, competition, prosperity and depression. There are
sketches of adventurers, buccaneers and pirates all brought forward in
such a way as to tell their own story.

The author directs attention to the West Indies as the great theater
in which was played the drama of history in the New World during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Sugar is presented as king. The
author is chiefly concerned with the crucial test to which the company
was subjected, the establishment of the Brandenburgers at St. Thomas,
the leasing of Guinea and St. Thomas, the governorship of John
Lorentz, the plantation colonies of St. Thomas and St. John, the
introduction of slavery, the slave trade, the relations of the planter
and the company, the acquisition of St. Croix, and the career of the
company under a new charter. In the appendix there is such valuable
information as the list of governors in the West Indies and the
Guinea, the directors and board of shareholders in Copenhagen, the
first charter of the Danish West India and Guinea Company, the charter
of 1697, important letters of officials and the report of the board of
police and trade to King Frederick IV in 1716. One finds also the list
of slave cargoes arriving in the Danish West Indies, the list of
prices on St. Thomas from 1687 to 1751, West Indian sugar exported
from Copenhagen, the company's receipts and debts at St. John and St.
Croix, the capital invested in St. Thomas in 1747, the company's
business in cotton, returns on the company's capital, and other
statistics.

The supplementary chapter is an effort to connect as far as possible
the sketch set forth in the preceding part of the book with the events
leading up to the recent purchase of the group by the United States.
The work throughout necessarily deals with the contact of the Negro
with the European, as the African slaves constituted the class of
population to be exploited and, of course, were the factor essential
to the rise and growth of the company.

A. H. CLEMMONS.

* * * * *

_The Taxation of Negroes in Virginia._ By TOPTON RAY SNAVELY,
Phelps-Stokes Fellow at the University of Virginia, 1915-1917.
Publication of the University of Virginia Phelps-Stokes Papers. Pp.
97.

This work is the result of the establishment at the University of
Virginia of a fellowship through a gift from the trustees of the
Phelps-Stokes Fund. The holder of this fellowship must "stimulate and
conduct investigations and encourage a wider general interest among
students concerning the character, condition and possibilities of the
Negroes in the Southern States." Carrying out this plan the incumbents
have organized classes for study and conducted special investigations,
assigning related topics for study, bringing the results before
classes for discussion and sometimes securing distinguished men for
lectures in this field.

In this dissertation the author has undertaken something new. No one
had so far treated the taxation of the Negroes in any State. As
taxation is an important concern of the commonwealth, it was believed
that the way in which the State determined how this burden should fall
on the Negro race would do much in bringing out an understanding as to
the attitude of the whites to the blacks. The author claims to have
adhered strictly to the facts to give an unbiased interpretation of
this phase of history. The work is well done in parts. It should have
been amplified. The most valuable part of it is that which treats of
the problem of taxation since the Civil War. In treating the
antebellum period, the author shows a lack of breadth in that he does
not connect the question of the taxation of Negroes with the struggle
between Eastern and Western Virginia, which finally resulted in the
disruption of the State. He does not show that the West wanted the
increase in taxes, necessitated by the construction of internal
improvements, obtained from a tax on slaves, as the mountaineers did
not have many, while the East was anxious to tax more heavily cattle
and the like which flourished beyond the Alleghanies.

During the colonial period and, at times, after the Revolution,
Negroes paid a capitation tax. It is remarkable that the State of
Virginia in 1814 collected $8,322 from 5,547 free Negroes. The same
class of Negroes paid $11,554 in 1863 at the rate of $2 a head.
Provision was made for the capitation tax in the Constitution of
1867-68. In 1870 the prepayment was required of voters but because of
corruption at the ballot box it was repealed. Delinquency followed and
to counteract this the tax was made a lien on real estate. The
Constitution of 1901-02 made the poll-tax a political measure in
providing that the payment of it six months in advance of election day
should be a prerequisite for voting with a registration clause as
another requirement. These provisions, it seems, have not been
enforced and for that reason many Negroes are returned as delinquent.
In 1914 the whites showed a delinquency of thirty per cent, and the
Negroes sixty per cent.

Taking up real estate, which is the principal source of all taxes paid
by Negroes, the author confines himself to the period since the War.
The Negroes of Virginia had $12,464,377 subject to taxation in 1900
and $28,775,199 in 1914. The tax levy in 1910 was $48,173 and $93,245
in 1914, having almost doubled during the intervening years. The
delinquency in real estate taxes too is much less than that in the
case of capitation taxes.

