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M H'i'^ LIBRARY
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
THE
NEGROES IN NEGROLx\ND;
THE
NEGROES IN AMERICA;
AND
NEGROES GENERALLY.
ALSO,
THE SEVERAL RACES OF WHITE MEN,
CONSIDEKED AS THE INVOLUNTARY AND PREDESTINED SUPPLANTERS OF
THE BLACK RACES.
A COMPILATION, BY
HINTON ROWAN HELPER,
•I
A RATIONAL REPUBLICAN,
Author of" The Impending Crisis of the South," " Nojoque," and other writings
iu behalf of a Free and White America.
"A coranassioa for that which is not and caunot be useful or lovely, is degrading and futile."
Kali'U Waldo Emersoit.
"Among the negroes, no science has been developed, and few questions are ever discussed, except
those which have au intimate connection with the wants of the stomach."
" It lias been proved by measurements, by microscopes, by analyses, that the typical negro is some-
thing between a child, a dotard, and a beast. X cannot struggle against these sacred facts of science.
WiNWonn Ueade.
"Our countrv might well have shrunk from assuming the guardianship of the negro."
Geokge Bancroft.
«' It is the strictlv white races that are bearing onward the flambeau of civilization, as displayed in
the Germanic families alone." JosiAU Clark Nott.
.••>
NEW YORK:
p. W. CAf\LETON, PUBLISHEI\.
LONDON: S. LOW, SON, & CO.
MDCCCLXVni.
/o>L<i^OU-^C^i^'''-
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S68, by
G . W . C A E L E T O X ,
In the Clerk's Oflfice of the District Court for the Southern District of New York,
TO
^uirgc 'Hlcrrimon,
(FORMERLY OF ASHEVILLE, NOW OF RALEIGH,)
•WHO,
AS A GOOD 3[Ay,
A8 AN ABLE LAWYER, AS AX EMINENT CIVIL PATRIOT,
AS A WISE AND NATIONAL STATESMAN,
"U'lLL,
IT IS HOPED, AT NO DISTANT DAY
BE
A FITLY REWARDED SERVANT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
IN
THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,
THIS VOLUME
IS MOST RESPECTFULLY
DEDICATED.
CONTENTS.
♦—
Paob
CHAPTER I.
Cannibalism in Negroland •••••15
CHAPTER II.
Human Butcheries, and Human Sacrifices in Negroland, . • • • . 19
CHAPTER III.
Human Skulls as Sacred Relics and Ornaments in Negroland, • • • . 25
CHAPTER IV.
Blood-thirstiness and Barbarity of the Negroes in Negroland, , . . .29
CHAPTER V.
Slavery and the Slave-trade in Negroland, • 37
CHAPTER VI.
Heathenish Superstition and "Witchcraft in Negroland, . • . . . 45
CHAPTER VII.
Fetichism, Priestcraft, and Idolatry in Negroland, 57
CHAPTER VIII.
Rain Doctors, and Other Doctors in Negroland, 70
CHAPTER IX,
Nakedness, Shamelessness, and Prostitution in Negroland, . . . .75
CHAPTER X.
Drunkenness and Debauchery in Negroland, 79
CHAPTER XI.
Night Carousals, and Noisy and Nonsensical Actions in Negroland, . . 80
CHAPTER XII.
Inhospitality to Strangers, Begging, Extortion, and Robbery in Negroland, . 82
CHAPTER XIII.
Wrangling, Lawlessness, Penury, and Misery in Negroland, . . . .89
CHAPTER XIV.
Theft, as a Fine Art, among the Africans, 94
CHAPTER XV.
Lying, as an Accomplishment, among the Africans, ,,,,,, 97
CHAPTER XVI.
Duplicity and Venality of the Negroes in Negroland, 98
CHAPTER XVII.
Revolting Voracity and Gluttony of the Negroes in Negroland, . . .100
ri CONTENTS.
Page
CHAPTER XVIII.
Dislike of their own Color by the Negroes in Negroland, 102
CHAPTER XIX.
Courtship, Marriage, and Concubinage in Negroland, . • • . • .105
CHAPTER XX.
Mumbo Jumbo in Negroland, • • . • • 117
CHAPTER XXI.
Funeral and Burial Rites in Negroland, , , , . 118
CHAPTER XXII.
Indolence and Improvidence of the Negroes, ..•••.. 122
CHAPTER XXIII.
Timidity and Cowardice of the Negroes, 125
CHAPTER XXIV.
African Anecdotes, 130
CHAPTER XXIV.
Utter Failure and Inutility of all Missionary Enterprises in Negroland, . . 134
CHAPTER XXVI.
Miscellaneous Peculiarities, Manners, Habits, and Customs, of the Negroes
in Negroland, 138
CHAPTER XXVII.
Huts, Hovels, and Holes (but no Houses) in Negroland, 152
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Gradual Decrease, and Probable Extinction of the Negro Race, . . . 158
CHAPTER XXIX.
Natural, Repulsive, and Irreconcilable Points of Difference, Physical, Mental,
and Moral, between the Whites and the Blacks, 162
CHAPTER XXX.
American Writers on the Negro, 173
CHAPTER XXXI.
Mulattoes ; the Offspring of Crimes against Nature, 216
CHAPTER XXXII.
Albinos, White Negroes, and Other Creatures of Preternatural Whiteness, . 223
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Increasing Preeminence and Predominance of the White Races, . . .227
Appexdix I., ...*..• 237
" II •..•••.•... 249
INTRODUCTION.
The compiler of this volume deems it proper to protest
here, at the very outset of his undertaking, against the un-
just and ill-boding practice of indiscriminately stigmatizing
as a traitor almost every man, whether in the North or in
the South, in the East or in the West, who, in the exercise
of his constitutional rights and honest convictions, raises his
voice in opposition to the revolutionary and destructive
measures of the party now dominant in oiu* National Legis-
lature. With deep solemnity and truth, he declares that he
was always earnest and emphatic, and even enthusiastic, —
and not less so now than heretofore, — in deploring and
condemning the act of secession, and, at the same time, in
justifying and defending the principles upon which the Gov-
ernment of the United States, when opposed by force of
arms, maintained itself, and re-established its authority from
the Potomac to the Rio Grande. Why, then, why does a
man who never, by word nor by deed, gave the least aid or
comfort to the rebellion, but, on the contrary, did all he
could to weaken and suppress it, — why does a man of these
antecedents, a plain, unpretentious citizen, who, until he*
became a Republican, was always a Whig of the school of
Clay and Webster ; who, from first to last, heartily endorsed
and supported the administration of Abraham Lincoln, and
who has no ambition beyond the exact knowledge and per-
formance of his duty ; — why does a man of this sort find it
impossible to yield his suffrage or commendation to the
party now in power, — a party which, with Pharisaical boast-
7
/
VIII INTRODUCTION.
ing, lays claim to the distinctive and exclusive patriotisna
of having saved the country from disruption ? The reason
is broad, plain, and even more than sufficient. The party
has, since the termination of the war, viciously and unpar-
donably abandoned the old landmarks of just and sacred
fealty to race ; and it is now advocating what means the
prostitution in bulk of a great and good white integer to a
small and bad black fraction. The policy of the Radical
(not the Republican) party, if carried out to its logical ends,
will inevitably result in the forced political, religious, civil,
and social equality of the white and black races ; and the
direful sequence of that result, so flagrantly unnatural and
wrong in itself, can only be reasonably looked for in the ulti-
mate degradation, division, and destruction of the Republic.
It is in the sincere hope of lessening at least some of the
dangers of the shocking and wide-spread calamities thus al-
luded to, that this compilation is offered to an intelligent
and discriminating public.
There are now in the United States of America thirty
millions of white people, who are (or ought to be) bound
together b}^ the ties of a kindred origin, b}^ the affinities of a
sameness of noble purpose, by the links of a common na-
tionality, and by the cords of an inseparable destiny. We
have here also, unfortunatelj" for us all, four millions of
black people, whose ancestors, like themselves, were never
known (except in ver}^ rare instances, which form the ex-
ceptions to a general rule) to aspire to any other condition
than that of base and beastlike slavery. These black
people are, by nature, of an exceedingly low and grovelling
disposition. They have no trait of character that is lovely
or admirable. They are not high-minded, enterprising, nor
prudent. In no age, in no part of the world, have the}', of
themselves, ever projected or advanced any public or private
Interest, nor given expression to any thought or sentiment
that could worthily elicit the praise, or even the favorable
INTRODUCTION, tX
mention, of the better portion of mankind. Seeing, then,
thcat the negro does, indeed, belong to a lower and inferior
order of beings, why, in the name of Heaven, why should we
forever degrade and disgrace both ourselves and our pos-
terity by entering, of our own volition, into more intimate
relations with him ? May God, in his restraining mercy, for-
bid that we should ever do this most foul and wicked thing !
Acting under the influence of that vile spirit of deception
and chicanery which is always familiar with every false pre-
tence, the members of a Radical Congress, the editors of a
venal press, and other peddlers of perverted knowledge, are
now loudly proclaiming that nowhere in our country, hence-
forth, must there be any distinction, any discrimination, on
account of color; thereby covertly inculcating the gross
error of inferring or supposing that color is the only differ-
ence— and that a very trivial difference — between the
whites and the blacks ! Now, once for all, in conscientious
deference to truth, let it be distinctly made known and ac-
knowledged, that, in addition to the black and baneful color
of the negro, there are numerous other defects, physical,
mental; and moral, which clearly mark him, wEen_compared
with the white man, as a ver^jUffemuiandJnferior creature.
^Miiie, therefore, with an involuntary repugnance which we
cannot control, and with a wholesome antipathy which it
would be both unnatural and unavailing in us to attempt to
destroy, we behold the crime-stained blackness of the negro,
let us, also, at the same time, take cognizance of
His low and compressed Forehead ;
His hard, thick Skull ;
His small, backward-thrown Brain ;
His short, crisp Hair ;
His flat Nose ;
His thick Lips ;
His projecting, snout-like Mouth ;
X INTR OD UCTION.
His strange, Eunuch-toned Voice ;
The scantiness of Beard on his Face ;
The Toughness and Unsensitiveness of his Skin ;
The Thinness and Shrunkenness of his Thighs ;
His curved Knees ;
His calfless Legs ;
His low, short Ankles ;
His long, flat Heels ;
His glut-shaped Feet ;
The general Angularity and Oddity of his Frame ;
The Malodorous Exhalations from his Person ;
His Puerility of Mind ;
His Inertia and Sleepy-headedness ;
His proverbial Dishonesty ;
His predisposition to fabricate Falsehoods ; and
His Apathetic Indifference to all Propositions and Enter-
prises of Solid Merit.
Many other differences might be mentioned ; but the score
and more of obvious and undeniable ones here enumerated
ousfht to sutUce for the utter confusion and shame of all those
disingenuous politicians and others, who, knowing better, and
who are thus guilty of the crime of defeating the legitimate
ends of their own knowledge, would, for mere selfish and
pai'tisan x^urposes, convey the delusive impression that there
is no other difference than that of color.
Now, far more than at any time hitherto, the white people
of the United States, influenced by circumstances which are
well understood, seem to be particularly interested to know
precisely what manner of man the negro is. This is an
auspicious fact. It augurs favorably for the whole country.
What the people require now is light, information, knowl-
edge. Let them have this, and the great principles of
Virtue, Truth, Right, and Honor will be maintained. Only
let the masses of our people earnestly and fairly prosecqte
INTRODUCTION. XI
their inquiries and investigations in reference to the negro,
and they will, erelong, by the irresistible force of involun-
tary conviction, come to pronounce an enlightened and just
judgment upon all of the more important questions which
now affect the relations of the two hetero2:eneous races amons:
us. In the very nature and fitness of things, it cannot be
otherwise than that the verdict which, at no distant day,
may thus be looked for from the public, will be a conclusive
finding and a finality against the negro, — a verdict which,
of rightful necessity, must be sweepingly abrogative of all
the hasty and unsound decisions which have been so recently
and so rashly pronounced by the corrupt arbiters to whom
the Radical party owes its inexpressibly ignoble and per-
nicious existence.
To many worthy persons, who desire to deal intelligently
and honestly with the political questions which are now agi-
tating the public mind, a thorough knowledge of the nature
of the negro has become almost indispensable ; and, to all
persons of this sort, it is humbly hoped and believed that this
compilation may prove highly serviceable. Attention is par-
ticularly invited to the testimonies, herein quoted, of such
observant and veracious African travellers as Mungo Park,
Denham, Clapperton, Lander, Livingstone, Barth, Lichten-
stein, Du Chaillu, Caillie, Valdez, Bruce, Baker, Speke, Dun-
can, Wilson, Moffat, Reade, Richardson, Burton, and Barrow.
Following the interesting and instructive statements of these
disinterested white men, mostly Europeans, who have seen
the negro in Negroland, are also portrayed the opinions of
numerous American writers, whose views of the negro, and
of the races of men generally, are equally essential to a proper
understanding of all the points in controvers3^ Of these Amer-
ican writers, those from the North are here more particularly
referred to ; and it is trusted that the reader will ponder well
the words of such truly able and representative men as John
Adams, Daniel Webster, Horace Mann, Theodore Parker,
XII INTRODUCTION.
Samuel George Morton, "William Henry Seward, and others
of scarcely less distinction. Among the ablest and best of
the Southern men, from whose writings on the negro, and on
other kindred subjects, extracts are here given, will be noticed
the names of Thomas Jefferson, Henry Clay, Thomas Hart
Benton, Abraham Lincoln, Montgomery Blair, and Josiah
Clark Nott. No language of the compiler can do justice to
the perfect portraiture which we have of the negro from the
pen of the philosophic and profound Jefferson. Let his ster-
ling words of wisdom be most thoroughly and attentively pe-
rused. It will be particularly observed that everything herein
quoted from him was written many years subsequently to the
time when he drafted the Declaration of Independence. The
fact should also be constantly borne in mind that, while in the
Declaration of Independence Mr. Jefferson, in all rational
probabilitj^, had no reference whatever to any race except
that to which he himself belonged, in the extracts herein
given, he discusses the negro by emphatic and frequent des-
ignation, and in the most direct and positive manner. By
reference to the Index, the reader will perceive the names of
many other eminent and unimpeachable writers, both North-
ern and Southern, — and also European, — to all of whom
the compiler, at least, would here offer his most heart}' ac-
knowledgments for much new and valuable information.
There are many points of general dissatisfaction and dis-
pute, which should not, on any account, be overlooked in the
discussion of the subjects here presented. One of these is,
that white people, whose reason and honor have not been vi-
tiated, object to close relationship with negroes, not wishing
to live with them in the same house ; not wishing to fellow-
ship with them in the same society, assembly, or congrega-
tion ; not wishing to ride with them in the same omnibus,
car, or carriage ; and not wishing to mess with them at the
same table, whether at a hotel, in a restaurant, on a steamer,
or elsewhere. Now, any and every white person who does
INTRODUCTION. XIIl
not think and act in strict accordance with the just and pure
promptings here indicated, is, in reality, a most unworthy and
despicable representative of his race. Even the lower animals,
the creatures of mere instinct, — the beasts, the birds, and
the fishes, — many distinct species of wdiich are apparently
quite similar, set us daily and hourly examples of the emi-
nent propriety of each kind forming and maintaining separate
communities of their own ; and so we always find them, —
in herds, in flocks, and in shoals^] How can the negro be a
fit person to occupy, in any capacit}', our houses or our ho-
tels, our theatres or our churches, our schools or our colleges,
our steamers or our vehicles, or any other place or places
of uncommon comfort and convenience, which owe their cre-
ation, their proper uses, and their perpetuity, to the w^iites
alone, — places and improvements about which the negro, of
himself, is, and always has been, absolutely ignorant and in-
different ?J Neither in his own country nor elsewhere has the
nesfro ever built a house or a theatre ; he has never erected
a church nor a college ; he has never constructed a steamer
nor a railroad, nor a railroad-car, — nor, except when under
the special direction and control of superior intelligence, has
he ever invented or manufactured even the minutest append-
age of any one of the distinctive elements or realities of
human progress. Yet, let this not, by any means, be un-
derstood as an argument, nor even as a hint, in behalf of
slavery. It is to the great and lasting honor of the Repub-
lic that slavery in the United States is abolished forever.
In losing her slaves, the South lost nothing that was worth
the keeping. Had slavery only been abolished b}^ law many
years ago, our w^hole country would be infinitely better off
to-day. 1
Never will it be possible for the compiler to erase from his
memory the feelings of weighty sadness and disgust which
overcame him, a few months since, when, while sojourning
in the city of Washington, he walked, one day, into the Cap-
2
XIV INTRODUCTION,
itol, and, leisurely passing into the galleries of the two houses
of Congress, beheld there, uncouthly lounging and dozing
upon the seats, a horde of vile, ignorant, and foul-scented
negroes. He was perplexed, shocked, humiliated, and indig-
nant, — and could not sit down. With merited emotions of
bitterness and contempt for those narrow-minded white men,
through whose detestable folly and selfishness so great an
outrage against public propriety and decency had been per-
petrated, he turned away ; — indeed, it was not in his power
to contemplate with calmness that motley and monstrous
manifestation of national incongruit}^, ugliness, and disgrace.
Then it was that, for the first time in his life, he wished him-
self a Hercules, in order that he might be able to clean,
thoroughly and at once, those Augean stables of the black
ordure and Eadical filth which, therein and elsewhere, had
already accumulated to an almost insufferable excess. It
was the powerful and long-lingering momentum of the im-
pressions received on that occasion, more than any other
circumstance, that gave definite form and resolution to the
purpose (although the idea had been previously entertained)
of preparing this compilation. The object of the compiler
will have been well attained if the work aids materially in
more fully convincing his countrymen, North, South, East
and West, /'that negro equality, negro supremacy, and negro
dominationTa's now tyrannically enforced at the point of the
bayonet, are cruel and atrocious innovations, which ought to
be speedily terminated. H. R. H.
Abheville, North Carolina, June 2, 1868.
THE NEGROES IN NEGROLAND.
CHAPTER I.
CANNIBALISM IN NEGROLAND.
•* It is plain, from all history, that two abominable practices, —
the one the eating of men, the other of sacrificing them to the
deTil, — prevailed all over Africa. The India trade, as we have
seen in very early ages, first established the buying and selling of
slaves ; since that time, the eating of men, or sacrificing them,
has so greatly decreased on the eastern side of the peninsula, that
now we scarcely hear of an instance of either of these that can be
properly vouched. On the western part, towards the Atlantic
Ocean, where the sale of slaves began a considerable time later,
after the discovery of America and the West Indies, both of these
horrid practices are general." — Bruce' s Africa, Vol. I., page 393.
•'The common food of the natives of Ansiko is men's flesh,
insomuch that their marliets are provided with that, as ours in
Europe with beef or mutton : all prisoners of war, unless they can
sell them alive with greater advantage, otherwise, as we said,
they fatten them for slaughter, and at last sell them to the butchers.
To this savage barbarity they are so naturalized, that some slaves,
whether as weary of their lives, or to show their love to their
masters, will proffer themselves freely to be killed and eaten.
But that which is most inhuman, and beyond the ferocity of beasts,
is, that the father scruples not to eat his son, nor the son his father,
nor one brother the other, but take them by force, devouring their
flesh, the blood yet reeking hot between their teeth." — Ogilby's
Africa, page 518.
15
16 CANNIBALISM IN NEGROLAND.
*' Whosoever dies, be the disease never so contagious, yet they
eat the flesh immediately, as a festival dish." — Ogilbifs Africa^
page 518.
*' Bello, the Governor of Sackatoo, said that whenever a person
complained of sickness amongst 'the Yamyams, even though only
a slight headache, they are killed instantl}^ for fear they should
be lost by death, as they will not eat a person that has died by
sickness ; that the person falling sick is requested by some other
family, and repaid when they had a sick relation ; that universall}^
when they went to war, the dead and wounded were always eaten ;
that the hearts were claimed by the head men ; and that, on asking
them why they eat human flesh, they said it was better than any
other, and that the heart and breasts of a woman were the best
part of the body." — Denliam and ClapiJertoii's Africa, Vol. IV.,
page 262.
" Many of Ibrahim's party had been frequent witnesses to acts
of cannibalism, during their residence among the Makkarikas.
They described these cannibals as remarkably good people, but
possessing a peculiar taste for dogs and human flesh. They ac-
companied the trading party in their razzias, and invariably ate
the bodies of the slain. The traders complained that they were
bad associates, as they insisted upon killing and eating the chil-
dren which the party wished to secure as slaves ; their custom
was to catch a child b}' its ankles, and to dasli its head against
the ground ; thus killed, they opened the abdomen, extracted the
stomach and intestines ; and tying the two ankles to the neck, they
carried the body by slinging over the shoulder, and thus returned
to camp, where they divided it by quartering, and boiling it in a
large pot. . . . One of the slave girls attempted to escape,
and her proprietor immediately fired at her with his musket, and
she fell wounded ; the ball had struck her in the side. The girl
was remarkably fat, and from the wound a large \\xm^ of yellow
fat exuded. No sooner had she fallen than the Makkarikas rushed
upon her in a crowd, and, seizing the fat, they tore it from the
wound in handfuls, the girl being still alive, while the crowd were
quarrelling for the disgusting prize. Others killed her with a
CANNIBALISM IN NEGROLAND, 17
lance, and at once divided her by cutting oflf tlie head, and split-
ting the body with their lances, used as knives, cutting longitudi-
nally from between the legs along the spine to the neck." — Baker's
Great Basin of the Nile, page 201.
" The butchers' shops of the Anziques are filled with human
flesh, instead of that of oxen or of sheep. For they eat the ene-
mies whom they take in battle. They fatten, slay, and devour
their slaves also, unless they think they shall get a good
price for them. . . . There are indeed many cannibals, . . .
but none such as these, since the others only eat their enemies;
but these eat their own blood relations." — African Explorations
by Eduardo Lopez, quoted hy Huxley, in Man''s Place in Nature,
page 55.
" On the occasion of the appointment of a chief to the supreme
command, a bullock is sacrificed by the Samba Golambole, as also
a white sheep, and a white or fawn-colored pigeon, together with
various other victims. But the principal sacrifice is that of one
slave from each of the nations under the dominion of the para-
mount chief, the heads of whom are carried in triumph and ex-
hibited to the populace, accompanied by drums and other instru-
ments. The bodies are added to those of the other animals, and
all cooked together, and distributed as a savory dish to the chief
and the other nobles." — Valdez's Africa, Vol. II., page 331.
" The next morning we moved off for the Fan village, and now
I had the opportunity to satisfy myself as to a matter I had cher-
ished some doubt on before, namely, the cannibal practices of
these people. I was satisfied but too soon. As we entered the
town I perceived some bloody remains which looked to me to be
human; but I passed on, still incredulous. Presently we passed
a woman who solved all doubt. She bore with her a piece of the
thigh of a human body, just as we should go to market and carry
thence a roast or a steak." — Du CTiaillu's Equatorial Africa, page
103.
2*
18 CANNIBALISM IN NEGROLAND.
*« Until to-day I never could believe two stories, — both well
authenticated, but seeming quite impossible to any one un-
acquainted with this people, — which are told of them on the Ga-
boon. A party of Fans, who came down to the sea-shore once to
see the sea, actually stole a freshly-buried body from the ceme-
tery, and cooked it and ate it among them ; and another party
took another body, conveyed it into the woods, cut it up, and
smoked the flesh, which they carried away with them. The cir-
cumstances made a great fuss among the Mpongwe, and even
the missionaries heard of it, but I never credited the stories till
now, though the facts were well authenticated by witnesses. In
fact, the Fans seem regular ghouls, only they practise their horrid
custom unblushingly and in open day, and have no shame about
it. These stories seem so incredible, and even the fact that these
people actually buy and eat the corpses of their neighbors — rest-
ing as it does upon my statement alone — has excited so much
evident disbelief among friends in the country, to whom I have
mentioned this custom, that I am very glad to be able to avail
myself of the concurrent testimony of a friend, the Kev. Mr.
Walker, of the Gaboon mission, wiio authorizes me to say that he
vouches for the entire trath of the two stories above related." —
Du Chaillu's Equatorial Africay page 120.
" While I was talking to the king to-day, some Fans brought in
a dead body, which they had bought in a neighboring town, and
which was now to be divided. I could see that the man had died
of some disease. I confess I could not bear to stay for the cut-
ting up of the body, but retreated when all was ready. It made
me sick all over. I remained till the infernal scene was about to
beo-in, and then retreated. Afterward I could hear them from
my house growing noisy over the division. This is a form of can-
nibalism — eating those who have died of sickness — of which I
had never heard in any people ; so that I determined to inquire if
it were indeed a general custom, or merely an exceptional freak.
They spoke without embarrassment about the whole matter, and
I was informed that they constantly buy the dead of the Osheba
tribe, who, in return, buy theirs." — Du Chaillu's Equatorial Af-
ricaj page 120.
HUMAN BUTCHERIES AND SACRIFICES IN NEGROLAND. 19
"After visiting the house assigned me, I was taken through
the town, where I saw more dreadful signs of cannibalism in piles
of human bones, mixed up with offal, thrown at the sides of sev-
eral houses." — Dm Chaillu's Equatorial Africa, page 105.
** On going out next morning I saw a pile of ribs, leg and arm
bones, and skulls piled up at the back of my house, which looked
horrid enough to me. In fact, symptoms of cannibalism stare me
in the face wherever I go." — Du Chaillu's Equatorial Africa, page
106.
CHAPTER II.
HUMAN BUTCHERIES AND HUMAN SACRIFICES IN NEGROLAND.
" The main object contemplated in the national anniversary of
Dahomey is, that the king may water the graves of his ancestors
with the blood of human victims. These are numerous, consist-
ing of prisoners taken in war, of condemned criminals, and of
many seized by lawless violence. The captives are brought out
in succession, with their arms pinioned, and a feticheer, laying
his hand upon the devoted head, utters a few magic words, while
another from behind, with a large scimitar, severs it from the
body, when shouts of applause ascend from the suiTounding mul-
titude. At any time when the king has a message to convey to
one of his deceased relations, he delivers it to one of his subjects,
then strikes off his head, that he may cany it to the other world ;
and, if anything further occurs to him after he has performed this
ceremony, he delivers it to another messenger, whom he de-
spatches in the same manner. Another great object of this period-
ical festival is the market for wives. All the unmarried females
throughout the kingdom are esteemed the property of the sover-
eign, and are brought to the annual customs, to be placed at his
disposal. He selects for himself such as appear most beautiful
and engaging, and retails the others at enormous prices to his
20 HUMAN BUTCHEmES AND SACRIFICES IN NEGROLAND.
chiefs and nobles. No choice on this occasion is allowed to the
purchaser. In return for his twenty thousand cowries, a wife is
handed out, and, even be she old and ugly, he must rest con-
tented; nay, some, it is said, have in mockery been presented
with their own mothers. The king usually keeps his wives up to
the number of three thousand, who serve him in various capaci-
ties,— being partly trained to act as a body-guard, regularly
regimented, and equipped with drums, flags, bows and arrows,
while a few carry muskets. They all reside in the palace, which
consists merely of an immense assemblage of cane and mud tents,
enclosed by a high wall. The skulls and jawbones of enemies
slain in battle form the favorite ornament of the palaces and tem-
ples. The king's apartment is paved, and the walls and roof
stuck over with these horrid trophies ; and, if a further supply
appears desirable, he announces to his general that his house
wants thatch, when a war for that purpose is immediately under-
taken." — Hurray's African Discoveries, page 199.
. *' At Coomassie the customs, or human sacrifices, are practised
on a scale still more tremendous than at Dahomey. The king had
lately sacrificed on the grave of his mother three thousand victims,
two thousand of whom were Fantee prisoners ; and at the death
of the late sovereign, the sacrifice was continued weekly for three
months, consisting each time of two hundred slaves. The absurd
belief here entertained, that the rank of the deceased in the future
world is decided by the train which he carries along with him,
makes filial piety interested in jDromoting by this means the exal-
tation of a departed parent. On these occasions, the caboceers
and princes, in order to court royal favor, often rush out, seize the
first person they meet, and drag him in for sacrifice. While the
customs last, therefore, it is with trembling steps that any one
crosses his threshold ; and, when compelled to do so, he rushes
along with the utmost speed, dreading every instant the murder-
ous grasp which would consign him to death." — Murraifs African
Discoveries, page 204.
*' The practice of offering human sacrifices to appease evil spirits
is common ; but in no place more frequent, or on a larger scale.
HUMAN BUTCHERIES AND SACRIFICES IN NEGROLAND. 21
than in the kingdoms of Ashantee and Dahomi, and in the Bormy
River. Large numbers of victims, chiefly prisoners of war, are
statedly sacrificed to the manes of the royal ancestors in both of
the first-mentioned places, and under circumstances of shocking
and almost unparalleled cruelty. At the time of the death of a
king, a large number of his principal wives and favorite slaves
are put to death, not so much, however, as sacrifices to aj)pease
his wrath, as to be his companions and attendants in another
world, — a practice, which, though cruel and revolting in itself,
nevertheless keeps up a lively impression of a future state of ex-
istence." — Wilsoii's Africa, page 219.
"We find throughout all the country north of 20°, which I con-
sider to be real negro, the custom of slaughtering victims to ac-
company the departed soul of a chief, and human sacrifices are
occasionally offered, and certain parts of the bodies are used as
charms." — Livingstone's Africa, page 631.
*' When a chief dies, a number of servants are slaughtered with
him to form his company in the other world." — Livingstone's
Africa, page 342.
"When an Ashantee of any distinction dies, several of the
deceased's slaves are sacrificed. This horrible custom oricrinates
in some shadowy ideas of a future state of existence ; in which
they imagine that those who have departed hence stand in need
of food, clothing, and other things, as in the present world ; and
that, as a vast number of concubines and slaves are the chief
marks of superiority among them here, so it must also be in a
future state. Accordingly, as I walked out early in the morning,
I saw the mangled corpse of a poor female slave, who had been
beheaded during the night, lying in the public street. It was
partially covered with a common mat, and, as this covering is
unusual, I concluded that it was thrown over, in order to hide it
from my view. In the course of the day I saw groups of the
natives dancing round this victim of superstitious cruelty, with
numerous frantic gestures, and who seemed to be in the very
22 HUMAN BUTCHERIES AND SACRIFICES IN NEGROLAND.
zenith of their happiness. . . . That only one person wa3
immolated, I believe, resulted entirely from my j)resence in the
town." — Freeman's Africa^ page 24.
"Amidst great ostentatious display, I saw what was calculated
to harrow up the strongest and most painful feelings, — the royal
executioners, bearing the blood-stained stools on which hundreds,
and perhaps thousands, of human victims have been sacrificed by
decapitation, and also the large death-drum, which is beaten at
the moment when the fatal knife severs the head from the body,
the very sound of which conveys a thrill of horror. This rude in-
strument, connected with which are most dreadful associations,
was literally covered with dried clots of blood, and decorated
with the jawbones and skulls of human victims." — Freeman's
Africa, page 47.
** To-day another human victim was sacrificed, on account of
the death of a person of rank. As I was going out of the town,
in the cool of the evening, I saw the poor creature lying on the
ground. The head was severed from the body, and lying at a
short distance from it ; several large turkey-buzzards were feast-
ing on the wounds, and rolling the head in the dust. He appeared
to be about eighteen years of age ; a strong, healthy youth, who
might, in all probability, have lived forty, fifty, or even sixty
years longer." — Freeman'' s Africa^ page 28.
" Throughout the day I heard the horrid sound of the death-
drum, and was told in the evening that about twenty-five human
victims had been sacrificed, some in the town, and some in the
surrounding villages, the heads of those killed in the villages
being brought into the town in baskets. ... I learned that
several more human victims had been immolated during the day,
but could not ascertain the exact number. The most accurate
account I could obtain was, that fifteen more had suffered ; making
a total of forty, in two days. . . . These poor victims w^ere
allowed to lie naked and exposed in the streets, until they began
to decompose ; and such is the callous state of mind in which the
MUMAN BVTCEERIES AND SACRIFICES IN NEGROLAND. 23
people live, that many were walking about among the putrefying
bodies, smoking their jDipes, with amazing indifference." — Free-
man's Africa^ pages 53 and 54.
«* The executioner, at one blow on the back of the neck, divided
the head from the body of the first culprit, with the exception of
a small portion of the skin, which was separated by passing the
knife underneath. Unfortunately, the second man was dreadfully
mangled, for the poor fellow, at the moment the blow was struck,
having raised his head, the knife struck in a slanting direction and
only made a large wound ; the next blow caught him on the back
of the head, when the brain protruded. The poor fellow strug-
gled violently. The third stroke caught him across the shoulders,
inflicting a dreadful gash. The next caught him on the neck,
which was twice repeated. The officer steadying the criminal
now lost his hold on account of the blood which rushed from the
blood-vessels on all who were near. The executioner, now quite
palsied, took hold of the head, and, after twisting it several times
round, separated it from the still convulsed and struggling trunk.
During the latter part of this disgusting execution the head pre-
sented an awful spectacle, the distortion of the features, and the
eyeballs completely upturned, giving it a horrid appearance.
The next man, poor fellow, with his eyes partially shut and head
drooping forward near to the ground, remained all this time in sus-
pense ; casting a partial glance on the head which was now close
to him, and the trunk dragged close past him, the blood still rush-
ing from it like a fountain. . . . The fourth culprit was not
so fortunate, his head not being separated till after three strokes.
The body afterwards rolled over several times, when the blood
spurted over my face and clothes. The most disgusting part of
this abominable and barbarous execution was that of an old, ill-
looking wretch, who, like the numerous vultures, stood with a
small calabash in his hand, ready to catch the blood from each
individual, which he greedily devoured before it had escaped
one minute from the veins. . . . After decapitation the body
is immediately dragged off by the heels to a large pit at a con-
siderable distance from the town and thrown therein, and is im-
mediately devoured by wolves and vultures, which are here so
24 HUMAN BUTCHERIES AND SACRIFICES IN NEGROLAND.
raveuous that they will almost take your victuals from you." -
Duncan's Africa, Vol. /., pages 250 and 252.
" On our way up the river Calabar my attention was attracted
by something of a very extraordinary appearance hanging over
the water from the branch of a tree. My curiosity was excited by
it, and I was at a loss to conjecture what it was. I did not remain
long in suspense, for we soon passed sufficiently near it to enable
me to discover that it was the body of one of the natives suspended
by the middle, with the feet and hands just touching the water.
. . . The natives of this place are pagans, in the most depraved
condition. They believe in a good spirit, who, they imagine,
dwells in the water ; and sacrifices such as that just mentioned
are frequently made to him, with the idea of gaining his favor and
protection. The object selected for this purpose is generally
some unfortunate old slave, who may be worn out and incapable
of further service, or unfit for the market; and he is thus left to
suffer death, either from the effects of the sun, or from the fangs
of some hungry alligator or shark which may chance to find the
body. The circumstance of the hands and feet being just al-
lowed to be immersed in the water is considered by these deluded
people as necessary, and they are thereby rendered an easier
prey.'' — Lander's Travels in Africa, Vol. II., page 315.
'"The sixth of the month was announced as the beginning of
the sacrificial rites, which were to last five days. Early in the
morning, two hundred females of the Amazonian guard, naked to
the waist, but richly ornamented with beads and rings at every
joint of their oiled and glistening limbs, appeared in the area
before the king's palace, armed with blunt cutlasses. Very soon
the sovereign made his appearance, when the band of Avarriors
began their manoeuvres, keeping pace, with rude but not unmar-
tial skill, to the native drum and flute. A short distance from the
palace, within sight of the square, a fort or inclosure, about nine
feet high, had been built of adobe, and surrounded by a pile of
tall prickly briers. Within this barrier, secured to stakes, stood
fifty captives, who were to be immolated at the opening of the
festival. AYhen the drill of the Amazons and the royal review
HUMAN SKULLS AS SACRED RELICS AND ORNAMENTS. 25
were over, there was, for a considerable time, perfect silence in
the ranks and throughout the vast multitudes of spectators.
Presentl}^ at a signal from the king, one hundred of the women
departed at a run, brandishing their weapons and yelling their
war-cry, till, heedless of the thorny barricade, they leaped the
walls, lacerating their flesh in crossing the prickly impediment.
The delay was short. Fifty of these female demons, with torn
limbs and bleeding faces, quickly returned, and offered their howl-
ing victims to the king. It was now the duty of this personage to
begin the sacrifice with his royal hand. Calling the female whose
impetuous daring had led her foremost across the thorns, he took
a glittering sword from her grasp, and in an instant the head of
the first victim fell to the dust." — CanoVs Tioenty Tears of an
African Slaver, page 267.
CHAPTER III.
HUMAN SKULLS AS SACKED RELICS AND OENAMENTS IN NEGRO-
LAND.
*' Human skulls were built in the walls of the palace, about
half the skull projecting beyond the surface of the walls. After a
number of introductions, similar to those on the former days, the
king's mother entered the court, preceded by six women, carrying
large brass pans filled with skulls, with shank-bones fixed perpen-
dicularly to the outside of the pans. Another pan, covered with
scarlet cloth, as also two other pots of an oval shape, were carried
on the heads of females, with a skull placed on the top or over
the mouth of each. After parading these different vessels round
the palace-yard, they were placed on the ground, in front of sev-
eral calabashes (previously placed there), containing a number
of scalps." — Duncan'' s Africa, Vol. I., page 253 i
" About ten yards in front of the place where his majesty lay,
26 HUMAN SKULLS AS SACRED RELICS AND ORNAMENTS.
three skulls were placed on the ground, forming an equilateral
triangle, about three feet apart. At a little distance from the
three-named .slvull.s, a calabash was placed, containing several
skulls of distinguished men taken or killed in war. . . . The
pole of each standard was mounted with the skull of a caboceer,
or ruler of a town." — Duncan's Africa, Vol. /., ^)a^e 245.
** In the collection of skulls, I found a numljer of them orna-
mented with brass, and riveted together with iron. These were
the huads of rival kings, who were killed by the king's women or
wives. Amongst these was the richly ornamented skull of the
King of Nahpoo, in tlie Annagoo country ; his name was Adafi'o.
His town was taken, and he himself made prisoner, by the female
regiments, commanded by the female commander, Apadomcy.
Many of the skulls still retained the hair. It appears that this
part of the human Ixxly has always been a favorite ornament on
the palace walls of Abomey, and even in the walls, entrances of
gateways and doorways." — Duncan's Africa, Vol. II., page 27G.
"Permission to see the town was giv'en, and we paid a visit to
the Juju-house ; a noisy crowd attempted to rush in after us ; but
a vigorous application of the long sticks of the guards drove them
liack. Masses of human skulls hang from the walls, and numer-
ous rows of skulls cover the roof of a sort of altar. In front of
this altar sat the, Jnjii-man, having a footstool of human skulls.
Tlui Okrika had (jatcn the victims whose skulls decorate the Juju-
hous(i. An old man who accompanied us spoke with evident
gusto of tlu; different cannibal feasts he had partaken of, and
mentioned the parts of the human body which he considered the
sweetest." — Consul Charles Livingstone ; at the Bight of Biafra.
** When a guest is entertained of whom presents are expected,
the host, in a quiet way, goes from time to time into the f(iti(;h-
houso and scrapes a little bone-powder from a favorite skull, and
puts it into the food which is being cooked, as a present to the
guest. The idea is, that, by consuming the scrapings of the
skull, the blood of their ancestors enters into your body, and thus,
nUMAK SKULLS AS SACRED RELICS AND ORNAMENTS. 27
becoming of one blood, you are naturally led to love them, and
grant them what they wish. It is not a pleasant subject of reflec-
tion, but I have no doubt been operated u^on on previous jour-
neys ; being now, however, aware of the custom, I refused the
food, and told Mayolo I cared very little to eat of the scraped
skull of his grandfather." — Du Chaillu's AsJiango-Land, page 200.
"On a small island, near the mouth of the Niger, the people
have some strange customs. They have a large town, of about
three thousand inhabitants ; their huts are built within mud walls,
with the streets crossing each other at right angles. At every
corner there is a creature stuck up, like our scarecrows in Amer-
ica, with a gourd for a head, and dressed up with clothes, shells,
and beads. This thing is called Juju, and whatever is devoted to
it is sacred. Thus the little animal called the Iguana — a species
of lizard, which elsewhere is eaten - here is allowed to increase
and run all over the island. At one end of the town there is a
temple dedicated to the Juju. It is higher than most of the other
houses, with an arched doorway, the sides and arch of which are
formed of human skulls. Inside the hut, at one end, is a sort of
sacred altar, that, with an arched recess behind, is formed of
children's skulls, the east side and floor being the skulls of adults.
In the eye-sockets of each a square piece of board is inserted, first
painted red, and then an eye painted on it. Outside the door is a
post to which prisoners are tied, and beaten to death with clubs,
and then their skulls, after being dried and bleached, are used for
replacing any that may have become cracked or otherwise injured.
There are three priests whose business is to put prisoners to death,
to take care of the temple, and attend to the dressing of the Ju-
jus." — BrittarCs Every-Day Life in Africa , page 343.
•• It is revenge, as much as desire to perpetuate the remem-
brance of victory, which makes them eager for the skulls and
jawbones of their enemies, so that in a royal metropolis, walls,
and floors, and thrones, and walking-sticks are everywhere lower-
ing with the hollow eyes of the dead. These sad, bare, and
whitened emblems of mortality and revenge present a curious and
startling spectacle, cresting and festooning the red clay walls
28 B.VMAN SKULLS AS SACRED RELICS AND ORNAMENTS.
of Humassi, the capital of Ashantee." — Foote's Africa and the
American Flag, page b&.
*' "When a human head is desired to be preserved, the brains are
extracted through the spinal connection, and the head lield on the
end of a stick in the smoke till it becomes quite hard and dry. I
have seen some thousands preserved in this way in Dahomey." —
Duncan'' s Africa^ Vol. II. j page 159.
"Near the king were placed several large staffs or walking-
sticks, with a skull fixed on the upper end of each, the stick pass-
ing through the skull so as to leave about seven inches of the stick
above the skull for the hand when walking." — Duncan's Africa,
Vol. L, page 246.
** The father of Moyara was a powerful chief, but the son now
sits among the niins of the town, with four or five wives and very
few people. At his hamlet a number of stakes are planted in the
ground, and I counted fifty-four human skulls hung on their points.
These were Matebele, who, unable to approach Sebituane on the
island of Loyela, had returned sick and famishing. Moyara's
father took advantage of their reduced condition, and, after put-
ting them to death, mounted their heads in the Batoka fashion.
The old man who perpetrated this deed now lies in the middle of
his son's huts, with a lot of rotten ivory over his grave. One can-
not heljD feeling thankful that the reign of such wretches is over.
They inhabited the whole of this side of the country, and were
probably the ban'ier to the extension of the Portuguese commerce
in this direction. "When looking at these skulls, I remarked to
Moyara that many of them were those of mere boys. He assented
readily, and pointed them out as such. I asked why his father
had killed boys. ' To show his fierceness,' was the answer. ' It
is fierceness to kill boys.' * Yes ; they had no business here.'
When I told him that this probably would insure his own death if
the IMatebele came again, he replied, * AVhen I hear of their
coming I shall hide the bones.' He was evidently proud of these
trophies of his father's ferocity, and I was assured by other
BLOOD-THIRSTINESS OF THE NEGROES. 29
Batoka that few strangers ever returned from a visit to this
quarter. If a man wished to curry favor with a Batoka chief, he
ascertained when a stranger was about to leave, and waylaid him
at a distance from the town, and when he brought his head back
to the chief, it was mounted as a trophy, the different chiefs vy-
ing with each other as to which should mount the greatest num-
ber of skulls in his \\\\^gQy —Livingstone's Africa, page 569.
CHAPTER IV. .
BLOOD-THIKSTINESS AND BARBARITY OF THE NEGROES IN NEGRO-
LAND.
*' There is apparently in this people a physical delight in cruelty
to beast as well as to man. The sight of suffering seems to bring
them an enjoyment without which the world is tame. In almost
all the towns on the Oil Rivers, you see dead or dying animals
fastened in some agonizing position. Poultry is most common,
because cheapest ; they are tied by the legs, head downwards, or
lashed round the body to a stake or a tree, where they remain
till they fall in fragments. If a man be unwell, he hangs a live
chicken round his throat, expecting that its pain will abstract from
his sufferings. Goats are lashed head downwards tightly to
wooden pillars, and are allowed to die a lingering death ; even
the harmless tortoise cannot escape impalement. Blood seems
to be the favorite ornament for a man's face, as pattern-painting
with some dark color like indigo is the proper decoration for a
woman. At funerals numbers of goats and poultry are sacrificed
for the benefit of the deceased, and the corpse is sprinkled with
the warm blood. The headless trunks are laid upon the body, and
if the fowls flap their wings, which they will do for some seconds
after decapitation, it is a good omen for the dead man." —
Eutchinson''s Western Africa, Vol. II., page 283.
3*
30 BLOOD'THIESTINESS OF THE NEGROES.
" It is not so easy to offer any probable reason for the eagerness
to share in cruelty which glows in a negro's bosom. Its appall-
inof character consists rather in the amount of bloodshed which
gratifies the negro, than in the studious prolongation of pain.
Superstition probably excused or justified to him some of his
worst practices. Human sacrifices have been common every-
where. There was no scruple at cruelty when it was convenient.
The mouths of the victims were gagged by knives run through
their cheeks ; and captives among the southern tribes were beaten
with clubs in order to prevent resistance, or to take away their
strength, that they might be more easily hurried to the ' hill of
death,' or authorized place of execution." — Footers Africa and
the American Flag, page 52.
*' It is hard to make them feel that the shedding of human blood
is a great crime ; they must be conscious that it is wrong, but, hav-
ing been accustomed to bloodshed from infancy, they are remark-
ably callous to the enormity of the crime of destroying human
life." — Livingstones Africa, page 217.
♦* The late Matiamvo sometimes indulged in the whim of run-
ning a muck in the town and beheading whomsoever he met, until
he had quite a heap of human heads. Matiamvo explained this
conduct by saying that his people were too many, and he wanted
to diminish them. He had absolute power of life and death." —
Livingstone's Africa, page 341.
•♦Nothing less than the entire subjugation, or destruction of the
vanquished, could quench their insatiable thirst for power. Thus
when they conquered a town, the terrified inhabitants were driven
in a mass to the outskirts, when the parents and all the married
women were slaughtered on the spot. Such as have dared to be
brave in the defence of their town, their wives, and their children,
are reserved for a still more terrible death ; dry grass, saturated
with f^it, is tied round their naked bodies and then set on fire.
The youths and girls are loaded as beasts of burden with the
spoils of the town, to be marched to the homes of their victors.
BLOOD-THIRSTINESS OF THE NEGROES, 31
If the town be in an isolated position, the helpless infants are left
to perish either with hunger, or to be devoured by beasts of prey.
On such an event, the lions scent the slain and leave their lair.
The hyenas and jackals emerge from their lurking-places in broad
day, and revel in the carnage, while a cloud of vultures may be
seen descending on the living and the dead, and holding a carni-
val on human flesh." — Mqfatfs Africa, page 365.
"We found the criminals seated on blocks of wood, in a street
near the king's residence, each accompanied by an executioner.
One of the executioners was the lad who told me, on the 17th of
December, that he had himself decapitated eighty persons. Two
knives were forced through the cheeks of each criminal, one on
each side, which deprived them of speech. This is done, it is said,
to prevent them cursing the king. We did not stop to gaze on the
horrid spectacle." — Freeman's Africa, page 164.
** When any one of these chiefs dies, the news of his death is not
made known for one or two months afterwards ; and if any person
w^ho has learned the fact of his death discloses the secret, he is
immediately decapitated, and his family and relatives sold into cap-
tivity. If there be no purchasers for them, they are all conducted
to the banks of the river, and there decapitated by the Samba Go-
lambole, or common executioner; the bodies are then thrown into
the river, and the heads are piled up at the entrance to the capital,
as a warning to all disclosers of state secrets." — Valdez's Africa,
Vol. IL,2yage 331.
" The head and legs of the ox were then drawn together, and it
fell bellowing to the ground. The animal was now secured firmly,
and prevented from rising. The chief butcher then, with a large
knife, cut open about a foot of the skin of the belly ; and lying on
the ground, amidst the groans of agony and helpless struggles of
the unfortunate brute, he thrust his right arm up to the shoulder
into the ox, gave a twist and a pull at the heart, ruptured one of
the large arteries, and drew away the omentum, which was thrown
32 BLOOD-THIRSTINESS OF THE NEGROES,
on a fire, cooked and eaten, before the convulsions of the victim
had ceased." — Alexander''s Africa, Vol. II., page 132.
*' The guide, attached to the expedition on return from tJjiji,
had loitered behind for some days, because his slave girl was too
footsore to walk. When tired of waiting he cut off her her head,
for fear lest she should become gratis another man's property.
— Burton^s Africa, page 515.
" Tembandumba, the Amazonian and cannibal queen of Congo,
commanded that all male children, all twins, and all infants whose
upper teeth appeared before their lower ones, should be killed by
their own mothers. From their bodies an ointment should be
made in the way which she would show. The female children
should be reared and instructed in war; and male prisoners,
before being killed and eaten, should be used for juu-poses of pro-
creation, so that there might be no future lack of female warriors.
Having concluded her harangue, with the publication of other laws
of minor importance, this young woman seized her child which
was feeding at her breast, flung him into a mortar, and pounded
him to a pulp. She flung this into a large earthen pot, adding
roots, leaves, and oils, and made the whole into an ointment, with
which she rubbed herself before them all, telling them that this
would render her invulnerable, and that now she could subdue the
universe. Immediately her subjects, seized with a savage enthu-
siasm, massacred all their male children, and immense quantities
of this human ointment were made. . . . It is clear enough
that Tembandumba wished to found an empire of Amazons, such
as we read of as existing among the Scythians, in the forests of
South America, and in Central Africa. She not only enjoined the
massacre of male children, — she forbade the eating of woman's
flesh. But she had to conquer an instinct in order to carry out
her views ; she fought against nature, and in time she was sub-
dued." — Beade's Savage Africa, page 292.
** On our march to the market-place we passed along part of
the walls of the palace, which covers an immense space. The
BLOOD-THIRSTINESS OF THE NEGROES, 33
walls as ■well as houses are made of red, sandy claj^ and
on tof) of the walls, at intervals of thh'ty feet, human skulls were
placed along their whole extent. On approaching nearer the
market-place we beheld, on an elevated pole, a man fixed in an
upright position, with a basket on his head, apparently holding it
with both hands. A little further on we saw two more men, now
in a state of decomposition, hung by the feet from a thick pole,
placed horizontally on two upright poles about twenty feet high.
Passing close to them the smell was intolerable. The arms hung
extended downwards, and at a little distance a stranger would
(from their shrivelled and contracted condition) suppose them to
be large sheep or goats; the skin, from exposure, had turned
nearly to the color of that of a white man. I found, upon inquiry,
that the bodies had been in this position about two and a half
moons. All reckoning here is by the moon. The vulture was in-
dustriously endeavoring to satisfy his appetite, but the heat of the
sun had dried the skin so as to render it impenetrable to his efforts.
On the opposite side of the market were two more human bodies
in the same position as those I have just mentioned, with the ex-
ception that the bodies had been mutilated." — Duncan" s Africa^
Vol. L, page 219.
"I have already spoken of the system of intermarriages, by
which a chief gains in power and friends. But there are other
means of securing allies. For instance, two tribes are anxious for
a fight, but one needs more force. This weakling sends one of
its men secretly to kill a man or woman of some village living
near, but having no share in the quarrel. The consequence is, not,
as would seem most reasonable, that this last village take its re-
venge on the murderer, but, strangely enough, that the murder-
er's people give them to understand that this is done because
another tribe has insulted them ; whereupon, according to African
custom, the two villages join, and together march upon the enemy.
In effect, to gain a village to a certain side in a quarrel, that side
murders one of its men or women, with a purpose of retaliation
on somebody else." — Du CTiaillu^s Equatorial Africa, po.ge 74.
** Sail showed extreme folly in remaining behind, andKamrasi,
34 BLOOD-THIRSTINESS OF THE 2TEGItOES.
suspicious of his complicity, immediately ordered him to be seized
and cut to pieces ; he was accordingly tied to a stake, and tortured
by having his limbs cut off piecemeal, — the hands being first
severed at the wrists, and the arms at the elbow-joints." —
Baker's Great Basin of the Nile, page 406.
*' A number of old women had been taken in the general slave
hunt ; these could not walk sufficiently fast to keep up with their
victors during the return march ; they had accordingly all been
killed on the road, as being cumbersome. In every case they were
killed by being beaten on the back of the neck with a club." —
Bakefs Great Basin of the Nile, page 405.
**Amarar called his soothsayer, and required him to name a
propitious moment for the sally. The oracle retired to his den,
and, after suitable incantations, declared that the effort should be
made as soon as the hands of Amarar were stained in the blood
of his own son. It is said that the prophet intended the victim to
be a youthful son of Amarar, who had joined his mother's family,
and was then distant ; but the impatient and superstitious savage,
seeing a child of his own, two years old, at hand, when the oracle
announced the decree, snatched the infant from his mother's arms,
threw it into a rice mortar, and, with a pestle, mashed it to death.
The sacrifice over, a sortie was ordered. The infuriate and starv-
ing savages, roused by the oracle and inflamed by the bloody
scene, rushed forth tumultuously. Amarar, armed with the
pestle, still warm and reeking with his infant's blood, was fore-
most in the onscit. The besiegers gave way and fled ; the town
was re-provisioned ; the fortifications of the enemy demolished ;
and the soothsayer rewarded with a slave for his barbarous pre-
diction ! At another time, Amarar was on the point of attacking
a strongly fortified town, when doubts were intimated of success.
Again the wizard was consulted, when the mysterious oracle de-
clared that the chief *' could not conquer till he returned once more to
his mother''s womb ! " That night Amara committed the blackest
of incests; but his party was repulsed, and the false prophet
stoned to death." — CanoVs Twenty Years of an African Slaver,
page 333.
BLOOD-THIRSTINESS OF THE NEGROES. 35
"It was not long after my instalment at Cape Mount, that I
accidentally witnessed the ferocity of the chief. Some trifling
country aflair caused me to visit the king; but, upon landing at
Toso, I was told he was abroad. The manner of my informant,
however, satisfied me that the message was untrue ; and accord-
ingly, with the usual confidence of a white man in Africa, I
searched his premises till I encountered him in the palaver-house.
The large inclosure was crammed with a mob of savages, all in
perfect silence around the king, who, in an infuriate manner, Avith
a bloody knife in his hand, and a foot on the dead body of a
negro, was addressing the carcass. By his side stood a pot of
hissing oil, in which the heart of his enemy was frying ! My sud-
den and, perhaps, improper entrance seemed to exasperate the
infidel, who, calling me to his side, knelt on the corpse, and dig-
ging it repeatedly with his knife, exclaimed, with trembling
passion, that it was his bitterest and oldest foe. For twenty
years he had butchered his people, sold his subjects, violated his
daughters, slain his sons, and burnt his towns; — and with each
charge, the savage enforced his assertion by a stab." — Canofi
Twenty Years of an African Slaver, page 432.
** By degrees the warriors dropped in around their chieftain.
A palaver-house, immediately in front of my quarters, was the
general rendezvous ; and scarcely a bushman appeared without
the body of some maimed and bleeding victim. The mangled
but living captives were tumbled on a heap in the centre, and
soon every avenue to the square was crowded with exulting
savajres. Rum Avas brought forth in abundance for the chiefs.
Presently, slowly approaching from a distance, I heard the drums,
horns, and war-bells ; and, in less than fifteen minutes, a proces-
sion of women, whose naked limbs were smeared with chalk and
ochre, poured into the palaver-house to join the beastly rites.
Each of these devils was armed with a knife, and bore in her
hand some cannibal trophj\ Jen-Ken's wife, — a corpulent wench
of forty-five, — dragged along the ground, by a single limb, the
slimy corpse of an infant ripped alive from its mother's womb.
As her eyes met those of her husband, the two fiends yelled forth
a shout of mutual joy, while the lifeless babe was tossed in the
air and caught as it descended on the point of a spear. Then
36 BLOOD-THIRSTINESS OF THE NEGROES.
came the refreshment, in the shape of rum, powder, and blood,
which was quaffed by the brutes till they reeled off, with linked
hands, in a wild dance around the pile of victims. As the women
leaped and sang, the men applauded and encouraged. Soon the
ring was broken, and, with a yell, each female leaped on the
body of a wounded prisoner, and commenced the final sacrifice
with the mockery of lascivious embraces.
In my wanderings in African forests, I have often seen the
tiger pounce upon its prey, and, with instinctive thirst, satiate its
appetite for blood and abandon the drained corpse; but these
African nesTresses were neither as decent nor as merciful as the
beast of the wilderness. Their malignant pleasure seemed to
consist in the invention of tortures, that would agonize but not
slay. There was a devilish spell in the tragic scene that fascinat-
ed my eyes to the spot. A slow, lingering, tormenting mutilation
was practised on the living, as well as on the dead ; and, in every
instance, the brutality of the women exceeded that of the men.
I cannot picture the hellish joy with which they passed from body
to body, digging out eyes, wrenching off lips, tearing the ears,
and slicing the flesh from the quivering bones; while the queen
of the harpies crept amid the butchery, gathering the brains from
each severed skull as a dainty dish for the approaching feast !
After the last victim yielded his life, it did not require long to
kindle a fire, produce the requisite utensils, and fill the air with
the odor of human flesh. Yet, before the various messes were
half broiled, every mouth was tearing the delicate morsels with
shouts of joy, denoting the combined satisfaction of revenge and
appetite ! In the midst of this appalling scene, I heard a fresh
cry of exultation, as a pole was borne into the apartment, on
which was impaled the living body of the conquered chieftain's
wife. A hole was quickly dug, the stave planted, and fagots
supplied ; but before a fire could be kindled, the wretched woman
w^as dead, so that the barbarians were defeated in their hellish
scheme of burning her alive.
I do not know how long these brutalities lasted, for I remember
very little after this last attempt, except that the bushmen packed
in plaintain leaves whatever flesh was left from the orgy, to be
conveyed to their friends in the forest. This was the firct time it
had been my lot to behold the most savage development of
African nature under the stimulus of war. The butchery madti
SLAFERY AND SLAVE-TRADE IN NEGROLAND. 37
me sick, dizzy, paralyzed. I sank on the earth benumbed with
stupor; nor was I aroused till nightfall, when my Kroomen bore
me to the conqueror's town, and negotiated our redemption for
the value of twenty slaves." — CanoVs Twenty Years of an African
Slaver, pages 384-386.
CHAPTER V.
SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE-TRADE IN NEGROLAND.
«*It seems quite natural that everyone, even the most thought-
less barbarian, would feel at least some slight emotion on being
exiled from his native country, and enslaved. But so far is this
from being the case, that Africans, generally speaking, betray
the most perfect indifference on losing their liberty, and being de-
prived of their relatives ; while love of country is seemingly as
great a stranger to their breasts as social tenderness and domes-
tic affection." — Lander^ s Travels in Africa, Vol. II., page 208.
"The reader must bear in mind that my observations apply
chiefly to persons of free condition, who constitute, I suppose,
not more than one-fourth part of the inhabitants at large ; the
other three-fourths are in a state of hopeless and hereditary
slavery." — Mungo Park's 1st Journal, page 32.
"Large families are very often exposed to absolute want, and,
as the parents have almost unlimited authority over their children,
it frequently happens, in all parts of Africa, that some of the lat-
ter are sold to purchase provisions for the rest of the family." —
Mungo Park's 1st Journal, page 216.
"Every evening I observed five or six women come to the
4
38 SLA VBR Y AND SLA VE-TRADE IN NEGROLAND.
raansa's house, and receive each of them a certain quantity of
corn. As I knew how valuable this article was at this juncture,
I inquired of the mansa whether he maintained those poor women
from pure bounty, or whether he expected a return when tlie har-
vest should be gathered in. * Observe that boy,' said he, point-
ing to a fine child about five years of age ; * his mother has sold
him to me for forty days' provision for herself and the rest of her
famil}' ; I have bought another boy in the same manner." — Man-
go Fark'^s Travels in Africa, page 116.
** The slave-market is held in two long sheds, one for males, the
other for females, where they are seated in rows, and carefully
decked out for the exhibition ; the owner or one of his trusty slaves
sitting near them. Young or old, plump or withered, beautiful
or ugly, are sold without distinction ; but, in other respects, the
buyer inspects them with the utmost attention, and somewhat in
the same manner as a volunteer seaman is examined by a surgeon
on entering the navy ; he looks at the tongue, teeth, eyes, and
limbs, and endeavors to detect rupture by a forced cough. . . .
Slavery is here so common, or the mind of slaves is so constitu-
ted, that they always appeared much hajDpier than their masters ;
the women, especially, singing with the greatest glee all the time
they are at work." — Clajpperton's Africa, Vol. IV,, page 36.
"The whole population of Katunga may be considered in a
state of slavery, either to the king or his caboceers." — Clapper-
ton'^s Africa, Vol. IV., page 211.
** They had nearly a hundred slaves, the greater part female,
and girls of from twelve to eighteen years of age, some of them
from Nyfee, and still further to the West, of a deep copper color,
and beautifully formed ; but few of these were ironed. The
males, who were mostly young, were linked together in couples
by iron rings around their legs ; yet they laughed, and seemed in
good condition." — Denliam & Clapperton''s Africa, Vol. II., 'page
134.
SLAVERY AXD SLAVE-TRADE l^T NEGROLAND. 39
•' Slaves in Africa are in proportion to the freemen of about
three to one ; but, although the number of individuals reduced to
a state of bondage by the operation of the above causes, and the
destruction created, both as regards life and property, is im-
mense, the whole combined are but as a single grain of dust in
the balance, when compared with the slavery, the destitution, and
the desolation, that are daily entailed by the unceasing bloody
struggles betwixt state and state. Towns and villages are then
obliterated from the face of the earth ; and thousands upon thou-
sands of the population, of whatever age or sex, are hurried into
hopeless captivity." — Harris's Adventures in Africa, page 314.
"Crime, necessity arising from distress, insolvency, the inhu-
manity of a harsh creditor, a spirit of retaliation in petty disputes,
and the sordid love of gain, for which parents will even sell their
own children, severally assist in feeding the demand for slaves, —
the law of every African state either tolerating or directly sanc-
tioning the evil." — Harrises Adventures in Africa, page 314.
*' Not even the appearance of affection exists between husband
and wife, or between parents and children. So little do they care
for their offspring, that many offered to sell me any of their sons
or daughters as slaves. They are, to speak the truth, in point of
parental affection, inferior to brutes." — Duncan's Africa, Vol. /.,
page 79.
*' A slave in Gabun was once asked why he did not take the
money, which he was known to have accumulated, and ransom
himself. His reply was, ' I have as much freedom as I want,
and I prefer to buy a slave to wait upon me.' " — Wilson^ s Africa,
page 272.