In answer to the question as to whether the Negroes of the State are
sharing its burden of taxation in proportion to their ability the
author brings out some interesting facts. He finds it difficult to
answer this question accurately. He shows, however, that Negroes
composing 32.6 per cent. of the population pay only a small part of
the $7,757,532 in taxes of all kinds. The real estate, capitation,
personal property and income taxes paid by Negroes in 1914 aggregated
$318,381, or 5 per cent. of the real estate taxes, 3.8 per cent. of
the personal property taxes, 28.1 per cent. of the capitation taxes,
and .000006 per cent. of the income taxes. In all the Negroes pay
about 4.1 per cent. of the revenue of the State. This estimate is
doubtless too low.

NOTES

Mr. A. E. Martin, of the Pennsylvania State College, will soon publish
through the Filson Club _The Anti-Slavery Movement in Kentucky to
1850_. Mr. Martin plans to bring this study down to 1870.

The New York Missionary Education Movement of the United States and
Canada has published _The Lure of Africa_ by C. H. Patton.

W. M. Ramsay's _The Intermixture of Races in Asia Minor_ has come from
the Oxford University Press.

The Harvard University Press has published _Ephod and Ark_, by W. R.
Arnold.

July number of _The Journal of Race Development_ contains two
interesting articles: _On the Culture of White Folk_, by Dr. W. E. B.
DuBois, and _Psychic Factors in the New American Race Situation_, by
George W. Elliss, K.C., F.R.G.S.

The July number of the _American Journal of Sociology_ contains a
rather misinforming article on _The Superiority of the Mulatto_, by
Mr. E. B. Reuter, and another on _Class and Caste_, by Edward Alsworth
Ross.

In the July number of the _South Atlantic Quarterly_ appears _The
Black Codes_, by Prof. John M. Mecklin, of the University of
Pittsburgh.

Prof. Benjamin Brawley will soon publish a work to be known as _The
Genius of the Negro_.

_La Revista Bimestre Cubana_ has published Los _Negros Esclavos_, a
study in sociology and public law by Fernando Ortiz, professor in the
University of Havana.

The United States Bureau of Education in cooperation with the
Phelps-Stokes Fund has published in two volumes a report entitled
_Negro Education, a Study of the Private and Higher Schools for
Colored People in the United States_. This report was prepared under
the direction of Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, specialist in the education
of racial groups. This work was undertaken to comply with that
provision of the will of Miss Caroline Phelps-Stokes directing that
some portion of the income from a fund originally amounting to about
$900,000 be used for the education of Negroes and for research and
publication. In 1912 it was decided to prepare a report on Negro
education to furnish the public with valuable information as to
existing conditions throughout the South. The Bureau of Education
agreed to cooperate with the trustees of the Phelps-Stokes Fund,
bringing the work under the general supervision of the United States
Commissioner of Education. This report is the result of their
efficient cooperation.

On the thirtieth of August, there assembled at the request of the
United States Commissioner of Education a conference to discuss this
report. For two days practically all of the active white and colored
educators in Negro schools discussed the various phases of education
as brought out by this report and undertook to find a working basis
for a more extensive cooperation of all agencies in the uplift of the
Negro. The frank statements of several of the State Superintendents,
like that of Mr. Harris of Louisiana, showed how much good a report of
this kind may do in arousing the best white people of the South to a
realization that it pays to educate all citizens of the state whether
they be white or black. No definite decision was reached but the
conference was a success in leading men to study more seriously the
problems of Negro education.

THE FIRST BIENNIAL MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF NEGRO
LIFE AND HISTORY AT WASHINGTON

There is no fixed rule to determine exactly where the meetings of the
Association shall be held. The constitution grants this power to the
Executive Council. Washington, however, naturally proved attractive
for the reasons that it is located mid-way between the North and the
South, the Association is incorporated under laws of the District of
Columbia, and several of its officers reside there. The extensive
advertising given the meeting and the occurrence of the conference in
Washington on the education of the Negro the following day brought to
the meeting probably the largest number of useful and scholarly
Negroes ever assembled at the national capital. Among these were:
President Nathan B. Young, Mr. W. T. B. Williams, President Byrd
Prillerman, Dr. C. V. Roman, Prof. George E. Haynes, Mr. Monroe N.
Work, President W. J. Hale, Dean Benjamin G. Brawley, Bishop I. N.
Ross, Prof. J. R. Hawkins, Mr. R. P. Hamlin, Mr. C. H. Tobias, and Mr.
A. L. Jackson. The meeting was further honored with the presence of
some of the most useful and distinguished white persons in the
country, namely: Mrs. Louis F. Post, the wife of the Assistant
Secretary of Labor; Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, Educational Expert of the
United States Bureau of Education; Dr. James H. Dillard, Director of
the John F. Slater Fund; Mr. George Foster Peabody, the New York
banker; and Mr. Julius Rosenwald, the well-known philanthropist.

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