*' The liability to fall into a condition of servitude is not so
frightful in Africa as it is where there is a higher appreciation of
personal liberty; nor does the same odium attach to the term
slave as is attached to it amons: civilized men. The African sees
40 SLAVERY AND SLAVE-TRADE IN NEGROLAND,
very little difference between the authority exercised over him by
one whom he acknowledges as his master and the petty tyranny
which is exercised by most African chiefs over their subjects ; and
so long as he is worked moderately, and treated kindly, he has
but little cause for dissatisfaction, and not infrequently by his
own choice places himself in this condition." — Wilson'' s Africa,
page 156.
** Slavery exists on an immense scale in Adamawa, and there
are many private individuals who have more than a thousand
slaves. The only articles of export at present are slaves and
ivory." — BartlCs Africa , Vol. II. ^ page 190.
•' With the abolition of the slave-trade all along the northern
and south-western coast of Africa, slaves will cease to be brought
down to the coast, and in this way a great deal of the mischief
and misery necessarily resulting from this inhuman traffic will be
cut off. But this, unfortunately, forms only a small part of the
evil. There can be no doubt that the most horrible topic connected
with slavery is slave-hunting; and this is carried on, not only
for the purpose of supplying the foreign market, but, in a far more
extensive degree, for supplying the wants of domestic slavery."
— BarWs Africa^ Vol. J., page 12.
"A large number of slaves had been caught this day, and in
the course of the evening, after some skirmishing, in which three
Bonn horsemen were killed, a great many others were brought
in; altogether they were said to have taken one thousand, and
there were certainly not less than five hundred. To our utmost
horror, not less than one hundred and seventy full-grown men
were mercilessly slaughtered in cold blood, the greater part of
them being allowed to bleed to death, a leg having been severed
from the body." — Bartli's Africa, Vol. II. y page 369.
*' In times of necessity, a man will part with his parents, wives,
and children, and when they fail, he will sell himself without
SLAVERY AND SLAVE-TRADE IN NEGROLAND, 41
shame. As has been observed among many tribes the uncle has
a right to dispose of his nephews and nieces." — Burtons Africa,
page 515.
" The busiest scene is the slave -market, composed of two long
rano-es of sheds, one for males and another for females. These
poor creatures are seated in rows, decked out for exhibition ; the
buyer scrutinizes them as nicely as a purchaser with us does a
horse, inspecting the tongue, teeth, eyes, and limbs, making them
cough and perform various movements, to ascertain if there be
anything unsound." — Murray's African Discoveries, page 164.
*' The good qualities given to the negro by the bounty of nature,
have served only to make him a slave, trodden down by every
remorseless foot, and to brand him for ages with the epithet of
outcast; the marked unceasing proof of a curse, as old as the
origin of society, not even deserving human forbearance ! And
true it is, that the worst slavery is his lot, even at home, for he is
there exposed to the constant peril of becoming also a victim,
slaughtered with the most revolting torments. Tyrant of his
blood, he traffics in slavery as it w^ere merchandise ; makes war
purposely to capture neighbors, and sell even his own wives and
children." — SmitJi's Natural History of the Human Species, page
197.
*' One method of procuring slaves is by women who are main-
tained for the express purpose of ensnaring the unsuspecting with
their blandishments, and who carry on their infamous trade with
the connivance of their husbands, who frequently bestow upon
them a portion of the fine or damages imposed, as a reward for
their successful enterprise, and an encouragement for future infi-
delity. These harpies being very industrious in their vocation,
and being ably seconded by the ungovernable passions of men
living in a state of nature, consign a numerous body of victims to
bondage. Superstition, and the tricks and impostures of the
priests, or fetichmen, conti'ibute also their quota of slaves. The
numerous and expensive observances which these prescribed, to
4*
42 SLAVERY AND SLAVE-TRADE IN NEGROLAND.
be observed with the view of avoiding or alleviating some calam-
ity, often oblige the applicant for ji^'i^stly comfort to part
with one half of his family, to secure a blessing for the other.
Even death, which might be supposed calculated to terminate
the family responsibility, becomes an active enslaver, on. ac-
count of the expensive obsequies which it is considered the
chief point of honor to perform." — CruickshaiiJc's Africa, Vol.1.,
page 326.
*' The whole system of slave-holding by the Arabs in Africa, or
rather on the coast, or at Zanzibar, is exceedingly strange, for the
slaves, "both in individual physical strength and in numbers, are so
superior to the Arab foreigners, that if they chose to rebel, they
might send the Arabs flying out of the land. It happens, how-
ever, that they are spellbound, not knowing their strength any
more than domestic animals." — Speke's Africa, page 26.
** On arrival at the desired locality, the slave-traders disembark
and proceed into the interior until they arrive at the village of
some negro chief, with whom they establish an intimacy. Charmed
with his new friends, the power of whose weapons he acknowl-
edges, the negro chief does not neglect the opportunity of seeking
their alliance to attack a hostile neio^hbor. Marching throuo;hout
the night, guided by their negro hosts, they bivouac within an
hour's march of the unsuspecting village doomed to an attack
about half an hour before break of day. The time arrives, and,
quietly surrounding the village, while its occupants are still sleep-
ing, they fire the grass huts in all directions, and pour volleys of
musketry through the flaming thatch. Panic-stricken, the unfor-
tunate victims rush from their burning dwellings, and the men are
shot down like pheasants in a battue, while the women and chil-
dren, bewildered in the danger and confusion, are kidnapped and
secured. The herds of cattle, still within their kraal, or " zareeba,"
are easily disposed of, and are driven off with great rejoicing, as
the prize of victory. The women and children are then fastened
together, the former secured in an instrument called a sheba,
made of a forked pole, the neck of the prisoner fitting into the
fork, secured by a cross-piece lashed behind, while the wrists,
SLAVERY AND SLAVE-TRADE JN NEGROLAND. 43
brought together in advance of the body, are tied to the pole.
The children are then fastened by their necks with a rope attached
to the women, and thus form a living chain, in which order they
are marched to the head-quarters in company with the captured
herds. This is the commencement of business. Should there be
ivory in any of the huts not destroyed by the fire, it is appropri-
ated ; a general plunder takes place. The trader's party dig up
the floors of the hut to search for iron hoes, which are generall}^
thus concealed, as the greatest treasure of the negroes ; the
granaries are overturned and wantonly destroyed, and the hands
are cut off the bodies of the slain, the more easily to detach the
copper and iron bracelets that are usually worn." — Bdker''s Great
Basin of the Nile, page 13,
" The Cassangas, the Banhuns, and all the other neighboring
tribes and nations, punish all crimes by perpetual banishment.
In such cases they consider it more advantageous to dispose of
their convicts by selling them to strangers than to bear the burthen
of their support. Thus they reap a rich harvest themselves, and,
at the same time, encourage that detestable traffic, the slave-trade.
To such an extent, indeed, does their cupidity lead them, that
they outrage all the laws of justice and humanity. When any
person comes under the lash of their sanguinary laws, he himself
is not alone exposed to punishment, but his whole family is in-
volved in ruin along with him." — Valdez's Africa, Vol. I., page 293.
** A few days after my arrival at Timbuctoo I fell in w^ith a
negro, who was parading about the streets two women, whom I
recollected to have been fellow-passengers with me on board the
canoe. These women were not young, but their master, to give
them the appearance of an age better suited to the market, had
dressed them well. They i^<)re fine white handkerchiefs, large
gold ear-rings, and each had two or three necklaces of the same
metal. When I passed them, mey looked at me, and smiled.
They did not appear in the least mortified at being exhibited in
streets for sale, but manifested an iVidi3"erence, which I could easily
enough account for by the state of i degradation to which they had
44 SLAVERY AND SLAVE-TRADE IN NEGROLAND.
been reduced and their total ignorance of the natural rights of
mankind."— CaiY^iVs Africa, Vol. II., page 63.
'* No better iUustration could be given of the way in which the
slave system has ingrafted itself upon the life and policy of these
tribes than this, that, from the sea-shore to the farthest point in the
interior which I was able to reach, the commercial unit of value
is a slave. As we say dollar, as the English say pound sterling,
so these Africans say slave. If a man is fined for an offence, he
is mulcted in so many slaves. If he is bargaining for a wife, he
contracts to give so many slaves for her. Perhaps he has no slaves ;
but he has ivory or trade-goods, and pays of these the value of
so many slaves, — that is to say, as much ivory or ebony, or bar-
wood, or the amount in trade-goods wliich would, in that precise
place, buy so many slaves." — Du Chaillu's Equatorial Africa,
page 380.
•* High prices are a great temptation to the cupidity of the Af-
rican, who, having, by custom, rights of property in his children,
often does not hesitate to sell these where other produce is lacking.
He finds that one of his children is not bright, that it has no sense,
or that it wants to bewitch the father. Then a consultation en-
sues with the relatives of the mother ; they are promised a share
in the produce of the sale, — for they have rights also in the
child, — and, when they are brought to consent, the unhappy
child is sold off." — Du Chaillu's Equatorial Africa, page 381.
** It would be a task of many pages, if I attempted to give a full
account of the origin and causes of slavery in Africa. As a na-
tional institution, it seems to have existed always. Africans have
been bondsmen everywhere, and the oldest monuments bear their
images linked with menial toils and absolute servitude. . . .
Man, in truth, has become the coin of Africa, and the legal tender
of a brutal trade. . . . Five-sixths of the population are in
chains."— Canofs Twenty Tears of the African Slaver, page 126.
SUPERSTITION AND WITCBCEAFT IN NEGROLAND. 45
CHAPTER VI.
HEATHENISH SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCRAFT IN NEGROLAND.
"One of the Africans' deep-rooted superstitions is witchcraft,
to the operation of which they generally ascribe disease and
death, — the very infirmities of age being attributed to the same
influence. The doctor, being sent for upon emergencies of this
nature, gives some root or drug to his patient, accompanying the
administration of it with a farcical expression of countenance, and
a mysterious assumption of manner, pretending to charm from the
sufferer some noxious reptile, by which he alleges that the malady
is occasioned, and contriving, at the same time, secretly to pro-
duce one, which is supposed to have been withdrawn from the
person afflicted. If the patient should happen to recover, the
Igiaka is greatly commended for his skill, and obtains an ade-
quate remuneration ; if, on the contrary, the sickness should in-
crease, another doctor, called the * discoverer of bewitching
matter,' is then summoned, who professes to discover the party
supposed to have bewitched him. The guilt having been affixed,
after many absurd ceremonies, upon some unfortunate wretch, a
report is made to the chief, who directs torture to be inflicted on
him, for the purpose of eliciting confession. The usual method
of torture is by the aj)plication of heated stones to the tenderest
parts of the outstretched body, the hands and feet being first made
fast to four stakes at equal distances, while myriads of ants are
scattered over the agonized victim, whose skin is exposed to the
painful gnawing of these swarming insects. It can be no matter
of surprise that innocent persons, subjected to these terrible pun-
ishments, should be induced to confess the agency of which they
have been accused, and instances are on record of many individ-
uals, perfectly guiltless, who have admitted the crime rather than
to undergo the fiery ordeal, through a natural dread of its
horrors." — Steadman's Africa^ Vol. J., page 37.
*' Witchcraft is a prominent and leading superstition among all
the races of Africa, and may be regarded as one of the heaviest
46 SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCRAFT IN NEGROLAND,
curses which rests upon that benighted land. ... A person
endowed with this mysterious art is supposed to possess little less
than omnipotence. He exercises unlimited control, not only over
the lives and destiny of his fellow-men, but over the wild beasts of
the woods, over the sea and dry land, and over all the elements
of nature. He may transform himself into a tiger, and keep the
community in which he lives in a state of constant fear and per-
turbation ; into an elephant, and desolate their farms ; or into a
shark, and devour all the fish in their rivers. By his magical
arts he can keep back the showers, and fill the land with want
and distress. The lightnings obey his commands, and he need
only wave his wand to call forth the pestilence from its lurking-
place. The sea is lashed into fury, and the storm rages to exe-
cute his behests. In short, there is nothing too hard for the
machinations of witchcraft. Sickness, poverty, insanity, and al-
most every evil incident to human life, are ascribed to its agency."
— Wilson'' s Africa, page 222.
*' Every death which occurs in the community is ascribed to
witchcraft, and some one, consequently, is guilty of the wicked
deed. The priesthood go to work to find out the guilty person.
It may be a brother, a sister, a father, and, in a, few extreme
cases, even mothers have been accused of the unnatural deed of
causing the death of their own ofi'spring. There is, in fact, no
eifectual shield against the suspicion of it. Age, the ties of re-
lationship, oflacial prominence, and general benevolence of char-
acter, are alike unavailing. The priesthood, in consequence
of the universal belief in the superstition, have unlimited scope
for the indulgence of the most malicious feelings, and, in many
cases, it is exercised with unsparing severity." — Wilsori's Africa,
page 223.
"The intercourse which the natives have had with white men
does not seem to have much ameliorated their condition. A great
number of persons are reported to lose their lives annually in dif-
ferent districts of Angola by the cruel superstitions to which they
are addicted ; and the Portuguese authorities either know nothing
of them, or are unable to prevent their occurrence. The natives
SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCRAFT IN NEGROLAND. 47
are bound to secrecy by those avIio administer the ordeal, which
generally causes the death of the victim. A person, when ac-
cused of witchcraft, will often travel from distant districts, in
order to assert her innocency and brave the test. They come to
a river on the Cassange, called Dua, drink the infusion of a
poisonous tree, and perish unknown. A woman was accused by
a brother-in-law of being the cause of his sickness while we were
at Cassange. She offered to take the ordeal, as she had the idea
that it would but prove her conscious innocence. Captain Neves
refused his consent to her going, and thus saved her life, which
would have been sacrificed, for the poison is very virulent. When
a strong stomach rejects it, the accuser reiterates his charge ; the
dose is repeated, and the person dies. Hundreds perish thus
every year in the valley of Cassange." — Livingstone^ s Africa^
page 471.
"In several tribes, a child which is said to *tlolo' (trangress)
is put to death. ' Tlolo,' or transgression, is ascribed to several
curious cases. A child who cut the upper front teeth before the
under was always put to death among the Bakaa, and, I believe,
also among the Bakwains. In some tribes, a case of twins ren-
ders one of them liable to death; and an ox, which, while lying
in the pen, beats the ground with its tail, is treated in the same
way. It is thought to be calling death to visit the tribe. When
I was coming through Londa, my men carried a great number of
fowls, of a larger breed than any they had at home. If one
crowed before midnight, it had been guilty of ' tlolo,' and was
killed. The men often carried them sitting on their guns, and if
one began to crow in a forest, the owner would give it a beating,
by way of teaching it not to be guilty of crowing at unseasonable
hours." — Livingstone'' s Africa, page 618.
*' When a person of influence is taken ill, or dies, the cause is
eagerly sought after, not in the nature of the disease, but in some
person who was at enmity with the deceased, or who had acted in
some way to excite suspicion. This was very natural in them, as
they did not believe in an overruling Providence. It was the
universal belief, as well as their wish, that men would live ahvay,
48 SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCEAFT IN NEGROLAND.
and that death was entirely the result of witchcraft, or medicine
imi^arted by some malignant hand, or of some casualty, or want
of food. The death of the poor excited but little sorrow ; and less
surmise ; on the other hand, I have known instances where the
domestics of a principal man have been murdered in cold blood,
just because it was suspected that they had something to do with
their master's sickness." — Moffafs Africa, page 292.
** At the different towns and villages through which we passed,
they brought to us all the sick to be cured. Nor was it the sick
alone who sought advice, but men and women of all descriptions,
— the former for some remedy against impotency, and the latter
to remove sterility. Many came for preventives against appre-
hended or barely possible calamities ; and, in anticipation of the
imaginable ills of life, resorted to us in full hope and confidence
of our being able to ward them off. The women were particu-
larly fanciful in these matters, and were frequently importunate
to receive medicines that would preserve the affections of their
gallants, insure them husbands, or, what was highly criminal,
effect the death of some favored rival." — Clapperton's Africa, Vol.
III., page 239.
"At my instance, Benderachmani sent a courier to Nyffee, to
endeavor to recover Mr. Hornemann's manuscripts, for which I
offered him a reward of a hundred dollars ; but on my return from
Sackatoo I found the messenger come back with the information,
that Jussuf Felatah, a learned man of the country, with whom
Mr. Hornemann lodged, had been burned in his own house, to-
gether with all Mr. Hornemann's papers, by the negro rabble,
from a superstitious dread of his holding intercourse with evil
spirits." — Clappertoii's Africa, Vol. IV., page 56.
"The Damaras have great faith in witchcraft. Individuals
versed in the black art are called Omundu-Onganga, and are
much sought after. Any person falling sick is immediately at-
tended by one of these impostors, whose panacea is to besmear
the mouth and the forehead of the patient with the ordure of the
SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCIiAFT IN NEGnOLAND. 49
hyena, which is supposed to possess particularly healing virtues/'
— Andersson's Africa, j^cige 173.
*' To become a Avitch-doctor of any importance, a person is re-
quired to be instructed by one previously well versed in the mys-
teries of the black art. He must begin his lessons by swallowing
animal poison, be bitten by venomous reptiles, or have poison
inoculated into his body. A cap, a handkerchief, or any sort of
clothing worn by such a person until it has become perfectly satu-
rated with filth, is considered the most infallible cure for all kinds
of diseases, poisonous bites, etc. On emergencies, a corner of
this treasure is washed, and the dirty water thus produced is given
to the patient to drink." — Andersson's Africa, page 256.
** On other portions of the coast their customs are more cruel
about witchcraft than among the Greboes. Any one, once accused
of witchcraft, is burnt most cruelly. In some places a slow fire is
made, and four posts sunk into the ground, at certain distances,
the person tied hands and feet to these posts, and suspended over
the fire, thus being slowly burnt ; sometimes they are left to die
there ; at other times they are taken down before death, cast into
the bush, and left to perish miserably. Xo one must pity a witch.
Sometimes they torture them a different fashion : they are fast-
ened down so that they cannot move, and then red-hot coals are
placed on difi'erent parts of the body, and there left to eat into the
flesh." — Brittan's Every-Day Life in Africa, page 344.
" They are believers in witchcraft to an unlimited extent; but
what they understand by the term is very difficult to say. I once
obtained the character of a wizard by mixing a seidlitz-powder,
and drinking it off during effervescence, for the spectators took it
for granted that the water was boiling." — Dray sorts Africa, 2^age
36.
"The ladies solicited amulets to restore their beauty, to pre-
serve the affections of their lovers, and even to destroy a hated
rival. The son of the Governor of Kano, having called upon Mr.
50 SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCRAFT IN NEGROLAND.
Clapperton, stated it as the conviction of the whole city and his
own, that the Englisli had the power of converting men into asses,
goats, and monkeys, and likewise that by reading in his book he
could at any time commute a handful of earth into gold." — Mur-
ray'^s African Discoveries, page 162.
**In times of tribulation, the magician, if he ascertains a war is
projected, by inspecting the blood and bones of a fowl which he
has flayed for that purpose, flays a young child, and, having laid
it lengthwise on a path, directs all the warriors, on proceeding to
battle, to step over his sacrifice and insure themselves victory.
Another of these extra barbarous devices takes j^lace when a chief
wishes to make war on his neighbor, by his calling in a magician
to discover a propitious time for commencing. The doctor places
a large earthen vessel, half full of water, over a fire, and over its
mouth a grating of sticks, whereon he lays a small child and a
fowl side by side, and covers them over with a second large
earthen vessel, just like the first, only inverted, to keep the steam
in, when he sets fire below, cooks for a certain jDcriod of time,
and then looks to see if his victims are still living or dead, —
when, should they be dead, the war must be deferred, but, other-
wise, commenced at once." — SpeJce's Africa, page 21.
*'To prevent any evil approaching their dwellings, a squashed
frog, or any other such absurdity, when placed on the back, is
considered a specific." — ;Spe7j6'5 Africa, page 22.
** The king was surrounded by sorcerers, both men and women.
These people were distinguished from others by witch-like chap-
lets of various dried roots worn upon the head ; some of them had
dried lizards, crocodiles' teeth, lions' claws and minute tortoise-
shells, added to their collection of charms. They could have
subscribed to the witches' caldron of Macbeth, —
" Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
SUPERSTITIOX AND WITCHCRAFT IN NEGROLAND. 51
Tor a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
— Bakers Great Basin of the Nile, page 411.
" On the 21st of June, when I was quietly sitting in my house,
one of the governor's servants, who was well disposed toward
me, and who used to call occasionally, suddenly made his ap-
pearance with a very serious countenance, and, after some hesi-
tation and a few introductory remarks, delivered a message from
the o-overnor to tlie following effect : He wanted to know from
me whether it was true (as was rumored in the town, and as the
people had told him) that, as soon as a thunder-storm was
gathering, and when the clouds appeared in the sky, I went out
of my house and made the clouds withdraw ; for they had assured
him that they liad repeatedly noticed that, as soon as I looked at
the clouds with a certain air of command, they passed by with-
out bringing a single drop of rain." — BartlCs Africa, Vol. II. ,
page 509.
"A tree in Kukiya was remarkable on account of a peculiar
charm, which testified to the many remains of pagan rites still
lino-erino: in these countries. It consisted of two earthen r)ots,
placed one upon the other, and filled with a peculiar substance,
and was supposed to guarantee prolificness to the mares of the
village." — BartlCs Africa, Vol. II., page 427.
•' In this part of Africa are a sort of screech-owls, which in the
night make a very dismal noise, and are taken by the natives for
witches. If one of these birds happens to come into a town at
night, the people are all up firing at it ; and as I do not find that
they ever had the good fortune to shoot any of them, the poor
creatures still continue in the opinion of their being witches." —
Moore'' s Inland Parts of Africa, page 107.
*' Black magic is usually punished by the stake. In some parts
52 SUPERSTITIOX AND WITCHCRAFT IN NEGROLAND,
of the country, the roadside shows, at every few miles, a heap oi
two of ashes, with a few calcined and blackened human bones
mixed with bits of half-consumed charcoal, telling the tragedy
that has been enacted there. The prospect cannot be contem-
plated without horror. Here and there, close to the larger circles
where the father and mother have been burnt, a smaller heap
shows that some wretched child has shared their terrible fate, lest,
growing up, he should follow in his parents' path." — Burton^s
Africa^ page 92.
** With the aid of slavery and black magic, they render their
subjects' lives as precarious as they well can ; no one, especially
in old age, is safe from being burned at a day's notice." —
Burton's Africa, page 96.
** The child who cuts the two upper incisors before the lower,
is either put to death, or is given away, or sold to the slave-mer-
chant, under the impression that it will bring disease, calamity,
and death into the household." — Burton's Africa, page 94.
*' The principal instrument of the magician's craft is one of the
dirty little gourds which he wears in a bunch round his waist, and
the following is the usual programme when the oracle is to be
consulted: The magician brings his implements in a bag of
matting ; his demeanor is serious as the occasion ; he is carefully
greased, and his head is adorned with the diminutive antelope-
horns fastened by a thong of leather above the forehead. He sits
like a sultan upon a dwarf of stool in front of the querist, and be-
gins by exhorting the highest possible offertory. Xo pay, no pre-
dict. Divination by the gourd has already been described ; the
magician has many other implements of his craft. Some prophesy
by the motion of berries swimming in a cup full of water, which
is placed upon a low stool, surrounded by four tails of the zebra
or the buffalo lashed to sticks planted upright in the ground.
The kasanda is a system of folding triangles not unlike those upon
which plaything soldiers are mounted. Held in the right hand,
it is thrown out, and the direction of the end points to the safe
SUPERSTITION AND WlTCHCItAFT IN NEGROLAND. 53
and auspicious route. This is probably the rudest appliance of
prestidigitation. Tlie shero is a bit of wood about the size of a
man's hand, and not unlike a pair of bellows, with a dwarf
handle, a projection like a nozzle, and in the circular centre a
little hollow. This is filled with water, and a grain or fragment
of wood, jDlaced to float, gives an evil omen if it tends toward the
sides, and favorable if it veers toward the handle of the nozzle."
— Burtoii's Africa, page 609.
*' The natives of Bihe are, in many particulars, very supersti-
tious. If, on setting out on a journey, a stag or goat crosses their
path, or if even a stick falls across it, they return and have re-
course to their diviners, to interpret this formidable omen. Hav-
ing anointed themselves with some preparation of aromatic herbs
and roots, which have for a certain period been buried under their
beds, they consider that they may proceed on their journey with-
out danger." — Valde£s Africa^ Vol. II., page 330.
'* Some of their practices are most ridiculous. For instance,
they will take the horn of a stag, and throwing into the cavity the
claws of certain birds, some feathers, and roots, cover it with the
skin of a monkey. Then, taking a large horn, they throw into it
three smaller ones, extracted from fawns of a month old, and fill
it with a particular kind of paste. "When they desire a favor from
any one of their idols they whistle into the horn, ignite some gun-
powder which has been thrown into it, and then dance and sing.
They also preserve the powder of a certain kind of wood, the
heads of certain snakes, and the claws of certain birds, — all these
being considered as antidotes against disease. These customs are
observed by the chiefs themselves as lawful and necessary." —
Valdez's Africa, Vol. II., paged'SO.
'* Superstition seems in these countries to have run wild, and
every man believes what his fancy, by some accident, most forci-
bly presents to him as hurtful or beneficial." — Du CliailliCs Equa^
torial Africa, page 383.
5*
54 SUPERSTITION AND IVITCHCEAFT IN NEGROLAND.
" If the African is once possessed with the belief that he is be-
witched, his nature seems to change. He becomes suspicious of
his dearest friends. The father dreads his children ; the son his
father and mother ; the man his wife ; and the wives their hus-
band. He fancies himself sick, and really often becomes sick
through his fears. By night he thinks himself surrounded with
evil spirits. He covers himself with fetiches and charms ; makes
presents to the idol, and to Abambou and Mbuirri ; and is full of
wonderful and frightful dreams, wdiich all point to the fact that
the village is full of wicked sorcerers. Gradually the village
itself becomes infected by his fears. The people grow suspicious.
Chance turns their suspicions to some unlucky individual who is
supposed to have a reason for a grudge. Finally the excitement
becomes too high to be restrained ; and often they do not even
wait for a death, but begin at once the work of butchering those
on whom public suspicion is f:istened. At least sevent^^-live jDcr
cent, of the deaths in all the tribes are murders for supposed sor-
cery." — Du Cliaillu's Equatorial Africa, page 386.
" I noticed in the village of Yoongoolapay a custom or supersti-
tion which is common to all the tribes I have visited, and the rea-
son, or supposed reason for which, I have never been able
to persuade any one to tell me. On the first night when the new
moon is visible, all is kept silent in the village; nobody speaks
but in anunder-tone ; and in the course of the evening King Ahipay
came out of his house and danced along the street, his face and
body painted in black, red, and white, and spotted all over with
spots the size of a peach. In the dim moonlight he had a fright-
ful appearance, which made me shudder at first. I asked him
why he painted thus, but he only answered by pointing to the
moon, without speaking a word." — Du ChailhCs Equatorial
Africa, page 141.
♦* Greegrees are generally worn about the neck or waist; are
made of the skins of rare animals, of the claws of birds, the teeth
of crocodiles or leopards, of the dried flesh and brains of animals,
of the feathers of rare birds, of the ashes of certain kinds of wood,
of the skin and bones of serpents, etc., etc. Every greegree has
SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCRAFT IN NEGROLAND, 55
a special power. One protects from sickness ; another makes
tlie heart of the hunter or warrior brave ; another gives success to
the lover ; another protects against sorcery ; some cure sterility,
and others make the mother's breast abound in milk for her babe.
The charmed leopard's skin, worn alDOut the warrior's middle, is
supposed to render that worthy spear-proof; and, witli an iron
chain about his neck, no bullet can hit him. If the charm fails,
his faith is none the less firm, for then it is plain that some po-
tent and wicked sorcerer has worked a too powerful counter-
spell, and to this he has fallen a victim." — Du Chaillu's Equa-
torial Africa, page 385.
"Guessing the rascals had killed the poor old man, whom
they denounced as a wizard, and turning my step toward the
river, I was met by the crowd returning, every man armed with
axe, knife, cutlass, or spear, and these weapons and their own
hands, and arms, and bodies, all sprinkled with the blood of their
victim. In their frenzy they had tied the poor wizard to a log
near the river bank, and then deliberately hacked him into many
pieces. They finished by splitting open his skull and scattering
the brains in the water." — Du Chaillu's Equatorial Africa, page 63.
*' One of the hunters had shot a wild bull, and when the carcass
was brought in , the good fellow sent me an abundant supply of
the best portions. The meat is tough, but was most welcome for
a change. I had a great piece boiled for dinner, and expected
King Quengueza to eat as much as would make several hungry
white men sick. Judge of my surprise, when, coming to the table
and seeing only the meat, he refused to touch it. I asked why.
' It is roondah for me,' he replied. And then, in answer to my
question, explained that the meat of the bos brachicheros was for-
bidden to his family, and was an abomination to them, for the
reason that many generations ago one of their women gave birth
to a calf instead of a child. I laughed, but the king replied very
soberly that he could show me a woman of another family
whose grandmother had given birth to a crocodile, — for which
reason the crocodile was roondah to that family. Quengueza
would never touch my salt beef, nor even the pork, fearing lest it
56 SUPERSTITION AND WITCHCRAFT IN NEGROLAND.
had been in contact with the beef. Indeed they are all religiously
scrupulous in this matter; and I found, on inquiry afterward, that
scarce a man can be found to whom some article of food is not
* roondah.' Some dare not taste crocodile, some hippopotamus,
some monkey, some boa, some wild pig, and all from this same
belief. They will literally suffer the pangs of starvation rather
than break through this prejudice ; and they firmly believe that if
one of a family should eat of such forbidden food, the women of
the same family would surely miscarry, and give birth to mon-
strosities in the shape of the animal which is roondah, or else die
of an awful disease." — Du Cliaillu's Equatorial Africa, page 355.
•'When we stopped for breakfast next day, I noticed a little
way from us an extraordinary tree, quite the largest in height and
circumference I ever saw in Africa. It was a real monarch of
even this great forest. It rose in one straight and majestic trunk,
entirely branchless, till the top reached far above all the surround-
ing trees. There at the top the branches were spread out some-
what like an umbrella, but could not give much shade, being so
high. I found that this tree was highly venerated by the people,
who call it the oloumi. Its kind is not common even here, where
its home is said to be. Its bark are said to have certain healing
properties, and is also in request from a belief that if a man going
off on a trading expedition washes himself first all over in a de-
coction of its juices in water, he will be lucky and shrewd in mak-
ing bargains. For this reason great strips were torn off this tree
to the height of at least twenty feet." — Du Chaillu's Equatorial
Africa, page 308.
*' The morning before we set out, we accidentally stumbled
across one of those acts of barbarism which chill the blood of a
civilized man, though but slightly regarded by the negroes. I
was hunting in the woods near the village, and saw sitting on a
tree at some distance a pair of beautiful green pigeons, which I
wanted much for my collection of birds. By dint of much exer-
tion, I penetrated the jungle to the foot of the tree, and here a
ghastly sight met my eyes. It was the corpse of a woman, young
evidently, and with features once mild and good. She had been
FETlCniSM^ PRIESTCRAFT, AND IDOLATRY. bi
tied up here on some infernal accusation of witchcraft, and tor-
tured. The torture consisted in lacerations of the flesh all over
the body, and in the cuts red peppers had been rubbed. This is
a common mode of tormenting with these people, and as devilish
in ingenuity as anything could well be. Then the corpse was de-
serted. I could only hope the poor girl died of her wounds,
and had not to wait for the slower process of agonized starvation to
^•hich such victims are left. Will the reader think hard of me
that I felt it in my heart to go back to the village and shoot every
man who had a hand in this monstrous barbarity.^ " — Du ChailWs
Equatorial Africa, page 156.
■♦o*-
CHAPTER VII.
FETlCIIISJr, PRIESTCRAFT, AND IDOLATRY IX NEGROLAND.
"When the Congo priest appears in public he walks on his
hands, witli his body straight and his feet in the air. He can
walk in this manner, through constant practice, with great ease
and rapidity. He is the medicine-man or fetich-doctor, and is
consulted in cases of sickness and witchcraft. To the cunning of
this priest may easily be traced that superstition which I have de-
scribed as prevalent in Equatorial Africa, that no one dies a natural
death. If any one dies in spite of the medicines of the priest, he
preserves his reputation by declaring that the patient has been
bewitched, and obtains more money by discovering the sorcerer.
There is still another jDriest, who officiates as rain-maker ; for this,
a knowledge of the seasons, which in Congo never vary more
than a few days, is all that is required. The ceremony of rain-
making is that of coverino; mounds with branches of trees and
ornaments of fetich, and of walking round these, muttering in-
cantations."— Readers Savage Africa, page 288.
58 FETJCHISMy PRIESTCRAFT^ AND IDOLATRY,
'* Idol worship in Africa confines the idolater to no particular
idol ; as he attributes his prosperity to the jirotecting care of his
fetich, he will, as long as his prosperity continues, remain stead-
fast to the worship of that particular fetich ; but when difficulties
arise, and he is beset with perplexities, he will range at will, as
fancy directs him, to a thousand different objects, and make them
the gods of his gross idolatry. The prosperous man is therefore
confined in his worship to fewer idols and observances than the
unfortunate. The former has faith in the power of his idol, while
the latter cannot rest until he has found a relief from his troubles ;
and hence the multiplication of his idols and of his modes of
worship." — Cniiclcshank's Africa, Vol. II., j?age 132.
•' When any calamity is general, such as a drought, a dearth, a
pestilence, or want of success in war, the whole population or
their representatives, with their chiefs and head men, repair to the
chief boossum to make their offerings and sacrifice, and to seek,
through the intercession of the priests, a mitigation and a release
from their sufl'erings. These priests, aware of the necessity of
making a deep impression upon such momentous occasions, sur-
round the whole of their proceedings with a fearful secrecy and
mysterious solemnity, calculated to awe the minds of the sup-
plicants, and they deliver their oracles in such enigmatical lan-
guage as maybe capable of a double interpretation." — Cmick-
slianJc's Africa, Vol. 11. , page 130.
"There is one peculiar form, which the fetich worship of a
family about to be separated takes, which deserves to be recoi'ded,
as in it we have no external representation of an idol. In view
of a separation which will most probably prevent them from ever
again worshipping the boossum, to which they have made their
devotions hitherto, they repair to the priest, or sofoo, and having
explained their wants, he pounds up some fetich substance, and
mixes it with water into a drink, which the whole family swallow
together. While partaking of this strange communion, the priest
declares to them that his boossum commands that none of this
family shall ever after partake of such and such an article of food,
naming, perhaps, fowl, mutton, beef, pork, eggs, milk, or any-
FETICHISMj PRIESTCRAFT^ AND IDOLATRY. 59
thing which he may clioose to mention at the time. The fetich
edict once pronounced against a particular article of food under
such circumstances, no one of the family ever tastes it more ; and
thus we find one who will not taste a bit of chicken, another an
egg, a turkc}', and so on ; and this abstinence from a particular
species of food descends to the children, who are under the neces-
sity of observing a similar abstinence." — CruickshanJc's Africa,
Vol. 11. , page 133.
"The Fans have a great reverence for charms and fetiches,
and even the little children are covered with these talismans, duly
consecrated by the doctor or greegree man of the tribe. They
place especial value on charms which are supposed to have the
power to protect their owner in battle. Chief among these is an
iron chain, of which the links are an inch and a half long by an
inch wide. This is w^orn over the left shoulder, and hanging
down the right side. Besides this, and next to it in value, is a
small bag, which is suspended round the neck or to the side of the
warrior. This bag is make of the skin of some rare animal, and
contains various fragments of others, such as dried monkeys' tails,
the bowels and claws of other beasts, shells, feathers of birds,
and ashes of various beasts." — Du ChailliCs Equatorial Africa,
page 128.
"Their religion, if it may be called so, is the same in all tribes.
They all believe in the power of their idols, in charms, fetiches,
and in evil and good spirits. Mahommedanism has not penetrated
into this vast jungle. They all believe in witchcraft, ■ — which I
think is more prevalent in the West than in the East, — causing
an untold amount of slaughter."— - ZJii Chaillu's Asliango-Land,
page 428.
"Their fetiches consisted of fingers and tails of monkeys, of
human hair, skin, teeth, bones ; of clay, old nails, copper chains,
shells, feathers, claws, and skulls of birds ; pieces of iron, copper,
or wood ; seeds of plants ; ashes of various substances ; and I
cannot; tej} whaj; more. Fi'oni the great variety and plejify of
60 FETICniSM^ PRIESTCRAFT^ AND IDOLATRY.
these objects on their persons, I suppose these Fan to be a very
superstitious people." — Du Cliaillu's Equatorial Africa^ page 93.
*' This evening I went to see the village idol (the patron saint
as it may be called), and to witness a great ceremony in the
sacred house. As with the Aviia and other tribes, the idol was a
monstrous and indecent representation of a female figure in wood.
I had remarked that the further I travelled toward the interior,
the coarser these wooden idols were, and the more roughly they
were sculptured. This idol was kept at the end of a long, nar-
row, and low hut, forty or fifty feet long, and ten feet broad, and
was painted in red, white, and black colors. When I entered the
hut it was full of Ashango people, ranged in order on each side,
with lighted torches stuck in the ground before them. Amongst
them were conspicuous two priests, dressed in clothes of vegeta-
ble fibre, with their skins painted grotesquely in various colors,
one side of the face red, the other white, and in the middle of the
breast a broad yellow stripe ; the circuit of the eye was also
daubed with paint. These colors are made by boiling various
kinds of wood, and mixing the decoction with clay. The rest of
the Ashangos were also streaked and daubed with various colors,
and, by the light of their torches, they looked like a troop of dev-
ils assembled in the lower regions to celebrate some diabolical
rite. Around their legs were bound white leaves from the heart
of the palm-tree ; some wore feathers, others had leaves twisted
in the shape of horns behind their ears, and all had a bundle of
palm-leaves in their hands." — Du Cliaillu's Asliango-Land, page
313.
*' As we came away from Mouina's village, a witch-doctor, who
had been sent for, arrived, and all Mouiua's wives went forth
into the fields that morning fasting. There they would be com-
pelled to drink an infusion of a plant named * goho,' which is used
as an ordeal. This ceremony is called ' muavi,' and is performed
in this way : When a man suspects that any of his wives has be-
witched him, he sends for the witch-doctor ; and all the wives go
forth into the field, and remain fasting till that person has made
an infusion of the plant. They all drink it, each one holding up
FETJCHISM, PmESTCIiAFT, AND IDOLATRY. 61
her hand to heaven in attestation of her innocency. Those \k\\o
vomit it are considered innocent, while those whom it purges are
pronounced guilty, and put to death by burning." — Livingstone's
Africa, page QQQ.
** At dififerent points in our course we came upon votive offer-
ings to the Barimo. These usually consisted of food ; and every
deserted village still contained the idols and little sheds with pots
of medicine in them. One afternoon we passed a small frame
house, with the head of an ox in it as an object of worship. The
dreary uniformity of gloomy forests and open flats must have a
depressing influence on the minds of the people. Some villages
appear more superstitious than others, if we may judge from the
greater number of idols they contain." — Livingstone's Africa, page
603.
**We passed two small hamlets, surrounded by gardens of
maize and manioc, and near each of these I observed, for the first
time, an ngly idol, common in Londa, — the figure of an animal,
resembling an alligator, made of clay. It is formed of grass,
plastered over with soft clay. Two cowrie-shells are inserted as
eyes, and numbers of the bristles from the tail of an elephant are
stuck in about the neck. It is called a lion, though, if one were
not told so, he would conclude it to be an alligator. It stood in
a shed, and the Balonda pray and beat drums before it all night
in cases of sickness." — Livingstone's Africa, page 30i.
** I was disturbed this evening from my repose, on the dry sand,
under the pale moonlight, by the most unearthly noises, coming
from a group of our black servants. On getting up to see what
it was, I found that one of our negresses, a wife of one of the ser-
vants, was performing Boree, the ' Devil,' and working herself
up into the belief that his satanic majesty had possession of her.
She threw herself upon the ground in all directions, and imitated
the cries of various animals. Her actions were, however, some-
what regulated by a man tapping upon a kettle with a piece of
wood, beating time to her wild manoeuvres. After some delay,
6
62 FETICHISM, PRIESTCRAFT, AND IDOLATRY.
believing herself now possessed, and capable of performing her
work, she went forward to half a dozen of our servants, who were
squatting down on their hams, ready to receive her. She then
took each by the head and neck, and pressed their heads between
, her legs, — they sitting, she standing, — not in the most decent
way, and made over them, with her whole body, certain inelegant
motions, not to be mentioned." — Puchardsoii's Africa, Vol. J.,
page 286.
** At the back of our hut stands a fetich god, in a small thatched
hut, supported by four wooden pillars, which is watched contin-
ually by two boys and a woman. We were desired to roast our
bullock under him, that he might enjoy the savory smell of the
smoking meat, some of which he might also be able to eat, if he
desired. We were particularly enjoined to roast no yams under
iiim, as they were considered by the natives too poor a diet to
offer to their deity." — Lander's Travels in Africa, Vol, II. , page
163.
"This day a long and gay procession, formed by the female
followers of the ancient religion of the country, passed through
the town, walking and dancing alternately, with large-spreading
branches of trees in their hands. The priestess, at the time we
saw her, had just swallowed fetich water, and was carried on the
shoulders of one of the devotees, who was assisted by two female
companions, supporting the trembling hands and arms of their
mistress. Her body was convulsed all over, and her features
shockingly distorted, while she stared wildly and vacantly on the
troop of enthusiasts and other objects which surrounded her.
The priestess was then believed to be possessed with a demon.
Indeed, to us they all appeared to be so, for not one of them
seemed in their sober senses, so indescribably fantastic were their
actions, and so unseemly did tliey deport themselves. A younger
woman was likewise borne on the shoulders of a friend, and car-
ried along in the same manner as her mistress ; but she was by
no means so uncouth a figure, nor was her agitation so great as
that of the priestess, by whom she was preceded. The whole of
the women forming this strange procession might amount to be-
r
FETICHISM, PRIESTCRAFT^ AND IDOLATRY* 63
tween ninety and a hundred. Their motions were regulated at
times by the sound of drums and fifes, and to this music they
joined their wikl, shrill voices. They were arranged in couples,
and, with the branches of trees shaking in the air, presented one
of the most extraordinary and grotesque spectacles that the hu-
man mind can conceive." — Lander^s Travels in Africa^ Vol. I.,
page 322.
" Immediately opposite to the first square, which forms the en-
trance to the chiefs residence, stands a small tree, profusely dec-
orated with human skulls and bones. This tree is considered by
the people as fetich, or sacred ; and is supposed to possess the
virtue of preventing the evil spirit from entering the chief's resi-
dence. Near the tree stands the house which is inhabited by
fetich priests, — a class of beings certainly in the most savage con-
dition of nature that it is possible to imagine. The fetich priests of
Brass town chalked themselves from head to foot, besides dressing
after a fashion of their own ; but these fellows outdo them by far,
and make themselves the most hideous and disgusting objects j^os-
sible. Whether it may be with the idea of personifying the evil
spirit they are so afraid of, I could not learn ; but they go about
the town with a human skull fastened over their face, so that they
can see through the eye-holes ; this is surmounted by a pair of
bullock's horns ; their body is covered with net, made of stained
grass ; and, to complete the whole and give them an appearance
as ridiculous behind as they are hideous before, a bullock's tail
protrudes through the dress and hangs down to the ground, ren-
dering them altogether the most uncouth-looking beings imagina-
ble. Sometimes a cocked-hat is substituted for the horns, and the
skull of a dog or monkey used, which renders their appearance, if
possible, still more grotesque. Thus equipped they are ready to
perform the mysteries of their profession, which I had not suffi-
cient opportunity to inquire into, but which are quite enough to
enslave the minds of the people." — Lander'^s Travels in Africa, Vol.
II., page ^1^.
"Becoming obese by age and good living, Fundikira, Chief of
the Unyannvezi, fell ill in the autumn of 1858, and, as usual, his re»
64 FETICBISM^ PEIESTCRAFTj AND IDOLATRY,
lations were suspected of compassing his end by black magic. In
these regions the death of one man causes many. The priest was
summoned to api^Iy the usual ovdeal. After administering a mys-
tic drug, he broke the neck of a fowl, and, splitting it into two
lengths, inspected the interior. If blackness or blemish appear
about the wings, it denotes the treachery of children, relations,
and kinsmen ; the backbone convicts the mother and grand-
mother ; the tail shows that the criminal is the wife, the thighs the
concubines, and the injured shanks or feet the other slaves. Hav-
ing fixed ujDon the class of the criminals, the}- are collected to-
gether by the priest, who, after similarly dosing a second hen,
throws her up into the air above the heads of the crowd, and
singles out the jDcrson upon whom she alights. Confession is ex-
torted by tying the thumb backward till it touches the wrist, or by
some equally barbarous mode of question. The consequence of
condemnation is certain and immediate death ; the mode is chosen
by the priest. Some are speared, others are beheaded or clubbed ;
a common way is to bind the cranium between two stiff pieces of
wood, which are gradually tightened by cords till the brain bursts
out from the sutures. For women they practise a peculiarly horri-
ble kind of impalement. These atrocities continue until the chief
recovers- or dies, — at the commencement of his attack, in one
household eighteen souls, male and female, had been destroyed ;
should his illness be protracted, scores will precede him to the
grave, for the magician must surely die." — Burtoii's Africa, page
300.
" The Shangalla have but one language, and of a very guttural
pronunciation. They worship various trees, serpents, the moon,
planets, and stars in certain positions, which I never could so per-
fectly understand as to give any account of them. A star passing
near the horns of the moon denotes the coming of an enemy.
They have priests, or rather diviners ; but it would seem that these
are looked upon as servants of the evil being, rather than of the
good. They prophesy bad events, and think they can afflict their
enemies with sickness, even at a distance.*' — Brace's Travels, Vol.
II. , page 554.
" At Whydah I found the natives addicted to a very grovelling
FETICniSM, PRIESTCRAFT^ AND IDOLATRY. 65
species of idolatry. It was their belief that the good as well as
the evil spirit existed in living iguanas. In the home of the man
with whom I dwelt, several of these large lizards were constantly
fed and cherished as gods ; nor was any one allowed to interfere
with their freedom, or to harm them even when they grew insuf-
ferably offensive. The death of one of these crawling deities is
considered a calamity in the household, and grief for the reptile
becomes as great as for a departed parent." — Caiwfs Twenty
Years of an African Slaver, j^age 2G6.
"When the King of Whydah, in 1694, heard that Smith, the
chief of the English factory, was dangerously ill with fever, he
sent his fetichman to aid in the recovery. The priest went to the
sick man, and solemnly announced that he came to save him. He
then marched to the white man's burial-ground with a provision
of brandy, oil, and rice, and made a loud oration to those that
slept there : * O you dead white people, you wish to have Smith
among you; but our king likes him, and it is not his will to let
him go to be among you.' Passing on to the grave of Wyburn,
the founder of the factory, he addressed him : * You, captain of all
the whites who are here ! Smith's sickness is a piece of your work.
You want his company, for he is a good man ; but our king does
not want to lose him, and you can't have him yet.' Then digging
a hole over the grave, he poured into it the articles which he had
brought, and told him that if he needed these things, he gave
them with good-will, but he must not expect to get Smith. The
factor died notwithstanding." — Foote'^s Africa and the American
Flag, page bS.
*' A musket among those tribes is an object of almost supernat-
ural dread ; individuals have been seen kneeling down before it,
speaking to it in Avhispers, and addressing to it earnest supplica-
tions."— Murray's African Discoveries, page 127.
" The purposes for which fetiches are used are almost without
number. One guards against sickness, another against drought,
and a third against the disasters of war. One is used to draw
6*
66 FETICHISM, PEIESTCRAFT, AND IDOLATRY,
down rain, another secures good crops, and a third fills the sea
and rivers with fishes, and makes them willing to be taken in the
fishermen's net. Insanity is cured by fetiches, the sterility of
w^omen is removed, and there is scarcely a single evil incident to
human life Avhich may not be overcome by this means ; the only
condition annexed is that the right kind of fetich be employed.
Some are intended to preserve life, others to destroy it. One in-
spires a man with courage, makes him invulnerable in war, or
paralyzes the energy of an adversary. They have also national
fetiches to protect their towns from fire, pestilence, and from sur-
prise by enemies. They have others to procure rain, to make
fruitful seasons, and to cause abundance of game in their woods,
and fish in their waters. Some of these are suspended along the
highways, a larger number are kept under rude shanties at the
entrances of their villages ; but the most important and sacred are
kept in a house in the centre of the village, where the high-priest
lives and takes care of them. Most of these, and especially those
at the entrances of their villages, are of the most uncouth forms,
representing the heads of animals or human beings, and almost
always with a formidable pair of horns. One of the first things
which salutes the eyes of a stranger, after planting his feet upon
the shores of Africa, is the symbols of this religion. He steps
forth from the boat under a canopy of fetiches, not only as a se-
curity for his own safety, but as a guaranty that he does not carry
the elements of mischief among the people ; he finds them sus-
jjcnded along every i)ath he walks; at every junction of two or
more roads ; at the crossing-place of every stream ; at the base
of every large rock or overgrown forest-tree ; at the gate of every
village ; over the door of every house, and around the neck of
every human being whom he meets. They are set up on their
farms, tied around their frait-trees, and are fastened to the necks
of their sheep and goats to prevent them from being stolen. If a
man trespasses upon the property of his neighbor, in defiance of
the fetiches he has set up to protect it, he is confidently expected
to suffer the penalty or his temerity at some time or other. If he
is overtaken by a formidable malady or lingering sickness after-
ward, even should it be after the lapse of twenty, thirt}', or forty
years, he is known to be suffering the consequence of his own
rashness.
** And not only are these fetiches regarded as having power to
FETICHISM^ PRIESTCRAFT, AND IDOLATRY. 67
protect or piinisli men, but they are equally omnipotent to shield
themselves from violence. "White men are frequently challenged
to test their invulnerability, by shooting at them ; and if they are
destroyed in this way (and this is a very common occurrence),
the only admission is, that that particular fetich had no special
virtues, or it would have defended itself." — Wilson's Africa, page
212.
*' On the Gold Coast there are stated occasions, when the peo-
ple turn out en masse (generally at night) with clubs and torches,
to drive away the evil spirits from their towns. At a given signal,
the whole community start np, commence a most hideous howl-
ing, beat about in every nook and corner of their dwellings, then
rush into the streets, with their torches and clubs, like so many
frantic maniacs, beat the air, and scream at the top of their voices,
until some one announces the departure of the spirits through
some gate of the town, when they are putsued several miles into
the woods, and warned not to come back. After this the people
breathe easier, sleep more quietly, have better health, and the
town is once more cheered by an abundance of food. Demo-
niacal possessions are common, and the feats performed by those
Avho are supposed to be under such influence are certainly not un-
like those described in the New Testament. Frantic gestures,
convulsions, foaming at the mouth, feats of supernatural strength,
furious ravings, bodily lacerations, gnashing of teeth, and other
things of a similar character, may be witnessed in most of the
cases which are supposed to be under diabolical influences." —
Wilson's Africa, page 217.
" On some parts of the Gold Coast the crocodile is sacred; a
certain class of snakes, on the Slave Coast, and the shark at
Bonny, are all regarded as sacred, and are worshipped, not on
their own account, perhaps, but because they are regarded as the
temples, or dwelling-places of spirits. Like every other object of
the kind, however, in the course of time the thing signified is for-
gotten in the representative, and these various animals have long
since been regarded ^\\W\ superstitious veneration, while little is
thought of the indwelling spirit." — Wilson's Africa, page 218.
68 FETICHISM, PRIESTCRAFT^ AND IDOLATRY.
*' In the afternoon, nearly all the principal persons in the town
were dressed in their gayest attire ; a large group of them was
collected under the fetich-tree, to see and hear the fetichraan,
w^hile he made his orations, and danced to the sound of several
drums which were played by females. The appearance of the
fetichman was very much like that of a clown ; his face was daubed
with white clay ; he had a large iron chain hanging around his
neck, which seemed to be worn as a necklace ; around his legs
were tied bunches of fetich ; and he held in his hand an immense
knife, about fifteen inches long, and two and half broad. Some-
times he danced with many frantic gestures ; and at other times
stood gazing around him with every indi(^ation of a vacant mind.
While I w^as at a distance looking at him, he set out, and ran to a
distance of about a hundred yards. Anxious to keep him in sight,
I w'alked forward, past a small shed, which would have concealed
him from me, and saw him standing with a musket at his shoulder,
taking aim at a turkey-buzzard on a tree hard by." — Freemaii's
Africa, l^age 26.
*' Worship is not confined to any particular species of serpent,
but is extended generally to all. A woman was seen one day
worshijoping a small serpent, and overheard praying to it the
unique and selfish prayer, ' Give rain to my garden, let me have
plenty; and let there be nobody in the w^orld but you and me.'
On meeting a serpent in the road, a woman will take off some of
her beads and offer them as a present or sacrifice, in token of ven-
eration. They are regarded as representing, in some way, their
dej)arted ancestors ; and hence, one has been heard addressing a
serpent, and saying, * Ah, I see in your eyes my former chief.'
These are additional facts which serve to illustrate the doctrine of
the almost universal w^orship of serpents, — one of the strangest
anomalies in the religious history of mankind." — Freemaii's Af-
rica^ 'page 279.
*' The chief objects of worship in Whydah are snakes and a largo
cottonwood-tree. There is a snake-house which I used to go often
to see. The snakes are of the boa species, and are from five to
fifteen feet in length. You can almost always see them crawling
FETICniSM. PRIESTCRAFT. AND IDOLATRY. G9
about the streets. When the natives see them they fall down and
kiss the earth. They are perfectly harmless, as I have often seen
the natives take them np and carry them back to the fetich-house.
It is not at all unfrequent to find them on the mat alongside of you
in the morning, as the huts are without doors. I had my lodging
in what was once an English fort, but is now in ruins, and is a fa-
vorite resort of the snakes. I never found one in my room, but
one morning, upon looking in the room adjoining mine, I found
one almost seven feet long. The penalty for killing one is — for
a white person — the price of sixty slaves; for a native, he is
shut up in a bamboo house, and then the house is set on fire. The
poor fellow has the privilege of getting outif he can, and running for
the lagoon, a distance of two miles, followed by the mob, and if
he reaches the water he is free. But very few can ever avail
themselves of this water cure. It is a great dodge with the fetich-
man, if he knows that you are peculiarly averse to this kind of
god, to bring them near your house and put them down, knowing
they will enter, and he will be sent for to come and take them
away, for which he gets a few strings of cowries." — Wesfs Afri-
can Correspondence of the Boston Post, 1859.
** We passed along a narrow path some distance, till we came
to two sticks, stuck ujd, one on each side of the path, with a small
piece of white cotton rag on the top of each. The boys declared
that it would be at the peril of my life if I proceeded any further
in that direction, for this was the road to a fetich-house ; and the
fetichman had stuck up those sticks as a warning not to attempt
to proceed any further. I pretended, however, not to compre-
hend their palaver, and walked on till I was some distance past
the spot, when I looked round, and ordered them to come on ;
but they stood trembling, watching, expecting to see me drof)
down dead. After many assurances of the absurdity of such
superstition, they were at last induced to follow me. Such is the
infatuation of the people all along the West Coast, and, in fact, in
most places I have yet visited in the interior." — Duncan's Africa,
Vol. L, page 174.
" The snake is also a fetich or idol here ; and houses are built
70 ^ liAIN-DOCTORS AND OTHER DOCTORS.
in several parts of the town for the accommodation of snakes,
where they are regularly fed. These houses are about seven feet
high in the walls, with conical roof, about eight feet diameter,
and circular. The snakes are of the boa-constrictor tribe, and
are considered quite harmless, although I have my doubts ujDon
it. They generally leave this house at intervals ; and, when found
by any of the natives, are taken up and immediately conveyed
back to the fetich-house, where they are placed on the top of the
w^all, under the thatch. It is disgusting to witness the homage
paid to these reptiles by the natives. When one of them is picked
up by any one, others will prostrate themselves as it is carried
past, throwing dust on their heads, and begging to be rubbed
over the body with the reptile." — Duncan's Africa, Vol. L,
page 126,
CHAPTER VIII.
RAIN-DOCTOKS AND OTHER DOCTORS IN NEGROLAND.
•' The natives, finding it irksome to sit and wait until God
gives them rain from heaven, entertain the more comfortable idea
that they can help themselves by a variety of preparations, such
as charcoal made of burned bats, inspissated renal deposit of the
mountain cony, the internal parts of different animals, — as
jackals' livers, baboons' and lions' hearts, and hairy calculi from
the bowels of cows, — serpents' skins and vertebroe, and every
kind of tuber, bulb, root, and plant to be found in the country.
Although you disbelieve their efiicacy in charming the clouds to
pour out their refreshing treasures, yet, conscious that civility is
useful everywhere, you kindly state that you think they are mis-
taken as to their power. The rain-doctor selects a particular
bulbous root, pounds it, and administers a cold infusion to a sheep,
which, in five minutes afterward, expires in convulsions. Part
of the same bulb is converted into smoke, and ascends toward
the sky ; rain follows in a day or two. The inference is obvious.'*
— Livingstone'' s Africa, page 24.
BAIN-DOCTORS AND OTHER DOCTORS, 71
**The modes in which the rain-makers propitiate the clouds are
various. The one most commonly practised is by collecting a few
leaves of each individual variety of tree in the forest, which they
allow to simmer in large pots over a slow fire, while a sheep is
killed by pricking it in the heart with a long sewing-needle, while
the rain-maker is employed in performing a variety of absurd in-
cantations. The steam arising from the simmering leaves is sup-
joosed to reach and propitiate the clouds, and the remainder of
the da}' is spent in dances, which are joined in b}^ all the tribe,
and kept up till midnight, being accompanied with songs having
a long-continued chorus, in which all join, and the burden of
which is the power and praises of the rain-maker ; but the fields
of young corn become parched and withered." — Curnming's
Africa, Vol. II., page 63.
**When the rain-makers fail to fulfil their promises, they al-
ways ascribe their want of success to the presence of some mys-
terious agency, which has destroyed the effect of their otherwise
infallible nostrums. One of the anti-rain-making articles is ivory,
which is believed to have great influence in driving away rain, in
consequence of which, in the summer season, they produce it only
as the sun goes down, at which time it is brought for the trader's
inspection, carefully wrapped in a kaross. I remember on one
occasion incurring the censure of a whole tribe, who firmly be-
lieved me to have frightened the rain from their dominions by
exposing a quantity of ivory at noon-day ; and, on another occa-
sion, the chief of a certain tribe commanded a missionary, Avith
whom I am acquainted, to remove all the rafters from the roof of
his house, these having been pointed out by the rain-maker as
obstructing the success of his incantations." — Cumming'^s Africa^
Vol, II. y page 64.
" It occurred some time ago, while the Rev. Mr. Lemne was
residing here, that a horse died at the village, at a time when
rain was much wanted. Mr. Lemne very properly had the car-
cass of the animal dragged away to a great distance, to avoid the
evils arising from its putrefaction in so hot a climate. This act
became a matter of great consultation, and it was decided in some
72 BAIN-DOCTORS AND OTHER DOCTORS.
way that this dragging to a distance the remains of the dead horse
prevented the rain coming; and the chief above named actually
sent men, with leathern cords, to drag it again to the village, and
there it was placed, at no great distance from Mr. Lemne^s house,
and left to decay ! " — Freeman's Africa, page 269.
*' They are subject to a variety of diseases which baffle the skill
of their medical advisers, who, in such cases, have recourse to
smearing the patient with cow-dung, and keeping up his spirits
with the constant excitement of dancing and singing within his
hut." — Steedman's Africa, Vol. I., page 207.
'* The Kru candidate for medical honors is not subject to a
formal examination by a board of trustees, but is required to
evince his proficiency in a different way. The head of a chicken
is secretly deposited in one of a number of earthen jars provided
for the occasion, and he is required to go and point out the one in
which it is secreted. If he does this promptly, it is conclusive
proof of his qualification to be a doctor, and is the occasion of
unbounded exultation on the part of his friends. His head is then
shorn, and the hair is carefully folded up, and kept as an indis-
jDcnsable means of success, and is sometimes pawned as a security
for his good behavior and faithful discharge of duty. The doc-
tor's badge of office is a monkey's skin, which he carries in the
form of a roll wherever he goes, and of which he is quite as proud
as his white brother is of his sheep-skin diploma." — Wilsoii's
Africa, page 134.
" When all ready for the trial, I went down to look at the
Ouganga doctor, who looked literally like the devil. I never saw
a more ghastly object. He had on a high head-dress of black
leathers. His eyelids were painted red, and a red stripe, from
the nose upward, divided his forehead in two parts. Another red
stripe passed round his head. The face was painted white, and
on each side of the mouth were two round red spots. About his
neck hung a necklace of grass, and also a cord, which held a box
against his breast. This little box is sacred, and contains spirits.
RAIN-DOCTORS AND OTHER DOCTORS. 73
A number of strips of leopard and other skins crossed his breast
and were exposed about his jierson ; and all these were charmed,
and had charms attached to them. From each shoulder down to
his hands was a white strij^e ; and one hand was painted quite
white. To complete this horrible array, he wore a string of little
bells around his body.
*',He sat on a box or stool, before which stood another box con-
taining charms. On this stood a looking-glass, beside which lay
a buffalo-horn containing some black powder, and said, in addi-
tion, to be the refuge of many spirits. He had a little basket of
snake-bones, which he shook frequently during his incantations,
as also several skins, to which little bells were attached. Near
by stood a fellow beating a board with two sticks. All the people
of the village gathered about this couple, who, after continuino*
their incantations for quite a while, at last came to the climax.
Jombuaiwas told to call over the names of persons in the village,
iu order that the doctor might ascertain if any one of those named
did the sorcery. As each name was called, the old cheat looked
in the glass to see the result. During the whole operation, I
stood near him, which seemed to trouble him greatly. At last,
after all the names were called, the doctor declared that he could
not find any 'witch-man,' but that an evil spirit dwelt in the
village, and many of the people would die if they continued
there." — Z)?f Chaillu's Equatorial Africa, page 282.
'* A celebrated doctor had been sent for from a distance, and
appeared in the morning, decked out in the most fantastic man-
ner. Half his body was painted red and the other half white ; his
face was daubed with streaks of black, white, and red ; and, of
course, he wore around his neck a great quantity of fetiches.
The villagers were assembled, and the doctor had commenced his
divinations, when I arrived at the place, a witness once again of
this gloomy ceremony, — which was different from that of the
Commi people seen formerly by me, as related in ' Adventures in
Equatorial Africa.' The doctor counterfeited his voice when
speaking, in order to impress on the 2^eople a duo sense of his
supernatural powers of divination ; all the painting, dressing, and
mummery have the same object in view, namely, to strike awe
into the minds of the peoiDle. A black earthenware vessel filled
7
74 ItAIN-DOCTORS AXD OTHER DOCTORS,
with water, and surrounded by charmed ochre and fetiches, served
the purpose of the looking-ghiss used by the coast tribes. The
doctor, seated on his stool, looked intently and mysteriously into
the water, shook his head, then looked into a lighted torch, which
he waved over it, made contortions with his body, trying to look
as ugly as he could, then repeated the mummeries over again,
and concluded by pronouncing that the persons who were bewitch-
ing the village were people belonging to the place." — Du Cliail-
lu's AsJiango-Land, page 173.
'* Whilst I am on the subject of native doctoring, I must relate
what I saw afterwards in the course of Mayolo's illness. I knew
the old chief had been regularly attended by a female doctor, and
often wondered what she did to him. At lenojth, one mornius: I
happened to go into his house when she was administering her
cures, and remained an interesting spectator to watch her opera-
tions. Mayolo was seated on a mat, submitting to all that was
done with the utmost gravity and jjatience. Before him was
extended the skin of a wild animal. The woman was eno^aged in
rubbing his body all over with her hands, muttering all the while,
in a low voice, words which I could not understand. Having
continued this wholesome friction for some time, she took a piece
of alumbi chalk and made with it a broad stripe along the middle
of his chest and down each arm. This done, she chewed a
quantity of some kind of roots and seeds, and, having well
charged her mouth with saliva, spat upon him in diflferent places,
but aiming her heaviest shots at the parts most aifected. Finally,
she took a bunch of a particular kind of grass, whicli had been
gathered when in bloom and was now dry, and, lighting it,
touched with the flame the body of her patient in various places,
beginning at the foot and gradually ascending to the head. I
could jDerceive that Mayolo smarted with the pain of the burns,
when the torch remained too long. When the flame was
extinguished, the woman applied the burnt part of the torch to her
patient's body, and so the operations ended." — Bu Chaillu's Ash'
ango-Land, page 169.
NAKEDNESS i SHAMELESSNESSj AND PROSTITUTION, 75
CHAPTER IX.
Ni^LKEDNESS, SHAMELESSNESS, AND PROSTITUTION IN NEGROLAND.
*• Close to the place where we stood, was a ch'cle of naked
savage women, all black as a coal, who were performing the
oddest antics imaginable ; and still nearer stood a wild-looking
group of their male companions, resting on their tall spears and
participating in the frolic with all their hearts. A three-cornered
rush or straw hat, having a high peak, but without a brim, was
the only article of dress worn by these men." — Lander^'s Travels
in Africa, Vol. I., page 307.
** The Shangalla of both sexes, while single, go entirely naked ;
the married men, indeed, have a very slender covering about
their waist, and married women the same. Young men and
young women, till long i^ast the age of puberty, are totally
uncovered, and in constant conversation and habits with each
other, in woods and solitudes, free from constraint, and without
any punishment annexed to the transgression." — Bruc^s Africa^
Vol. II., page 558.
"The natives came down to the boats. They are something
superlative in the way of savages; the men as naked as they
came into the world ; their bodies rubbed with ashes, and their
hair stained red by a plaster of ashes and cow's urine. These
fellows are the most unearthly-looking devils I ever saw, — there
is no other expression for them. The unmarried women are also
entirely naked ; the married have a fringe made of grass around
their loins." — Baker's Great Basin of the Nile, page 42.
*' There is little difficulty in describing the toilet of the natives,
— that of the men being simplified by the sole covering of the
head, the body being entirely nude. It is curious to observe
among these wild savages the consummate vanity displayed in their
76 NAKEDNESS, SHAMELESSNESS, AND PROSTITUTION.
head-dresses. Every tribe has a distinct and unchanging fashion
for dressing the hair ; and so elaborate is the coiffure that liair-
dressing is reduced to a science. European ladies would be
startled at the fact, that to perfect the coiffure of a man requires
a period of from eight to ten years." — Bakefs Great Basin of tlie
Nile, page 42.
" Among the worst characteristics of Kaffir society, is its great
incontinence. Most young women are frequently and forcibly
violated before marriage ; and widows are considered public prop-
erty. When the chiefs wish to carry any particular point, they
seize a number of young women, and give them up to their wild
warriors. This I do not think has been noticed before in any
account of the Kaffirs ; and, with * wholesale and periodical rape,'
constitutes a very black feature in their character. Adultery also
is frequent among them ; and the fine is merely a cow. The fol-
lowing I know to be a fact : A Kaffir coveted a handsome cow, or
one with a musical voice, the property of his neighbor ; he ordered
his wife to throw herself in his neighbor's way ; the guilty pair
were detected ; and the injured husband secured the object of his
desires." — Alexander's Africa, Vol. I., page 397.
"The women clothe themselves better than the Balonda, but
the men go in puris naturalibus. They walk about Avithout the
smallest sense of shame. They have even lost the tradition of
the * fig-leaf.' I asked a fine, large-bodied old man if he did not
think it would be better to adopt a little covering. . He looked
with a pitying leer, and laughed with surprise at my thinking him
at all indecent ; he evidently considered himself above such weak
superstition. I told him that, on my return, I should have my
family with me, aud no one must come near us in that state.
* What shall we put on, — we having no clothing? It was con-
sidered a good joke when I told them that, if they had nothing
else, they must put on a bunch of grass." — Livingstone's Africa^
page 690.
** There is no difference between the sexes during their early
NAKEDNESS, SHAMELESSNESS, AND PROSTITUTION. 77
years. A sense of shame or modesty seems altogether unknown
or disreirarded : nor is it unusual to find ten or a dozen of both
genders huddled promiscuously beneath a roof whose walls are
not more than fifteen feet square. True to his nature, a Vey
bushman rises in the morning to swallow his rice, aild crawls
back to his mat, which is invariably placed in the sunshine, where
he basks till moontide, when another wife serves him a second
meal. The remainder of the daylight is passed either in gossip
or a second siesta, till, at sundown, his other wives wash his body,
furnish a third meal, and stretch his wearied limbs before a blaz-
ing fire to refresh him for the toils of the succeeding day. In fact
the slaves of a household, together with its females, form the
entire working class of Africa." — Canofs Twenty Years of an Afri-
can Slaver, page 430.
** Women in Africa will frequently bathe in public, and before
strangers, without the slightest shame. . . . Young men
erroneously suppose that there is something voluptuous in the ex-
cessive dishabille of an equatorial girl. On the contrary, nothing
is so moral and so repulsive as nakedness. Dress must have been
the invention of some clever woman to ensnare the passions of
men." — B.ead^s Savage Africa^ pcig^ 424.
•*The women in all the tribes are much given to intrigue, and
chastity is an unknown virtue." — Du CJiaiUu's Equatorial Africa,
page 382.
*' Some of their customs are so obscene that even the record of
them would be inadmissible here." — Valdez's Africa, Vol. II.,
page 163.
** This freedom of the women I did not much relish, and desired
my servants to ask them what they wanted. They replied that
their object was to obtain a dram of rum, and offer themselves
as wives, saying that every great man had a number of wives,
and, knowing me to be a stranger with no wife, they supposed
78 NAKEDNESS, SHAMELESSNESS, AND PROSTITUTION.
that of course I wanted a few." — DuncarCs Africa^ Vol. I., page
172.
' The women of Inasamet not only made the first advances,
but, what is worse, they were offered even by the men, — their
brethren or husbands. Even those among the men whose behavior
was least vile and revolting did not cease urging us to engage
with the women, who failed not to present themselves soon after-
wards. It could scarcely be taken as a joke. Some of the
women were immensely fat, particularly in the hinder regions." —
Bartli's Africa, Vol. I., page 408.
* The chief just mentioned was in a certain degree subject to
the rulers of Bornu ; but it seemed rather an ironical assertion that
this prince would be pleased with the arrival of the exiDcdition.
"While describing his reception at the court of the chief, the scout
indulged in a lively description of the customs prevalent among
these people. His majest}', he said, used to indulge in amorous
intercourse with his female slaves, of whom he had two hundred,
before the eyes of his people, — an account which was rather con-
firmed by Belal, who had been his host several times. Belal,
who was a very jovial old fellow, also stated that this little j^rince
was not jealous of the favors bestowed by his female partners
upon his guests, but, on the contrary, that he himself voluntarily
gave them up to them." — Bartli's Africa, Vol., II., page 216.
*' The people in general are very libidinous, but their ability
answers not their desire ; however, their too frequent actions and
their dealing with variety of women draw upon them no small
inconveniences. Nor do the women fall short of the men in their
unchastity, wholly giving themselves up to venereal exercises;
and if continually troubled with a furor uterinus, at all times chew
and eat such herbs and barks of trees as are the greatest incen-
tives to heighten their desires to almost hourly congresses." —
Ogilby^s Africa, page 390.
DRUNKENNESS AND DEBAUCHERY. 79
CHAPTER X.
DRUNKENNESS AND DEBAUCHERY IN NEGROLAND.
" The large quantity of palm-trees in and around the village
furnishes the inhabitants of Mokaba with a ready supply of their
favorite drink, palm-wine ; for, as I have said before, they are a
merry people, and make a regular practice of getting drunk
every day, as long as the wine is obtainable. I often saw them
climb the trees in early morning, and take deep draughts from the
calabashes suspended there. Like most drunken people they be-
come quarrelsome ; and being a lively and excitable race, many
frays occur. Happily the palm-wine season lasts only a few
months in the year; it was the height of the drunken season
when I was at Mokaba. I saw very few men who had not scars,
or the marks of one or more wounds, received in their merry-
making scrimmages. Their holidays are very frequent. Un-
limited drinking is the chief amusement, together with dancing,
tam-tamming, and wild uproar, which last all night." — Du Cliail-
liCs Asliango-Land, page 260.
"The kino-, as usual, was drunk when I arrived. Indeed, he
was too tipsy to stand on his legs ; nevertheless, he was bullying
and boasting in a loud tone of voice. I had not been in his place
long before he ordered another calabash full of palm-wine, and
drank off about a gallon of it. This finished him up for the day ;
he fell back into the arms of his loving wives, ejaculating many
times, ' I am a big king ! I am a big king ! ' The voice soon be-
came inaudible, and he fell asleep." — Bu Chaillu's Asliango-Land,
page 41.
" The king's usual way of living is to sleep all day, till toward
sunset ; then he gets up to drink, and goes to sleep again till mid-
night ; then he rises and eats, and if he has any strong liquors,
will sit and drink till daylight, and then eat, and go to sleep again.
When he is well stocked with liquor, he will sit and drink for five
or six days together, and not eat one morsel of anything in all
80 KIGHT CAROUSALS^ ETC., IN NEGROLAND,
that time. It is to that insatiable thirst of his after brandy that
his subjects' freedom and families are in so precarious a situation ;
for he very often goes with some of his troops by a town in the
daytime, and returns in the night, and sets fire to three parts of
it, and sets guards at the fourth to seize the people as they run
out from the fire. He then ties their arms behind them, and
marches them to the 23lace where he sells them into slavery." —
Moore's Inland Parts of Africa, page 87.
"The virtue of chastity I do not believe to exist in "Wawa.
Even the widow Zuma lets out her female slaves for hire, like the
rest of the ^^eople of the town. Neither is sobriety held as a vir-
tue. I never was in a place in my life where drunkenness was so
general. Governor, priest, and layman, and even some of the
ladies, drink to excess. I was pestered for three or four days by
the governor's daughter, who used to come several times in a day,
painted and bedizened in the highest style of Wawa fashion, but
always half tipsy. I could only get rid of her by telling her that
I prayed and looked at the stars all night, and never drank any-
thing stronger than water. She always departed in a flood of
tears. — ClappertorCs Africa^ page 129.
CHAPTER XI.
NIGHT CAROUSALS, AND NOISY AND NONSENSICAL ACTIONS IN NE-
GROLAND.
" The i^eople usually show their joy and work off their excite-
ment in dances and songs. The dance consists of the men stand-
ing nearly naked in a circle, with clubs or small battle-axes in
their hands, and each roaring at tlie loudest jjitch of his voice,
while they simultaneously lift one leg, stamp heavily twice with
NIGHT CAROUSALS, ETC., IX NEGROLAND. 81
it, then lift the other and give one stamp with that ; this is the
only movement in common. The arms and head are often thrown
about, also, in every direction ; and all this time the roaring is
kept up with the utmost possible vigor ; the continual stamping
makes a cloud of dust ascend, and they leave a deep ring in the
ground where they stood. If the same were witnessed in the
lunatic asylum it would be nothing out of the way, and quite ap-
propriate even, as a means of letting off the excessive excitement
of the brain ; but here gray-headed men joined in the perform-
ance with as much zest as others whose youth might be an excuse
for making the perspiration stream off their bodies with the exer-
tion."— Livingstone's Africa, page 245.
"The villagers, especially in the remoter districts, were even
more troublesome, noisy, and inquisitive than the Wagogo. A
'notable passion of wonder' appeared in them. We felt like
baited bears ; we were mobbed in a moment, and scrutinized from
every point of view by them. The inquisitive wretches stood on
tiptoe; they squatted on their hams; they bent sideways; and
they thrust forth their necks like hissing geese to vary the pros-
pect."— Burton's Africa, page 359.
*'0n the spot were the people assembled, with every instru-
ment capable of making a noise which could be procured in the
whole town. They had formed themselves into a large treble
circle, and continued running round with amazing velocity, cry-
ing, shouting, and groaning with all their might. They tossed
and liuno- their heads about, twisted their bodies into all manner
of contortions, jumped into the air, stamped with their feet on the
ground, and flourished their hands above their heads. No scene
in the romance of Robinson Crusoe was so wild and savage as
this. Little boys and girls were outside the ring, running to and
fro, and clashing empty calabashes against each other ; groups of
men were blowing on trumpets, which produced a harsh and dis-
cordant sound ; some were employed in beating old drums ; oth-
ers again were blowing on bullock's horns ; and, in the short in-
tervals between the rapid succession of all these fiend-like noises,
was heard one more dismal than the rest, proceeding from an iron
82 V JNHOSPITALITY TO STRANGERS^ ETC.
tube, accompanied by the clinking of chains, — indeed, every-
thing that could increase the uproar was put in requisition on this
memorable occasion ; nor did it cease till midnight. Never have
we witnessed so extraordinary a scene as this. If a European,
a stranger to Africa, were to be placed of a sudden in the midst
of these people, he would imagine himself to be among a legion
of demons, holding a revel over a fallen spirit, so peculiarly un-
earthly, wild, and horrifying was the appearance of the dancing
group, and the clamor which they made." — Landefs Travels in
Africa, Vol. I., page 366.
■ Ct
CHAPTER XII.
INHOSPITALITY TO STRANGERS, BEGGING, EXTORTION, AND ROB-
BERY IN NEGROLAND.
*' Gratitude with the African is not even a sense of prospective
favor. He looks upon a benefit as the weakness of his benefactor
and his own strength ; consequently he will not recognize even
the hand that feeds him. He will, jierhaps, lament for a night
the death of a parent or a child, but the morrow will find him thor-
oughly comforted. The name of hospitality, except for interested
motives, is unknown to him. *What will you give me?' is his
first question. To a stranger entering a village the worst hut is
assigned, and, if he complain, the answer is that he can find en-
camping-ground outside. Instead of treating him like a guest,
which the Arab Bedouin would hold to be a point of pride, of
honor, his host comjDcls him to pay and prepay every article ;
otherwise he might starve in the midst of plenty." — Burton's Af-
rica, page 490.
** The curiosity of these people, and the little ceremony with
INHOSPITALITY TO STRANGERS, ETC, 83
wliicli they gratify it, are, at times, most troublesome. A
stranger must be stared at ; total apatliy is the only remedy ; if
the victim lose his temper, or attempt to dislodge them, he will
find it like disturbing a swarm of bees. They will come for miles
to ' sow gape-seed.' If the tent-fly be closed, they will peer and
peep from below, comphiining loudly against the occupant ; and,
if further prevented, they may proceed to violence. On the road
hosts of idlers, especially women, boys, and girls, will follow the
caravan for hours. It is a truly offensive spectacle, — these un-
couth figures, running at a ' gymnastic pace,' half clothed, except
with grease, with iDendent bosoms shaking in the air, and cries
that resemble the howls of beasts more than any effort of humau
articulation." — Burtoivs Africa, page 496.
"To travellers, the African is, of course, less civil than to mer-
chants, from Avhom he expects to gain something. He will refuse
a mouthful of water out of his abundance to a man dying of thirst ;
utterly unsympathizing, he will not stretch out a hand to save
another's goods, though worth thousands of dollai'S." — Burton's
Africa^ page 491.
*' The traveller cannot practise pity ; he is ever in the dilemma
of maltreating or being maltreated. Were he to deal civilly
and liberally with this people, he would starve ; it is vain to offer
a price for even the necessaries of life ; it would certainly be re-
fused, because more is wanted, and so on beyond the bounds of
possibility." — Burton^ s Africa, x^age 88.
" The Wagogo are importunate beggars, who specify their long
list of wants without stint or shame ; their principal demand is to-
bacco, which does not grow in the land ; and they resemble the
Somal, who never sight a stranger without stretching out the
hand for ' bori.' The men are idle and debauched, spending
their days in unbroken revelry and drunkenness, while the girls
and women hoe the fields, and the boys tend the |locks and
herds," ^- i>«.r^o?i's Africa , page 215.
84 INHOSPITALITY TO STRANGERS^ ETC.
** In proportion as the traveller advances into the interior, he
finds the people less humane, or rather less human. The Waviuza,
the Wajiji, and other lakist tribes, much resemble one another.
They are extortionate, violent, and revengeful barbarians ; no
Muyamwezi dares to travel alone through their territories, and
small parties are ever in danger of destruction." — Burtons Africa^
page 498.
"From the highest to the lowest, all classes are most pertina-
cious beggars. Whatsoever is seen is surely demanded, — guns,
knives, scissors, beads, cloth, mirrors, and dollars. The love of
acquiring i^roperty stifles every sense of shame ; and no com-
punction is felt in asldng for the cloak from off the back, or in
carrying it away during a pitiless storm." — Harrises Adventures
in Africa, page 299.
*' They are a people remarkable for their disregard for titith, — a
wickedness which I regret to state I found very prevalent in South-
ern Africa. They are also great beggars, generally commencing
by soliciting for * trexels,' — a trexel being a pound of tea or coffee.
Knowing the gallantry of our nation, they affu'm this to be a pres-
ent for a wife or daughter, whom they represent as being poorly.
If this is granted, they continue their importunities, successively
fancying your hat, neckcloth, and coat." — Cumming''s Africa, Vol.
I., page 128.
**I was extremely anxious to get away from this place, as I
was sorely pestered by begging parties, — the inhabitants of
Wuruo and Sokoto beino: the most troublesome be<?gars in the
world." — Barth's Africa, Vol. III., page 137.
"The peojDle are in general faithless and very covetous, and
they never make a present without expecting to receive three times
as much in return." — Valdez's Africa, Vol. IL, page 208.
INHOSPITALITY TO STIiANGEES, ETC. 85
•* I retired to my hut in disgust. This afternoon a messenger
arrived from the king with twentj'-four small pieces of straw, cut
into lengths of about four inches. These he laid carefully in a
row, and explained that Speke had given that number of presents,
whereas I had only given ten, — the latter figure being carefully
exemplified by ten pieces of straw ; he wished to know * why I
did not give him the same number as he had received from
Speke.' This miserable, grasping, lying coward, is nevertheless
a king, and the success of my expedition depends upon him." —
Baker''s Great Basin of the Nile, page 313.
"True to his natural instincts, the kino^ commenced beoro-ino-,
and being much struck with my Highland costume, he de-
manded it as a proof of friendship, saying, that if I refused I could
not be his friend. My watch, compass, and double Fletcher rifle
were asked for in their turn ; all of which I refused to give him.
He appeared much annoyed, therefore I presented him with a
pound-canister of powder, a box of caps, and a few bullets. He
replied, 'What's the use of the ammunition, if you won't give me
your rifle ? ' I explained that I had already given him a gun,
and that he had a rifle of Speke's. Disgusted with his importu-
nity, I rose to depart, telling him that I should not return to visit
him, as I did not believe he was the real Kamrasi. I had heard
that Kamrasi was a great king, but that he was a mere beggar,
and was doubtless an impostor." — Bahefs Great Basin of the Nile,
page 386.
"Nothing seems to us so incommensurable with the trouble,
fatigue, and danger of African travel as the small success which
usually rewards the explorer of this impenetrable continent. In
other countries it has been said you ought to travel alone on foot,
or eji grand seigneur, if you wish to understand the people or their
customs. In Africa either method is impossible to any purpose.
In its savage equatorial districts no EurojDean can travel alone ;
his necessary baggage calls for a small company of followers.
He must trade and he must defend his goods. He cannot avoid
arousing the cupidity of every tribe with which he comes in con-
tact, and yet he must depend upon their good-will for his chance
8
SQ INHOSPITALITY TO STRANGERS, ETC.
of seeing any other. Infinitely more strange to them than they
can be to him, he is at once associated with any misfortune which
has happened to them, either shortly before 'his arrival, during
his stay with them, or following close upon his departure. He
becomes the object of constant intrigues, and of unceasing, if
simple efforts at extortion. How can it be otherwise ? He carries
about with him what, in the eyes of the savages by whom he is
surrounded, is wealth greater than that in Aladdin's cave. Only
by the rarest good fortune can he hope to escape from some con-
tingency which will rob him not only of all he possesses, but also
of most of the tangible results of his labors, if not of his life." —
Westminster Beview, 1867.
" When they can no longer ask, they begin to borrow, with the
firm resolution of never repaying; and, what is worst of all, when,
they make a present, they hold it a deadly offence not to receive
at least double the value in return." — Murrarfs African Discover-
ies, page G9.
"In begging, the South Africans are most ceaseless and impor-
tunate. At Mr. BurchelPs first entrance, they observed a certain
degree of ceremony, and only one solitary cry for tobacco was
heard ; but this feeling of delicacy or decorum soon gave way.
Mattivi himself made a private request that the presents intended
for him should not be seen by the people at large, by whom they
would soon be all begged away. They seemed to have more
pride in what they procured by solicitation than in a thing of
greater value if received as a spontaneous gift." — Murray^s Afri-
can Discoveries, page 222.
'* Tjopopa would spend whole days at our camp in the most ab-
solute idleness and apathy, teasing us with begging for everything
he saw. Like all Damaras, he had a perfect mania for tobacco,
and considered no degradation too deep provided he could obtain
a few inches of narcotic weed. . . . He was supposed to hav^e no
less than twenty wives, — two of whom, I found to my astonish-
ment, were mother and daughter. I have since ascertained that
INHOSPITALITY TO STRANGERS^ ETC. 87
it is by no means an unusual practice amongst this demoralizecl
nation." — Anderssoiis Africa, page 135.
"It often came about that our liouse was like a shop where
there are customers in abundance, except that in our case they
were customers who wished to have everything for nothing. One
wanted a hatchet, another a garment, a third needles, a fourth a
dollar, a fifth salt or joepper, a sixth physic ; and so, in one day,
we sometimes had fifteen or twenty applicants, all begging, and
often after a very cunning fashion." — Krapfs Africa, page 175.
"The chief now said something to his boys, and then retired
out of sight. Immediately a dozen or more boys were in chase
of an unfortunate rooster ; ever}^ boy or girl who came up was
pressed into service, so that soon nearly all the children of the
town were engaged in the chase. Finally the rooster was cap-
tured, and taken to the chief, who now came forward and, with a
low bow, presented it to me. We were now allowed to proceed.
You may be sure, if you are acquainted with the African charac-
ter, that the chief did not fail to pay me a visit soon after, when I
had to make him a return present of four or five times the value
of his fowl. Nor was this suflicient, but he must come four or
five times, giving me to understand he wanted something." —
Scotfs Dag Dawn in Africa, page 108.
" Both men and women give themselves wholly up, as it were,
to wantonness ; and toward strangers they are churlish and uncivil,
not only exacting from them beyond reason, but defrauding them
by many subtle and sly inventions." — Ogilby''s Africa, p)age 521.
" I was about to take my leave, when the King of Bondou,
desiring me to stop awhile, began a long preamble in favor of
the whites, extolling their immense wealth and good dispositions.
He next proceeded to an eulogium on my blue coat, of which the
yellow buttons seemed particularly to catch his fancy ; and he
concluded by entreating me to present him with it, assuring me,
88 INHOSPITALITY TO STRANGERS^ ETC,
for my consolation under the loss of it, tliat lie would wear it on
all public occasions, and inform every one who saw it of my great
liberality toward him. The request of an African prince, in his
own dominions, particularly when made to a stranger, comes
little short of a command. It is only a way of obtaining by gentle
means what he can, if he pleases, obtain by force ; and, as it was
against my interest to offend him by a refusal, I very quietly took
off my coat, the only good one in my possession, and hiid it at his
feet." — Mungo Parh^s Travels in Africa, page 44.
*' Another drew his knife, and, seizing upon a metal button
which remained upon my waistcoat, cut it oft' and put it in his
pocket. Their intentions were now obvious, and I thought that
the easier they were permitted to rob me of everything, the less I
had to fear. I, therefore, allowed them to search my pockets
without resistance, and examine every part of my apparel, which
they did with the most scrupulous exactness. But observing that
I had one waistcoat under another, they insisted that I should cast
them both oft"; and at last, to make sure work, they stripped me
quite naked. Even ray half boots (though the sole of one of them
was tied on to my foot with a broken bridle-rein) were minutely
inspected. While they were examining the plunder, I begged
them, with great earnestness, to return my pocket-compass; but
when I pointed it out to them, as it was lying on the ground, one
of them, thinking I was about to take it up, cocked his musket,
and swore that he would lay me dead on the spot if I j^resumed to
put a hand upon it. After this, some of them went away with my
horse, and the remainder stood considering whether they should
leave me quite naked, or allow me something to shelter me from
the sun. They returned me the worst of the two shirts and a
l^air of trousers ; and, as they went away, one of them threw back
my hat, in the crown of whicli I kept my memorandums; and
this was i^robably the reason he did not wish to keep it. After
they were gone, I sat for some time looking around me with
amazement and terror. Whichever way I turned, nothing ap-
peared but danger and difficulty. I saw myself in the midst of a
vast wilderness, in the depth of the rainy season, naked and alone,
surrounded by savage animals, and men still more savage. I
was five hundred miles from the nearest European settlement.
WRANGLING, LAWLESSNESS, PENURY, ETC, 89
All these circumstances crowded at once on my recollection, and
I confess that my spirits began to fail me. I considered my fate
as certain, and that I had no alternative but to lie down and
perish." — Mungo ParWs Travels in Africa, page 113.
CHAPTER XIII.
WKANGLING, LAWLESSNESS, PENURY, AND MISERY IN NEGROLAND.
" Africa from the earliest ages has been the most conspicuous
theatre of crime and of wrong; where social life has lost the
traces of primitive simplicity, without rising to order, principle,
or refinement ; where fraud and violence are formed into national
systems, and man trembles at the sight of his fellow-man. For
centuries this continent has seen thousands of her unfortunate
children draofo^ed in chains over its deserts and across the ocean,
to spend their lives in foreign and distant bondage. Superstition,
tyranny, anarchy, and the opposing interests of numberless petty
states, maintain a constant and destructive warfare in this suffer-
ing portion of the earth." — Murray's African Discoveries, page 21.
** Grumbling and dissatisfied, they never do business without a
grievance. Revenge is a ruling passion, as the many rancorous
fratricidal wars that have prevailed between kindred clans, even
for a generation, prove. Retaliation and vengeance are, in fact,
their great agents of moral control. Judged by the test of death,
the East African is a hard-hearted man, who seems to ignore all
the charities of father, son, and brother. . . . Their squab-
bling and clamor jjass description ; they are never happy except
when in dispute. After a rapid plunge into excitement, the
brawlers alternately advance and recede, pointing the finger
of threat, howling and screaming, cursing and using terms of
insult which an inferior ingenuity, — not want of will, — causes
8*
90 WRANGLING^ LAJVLESSNESS, PENUEY, ETC.
to fall far short of the Asiatic's model vituperation. After abusing
each other to their full, both parties usuallj^ burst into a loud
lauofh or a burst of sobs. After a cuff, a man will cover his face
with his hands and cry as if his heart would break." — Burtoii's
Africa, page 492.
*' The children have all the frowning and unj)repossessing look
of their parents; they reject little civilities, and seem to spend
life in disputes, biting and clawing like wild-cats. There appears
to be little family affection in this undemonstrative race." — Bur-
ton's Africa, page 323.
'* Property among them is insecure ; a man has always a vested
right in his sister's children, and when he dies his brothers and
relations carefully plunder his widow and orphans." — Burtoii's
Africa, page 97.
*' All the natives, escorts, guides, carriers, slaves, and villagers,
are as bad as bad can be ; idle, cowardh% thievish, full of every
kind of trick and deception. Your own hired people are insub-
ordinate, quarrelsome, and ready to desert at a moment's no-
tice. They stop when they please, liurry on when you wish them
to go slow, and creep when you want them to hasten, always
grumbling, and getting drunk whenever they can." — Maehrair's
Africa, page 352.
" The Bushman, who has lost his wife by elopement, walks out
with his gun and shoots the first man whom he meets. He then
proclaims that he has done this because a man has run away with
his wife. The clansmen of the murdered man are enraged, not
against the husband, — who has simply complied with a usage of
society, — but because the duty of the avenger is now cast upon
them. As the gay Lothario is out of their reach, they kill a man
belonging to the next village ; his friends retaliate on their unsus-
pecting neighbors ; and so rolls on this ball of destruction till the
whole country is on the alert. The gates of all the villages are
WHANGZING, LAWLESSNESS^ PENURY, ETC. 91
closed and barricaded, and some luckless clan can gain no oppor-
tunity of washing out their wrong in somebody's else blood. The
chief of that clan then summons a council, and puts forward his
claim against the man who has run away with the wife. The
husband has no longer anything to do with the matter. The chief
of the culprit's clan offers pecuniary compensation, and general
concord is restored. — Beade's Savage Africa, page 217.
'• Everything that comes in their way, which they cannot appro-
priate on the spot to their own use, is destroyed, tliat it may not
be of advantage to others. If they discover an ostrich's nest, and
circumstances do not permit their continuing on the spot till all
they find there is consumed, they eat as much as they can, but
the rest of the eggs are destroyed. Do they meet a large flock of
springboks, they wound as many as possible, although six or
eight are sufficient to last them several days ; the rest are left to
die, and rot on the ground." — Liclitenstehi's Africa, Vol. II., page
50.
"On attacking a place, it is the custom of the country instantly
to fire it ; and as they are all comjDosed of straw huts only, the
whole is shortly devoured by the flames. The unfortunate inhab-
itants fly quickly from the destructive element, and fixll imme-
diately into the hands of their no less merciless enemies, who
surround the place ; the men are quickly massacred, and the
women and children lashed together, and made slaves." — Den-
ham and Clapperton''s Africa, Vol. II., page 120.
"In the whole district of Taganama, where so many different
nationalities border close together, the greatest insecurity reigns,
and the inhabitants of one town cannot safely trust themselves to
those of a neighboring place without fear of being sold as slaves,
or at least of being despoiled of the little they have." — BartlCs
Africa, Vol. /., page 548.
"With the acquisition of their liberty the people of Fundi soon
lost the little sense of right and wrong which they once had ; and,
92 WRANGLING^ LAWLESSNESS, PENURY, ETC,
having no leader for whom they eared, and no law which they
obeyed, they threw off all manner of restraint, and, from robbing
each other, they tm*ned to plundering the property of their neigh-
bors, and waylaying every unprotected stranger or traveller that
had occasion to pass through their country. The same unruly,
outrageous, and turbulent spirit, and desjDerate conduct prevail
among the natives of Fundi to the present time, and similar acts
of rapacity and violence are consummated by them every day, so
that their country is dreaded and shunned by every one acquainted
with their character and habits." — Landefs Travels in Africa, Vol.
I. y page 335.
"Like the natives of Yarriba, the inhabitants of Layaba appear
to bestow scarcely a moment's reflection either on public misery
or individual distress, — upon their own misfortunes or the calam-
ities of their neighbors. Kature has moulded their minds to enjoy
the life they lead; their grief, if they grieve at all, is but for a
moment ; sorrow comes over them and vanishes like the light-
ning's flash ; they weep, and, in the same breath, their spirits re-
gain their elasticity and cheerfulness ; they may well be said to
drink of the waters of Lethe whenever they please. As long as
they have food to eat, and health to enjoy their frivolous pastimes,
they seem contented, happy, and full of life. They think of little
else.
^' ' Thought would destroy their paradise.' "
— Lander'' s Travels in Africa, Vol. II., page 40.
" There are instances of parents throwing their tender offspring
to the hungry lion, who stands roaring before their cavern, refus-
ing to depart till some peace-offering be made to him. In general
their children cease to be the objects of a mother's care as soon as
they are able to crawl about in the field." — Kicherer, quoted in
Moffafs Africa, page 49.
*♦ On our return we saw a child, about eight years old, standing
WRANGLING, LAWLESSNESS, PENURY, ETC. 93
in the middle of the street weeping, and, being almost a skeleton,
it attracted our attention. We inquired respecting its disease;
when the women told us, the child was well enough, and that
want of food had brought it into that state, — that the father and
mother were poor, — that he had gone away with another woman,
and was hunting in the south ; that the mother was gone to the
westward, searching for food. Neither the men, women, nor
children present seemed by their countenances to express the
least sympathy or feeling for this forsaken, starving child. They
said, laughing, that we might take the child with us if we pleased.
I am certain that the sight of this little girl in the streets of Lon-
don would have excited pity in the hearts of thousands. We took
the child to our wagons, desiring the people to inform its mother,
when she returned, where she might find her. When some meat
was given to the child, she devoured it with the voracity of a tiger."
— CamphelVs Africa, page 266.
•' I thanked God that I was not a native African. These poor
people lead dreadful and dreary lives. Not only have they to fear
their enemies among neighboring tribes, as well as the various
accidents to which a savage life is especially liable, such as starva-
tion, the attacks of wild beasts, etc., but their whole lives are sad-
dened and embittered by the fears of evil spirits, witchcraft, and
other kindred superstitions under which they labor." — Du Chail-
Ik.s Equatorial Africa, page 102.
*' The chief's daughter was the best-looking girl that I have
seen among the blacks; she was about sixteen. Her clothing
consisted of a piece of dressed hide, about a foot wide, slung
across her shoulders, all other parts being exposed. All the girls
of this country wear merely a circlet of little iron jingling orna-
ments around their waists. They came in numbers, bringing small
bundles of wood to exchange for a few handfuls of corn. Most
of the men are tall, but wretchedly thin ; the children are mere
skeletons, and the entire tribe appears thoroughly starved." —
Baker's Great Basin of the Nile, page 48.
9i THEFT AS A FINE ART AMONG THE AFJRICANS,
'* The people of the Kytch tribe are mere apes, trusting entirely
to the productions of nature for their subsistence ; they will spend
hours in dio-crino' out field-mice from their burrows, as we should
for rabbits. They are the most pitiable set of savages that can be
imagined; so emaciated, that they have no visible posteriors;
they look as though they had been planed off, and their long, thin
legs and arms give them a peculiar gnat-like appearance. At
night they crouch close to the fires, lying in the smoke to escape
the clouds of mosquitoes. At this season the country is a vast
swami?, the only dry spots being the white ant-hills; in such
places the natives herd like wild animals, simply rubbing them-
selves \\ath wood ashes to keep out the cold. . . . So misera-
ble are the natives of this tribe, that they devour both skins and
bones of all dead animals ; the bones are pounded between stones,
and when reduced to powder they are boiled to a kind of porridge ;
nothing is left even for a fly to feed upon, when an animal either
dies a natural death, or is killed." — Baker's Great Basin of the
NilCf page 49.
CHAPTER XIV.
THEFT AS A FINE ART AMONG THE AFRICANS.
" Shoav me a black man, and I will show you a thief." — Hutch-
inson^ s Western Africa, Vol. II., page 280.
"We found the people thieves to a man." — Mungo Parkas 2d
Journal, page 201.
" The most prominent defect in their character was that insur-
mountable propensity, which the reader must have observed to
THEFT AS A FIXE ART AMONG THE AFRICANS. 95
prevail in all classes of them, — to steal from me the property of
which I was possessed." — Mungo Park's 1st Journal, page 193.
** The Africans are all of them thieves. They have no sense of
honor-in that respect. I have never yet had a negro servant (and
I have had a great many) who did not rob me of some trifling
article, whether he was pagan or Christian. . . . The Africans
tell a lie more readily than they tell the truth. Falsehood, like
petty larceny, is not recognized among them as a fault." — Readers
Savage Africa, page 447.
** The ladies of the principal persons of the country visited me,
accompanied by one or more female slaves. They examined
evei7thing, even to the pockets of my trousers ; and more inquis-
itive ladies I never saw in any country ; they begged for every-
thing, and nearly all attempted to steal something ; when found
out, they only laughed heartily, clapped their hands together, and
exclaimed, * Why, how sharp he is ! Only think ! Why, he caught
us ! " — Denliarri's Africa, Vol. III., page 24.
" The thievish propensities of the people of Logon are very re-
markable, and the first intimation which I received of it was an
official caution given to me to beware of the slaves of my house."
— Bartli's Africa, Vol. II., page 444.
♦« From the king to the slave, theft is a prevailing vice with the
Bechuanas ; and, from what I have seen of them, I am confident
that the wealthiest and the most exalted amongst them would not
hesitate to steal the shirt off one's back, could he effect it without
being compromised. Their pilfering habits know no bounds ; and
they carry on the game with much dexterity. When grouped
about our camp fires, I have kaown them to abstract the tools with
which we have been working ; nay, indeed, the very knives and
forks from our plates. Once, they actually took the meat out of
the pot, as it was boiling on the fire, substituting a stone. They
will place their feet over any small article lying on the ground,
96 THEFT AS A FINE ART AMONG THE AFRICANS,
burying it in the sand with their toes ; and, if unable to carry it
away at the time, they return to fetch it at a more convenient
period." — Anderssoii's Africa, page 372.
*' Polygamy is here unlimited, and depravity of every descrip-
tion to an extraordinary extent. The longer I reside here, the
more am I convinced, however, that the most predominant pas-
sion of the African is theft. The more they are taught, the more
accomplished rogues they become." — JDimcaii's Africa, Vol. /.,
2)age 141.
" Another innate quality they have is to steal anything they can
lay their hands upon, especially from foreigners, and among them-
selves ; then make boast thereof, as an ingenious piece of subtlety ;
and so generally runs this vicious humor through the whole race
of blacks, that great and rich merchants do sometimes practise
small filching ; for being come to the trading ships they are not
at rest till they have taken away something, though it be but
nails, or lead ; which no sooner done, than with a singular slight
of hand ihey convey it from one to another; but if they chance
to be trapped, they all leap instantly overboard for fear of a beat-
ing ; but if caught, and soundly bastinadoed, then, as past doubt
of other punishment, they never avoid the ship, but come again
the next day as usual to trade." — Ogilhifs Africa, page 452.
"The men naturally incline to cheating and thieving, but not
so much among themselves as toward strangers, to whom they
are also bloody, barbarous, and unnatural." — Ogilhy^s Africa^
page 486.
'• The people of the Grain Coast are very envious of all strangers,
and steal from them whatever they can lay their hands on ; so
that it behooves all dealers to have a circumspect eye over their
goods ; and, in some places, they must be careful of themselves,
for, being cannibals, they eat whomsoever they can get into their
power." — Ogilby's Africa, page 415.
tTlNG AS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT IN AFRICA, 97
* I witnessed today a striking instance of the inborn cunning
and deceit of the native African. My people had spread out on
mats, in front of my hut, a quantity of ground-nuts which we had
bought, wiien I observed from the inside of the hut a little urchin,
about four years old, slyly regaling himself with them, keeping
his eyes on me, and believing himself unnoticed, I suddenly
came out ; but the little rascal, as quick as thought, seated him-
self on a piece of wood, and dexterously concealed the nuts he
had in his hand under the joints of his legs and in the folds of his
abdominal skin ; then looked up to me with an air of perfect in-
nocence. This, thought I, is a bright example of the unsophisti-
cated children of nature, whom some writers love to describe, to
the disadvantage of the corrupted children of civilization ! Thiev-
ing, in these savage countries, is not considered an offence against
the community; for no one complains but he who has been
robbed. My precocious little pilferer would, therefore, have no
teaching to prevent him from becoming an accomplislied thief as
he grew older." — Du Chaillu's Ashango-Laiid, page 190.
•*o^
CHAPTER XV.
LYING AS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT AMONG THE AFRICANS.
*♦ The truth is not in them, and to be detected in a lie is not the
smallest disgrace ; it only causes a laugh." — Clapperton's Africa,
page 184:.
" Almost every African is guilty of gross exaggeration in his
statements, and too many of them areconfirmed liars." — Lander's
Travels in Africa^ Vol. J., page 375.
** Lying is thought an enviable accomplishment among all the
98 DUPLICITY AND VENALITY OF THE NEGROES.
tribes, and a more thorough and unhesitating liar than one of
these negroes is not to be found anywhere." — Du CliailliCs Equa*
iorial Africa, page 437.
'* Lj'ing being more familiar to their constitution than truth-
saying, they are forever concocting dodges with the view, which
they glory in, of successfully cheating people." — Speke^s Africa,
page 28.
**They little esteem any promises made to foreigners, but
break them if they can see any advantage in it ; in brief, they are
a treacherous, perjured, subtle, and false people, only showing
friendship to those they have most need of." — Ogilby''s Africa,
page 452.
CHAPTER XYI.
DUPLICITY AND VENALITY OF THE NEGROES IN NEGROLAND.
**It seems it was a custom in this country (and not j'et entirely
repealed) that whatever commodity a man sells in the morning,
he may, if he repents his bargain, go and have the things returned
to him again, on his paying back the money any time before the
setting of the sun the same day ; and this custom is still in force
very high up the river, but here below it is at present pretty well
worn out. However, I shall here give an account how a gentle-
man, who had the honor of being at the head of the company's
affiiirs here, was served at this very town of Nackway. Not
above twelve years ago, he went up in a sloop on a trading vo}"-
age to Nackway, where he got a hut built, and took his goods
ashore to trade with. It happened that one morning a man
brought a cow to sell to him, which he bought for an iron baiT.
Soon after he bought it, he cut the cow's tail off, which bemg
DUPLICITY AND VENALITY OF THE NEGROES. 99
carried to the ears of the fellow that sold the cow, he resolved to
make a handle of it, in order to extort money from the governor.
Accordingly, about noon the same da}^ he came to the port of
Nackway, in a seeming good-humor, and a great number of
people with him, Mith a plausible story, that, as he was going the
next day to marry one of his daughters to a young man for whom
he had a great regard, and had nothing to make him a present
of, he therefore had thought better of it, and was not Avilling to
sell his cow, as he intended, and so desired he might have it re-
turned to him. The governor, not dreaming of the plot, imme-
diately ordered one of his servants to bring the cow, and return
it to the person who brought it. Accordingly, the cow was pro-
duced, at which the fellow seemed surprised, and told the gover-
nor that that was not his cow. The governor told him it was.
* How can that be ? ' says he ; * my cow had a tail on when I
brought her to you this morning.' ' It is very true,' quoth the gov-
ernor ; ' when I bought her, she had a tail ; but, when I had paid
for her, I cut the tail off.' ' How,' says the fellow, * durst you
have the assurance to cut off my cow's tail without my leave? I
value the cow and her tail at three hundred barrs, and that sum
you shall pay me before you stir from this place.' The governor
was very much out of humor, and endeavored to prove that after
he had paid for the cow she belonged to him ; but it was all to no
purpose, for every one present gave it against him (expecting to
come in for a snack of the money), and so he was obliged to go to
his store and pay the fellow three hundred barrs for only docking
the cow's tail." — Moore's Liland Parts of Africa, page 122.
" In morality, according to the more extended sense of the
word, the East African is markedly deficient. He has no benev-
olence, but little veneration (the negro race is ever irreverent),
and, though his cranium rises high in the region of firmness, his
futility prevents his being firm. The outlines of law are faintly
traced upon his heart. The authoritative standard of morality,
fixed by a revelation, is in him represented by a vague and vary-
ing custom, derived traditionally from his ancestors ; he follows
in their track for old sake's sake. The accusing conscience is
unknown to him. His only fear, after committing a treacherous
murder, is that of being haunted by the angry ghost of the dead ;
100 VORACITY AND GLUTTONY OF THE NEGROES.
he robs as one doing a good deed, and he begs as if it were his
calling. His depravity is of the grossest ; intrigue fills up all
the moments not devoted to intoxication." — Burtoii's Africa^
page 496.
"The queen has slandered and defamed the character of her
brother to us most shamefully. In more civilized or rather more
polished countries, among the reasonable part of mankind, a
mutual interchange of benevolent intentions produces a reciproc-
ity of kind feeling ; and we would hope that the present of yams
from her brother would excite the queen's more generous and
affectionate sentiments for him. Yet this despicable vice of
slander is universal in Africa ; the people all speak ill of each
other, from the monarch to the slave." — Landefs Travels inAfricat
Vol. J., pageUo,
■•o*-
CHAPTER XVII.
REVOLTING VOKACITY AND GLUTTONY OF THE NEGROES IN
NEGROLAND.
*• Hunger compels them to feed on eveiything edible. Ixias,
wild garlic, mysembryanthemums, the core of aloes, gum of
acacias, and several other plants and berries, some of which are
extremely unwholesome, constitute their fruits of the field ; while
almost every kind of living creature is eagerly devoured,
lizards, locusts, and grasshoppers not excepted. The poisonous,
as well as innoxious serpents they roast and eat. They cut off
the head of the former, which they dissect, and carefully extract
the bags, or reservoirs of poison, which communicate with the
fangs of the upper jaw. They mingle it with the milky juice of
the euphorbia, or with that of a poisonous bulb. After simmering
for some time on a slow fire, it acquires the consistency of wax,
VORACITY AND GLUTTONY OF THE NEGROES. 101
with which they cover the points of their arrows." — MoffaVs
Africa, page 47.
*• Eveiy animal is entrapped and eaten. Gins or snares are
seen on both sides of the path, every ten or fifteen yards, for miles
together. The time and labor required to dig up moles and mice
from their burrows would, if applied to cultivation, atford food
for any amount of fowls or swine ; but the latter are seldom met
with." — Livingstone's Africa, page 490.
*' When a horde has taken anything in the chase, or by plunder,
it is concealed as much as possible from all the others ; since who-
ever learns that there is something to be eaten, comes without
any ceremony, or waiting for an invitation to partake of it. As
everything is common property, the booty cannot be withheld, or
a part of it at least, from any one who requires it. Thence the
incredible voracity with which they immediately devour whatever
they catch in the chase." — Lichtensteiri's Africa^ Vol. IL, page 50.
*' The Bagos are great eaters, and their diet principally consists
of diy fish, swimming in palm oil, which renders it so disgusting
that a European could not touch it. When they kill a sheep, they
mix the skin and entrails, unwashed, with the stews which they
make; they also eat snakes, lizards, and monkeys." — Caillie's
Africa^ Vol. I., page 166.
'* The Kaffirs eat like ogres, but at a pinch they can easily go
three days without food. I once saw a clever mischievous Kaffir
lad, named April, hide inside an elephant we had shot that day.
He caught two vultures by the legs as they were tearing away at
the carcass, pulled the first inside, and shoved him forward into
the vacant space where the Masaras had taken out the elephant's
heart, and then proceeded to capture his mate." — Baldwin's
Africa, page 306.
9*
102 DISLIKE OF THEIR OWN COLOR BY THE NEGROES.
* ' Hosts of savages by whom we were attended quickly cleared
away the carcasses of the game we slew, and then quarrelled for
the entrails. I hope the reader has understood that these barba-
rians generally devour the meat raw, although when at leisure they
do not object to its being cooked. They usually seize a piece of
flesh by the teeth, cutting a large mouthful of it with a knife close
to the lips, before masticating it, which they do with a loud sput-
ter and noise. The meal being finished they never fail to wipe
their hands on their bodies, and then being generally gorged they
lay themselves down to repose." — Harris's Expedition into Southem
Afnca, page loO.
CHAPTER XVIII.
DISLIKE OF THEIR OWN COLOR BY THE NEGROES IN NEGROLAND.
** The whole of the colored tribes consider that beauty and fair-
ness are associated, and women long for children of light color so
much, that they sometimes chew the bark of a certain tree, in
hopes of producing that effect. To my eye the dark color is much
more agreeable than the tawny hue of the half-caste, which that
of the Makoloto ladies closely resembles. The women generally
escape the fever, but they are less fruitful than formerly ; and to
their complaint of being undervalued on account of the dispropor-
tion of the sexes, they now add their regrets at the want of chil-
dren, of whom they are all excessively fond." — Livingstone'' s
Africa, page 204.
** Katema, the ruler of the village, asked if I could not make
a dress for him like the one I wore, so that he might appear as a
white man when any stranger visited him." — Livingstone^s Africa,
page 517.
DISLIKE OF THEIR OWN COLOR BY THE NEGROES.. 103
" The people under Bango are divided into a number of classes.
There are his councillors, as the highest, who are generally head
men of several villages, and the carriers, the lowest freemen.
One class above the last obtains the privilege of wearing shoes
from the chief by paying for it ; another, the soldiers or militia,
pay for the privilege of serving, the advantage being that they
are not a,fterward liable to be made carriers. They are also
divided into gentlemen and little gentlemen, and, though quite
black, speak of themselves as white men, and of others who may
not' wear shoes, as ' blacks.* The men of all these classes trust
to their wives for food, and spend most of their time in drinking
the palm-toddy." — Livingstone's Africa^ page. 445.
** The negro feels that, in energy of character, in scope of un-
derstanding, in the exercise of mechanical skill, and in the prac-
tice of all the useful acts of life, he is hopelessly distanced by the
white man." — Wilson^s Africa, pctg^ 343.
*'The whole court, which was large, was filled, crowded,
crammed with people, except a space in front, where we sat, into
which his highness led Mr. Houston and myself, one in each hand ;
and there we performed an African dance, to the great delight of
the surrounding multitude. The tout ensemble would doubtless
have formed an excellent subject for a caricaturist, and we re-
gi'etted the absence of Captain Pearce, to sketch off the old black
caboceer, sailing majestically around in his damask robe, with a
train-bearer behind him, and every now and then turning up his
old, withered face, first to myself, then to Mr. Houston; then,
whisking round on one foot ; then marching slowly, with solemn
gait; twining our hands in his, — proud that a white man should
dance with him." — Clapperton's Africa, Vol. IV., page 199.
'* Zuma, a rich widow of Wava, the owner of a thousand slaves,
told me that her husband had been dead these ten years ; that she
had only one son, and he was darker than herself; that she
loved white men, and would go to Boussa with me." — Clapperton's
Africa, Vol. IV., page 222.
10-4 DISLIKE OF THEIR OWy COLOR BY THE NEGROES.
" The Fonlabs evidently consider all the negro natives as theif
inferiors ; and, when talking of different nations, always rank
themselves among the white people." — Mungo Parle's Travels in
Africa, page 23.
" Observing the improved state of our manufactures, and our
manifest superiority in the arts of civilized life, Harfa, the intelli-
gent negro merchant, would sometimes appear pensive, and ex-
claim, with an involuntary sigh, ^Fato fing inta feng^'' — black
men are good for nothing." — Mungo Parle's 1st Journal, page 259.
*' The women are well disposed toward strangers of fair com-
plexion, apparently with the permission of their husbands." —
Burtoii's Africa, page 216.
'* The Kaffirs believe that white men can do anything." —
Baldwin^ s Africa, page 266.
"The negro Mohammedans worship God under the name of
Allah ; they acknowledge Mohammed as a prophet, but do not
pay him divine honors; they have some traditions respecting
Jesus Christ, whom they call Nale, the son of Malek, and whom
they speak of as a great prophet, who had wrought wondrous mir-
acles. They denounce as imj^ious the doctrine that God could have
carnal conversation with a woman, but have a prophecy of their
own ^that some day they shall be all subdued by a white peo-
ple."— Eeades Savage Africa, page 354.
"The European stranger, travelling in their country, is expected
to patronize their wives and daughters ; and they feel hurt, as if
dishonored, by his refusing to gratify them. The custom is very
prevalent along this coast. At Gaboon, perhaps it reaches the
acme ; there a man will in one breath offer the choice between his
wife, sister, and daughter. The women of course do as they are
bid by the men, and they consider all familiarity with a white
COURTSHIP^ MARRIAGE, AND CONCUBINAGE, 105
man a high honor." — Ilutcliinson's Western Africa^ Vol. 11.,
page 24.
•' * I know the white men, too, said the prince, — they are good
men ; in fact I have reason to speak well of them, for I also am a
white man, and therefore I am of opinion that they are of the same
blood as ourselves.' It is in this manner that Falatahs endeavor
to claim relationship with Em'opeans, though these people are
either of a swarthy complexion or black as soot ; and this passion
to be considered fair is often carried to a most ridiculous height.
White men, how sorry soever their outward appearance may be,
are certainly considered, not only by Falatahs, but l.)y the native
blacks, as a superior order of beings, in all respects more excel-
lent than themselves. At Yaoorie we recollect having overheard
a conversation between two men, who were quarrelling in the
very height of passion. ' What!' exclaimed one of them to his
fellow, * thou pitiful son of a black ant ! dost thou presume to say
that a horse was my father ^ Look at these Christians ! for as
they are, I am; and such were my ancestors; answer me not, I
say, for I am a white man ! ' The speaker was a negro, and his
skin was the color of charcoal." — Lander's Travels in Africa, Vol.
II. y page 79.
CHAPTER XIX.
COURTSHIP, MARRIAGE, AND CONCUBINAGE IN NEGROLAND.
** The highest aspiration to which an African ever rises is to have
a large number of wives. His happiness, his reputation, his influ-
ence, his position in society, all depend upon this. The conse-
quence is, that the so-called wives are little better than slaves.
They have no other purpose in life than to administer to the wants
and gratify the passions of their lords, who are masters and own-
ers, rather than husbands. It is not a little singular, however.
106 COURTSHIP^ MARRIAGE^ AND CONCUBINAGE,
that the females, upon the burden of whom this degrading institu-
tion mainly rests, are quite as much interested in its continuance
as the men themselves. A woman would infinitely prefer to be
one of a dozen wives of a respectable man, than to be the sole
representative of a man who had not force of character to raise
himself above the one- woman level. That such a state of feeling
should exist in the mind of a heathen woman is not surprising.
She has never seen any other state of society ; nor has she had
any moral or intellectual training that would render such a posi-
tion revolting to her better feelings. On the contrary, such is the
degradation of her moral character, that she would greatly prefer
the wider margin of licentious indulgence that she would enjoy as
one of a dozen wives, than the closer inspection to which she
would be subjected as the only wife of her household." — Wilson's
Africa, page 112.
"The wife is always purchased; and as this is done, in the
great majority of cases, when she is but a child, her wishes, as a
matter of course, are never consulted in this most important affair
of her whole life. The first overture must be made to the mother.
Her consent is to be won by small presents, such as beads, plates
of dried fish, or a few leaves of tobacco. When this is accom-
plished the way is prepared for opening negotiations with the
father and his family, who are the real owners of the child. The
main question to be settled, and indeed the only one about which
there is much negotiation, is whether the applicant is able to pay
the dowry, and will be likely to do so without giving much trouble.
The character of the man, his position in society, his family connec-
tions, or circumstances in life, are seldom taken into the account.
The price of a wife is usually three cows, a goat or a sheep, and a
few articles of crockery ware or brass rods, the whole of which
would scarcely exceed twenty dollars. The goat and the smaller
articles go to the mother's family, and the cows belong to
the family of the father, which pass out of their hands without
much delay in payment for a wife for some other member of the
family. Bullocks may be seen passing from village to village,
almost every day, in fulfilment of these matrimonial arrange-
ments."— Wilson's Africa, page 113.
COURTSHIP^ MARRIAGE^ AND CONCUBINAGE, 107
"When a man has a large number of wives he can of course
bestow but a moderate portion of his time upon any one of them.
If it is necessar}' for him to watch his wives, they in turn are not
less jealous of any superabundant attentions that he might confer
upon any one of their own number. The chief business of his
domestic life is to adjust these petty jealousies, and, to a still
greater extent, the quarrels and strifes which are hourly springing
up among the children of the different branches of the same house-
bold." — Wilson's Africa^ page l-i4.
♦' The present King of Dahomey has appropriated no less than
three thousand women to his own use. The number belonging to
his head warriors depends upon their bravery, but no one is al-
lowed to have a number large enough to suggest most remotely
any idea of rivalry with the king. It is well known that many of
the wives of the king must be sacrificed at the death of their lord,
and this, no doubt, is a powerful motive to induce tliem to take
the best care of hhn, and prolong his life as much as possible, but
never deters any from freely entering into this honored relation-
ship." — Wilson's Africa, page 202.
" The Ashantee wife is not placed on a footing of social equal-
ity with her husband. Her position is a menial one, and she sel-
dom aspires to anything higher than merely to gratify the passions
of her husband. She never takes a seat at the social board with
him. Indeed it would be regarded as a degradation on the part
of the husband. The different women of his household, at a given
concert among themselves, bring each their quota of food, and set
it before their lord, each one taking up a small portion of their
respective dishes and eating it in his presence, as evidence that
they have not used poison in the preparation of his food, then
retire to their respective houses, while he partakes of his repast
alone. His smaller children, and generally those of the wives who
have provided his food, gather around him with their little wooden
bowls to receive at his hands a portion of the superabundant sup-
ply that has been set before him." — Wilson's Africa, page 182.
108 COURTSHIP^ MARRIAGE^ AND CONCUBINAGE.
"Polygamy is a favorite institution with the Ashantees, and,
like everything of the kind, it is carried to an extravagant length.
A man's importance in society is rated according to the number of
his wives and slaves ; and, naturally enough, the only limit known
to the multiplication of them in a country where both can be had
for money, is a man's ability to purchase. In Ashantee the law
limits the king to three thousand three hundred and thirty-three.
Whether it requires him to come up to this mark is not known.
No one is permitted to see the wives of the king except female
relatives, or such messengers as he may send, and even these
must communicate Avith them through their bamboo walls. Some
times they go forth in a body through the streets, but are always
preceded by a company of boys, who warn the people to get out
of the way, and avoid the unpardonable offence of seeing the
king's wives. The men especiall}', no matter what their rank,
must get out of the way, and, if they have not had sufficient time
to do this, they must fall flat on the ground and hide their faces
until the procession has passed. To see one of the king's wives,
even accidentally, is a capital offence ; and the scene of confusion
which occasionally takes place in the public market, in conse-
quence of the unexpected approach of the royal cortege, is said to
be ludicrous beyond all description." — Wilson^ s Africa, page 180.
*' Married women are extremely superstitious in having their
beds covered with the skins of particular animals when their hus-
bands visit them ; and never fail to predict the fate and fortune of
a child in consequence of these arrangements. A panther or a
leopard's skin is sure to produce a boy, or nothing. Should the
father be a soldier, and a chief, the boy will be a warrior, bold,
and bloody. A lion's skin is said to j^revent child-bearing al-
together ; yet exceptions to this rule sometimes occur. It is then
alwaj'S a boy, and a wonderful one. He puts his foot on the necks
of all the world, and is alike brave, generous, and fortunate." —
Denliam and ClappertoTi's Africa, Vol. III., page 182.
*'Yano, Chief of Kiaraa, asked me if I would take his daughter
for a wife. I said ' Yes.' . . . The old woman went out, and
I followed with the kin":'s head man. I went to the house of the
COURTSHIP^ MARRIAGE^ AND CONCUBINAGE. 109
daughter, which consists of several coozies separate from those
of the father, and I was shown into a very clean one ; a mat was
spread ; I sat down ; and the lady coming in and kneeling down,
I asked her if she would live in my house, or I should come and
live with her; she said, whatever way I wished; very well, I
said, I would come and live with her, as she had the best house."
— ClappertoTfi's Africa, Vol.. IV., page 215.
♦• Assulah, the Chief of Chaki, inquired how many wives an
Englishman had. Being told only one, he seemed much aston-
ished, and laughed greatly, as did all his people. * What does he
do,' said he, 'when one of his Avives has a child? Assulah has
two thousand.' " — Clapperton's Africa, Vol.. IV., page 20i.
** Of wives, the Chief of Katunga said, he himself had plenty, —
he did not exactly know how many, but he was sure that, hand to
hand, they would reach from Katunga to Jannah." — Clapperton's
Africa, Vol. IV., page 212.
•* So little tenderness or sociability exists between a married
couple, particularly if they should happen to be slaves, that they
have nothing in common ; and, though they eat and sleep in the
same hut, they seek a separate livelihood. Perhaps it would be
speaking within compass to say that four-fifths of the whole popu-
lation in this countr}^ are slaves." — Lajider^s Travels in Africa, Vol.
I., page 377.
** The king solicited a charm of us to-day, to preserve his house
from the effects of fire, and cause him to become rich ; while one
of his elderly wives made a doleful complaint of having been
likely to become a mother for the last thirty years, and begged
piteously for medicine to promote and assist her accouchement.
We could satisfy the old man easily enough, but his wife's hypo-
chondriacal complaint we conceived too dangerous to be meddled
with by unprofessional hands. Poor woman, she is much to be
pitied, for the odd delusion under which she has been laboring so
10
110 COURTSHIP, MAItniAGE, AND CONCUBINAGE,
lono- a time has jriven her considerable uneasiness, so that life it-
self has become a bm-den to her. All that we could do for her
was to soothe her mind, by telling her that her distemper was
very common, and not at all dangerous; and promising tiiat on
our return this way, should nothing transpire in her favor in the
mean time, we would endeavor to remove the cause of her com-
plaint. This comforted the aged matron exceedingly, and, in the
fulness of her heart, she burst into tears of joy, dropped on her
knees to express her acknowledgment, and pressed us to accept
of a couple of goora-nuts." — Lander'' s Travels in Africa, Vol. /.,
page 193.
**The chief recreations of the natives of Angola are marriages
and funerals. When a young woman is about to be married she
is placed in a hut alone, and anointed with various unguents, and.
many incantations are employed in order to secure good fortune
and fruitfulness. Here, as almost everywhere in the south, the
height of good fortune is to bear sons. They often leave a hus-
band altogether if they have daughters only. In their dances,
where any one may wish to deride another, in the accompanying
song a line is introduced, * So and so has no children, and nev-
er will get any.' She feels the insult so keenly that it is not un-
common for her to rush away and commit suicide." — Living-
stone's Africa, page 446.
*' Female virtue is held in so little esteem that opportu-
nities of infidelit}^ are often afforded by husbands to some of his
less favorite wives, for the purpose of extorting money and get-
ting rid of her. The common price of a wife here and at Cape
Coast is sixteen dollars. A wife is very seldom purchased when
more than twenty years old ; but generally when five or six years
younger, so that very old men have frequently ten or a dozen
wives much younger than their own daughters." — Buncaii's Af-
rica, Vol. I,, page 79,
•*In Maopongo it was a prevailing practice that before mar-
riage the two parties should live together for some time, and
COURTSHIP^ MARRIAGE, AND CONCUBINAGE. Ill
make trial of each other's tempers and inclinations, before they
formed the final engagement. To this system of probation the
people were most obstinately attached, and the missionaries in
vain denounced it, calling upon them at once either to marry or to
separate. The j'oung ladies were always the most anxious to
have the full benefit of this experimental process, and the moth-
ers, on being referred to, refused to incur responsibility, and ex-
pose themselves to the reproaches of their daughters, by urging
them to an abridgment of the trial, of which they might after-
ward repent. The missionaries seem to have been most diligent
in the task, as they call it, of * reducing strayed souls to matri-
mony.' Father Benedict succeeded with no less than six hundred,
but he found it such ' laborious work ' that he fell sick and died in
consequence." — Murray''s African Discoveries, page 55.
*' The Bushmen use no form in their man'iages. A young man
courts the object of his affection ; teazes her in the night time to
take him to be her husband, and will sometimes pull her out of
the hut while asleep, and teaze her till he obtains her consent.
He need not ask the consent of her parents, or even tell them,
but at marriage he makes a feast for them, when he gives them a
present of a bow and arrows, oi* a skin sack." — CamphelVs Africa^
page 439.
** As the Bosjesman lives without a home, and without property,
he must be without the great medium of moral refinement, — the
social union. A horde commonly consists of the different mem-
bers of one family only, and no one has any power or distinction
above the rest. Every difference is decided by the right of the
strongest; even the family tie is not sanctioned by any law or
regulation. The wife is not indissolubly united to her husband ;
but, when he gives her permission, she may go whither she will,
and associate with any other man; nay, the stronger man will
sometimes take away the wife of the weaker, and compel her,
whether she will or not, to follow him.'" — LicJitenstein's Africa,
Vol. II., page 48.
112 COURTSHIP, MARRIAGE, AND CONCUBINAGE,
*' I have, on a former occasion, in my remarks upon the lan-
guages of these savages, observed, as a thing worthy of notice,
that they seem to have no idea of the distinction of girl, maiden,
and wife ; they are all expressed by one word alone. I leave
every reader to draw from this single circumstance his own infer-
ence with regard to the nature of love, and every kind of moral
feeling among them." — Liclitensteiri's AfHca, Vol. II. j page 48.
*'When the Muata Cazembe falls in love with a female, either
from personal observation or from a report of her attractions, he
causes her to be convej'ed to his gauda, where she is compelled
to discover all the objects of her former amours, who, by order
of the Muata, are immediately put to death, and all their property
confiscated. When all objects of jealousy are thus removed by
the Cata-Dofo, or high commissioner of the seraglio, who is the
chief agent in carrying out the orders of the Muata, the new ob-
ject of his passion is sent to join the other ladies of the seraglio.
The introduction of a new wife into the harem is thus always the
signal for a number of deaths ; and, indeed, to so great an excess
is this carried, that the occasion is often laid hold of as a pretext
for the jealous to wreak their vengeance on the unsuspecting vic-
tims of their hatred." — Valdez's Africa, Vol. 11. , page 253.
**The palavers were numerous and difficult to settle. They
related either to runaway wives (a fertile source of ill-will and
blood-shed) or to homicides. When a man is killed here, if only
by accident, satisfaction must be given. Deaths by accident are
not more excusable than wilful murder. ... As regards run-
away wives, the laws are very severe. Any wife refusing to
remain with her husband, or running away, is condemned to have
her ears and nose cut off. Any man debauching his neighbor's
wife has to give a slave to the injured husband, and, if he cannot
pay this fine, he must have his ears and nose cut off. They have
no laws to punish robbery." — Du CJiaillu's Ashango-Land, page
74.
A man pays goods or slaves for his wife, and regards her,
COURTSHIP^ MARRIAGE, AND CONCUBINAGE. 113
therefore, as a piece of merchandise. Young girls — even chil-
dren in arms — are married to old men for political effect. The
idea of love, as we understand it, seems unknown to the Africans.
On the sea-shore a man will hire you his mother, wife, or sister,
for the vilest uses, and the women are never averse if they can
only obtain the wages of prostitution," — Du Chaillu's Equatorial
Africa^ page 75.
*' Obedience is the wife's first duty, and it is enforced without
mercy. A whip is made of the hide of the hippopotamus or ma-
natu, and is a barbarous weapon, as stiff, and hard, and heavy as
h'on. This is laid on with no light hand, the worthy husband
crying out, ' Rascal, do you think I paid my slaves for you for
nothing? ' The wives are more harshly treated than the slaves ;
a stroke of the whip often leaves a lifelong mark ; and I saw
very few women in my travels who had not some such marks on
their persons." — Du Chaillu's Equatorial Africa^ page 382.
** With usual African hospitality, my kingly friend offered me a
wife on my arrival at his place. This is the common custom when
the negroes wish to pay respect to their guests ; and they cannot
understand why white men should decline what they consider a
mere matter of course." — Du Chaillu^s Equatorial Africa^ page
71.
*' I had now grown to such sudden importance among the na-
tives, that the neighboring chiefs and kings sent me daily mes-
sages of friendship, with trifling gifts that I readily accepted.
One of these lords, more generous and insinuating than the rest,
hinted several times his anxiety for a closer connection in affec-
tion as well as trade, and, at length, insisted upon becoming my
father-in-law. I had always heard that it was something to receive
the hand of a princess, even after long and tedious wooing; but
now that I was surrounded by a mob of kings, who absolutely
thrust their daughters on me, I confess I had the bad taste not to
leap with joy at the royal offering. Still I was in a difficult posi-
tion, as no graver offence can be given a chief than to reject his
10*
114 COURTSHIP^ MARRIAGE^ AND CONCUBINAGE.
child. It is so serious an insult to refuse a wife, that, high-born
natives, in order to avoid quarrels or war, accept the tender boon,
and as soon as etiquette permits, pass it over to a friend or rela-
tion. As the offer was made to me personally by the king, I found
the utmost difficulty in escaping. Indeed, he would receive no
excuse. When I declined on account of the damseFs youth, he
laughed incredulously. If I urged the feebleness of my health
and tardy convalescence, he insisted that a regular life of matri-
mony was the best cordial for an impaired constitution." — Canofs
Twenty Years of an African Slaver, page 110.
** During the whole time that the old lady was at work she was
uttering disjointed remarks to me, and at length proposed, in the
most shameless and barefaced manner, that I should marry her
daughter. I requested to know which of the damsels then pres-
ent was the proposed bride, and was shown a young lady about
twelve years old, who had very much the appearance of a picked
Cochin-China fowl. I concealed my laughter, and told the old
lady that when this lassie becvame taller, and very fat, I might
then think more seriously of her proposition ; but as at present I
had not six cows (the required price) handy, I could not enter-
tain the subject. The old lady told me she would get the skin and
bone adorned with fat by the time I came on another visit, and,
for all I know, this black charmer may be now waiting in disap-
pointed plumpness." — Drayson''s Africa, page 227.
** The husband is always expected to provide a separate house
,for each of his wives; but even this precaution cannot prevent the
quarrels and strife which are continually occurring among the
different wives and children. The wives are never treated as
equals. They are not allowed to sit down to a meal with their
husbands ; but after they have prepared their food, they are re-
quired in their presence to taste it, to show that it has not been
poisoned. This process is called * taking off the witch.' " — ScoWs
Day Dawn in Africa^ page 50.
A man must marry because it is necessaiy to his comfort, con-
COURTSHIP^ MARRIAGE^ AND COXCUBIXAGE, 115
sequently the woman becomes a marketable commodity. Her
father demands for her as many cows, cloths, and brass-wire
bracelets as the suitor can afford ; he thus virtually sells her, and
she belongs to the buyer, ranking with his other live-stock. The
husband may sell his wife, or, if she be taken from him by another
man, he claims her value, which is ruled by what she would fetch
in the slave-market. . . . Polygamy is unlimited, and the
chiefs pride themselves upon the number of their wives, varying
from twelve to three hundred. It is no disgrace for an unmarried
woman to become the mother of a family." — Burton's Africay
page 493.
" There is no such thing as love in those countries, the feeling is
not understood, nor does it exist in the shape in which we under-
stand it. Everything is practical, without a particle of romance.
Women are so far appreciated as they are valuable animals. They
grind the corn, fetch the water, gather firewood, cement the floors,
cook the food, and propagate the race ; but they are mere ser-
vants, and as such are valuable. The price of a good-looking,
strong, young wife, who could carry a heavy jar of water, would
be ten cows ; thus a man, rich in cattle, would be rich in domestic
bliss, as he could command a multiplicity of wives. The simple
rule of proportion will suggest that if one daughter is worth ten
cows, ten daughters must be worth a hundred, therefore a large
family is the source of wealth ; the girls produce the cows, and
the boys milk them. All being perfectly naked (I mean the girls
and the boys) , there is no expense, and the children act as herdsmen
to the flocks as in the patriarchal times." — Baker's Great Basin of
the Nile, page 148.
*• One of Katchiba's wives had no children, and she came to me
to apply for medicine to correct some evil influence that had
lowered her in her husband's estimation. The poor woman was
in gi-eat distress, and complained that Katchiba was very cruel to
her because she had been unable to make an addition to his family,
but that she was sure I possessed some charm that would raise
her to the standard of his other wives. I could not get rid of her
until I gave her the first pill that came to hand from my medicine-
116 COURTSHIP, MARJilAGE, AND CONCUBINAGE.
chest, and with this she went away contented." — Baker's Great
Basin of the Nile, page 216.
*• When a man becomes too old to pay sufficient attention to his
numerous young wives, the eldest son takes the place of his
father and becomes his substitute." — Bakefs Great Basin of the
Nile, page 50.
*' Negro women can gratify the desire of a libertine, but they
can never inspire a passion of the soul, nor feed that hunger of
love which must sometimes gnaw the heart of a refined and cul-
tivated man. The negress has beauty, — beauty in spite of her
black skin, — which might create a furore in our demi-monde, and
for which fools might fling their fortunes to the dogs. And she is
gentle, and faithful, and loving in her own poor way. But where
is the coy glance, the tender sigh, the timid blush ? Where is the
intellect, which is the light within the crystal lamp, the genius
within the clay ? No, no, the negress is not a woman ; she is a
parody of woman; she is a pretty toy, an affectionate brute, —
that is all." — Meade's Savage Africa, page 210.
•• When the Kino: of Con^o takes a fresh concubine, her husband
is put to death. She is forced to give the names of her lovers
(for it seems that all the married women have lovers), and these
are also executed." — Headers Savage Africa, page 286.
" It is curious that the Equatorial savages of Africa should have
a remarkable antipathy to widows. Women never marry twice ;
they are compelled to go on the town on the death of their hus-
band, and to pay all their earnings to their brothers. . . .
That a husband should offer one of his wives to a visitor, as he
offers him a seat in his house and at his table, argues a want of
refinement only. But the husband who uses his wife, as is done
all over Africa, to decoy young men to ruin, slavery, and death,
practises a vice which seldom occurs among civilized nations." —
Beade's Savage Africa, page 218.
MUMBO JUMBO IN NEGROLAND. 117
»' In many parts of Africa, no marriage can be ratified till a jury
of matrons have pronounced a verdict of purity on the bride and
of capability on the husband. In other parts, especially in the
malarious localities, where women are so frequently sterile, no
one cares to marry a girl till she has produced a child. This has
given rise to a supposition that they prefer a wife who has earned
a little experience in dissipation. The real reason is, that if they
marry they must pay a high price for their wife. This price they
hope to regain by the sale of the children which she will bear." —
Eeade's Savage Africa, page 425.
CHAPTER XX.
MUMBO JUMBO IN NEGKOLAND.
**0n the 6th of May, at night, I was visited by a Mumbo
Jumbo, an idol, which is among the Mandingoes a kind of a cun-
ning mystery. It is dressed in a long coat made of the bark of
trees, with a tuft of fine straw on the top of it, and when the per-
son wears it, it is about eight or nine feet high. This is a thing
invented by the men to keep their wives in awe, who are so igno-
rant (or at least are obliged to pretend to be so) as to take it for
a wild man ; and indeed no one but he who knows it would take
it to be a man, by reason of the dismal noise it makes, and which
but few of the natives can manage. It never comes abroad but
in the niirht time, which makes it have the better effect. When-
ever the men have any dispute with the women, this Mumbo
Jumbo is sent for to determine it ; which is, I may say, always in
favor of the men. Whoever is in the coat, can order the others
to do what he pleases, either fight, kill, or make prisoner ; but it
must be observed, that no one is allowed to come armed into its
presence. When the women hear it coming, they run away and
hide themselves ; but if you are acquainted with the person who
has the coat on, he will send for them all to come and sit down,
118 FUNERAL AND BURIAL RITES,
and sing or dance, as he pleases to order them ; and if any refuse
to come, he will send the people for them, and then whip them.
. . . When a man has been a day or two from home, the wife
salutes him on her knees at his return, and, in the same posture,
she always brings him water to drink. This, I believe, is the
effect of, what I before mentioned, Mumbo Jumbo." — Moore's
Inland Parts of Africa, page 116-122.
** Among the Mandingoes, if a married woman is suspected of
being unfaithful to her husband, the aid of Mumbo Jumbo is put
in requisition. This mysterious personage, so frightful to the
whole race of African matrons, is a strong, athletic man, disguised
in dry plantain leaves, and bearing a rod in his hand, which he
uses on proper occasions with most unsparing severity. Whea
invoked by an injured husband, he appears about the outskirts of
the village at dusk, and commences all sorts of pantomimes.
After supper, he ventures to the town hall, where he commences
his antics, and every grown person, male or female, must be pres-
ent, or subject themselves to the suspicion of having been kept
away by a guilty conscience. The performance is kept up until
midnight, when Mumbo suddenly springs with the agility of the
tiger upon the offender, and chastises her most soundly, amidst the
shouts and laughter of the multitude, in which the other women
join more heartily than anybody else, with the view, no doubt, of
raising themselves above the suspicion of such infidelity." — Wil-
sorCs Africa, page 76.
CHAPTER XXI.
FUNERAL AND BURIAL RITES IN NEGROLAND.
*• Drums were beating, horns blowing, and people were seen
all running in one direction. The cause was a funeral dance, and
I joined the crowd, and soon found myself in the midst of the en-
FUNERAL AND BURIAL RITES. 119
tertainment. The dancers were most grotesquely got up. About
a dozen huge ostrich feathers adorned their hehiiets ; cither
leof)ard or the black and white monkey skins were suspended
from their shoulders, and a leather tied round the waist covered a
large iron bell, which was strapped upon the loins of each dancer
like a woman's old-fashioned bustle. This they rung to the time
of the dance by jerking their posteriors in tlie most aljsurd man-
ner. Every dancer wore an antelope's horn suspended round the
neck, which he blew occasionally in the height of his excitement.
These instruments produced a sound partaking of the braying of
a donkey and the screech of an owl. Crowds of men rushed
round and round in a sort of ' galop infernel,' brandishing their
lances and iron-headed maces, and keeping tolerably in line five
or six deep, following the leader who headed them, dancing back-
wards. The women kept outside the line, dancing a slow, stupid
step, and screaming a wild and most inharmonious chant." —
Baker^s Great Basin of the Nile, page 165.
** I had noticed, during the march from Latome, that the
vicinity of every town was announced by heaps of human re-
mains. Bones and skulls formed a Golgotha within a quarter of
a mile of every village. Some of these were in earthenware pots,
generally broken ; others lay strewn here and there, while a heap
in the centre showed that some form had originally been observed
in their disposition. This was explained by an extraordinary
custom most rigidly obseiwed by the Latookas. Should a man
be killed in battle the body is allowed to remain where it fell, and
is devoured by the vultures and hyenas ; but should he die a nat-
ural death, he or she is buried in a shallow grave within a few
feet of his own door, in a little court-yard that surrounds each-
dwelling." — Bakers Great Basin of the Nile, page 142.
"The chiefs of Unyamwezi generally are interred by a large
assemblage of their subjects with cruel rites. A deep pit is sunk,
with a kind of vault or recess projecting from it; in this the
corpse, clothed with skin and hide, and holding a bow in the
right hand, is placed sitting, with a pot of pombe, upon a dwarf-
stool, while sometimes one, but more generally three, female
120 FUNERAL AND BURIAL RITES.
slaves, one on each side and the third in front, are buried alive to
preserve their lord from the horrors of solitude. A copious liba-
tion of pombe upon the heaped-up earth concludes the ceremony."
Burton's Africa, page^ 296.
••The great headmen of Wadoc are buried almost naked, but
retaining their bead-ornaments, sitting in a shallow pit, so that
the fore-finger can project above the ground. With each man are
interred alive a male and a female slave, the former holding a bill-
hook, wherewith to cut fuel for his lord in the cold death-world,
and the latter, who is seated upon a little stool, supports his head
in her lap." — Barton^ s Africa, page 98.
"At this funeral, the women having first appeared and formed
a circle, one advanced into the midst, having a child tied on her
back, and went wriggling about on her heels, with her head and
hands inclined toward the ground. Her companions sang Fantee
songs ; some struck pieces of iron together, three others clashed
in their hands calabashes surrounded with a loose net-work of
beads ; and meanwhile, men beat drums with their fingers in the
background. Next half a dozen wild-looking men appeared,
who seemed to be under the excitement of liquor, and their waist-
cloths trailing in the dust. They roared out songs ; rushed madly
ten or a dozen yards up the street, twisting violently their
shoulders, arms, and legs ; then wheeled round and returned,
stopping and circling on their hams, whilst musicians beat drums
and dry sticks, and loudly joined in the chorus." — Alexa7ider^s
Africa, Vol. I., page 188.
••The Kaffirs difi'er very materially from all the neighboring
nations in their manner of disposing of the dead. Funeral rites
are bestowed only on the bodies of their chiefs, and of their
children. The first are generally interred very deep in the dung
of their own cattle accumulated in the kraals or places where
they are pent up at nights ; and the bodies of infants are most
commonly deposited in the ant-hills that have been excavated by
the ant-eaters. The common people are exposed to be devoured
FUNERAL AND BURIAL RITES. 121
by wolves. As these animals drag them away immediately into
their dens, the relations of the deceased are in no danger of being
shocked or disgusted with the sight of the mangled carcass. A
Kaffir, in consideration of this piece of service holds the life of a
wolf to be sacred, at least, he never endeavors to destro}' it ; the
consequence of which is, that the country swarms with this vora-
cious and destructive animal." — Barrow's Africa^ Vol. I. , page
174.
*' On our way home, I saw the corpse of a young slave, about
twelve years of age, slung to a pole, and carried by two men.
This led to the disclosure of a fact, of which I had hitherto been
ignorant ; namely, that all slaves, except a few favored ones, are
considered not worth the trouble of a decent burial, and are con-
sequently taken, and thrown into the water which runs round the
town, where they are eaten by the thousands of fishes which the
river contains." — Freemaii's Africa, po.g^ 135.
** Every one is buried under the floor of his own house, with-
out monument or memorial; and among the commonalty the
house continues occupied as usual ; but among the great there is
more refinement, and it is ever after abandoned. . . . The
bodies of slaves are dragged out of town, and left a prey to vultures
and wild beasts. In Kano they do not even take the trouble to
convey them beyond the walls, but throw the corpse into the
morass or nearest pool of water." — Clapperioii's Africa, Vol. IV.,
page 55.
" A death had occuiTed in a village about a mile off, and the
people were busy beating drums and firing guns. There is noth-
ino: more heartrendino^ than their death- wails. When the
natives turn their eyes to the future world, they have a view
cheerless enough of their own utter helplessness and hopeless-
ness. They fancy themselves completely in the power of the
disembodied spirits, and look upon the prospect of following them
as the greatest of misfortunes. Hence they are constantly depre-
cating the wrath of departed souls, believing that, if they are
11
122 INDOLENCE AND IMPROVIDENCE,
appeased, there is no other cause of death but witchcraft, which
may be averted by charms." — Livingstone's Africa, page 'kll .
** One never expects to iind a grave nor a stone of remem-
brance set up in Africa; the very rocks are illiterate." — Living^
stone's Africa^ page 233.
Vr
CHAPTER XXII.
INDOLENCE AND IMPROVIDENCE OF THE NEGEOES.
*• The natives are so lazy that at times the merchants cannot,
without great difficulty, get men to load or unload their ships.
This is a very serious grievance, and often exposes our merchants
to great difficulties as well as loss. . . . One English laborer,
on an average, does more work than any twelve Africans ; and
the provision of the latter being so cheap (one penny per day is
sufficient for their supjDort), they have always plenty to eat. I am
writing from actual observation, having had for three months a
number of hired men under my charge. ... If a man is
urged to do anything like a tenth part of a day's work, he will go
away, and steal sufficient to maintain him for some time ; conse-
quently, the towns on the coast abound with thieves and vaga-
bonds, who will not work." — Buncan^s Africa, Vol. I., page 40.
** Even the free negroes labor merely to acquire the means of
gi'atifying their animal enjoyment. Negroes are indolent by
nature, and therefore indisposed to labor. They perform their
tasks carelessly, and have no idea of attention and iDunctuality, —
two qualities indispensable for a good servant. If a service is
asked of a neofro, he commonlv shows g-reat readiness to under-
take it, being stimulated with the hope of reward, but he has no
idea that a service quickly executed has double value. He returns
INDOLENCE AND IMPROVIDENCE, 123
in as many hours as he should have taken minutes, and is quite
surprised at being found fault with for his slowness. He will
make no secret of his having in the mean time taken a stroll,
visited a friend, stoj^ped at an inn, or perhaps performed some
other work. The negro thinks it is quite enough to have per-
formed the service ; as to when or how, he considers that a matter
of no moment." — Burmeister''s Black Man^ page 15.
•♦ Laziness is inherent in these people, for which reason, although
extremely powerful, they will not work unless compelled to do so.
They have no love for truth, honor, or honesty." —
Speke^s Africa, page 27.
** The negro has been, and still is, thoroughly misunderstood.
However severely we may condemn the homble system of slavery,
the results of emancipation have proved that the negro does not
appreciate the blessings of freedom, nor does he show the slight-
est feeling of gratitude to the hand that broke the rivets of his
fetters. His narrow mind cannot embrace that feeling of pure
philanthropy that first prompted England to declare herself
against slavery, and he only regards the anti-slavery movement
as a proof of his own importance. In his limited horizon he is
himself the important object, and as a sequence to his self-conceit,
he imagines that the whole world is at issue concerning the black
man. The negro, therefore, being the imjDortant question, must
be an important person, and he conducts himself accordingly, —
he is far too great a man to work. Upon this point his natural
character exhibits itself most determinedly. Accordingly, he
resists any attempt at coercion ; being free, his first impulse is to
claim an equality with those wliom he lately served, and to usurp
a dignity with absurd pretensions, that must inevitably insure the
disgust and abhorrence of the white community." — jBaA;er's Qreat
Basin of the Nile, page 197.
"My next eflfort was to procure laborers, for whom I invoked
the aid of Fana-Foro and the neighboring chiefs. During two
days, forty negroes, whom I hired for their food and a^e/- diem of
124 ' INDOLENCE AND IMPROVIDENCE,
twenty cents, wrote faithfully under my direction ; but the con-
stant task of felling trees, digging roots, and clearing ground
was so unusual for savages, that the entire gang, with the excep-
tion of a dozen, took their pay in rum and tobacco, and quitted me.
A couple of days more devoted to such endurance drove off the
remaining twelve, so that on the fifth day of my philanthropic
enterprise I was left in my solitary hut with a single attendant. I
had, alas ! undertaken a task altogether unsuited to people whose
idea of earthly happiness and duty is divided between palm oil,
concubinafre, and sunshine. I found it idle to remonstrate with
the king about the indolence of his subjects. Fana-Toro enter-
tained very nearly the same opinion as his slaves. He declared
— and perhaps very sensibly — that white men were fools to work
from sunrise to sunset every day of their lives ; nor could he com-
prehend how negroes were expected to follow their example ;
nay, it was not the * fashion of Africa ; ' and, least of all, could
his majesty conceive how a man possessed of so much merchan-
dise and property, would voluntarily undergo the toils I Avas pre-
paring for the future. . . . For a while I tried the effect of
higher wages ; but an increase of rum, tobacco, and coin, could
not string the nerves or cord the muscles of Africa. Four men's
labor was not equivalent to one day's work in Europe or America.
The negro's philosophy was both natural and self-evident: — why
should he work for pay when he could live without it ? " — Canofs
Twenty Years of an African Slaver, page 417.
** A writer in the 'Southern Planter and Farmer' states that
a gentleman in Charlotte county, Virginia, thus tested the com-
parative results of white and black labor. He furnished thirteen
negroes with mules and implements and provisions to raise a crop,
and at the same time furnished an outfit to two white men. The
negroes raised ninety-four barrels of corn, seven stacks of oats, and
five thousand pounds of tobacco. The two white men, with a little
negro girl to cook for them, raised one hundred and twelve and a
half barrels of corn, ten stacks of oats, and eight thousand pounds
tobacco. The negroes returned the mules in a poor, emaciated
condition. The white men turned theirs over fat and sleek. The
negroes worked four mules, the whites two. The gentleman
referred to will, this year, work white men exclusively. To show
TIMIDITY AND COWARDICE OF THE NEGROES. 125
the improvidence of the negroes, he said the cart and mules were
at their service to haul wood ; yet they preferred to burn rails."
— Baleigh (N. C.) Register, Jan. 17, 1868.
*' Civilization hitherto has made very tardy i^rogress in these
African wilds ; the black inhabitants of which are so indisposed
to labor, and so wedded to their nomadic habits, that it is difficult
to get them to settle down to industrious habits, either as agricul-
turists or as artisans ; to say nothing of the colonist being obliged
to be at all times jDrepared to oppose their predatory incursions."
— Valdez's Africa, Vol. II., page 109.
" The great national vice of the Africans is their indolence,
They have no athletic sports. They wonder at the white man who
walks to and fro from the mere love of walking." — Pieade's
Savage Africa, page 448.
*' I saw a man afflicted with palsy in his head. He applied to
me for a remedy, but I could only recommend him to bathe him-
self every day in warm water, — which will never be done ; for
these people are too indolent to perform any labor of this kind,
even if it be to save their lives." — Puchardsoti's Africa, Vol. II. ^
page 303.
CHAPTER , XXIII.
TIMIDITY AND COWARDICE OF THE NEGROES.
** In their warfare, cunning has a most important part. They
laugh at the courage of the white man, who faces his enemy, and
delight most in ambushes and sudden surprises. If one has a
quarrel with another, he lies in wait for him, shoots him as he is
11*
126 TIMIDITY AND COWARDICE OF THE NEGROES.
passing by the way, and immediately retreats. Then, of course,
the dead man's friends take up his quarrel ; then ensue other am^
bushes and murders ; frequently a dozen villages are involved in
the palaver, and the killing and robbing goes on for months and
even years, each party acting as occasion offers." — Du Chaillu's
Equatorial Africa^ page 195.
" The wamors of this part of Africa — with the exception of
the Fans and Osheba — are not overstocked with courage. They
applaud tricks that are inhumanly cruel and cowardly, and seem
to be quite incapable of open hand-to-hand fight. To surprise
man, woman, or child in sleep, and kill them then ; to lie in am-
bush in the woods for a single man, and kill him by a single spear-
thrust before he can defend himself; to waylay a woman going to
the spring for water, and kill her ; or to attack on the river a ca-
noe much smaller and weaker than the attackers, — these are the
warlike feats I have heard most praised, and seen oftenest done
in this part of Africa." — Du Chaillu's Equatorial Africa, page 131.
" In war, they show no bravery, although on the hunt they are
certainly brave enough. They despise boldness and admire cun-
ning ; prefer to gain by treachery, if possible ; have no mercy or
consideration for the enemy's women and children ; and are cruel
to those who full in their power." — Du Chaillu''s Equatorial A/Hca,
page 379.
** Besides cowardice, their principal fault is thieving, — a dispo-
sition which they never fail to evince ; and nothing comes amiss to
them, from wholesale robbery to petty prigging. Like the true
coward, too, they are bullies when they meet those more timid
than themselves." — Eutcliinson's Africa, Vol. II., page 22.
♦* During the war, which has continued these four months, the
loss on the part of the Yaoorie has been about a half-dozen men
killed, and the slaughter on the part of the rebels, it is said, has
been no less. This sanguinary contest is a specimen of their war-
TIMIDITY AND COWARDICE OF THE NEGROES. 127
fare, so that there will never be any great danger of depopulation
from foreign wars or domestic broils. . . . The ' great war/
for wliich there was said to have been such mighty preparations
in Nouffie, and which caused so much consternation in this city
an evening or two ago, has terminated in the capture of a herd of
the King of Wowow's bullocks near the walls of his town." —
Lander'' s Travels in Africa^ Vol. I., pages 273, 275.
*' About two o'clock, as I was lying asleep upon a bullock's hide
behind the door of the hut, I was awakened by the screams of
women, and a general clamor and confusion among the inhab-
itants. At first I suspected that the Bambawans had actually en-
tered the town ; but observing my boy upon the toj) of one of the
huts, I called to him to know what was the matter. He informed
me that the Moors were come a second time to steal the cattle,
and that they were now close to the town. I mounted the roof of
the hut, and observed a large herd of bullocks coming toward
the town, followed by five Moors on horseback, who drove the
cattle forward with their muskets. When they had reached the
■Udells, which are close to the town, the Moors selected from the
herd sixteen of the finest beasts, and drove them off at a gallop.
During this transaction the town people, to the number of five
hundred, stood collected close to the walls of the town; and when
the Moors drove the cattle awaj^ though they passed within pis-
tol-shot of them, the inhabitants scarcely made a show of resist-
ance. I saw only four muskets fired, which, being loaded with
gunpowder of the negroes' own manufacture, did no execution.'*
— Mungo Park's 1st Journal, page 85.
*'In an attempt to storm or subdue Cooniah, the capital of the
rebellious province of Ghoober, the number of fighting men
brought before the town could not, I think, have been less than
fifty or sixty thousand, horse and foot, of which the foot amounted
to more than nine-tenths. For the depth of more than two hun-
dred yards, all round the walls, was a dense circle of men and
horses. The horse kept out of the reach of bow-shot, while the
foot went up, as they felt courage or inclination, and kept up a
struggling fire with about thirty muskets and the shooting of ar-
128 TIMIDITY AND COWARDICE OF THE NEGROES.
rows. . . . These fellows, whenever they fired their pieces, ran
out of bow-shot to load. All of them were slaves; not a single
Felatah had a musket. The enemy kept np a sure and slow fight,
seldom throwing away their arrows, until they saw an opportunity
of letting fly with effect. Now and then a single horseman would
gallop up to the ditch, and brandish his spear, taking care to cover
himself with his large leathern shield, and return as fast as he
went, generally calling out lustily, when he got among his own
party, ' Shields to the wall ! ' ' You people of Godado, why don't
you hasten to the wall ? ' To which some voices would call out,
* Oh ! you have a good large shield to cover you ! ' The cry of
* Shields to the wall ! ' was constantly heard from the several chiefs
to their troops ; but they disregarded the call, and neither chiefs
nor vassals moved from the spot. ... At the conclusion of
this memorable battle, in which nothing was concluded, the whole
army set off in the greatest confusion, men and quadrupeds tum-
bling over each other, and upsetting everything that fell in their
way." — Clappertoii's Africa^ Vol. IV. , page 242.
** These unfortunate people seldom think of defending their
habitations, but rather give them up, and by that means gain time
to escape." — Denham and Clapperton's Africa, Vol. II., page 121.
**It is only self-interest that makes the African brave. I have
seen a small cow, trotting up with tail erect, break aline of one
hundred and fifty men carrying goods not their own." — Burton's
Africa, page 242.
" It is confidently stated by the missionaries that the King of
Kongo raised the incredibly large army of nine hundred thousand
men. They say very little, however, for the bravery or dis-
cipline of this immense army, when they add that the main di-
vision of it was entirely routed by four hundred Portuguese muske-
teers."— Wilsoji's Africa, page 322.
"Twenty whites will put to flight a thousand Congoans." —
Ogilbifs Africa, page 533.
TIMIDITY AND COWARDICE OF THE NEGROES. 129
** I was fortunately enabled to buy two camels instead of sump-
ter oxen, which give great trouble on the road during the dry
season, especially if not properly attended to, and prepared every-
thing for my journey ; but the people in these countries are all
cowards, and as I was to go alone without a caravan, I was un-
able to find a good servant." — BartlCs Africa, Vol. I., page 503.
"I witnessed their drill exercise a short time before leavino-
Port Royal, and it was truly amusing. During the exercises, they
practised them in the manual of arms, and loading and firing
blank cartridge ; and when the command, ' Fire,' was given, nearly
one half of the line squatted and dropped down, frightened at the
noise of the guns in their own hands. I also conversed with sev-
eral of them. They told me they never expected it of the Yan-
kees to make them fight ; that they could not fight ; ♦ Me drap
right down gone dead, I get so skeered."— Correspondence of a
Michigan officer to the National Intelligencer, August 13, 1862.
Of the negroes at Plarper's Ferry, and especially of those ne-
groes who were more immediately concerned with John Brown
n bis Harper's Ferry raid, and who were afterward captured
and punished, the general newspaper accounts of that time
concur in representing them all (so very unlike their fearless
but misguided Anglo-American leaders) as the complete
victims of cowardice and trepidation. Thus : —
" The blacks made no resistance, but begged for mercy. . .
They ran with all the swiftness that their fears could excite.
. . . Green, the negro, is a large man, with a very bad coun-
tenance and expression, and a most arrant coward. He cringes
and begs to every person who approaches him."
How the negi'o troops behaved on the occasion of the
attempt to blow up Petersburg, Virginia, on the 30th of July,
1864, may be seen by reference to the following Federal ac-
count from the regular army correspondent of a New York
newspaper : —
130 AFRICAN ANECDOTES.
" The rebels, exasperated at sight of the negroes, fought with
the fury of devils, and, reinforcements coming to their aid, the tide
of battle turned. The colored troops gave way and broke in con-
fusion, when the rebels, having repulsed their charge, charged
them in turn, and then they ran, a terror-stricken, disordered mass
of fugitives, to the rear of our white troops. In vain their officers
endeavored to rally them with all the persuasion of tongue, sabre,
and pistol. Whatever discredit attaches to the negroes them-
selves, their white officers are beyond reproach."
CHAPTER XXIV.
AFRICAN ANECDOTES.
*• So long as the negro can laugh, he cares little against whom
the joke goes." — Du Chaillu's Equatorial Africa, page 330.
*' The enraged wife rushed out to seek her supposed rival, and
a battle ensued. Women's fights in this country always begin by
their throwing off their dengui, that is, stripping themselves en-
tirely naked. The challenger having thus denuded herself, her
enemy showed pluck and answered the challenge by promptly
doing the same ; so that the two elegant figures immediately went
at it, literally tooth and nail, for they fought like cats, and be-
tween the rounds reviled each other in language the most filthy
that could possibly be uttered. Mayolo being asleep in his house,
and no one seemingly ready to interfere, I went myself and sep-
arated the two furies*"" — Du Chaillu's Ashango-Land, page 187.
** No one can rely upon them even for a moment. Dog wit, or
any silly remark, will set them giggling. Any toy will amuse
them. Highly conceited of their personal appearance, they are
forever cutting their hair in different fashions, to surj^rise a friend ;
or if a rag be thrown away, they will all in turn fight for it to
AFEICAX AXECDOTES. 131
bind on their heads, then on their loins or spears, peacocking
about with it before their admiring comrades." — Speke's Africa,
page 29.
" Should one happen to have anything specially to commu-
nicate to his master in camp, he will enter giggling, sidle up to
the pole of a hut, commence scratching his back with it, then
stretch and yawn, and gradually, in bursts of loud laughter, slip
dow^n to the ground on his stern, when he drums with his hands
on the top of a box until summoned to know what he has at heart,
when he delivers himself in a peculiar manner, laughs and yawns
again, and, saying it is time to go, walks off in the same way as
ho came." — Speke's Africa, page 29.
*' Proceeding to another court, we sat in the shade together,
when the women returned again, but were all dumb, because my
interpreters dared not for their lives say anything, even on my
account, to the king's women. Getting tired, I took out my
sketch-book and drew Lubuga, the pet, which amused the king
immensely, as he recognized her cockscomb. Then twenty naked
virgins, the daughters of Wakungu, all smeared and shining with
grease, each holding a small square of calico for a fig-leaf, marched
in a line before us, as a fresh addition to the harem, whilst the
hapiDy fathers floundered, yauzigging on the gi'ound, delighted to
find their darlings appreciated by the king. Seeing this done in
such a quiet, mild way before all my men, who dared not lift
their heads to see it, made me burst into a roar of laughter, and
the king, catching the infection from me, laughed as well ; but the
laughing did not end there, — for the pages, for once giving way
to nature, kept bursting, — my men chuckled in sudden gusts, —
while even the women, holding their mouths for fear of detection ,
responded, — and we all laughed together. Then a sedate old
dame rose from the squatting mass, ordered the virgins to right-
about, and marched them off, showing their still more naked
reverses." — Speke's Africa, page 357.
*• A negro dwarf, who measured three feet all but an inch, the
132 AFRICAN ANECDOTES,
keeper of Princess Miram's keys, sat before her with the insignia
of oflice on his shoulder, and richly dressed in Soudan tobes.
This little person afforded us a subject of conversation and much
laughter. Miram inquired whether we had such little fellows in
my country ; and when I answered in the affirmative, she said,
* Ah, o-ieb ! what are they good for? Do they ever have children ? '
I answered, * Yes ; that we had instances of their being fathers to
tall and proper men.' ' Oh, wonderful ! ' she replied ; ' I thought
so ; they must be better than this dog of mine ; for I have given
him eight of my handsomest and youngest slaves, but it is all to
no purpose. I would give a hundred bullocks and twenty slaves
to the woman who would bear this wretch a child,' The wretch,
and an ugly wretch he was, shook his large head, grinned, and
slobbered copiously from his extensive mouth, at this flattering
proof of his mistress' partiality." — Benhain's Africay Vol. III.,
page 3.
** Their supreme happiness consists in having an abundance of
meat. Asking a man, who was more grave and thoughtful than
his companions, what was the finest sight he could desire, he
instantly replied, • A great fire covered with pots full of meat,'
adding, ' How ugly the fire looks without a pot ! ' " — MoffaVs Afri-
ca, page 306.
"They are very superstitious in some things, one of which is,
that if they know anybody boils the sweet milk which they buy
of them, they will not, for any consideration, sell that person any
more, because they say that boiling the milk makes the cows
dry." — Moore's Inland Parts of Africa^ page 35.
"During my absence, a French captain, who was one of our
most attentive friends, had left a donkey, which he brought
from the Cape de Verds, for my especial delectation. I at once
resolved to bestow the ' long-eared convenience ' on Prince Free-
man, not only as a type, but a testimonial; yet, before a week
was over, the unlucky quadruped reappeared at my quarters,
"with a message from the prince, that it might do well enough for
AFRICAN ANECDOTES. 133
a bachelor like me, but its infernal voice was enough to cause the
miscarriage of an entire harem, if not of every honest women
throughout his jurisdiction. The superstition spread like wildfire.
The women were up in arms against the beast ; and I had no rest
till I got rid of its serenades by despatching it to Monrovia, where
the dames and damsels Avere not afraid of donkeys of any dimen-
sions."— Canofs Twenty Years of an African Slaver ^ page 2>lb,
" The women, in order not to accustom themselves to much
talking or scolding, take every morning, betimes, a little water in
their mouths, which they keep there till all their household work
is done ; but then putting it out, give their tongues free liberty."
— Ogilby's Africa, page 364.
"When the chief arrived, I was busy preparing some skins of
birds and snakes, which caused no small amount of jesting
amongst his followers. One fellow, more inquisitive and imper-
tinent than the rest, approached close to me, and, seizing one of
the reptiles by the tail, held it up before the multitude, which
were now thronging my tent to inconvenience, and, addressing to
it some unintelligible words, the whole assembly burst out into a
deafening roar of laughter. Indeed, the mirth became so out-
rageous as to throw the party into convulsions, many casting
themselves at full length on the ground, with their hands tightly
clasped across their stomachs as if in fear of bursting, whilst their
greasy cheeks became furrowed with tears trickling down in
streams." — Andersson's Africa, page 345.
** The ideas of a Namaqua, as to the formation and rotary
motion of the heavenly bodies, if not very profound, are unques-
tionably very original. The sun, by some of the people of this
benighted land, is considered to be a mass of fat, which descends
nightly to the sea, where it is laid hold of by the chief of a white
man's ship, who cuts away a portion of tallow, and, giving
the rest a kick, it bounds away, sinks under the wave, goes round
below, and then comes up again in the east." — Andersson''s Afri-
ca, page 257.
12
134 FAILURE OF MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES,
CHAPTER XXV.
UTTER FAILURE AND INUTILITY OF ALL MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES
IN NEGROLAND.
"The Austrian mission-station of St. Croix consists of about
twenty grass huts on a patch of dry ground close to the river.
The church is a small hut, but neatly arranged, Herr Morlang,
chief of the establishment, acknowledged, with great feeling, that
the mission was absolutely useless among such savages ; that he
had worked with much zeal for many years, but that the natives
were utterly impracticable. They w^ere far below the brutes, as
the latter show signs of affection to those •who are kind to them ;
while the natives, on the contrary, are utterly obtuse to all feel-
ings of gratitude. He described the people as lying and deceit-
ful to a superlative degree ; the more they receive the more they
desire, but in return they will do nothing. Twenty or thirty of
these disgusting, ash-smeared, stark-naked brutes, armed with
clubs of hard wood brought to a point, were lying idly about the
station. . . . Near by are the graves of several members of
the mission, who have left their bones in this horrid land, while
not one convert has been made from the mission of St. Croix." —
Baker''s Great Basin of the Kile, page 53.
*' The state of the East-African heathen, their indifference toward
all that is spiritual, or to any progress in mere human affairs (they
are, as Kebmann rightly says, ' profitable in nothing, either to
God or to the workF) , may easily beget in the heart of a mission-
ary a mood of disappointment, in which he would say, witli
Isaiah, ' I have labored in vain ; I have spent my strength for
nought, and in vain.'" — Krapfs Africa, page 507.
"From this time forward the king began to develop his treach-
erous character, promising, in the hope of j)resents, to promote my
journey to Uniamesi, while all the while he had resolved to prevent
it. Extortion, too, followed upon extortion, — his magician,Wessiri,
FAILUEE OF MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES. 135
speaking and acting in the king's name. I saw the stock of
goods which I had intended for Uniamesi gradually melting
awa}'; and when, by order of the king, I was obliged to part with
piece after piece of the calico which 1 had reserved for my further
journey, I could not suppress my tears. The king observed them,
and asked the cause. Wessiri replied that I wept because of the
loss of my goods ; when I rejoined that I was not weeping on
that account, but because the things had been given me by
good people at home, who wished to send the Book of Life to all
Africans, with which object I had made the journey ; whereas I
was now deprived of my property, and the good design of my
friends was defeated " — Krapfs Eastern Africa^ page 260.
"A clergyman of the Church of England, the Eev. Thomas
Thompson, proceeded to the Gold Coast in 1751, with the view
of attempting the introduction of the Christian religion. He re-
mained chaplain at the Castle for four years, and brought home
a few natives for education, one of whom, Philip Quacoe, was edu-
cated at Oxford, and was afterward chaplain at Cape Coast for
the long space of fifty years. No result followed his labors. It
is even said that, at the approach of death, he had recourse to
fetich practices." — Cruickshank''s Africa, Vol. I., page 183.
"The most important and interesting portion of the last num-
ber of the 'Journal of the Anthropological Society of London' is the
discussion before the AnthrojDological Society- on the efforts of
missionaries among savages, — a discussion inaugurated by Mr.
Winwood Reade, author of * Savage Africa,' who stated, as the
result of his observation in Equatorial Africa, that missionary ef-
forts were total failures, even when directed by men eminently
qualified for the task. So far from * professing Christians ' among
negroes being better than the heathen, they were, if possible,
worse. ' In plain words,' said Mr. Reade, ' I found that every
Christian negress was a prostitute, and that every Christian negro
was a thief.' Mr. Walker, of fourteen years' Gaboon experience,
confirmed this testimony. Captain Biu'ton, in a very forcible
speech, followed suit, giving the result of his observations, not
merely in Africa, but in Western India, the prairie tribes of
136 FAILURE OF 3nSSI0NART ENTERPRISES,
America, and tropical Africa generally ; missionary efforts, he
said, being failures all. The following is characteristic : —
' A VERY DEAR PERSON TO US.' — With the last African
or Mombas mission I am personally acquainted. Years ago
this ill-fated establishment had spent a sum of £12,000, and
what were the results? In 1857, when calling at the mis-
sionary station of Rabbai Mpia, near Mombas, I was informed
that a wild-looking negi'o, whose peculiar looks caused me
to get my bowie-knife handy, was ' a very dear person to us ;
he is our first and only convert.' * Yes,' added the husband, with
an amount of simplicity which might provoke a smile but for the
melancholy thought that it breeds, * and he was prepared for
Christianity by an attack of insanity, caused by the death of all
his relations, and lasting five years." — London Dispatch, July 16,
1865.
*'Mr. Phillips, of Abeokuta, with the rest of the missionaries in
Central Africa, have been expelled from the country, suffering
the loss of their entire property. Mr, Phillips is at Lagos in a
destitute condition." — New York Tribune, Feh-uary 11, 1868.
"The Catholic missionaries threatened the natives with hell
fire if they refused to adopt the marriage system of the Christians.
The natives replied that they were quite content to go where their
fathers had gone before them. But the firmest opponents of these
innovations were the women ; and, as every one knows, a priest-
hood is only powerful when supported on female pillars. The
ladies of the court, who despised the monks on account of their
chastity, determined to take advantage of this f)ious weakness.
Accordingly they chose a rivulet, which flowed before the garden
of the missionaries, as their place of bathing, and there exhibited
themselves during the whole day, often in very indecent attitudes.
The afflicted fathers laid their distress before the king, but soon
found the evil doubled by this proof of the effect which it had pro-
duced."— Btade's Savage Africa, page 442.
♦• They dread a superhuman power, and they fear and worship
FAILURE OF MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES. 137
it as being a measureless source of evil. It is scarcely correct to
call tliis devil-worship, for this is a title of contrast, presuming
that there has been a choice of the evil in preference to the good.
The fact in their case seems to be, that good in will, or good in
action, are ideas foreign to their minds. Selfishness cannot bo
more intense, nor more exclusive of all kindness and generosity or
charitable affection, than it is generally found among these bar-
barians. The inconceivableness of such motives to action has
often been found a strong obstacle to the influence of the Christian
missionai-y. They can worship nothing good, because they have
no expectation of good from anything powerful. They have
mysterious words or mutterings, equivalent to what we term in-
cantations, which is the meaning of the Portuguese word from
wliich originated the term * fetich.'" — Footers Africa and the
American Flag, page 55.
** Soon an aged woman, to whom the missionary had often
spoken of the glorious gospel, joined the little praying-circle.
The change in this old woman, Yuwa, was very striking. She
had seemed to be one of the most unpromising characters in the
town of Nyaro, and the first time the missionary, who had charge
of the town, asked her why she did not regularly attend the
chapel, she replied, ' Me go to church, and you no pay me !'" —
Scott's Bay Dawn in Africa, page 89.
" A missionary at Maopongo having met one of the queens,
and finding her mind inaccessible to all his instructions, deter-
mined to use sharper remedies, and, seizing a whip, began to ap-
ply it to her majesty's person. The effect he describes as most
auspicious ; every successive blow opened her eyes more and more
to the truth, as she at length declared herself wholly unable to
resist such affecting arguments in favor of the Catholic doctrine."
— Murraifs African Discoveries, page 54.
"lam not to be understood as intimating that any of tho
numerous tribes are anxious for instruction ; tlusy are not tluj in-
quiring spirits we read of in other countries ; they do not desire
12*
138 MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES, HABITS, ETC,
the gospel, because they know nothing about either it or its bene-
fits."— Livingstone's Africa, j)(^ff^ 54i.
/
** The town swarmed with thieves and drunkards, whose only
object in life was sensual gratification, i^o where else had I met
with so many impudent and shameless beggars. When a mis-
sionary attempted to preach to a crowd in the streets or market,
it was very common for some of them to reply by laying their
hands on their stomachs, and saying, ' White man, I am hungry.' "
— Bowen's Central Africa, page 101.
"All missionaries praise the African for his strict observance of
the Sabbath. He would have three hundred and sixty-five Sab-
baths in the year, if possible, and he would as scrupulously ob-
serve them all." — Bartons Wanderings in West Africa, Vol. /.,
page 266.
*' In the negroes^ own country the efforts of the missionaries for
hundreds of years have had no effect; the missionary goes away
and the people relapse into barbarism. Though a people may be
taught the arts and sciences known by more gifted nations, unless
they have the power of progression in themselves, they must in-
evitably relapse in the course of time into their former state." —
Du, Chaillu's Ashango-Land, loage 436.
■•o^
CHAPTER XXYI.
MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES, HABITS, MANNERS, AND CUS-
T03IS OF THE NEGROES IN NEGROLAND.
" Their mode of salutation is quite singular. They throw
themselves on then* backs on the ground, and, rolling from
MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES, HABITS, ETC, 139
side to side, slap the outside of their thighs as expressions of
thankfulness and welcome, uttering the words, ' Kina bomba.'
This method of salutation was to me very disagreeable, and I
never could get reconciled to it. I called out, • Stop — stop ! I
don't want that ! ' but they, imagining I was dissatisfied, only
tumbled about more furiously, and slapped their thighs with
greater vigor. The men being totally unclothed, this performance
imparted to my mind a painful sense of their extreme degrada-
dation." — Livingstone's Africa, page 590.
"They fear all manner of phantoms, and have half-developed
ideas and traditions of something or other, they know not what.
The pleasures of animal life are ever present to their minds as the
supreme good." — Livingstone'' s Africa, page 477.
*' Sambanza gave us a detailed account of the political afifairs
of the country, and of Kolimbota's evil doings, and next morning
performed the ceremony called 'Kasendi,' for cementing our
friendship. It is accomplished thus : The hands of the parties are
joined (in this case Pitsane and Sambanza were the parties en-
gaged) ; small incisions are made on the clasped hands, on the
pits of the stomach of each, and on the right cheeks and foreheads.
A small quantity of blood is taken off from these points in both
parties by means of a stalk of grass. The blood from one person
is put into a pot of beer, and that of the second into another ;
each then drinks the other's blood, and they are supposed to be-
come perpetual friends or relations." — Livingstone's Africa, page
625.
*' The chieftainship is elective from certain families. Among
the Bangalas of the Cassange valley the chief is chosen from three
families in rotation. A chiers brother inherits in preference to his
son. The sons of a sister belong to her brother; and he often
sells his nephews to pay his debts. By this and other unnatural
customs, more than by war, is the slave-market supplied. The
prejudices in favor of these practices are very deeply rooted in
the native mind. Even at Loanda they retire out of the city in
140 MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES, HABITS, ETC.
order to perform their heathenish rites without the cognizance of
the authorities. Their religion, if such it may be called, is one of
dread. Numbers of charms are employed to avert the evils with
which they feel themselves to be encompassed. Occasionally you
meet a man, more cautious or more timid than the rest, with
twenty or thirty charms round his neck. He seems to act upon
the principle of Proclus, in his prayer to all the gods and god-
desses ; among so many he surely must have the right one. The
disrespect which Europeans pay to the objects of their fear is to
their minds only an evidence of great folly." — Livingstone's Africa^
page 471.
*' All the Batoka tribes follow the curious custom of knocking
out the upper front teeth at the age of puberty. This is done by
both sexes ; and though the under teeth, being relieved from the
attrition of the upper, grow long and somewhat bent out, and
thereby cause the under lip to protrude in a most unsightly way,
no young woman thhiks herself accomplished until she has got
rid of the upper incisors. This custom gives all the Batoka an
uncouth, old- man-like appearance. Their laugh is hideous; yet
they are so attached to it than even Sebituane was unable to eradi-
cate the practice. He issued orders that none of the children
living under him should be subjected to the custom by their
parents, and disobedience to his mandates was usually punished
with severity ; but, notwithstanding this, the children would ap-
pear in the streets without their incisors, and no one would con-
fess to the deed. When questioned respecting the origin of this
practice, the Batoka reply that their object is to be like oxen, and
those who retain their teeth they consider to resemble zebras.
Whether this is the true reason or not, it is difficult to say ; but it
is noticeable that the veneration for oxen which prevails in many
tribes should here be associated with hatred to the zebra, as among
the Bakwains ; that this operation is performed at the same age
that circumcision is in other tribes ; and that here that ceremony
is unknown. The custom is so universal that a person who has
his teeth is considered ugly, and occasionally, when the Batoka
borrowed my looking-glass, the disparaging remark would be
made respecting boys or girls who still retained their teeth, * Look
at the great teeth ! ' Some of the Makololo give a more facetious
MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES^ HABITS^ ETC. 141
explanation of the custom : they say that the wife of a chief hav-
ing in a quarrel bitten her husband's hand, he, in revenge, ordered
her front teeth to be knocked out, and all the men in the tribe fol-
lowed his example ; but this does not explain why they afterward
knocked out their own." — Livingstone^ s Africa, j^^d^ ^^l*
*' I have already noticed some peculiar customs of the Marghi ;
but I must say a few words about their curious ordeal on the holy
granite rock of Kobshi. When two are litigating about a matter,
each of them takes a cock which he thinks the best for fightins:,
and they go together to Kobshi. Having arrived at the hoh' rock,
they set their birds a-fighting, and he whose cock prevails in the
combat is also the winner in the point of litigation. But more than
that, the master of the defeated cock is punished by the divinity
whose anger he has thus provoked, and on returning to his village
he finds his hut in flames." — Berth's Africa, Vol. II., page
216.
*• All over Bornu no butter is prepared except with the dirty
and disgusting addition of some cow's urine, and it is always in a
fluid state." — Bartli's Africa, Vol. I., page 580.
** There are no ceremonies on birth occasions, and no purifica-
tion of women among these people. When thQ mother perishes
in childbirth, the parents claim a certain sum from ' the man that
killed their daughter.' Twins, here called wapacha, are usually
sold, or exposed in the jungle, as among the Ibos of West Africa.
If the child die, an animal is killed for a general feast, and in
some tribes the mother does a kind of penance. Seated outside
the village, she is smeared with fat and flour, and exposed to tlie
derision of people who surround her, hooting and mocking with
offensive jests and gestures. To guard against this calamity, the
Wazaramo and other tribes are in the habit of vowing that the
babe shall not be shaved till manhood, and the mother wears a
number of talismans — bits of wood tied with a thong of snake's
skin — round her neck, and beads of different shapes round her
head." — Burto?i's Africa, page 93.
12*
142 MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES^ HABITS^ ETC.
" When meat is not attainable and good water is scarce, the
African severs one of the jugulars of a bullock and fastens upon it
like a leech. This custom is common in Karagwah and the other
northern kingdoms; and some tribes, like the Wamjika, near
Moiubasah, churn the blood with milk." — Burton's Africa,
page 463
•' All the thoughts of the negroids are connected with this life.
*Ah!' they exclaim, * it is bad to die! to leave off eating and
drinking, never to wear a fine cloth ! ' As in the negro race gen-
erally, their destructiveness is prominent ; a slave never breaks a
thing without an instinctive laugh of pleasure ; and, however care-
ful he may be of his own life, he does not value that of another,
even of a relative, at the price of a goat. During fires in the town
of Zanzibar, the blacks have been seen adding fuel, and singing
and dancing, wild with delight. On such occasions they are shot
down by the Arabs like dogs." — Burton's Africa, page 493.
" In the absence of all refined pleasures, various rude sports are
pursued with eagerness, and almost with fury. The most favor-
ite is wrestling, which the chiefs do not practise in person, but
train their slaves to exhibit in it as our jockeys do game-cocks,
taking the same pride in their prowess and victory. Death or
maiming, however, is no unfrequent result of these encounters.
The ladies, even of rank, engage in another very odd species of
contest. Placing themselves back to back, they cause particular
parts to strike together with the most violent collision, when she
who maintains her equilibrium, while the other lies stretched, is
proclaimed victor with loud cheers." — Murray's African Discover-
ies, page 145.
*' After the heat of the day was over, Yano, Chief of Kiama,
came, attended by all his train. The most extraordinary persons
in it were himself and the bearers of his spears, which, as before,
were six naked young girls, from fifteen to seventeen years of age.
The only thing they wore was a fillet of white cloth round the
forehead, about six inches of the ends flying behind, and a string
MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES^ HABITS, ETC, 143
of beads round their waists ; in their right hands they carried three
light spears each. Their light form, the vivacity of their eyes,
and the ease with which they appeared to fly over the ground,
made them appear something more than mortal as they flew along-
side of his house, when he was galloping and making his horse
curvet and bound. A man with an immense bundle of spears re-
mained behind at a little distance, apparently to serve as a maga-
zine for the girls to be supplied from when their master had ex-
pended those they carried in their hands." — Clajypertoii's Africa,
Vol. IV., page 2U.
** At that moment one of their lucky omens took place. My
servant, who had assisted in bringing the presents, got up to re-
ceive the Goora nuts presented to me by the governor's orders ;
and in rising he overturned a pot of honey which had also been
given to us, but without breaking it, the honey running out on
the floor. Had the pot been broken, the omen would have been
unfortunate. As it was, the governor was highly elated, and
gi-aciously ordered the poor to be called in to lick up the honey.
They immediately made their appearance, equally rejoiced at the
lucky omen; and, upon their knees, quickly despatched the honey,
not, however, without much strife and squabbling. One man
came off with a double allowance, happening to have a long
beard, which he carefully cleaned into his hand for a bonne bouche,
after the repast on the ground was finished." — Clapperton^s Africa,
Vol. III., page 2^2.
** The ceremony of prostration before the king is required from
all. The chiefs who come to pay their court, cover themselves
with dust, and then fall flat on their bellies, having first practised
the ceremony, in order to be perfect." — Clapperton''s Africa, Vol.
IV., page 208.
*' The Bomonese have twenty cuts or lines on each side of the
face, which are drawn from the corners of the mouth toward the
angles of the lower jaw and the cheek-bone ; and it is quite dis-
tressing to witness the torture the poor little children undergo who
144 MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES^ HABITS^ ETC.
are thus marked, enduring not only the heat, but the attacks o
millions of flies. They have also one cut on the forehead in the
centre, six on each arm, six on each leg and thigh, four on each
breast, and nine on each side, just above the hips. They are,
however, the most humble of females, never approaching their
husbands except on their knees." — Denham and Clappertoii's
Africa, Vol. III.., page 175.
" His Highness vouchsafed this day to sleep in my tent, and yes-
terday he did the Germans the honor of slaughtering lice in theirs.
It is a grand piece of etiquette in this country, that every man has
the privilege of murdering his own lice. If you pick a louse off a
man's slave, you must deliver it up instantly to him to be mur-
dered, as his undoubted right and privilege." — RicliardsorCs Af-
rica, Vol. II., page 89.
«' Before they sit down to eat meat in company, the Kaffirs are
very careful to immerse their hands in fresh cow-dung, wiping
them on the grass, which is considered the perfection of cleanli-
ness. Except an occasional plunge in a river, they never wash
themselves, and consequently their bodies are covered with ver-
min."— Steedman's Africa, Vol. I, page 2Qo.
** It is very common among the Hottentots to catch a serpent,
squeeze out the poison from under his teeth, and drink it. They
say it only makes them a little giddy ; and they imagine it pre-
serves them afterwards from receiving any injury from the sting
of that reptile." — CampbeWs Africa, page 401.
*' As for the people of Naraacqua, when their sons are declared
to be men, they erect a shade, kill an animal, and tie its fat on his
head and round his neck, which, according to custom, he must
wear till it gradually rots and falls off. They likewise cut several
strokes on his breast with a sharp instrument. The entrails of the
animal which was killed at the commencement of the ceremony,
being dried and pounded into a powder, are now mixed wtih
MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES^ HABITS^ ETC. 145
water, with which he is rubbed all over, and he is then declared
to be a man m the presence of the whole kraal. He who does
not submit to this ceremony eats only with women, and is de-
spised."— CamphdVs Africa, page 430.
** A curious custom, originating in the superstitious belief of the
people of the Gold Coast, prevails among them, in reference to a
girl after conception. As soon as it becomes generally apparent
that she is with child, her friends and neighbors set xi^on her,
and drive her to the sea, pelting her with mud and covering her
with dust. During this operation they abuse her vehemently;
and conclude the ceremony by tumbling her over among the
waves. She returns unmolested to her house ; and the fetich-
woman binds charms of strings and parrots' feathers about her
"WTists, ankles, and neck, muttering a dark spell all tlie while, to
keep away bad luck and evil spirits. Without passing through
this ordeal, they believe that her childbirth would be unfortu-
nate." — Cruickshank^s Africa^ Vol. II. j page 200.
•' The Africans pay no attention either to domestic or wild ani-
mals ; even the dog or horse, the two most sagacious of all the
animal creation, excite in them no interest whatever. If not
driven to it, they will suffer a horse to stand for days, tied up
without food or water. In fact, in no case do they exhibit any
feeling, either of regard or affection, to merit even a comparison
with any of the lower animals, being also selfish in the extreme."
— Duncan''s Africa, Vol. /., page 90,
'* His prime minister and four others next in rank, who were
conducting me to his majesty's presence, desired me to halt till
the}' paid their compliment to his majesty, forming line in front
of me. They completely prostrated themselves at full length,
rubbino" both sides of their faces on the n^round and kissins' it.
They then raised themselves on their knees, where they remained
till they had completely covered themselves with dust, and
rubbed their arms over with dirt as high as the shoulders." —
DuncarCs Africa, Vol. L, 2^0 ge 220.
13
146 MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES, HABITS, ETC,
*'Much neglect seems to prevail at the time of the birth of
male children, respecting the separation of the umbilical cord.
Many boys, and even men, may be seen with protruding navels
as large as a duck's egg.'''' — Duncaii's Africa, Vol. I., page 80.
"Very little systematic control is exercised by either parent ;
and the children are, for the most part, utterly disobedient and
reckless of parental authority. As they are taught in their
earliest infancy to steal and lie, and to indulge in other gross
vices, nothing better could be expected. One most cruel punish-
ment inflicted upon their children, when they can no longer bear
with them, is to rub red pepper in their eyes." — ScoWs Day
Damn in Africa, page 49.
** The Obbo natives are similar to the Bari in some of their
habits. I have had great difficulty in breaking my cow-keeper of
his diso:ustino: custom of washing the milk-bowl with cow's urine,
and even mixing some with the milk ; he declares that, unless he
washes his hands with such water before milking, the cow will
lose her milk." — Bakefs Great Basin of the Nile, page 258.
" The entire crowd were most grotesquely gotten up, being
dressed in either leopard or white monkey skins, with cows' tails
strapped on behind, and antelopes' horns fitted upon their heads,
while their chins were ornamented with false beards, made of the
bushy ends of cows' tails sewed together. Altogether, I never
saw a more unearthly set of creatures ; they were perfect illustra-
tions of my childish ideas of devils, — horns, tails, and all, ex-
cepting the hoofs ; they were our escort ! furnished by King
Kamrasi to accompany us to the lake." — Bakefs Great Basiri of
the Nile, page 321.
*' The women continue to perform the severest labors until the
very last moment of their time. They give birth to children with-
out uttering a complaint, and one would almost believe tliat they
MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES^ HABITS, ETC. 147
are delivered without pain, for on the following day they resume
their usual occupations."— Caillie's Africa, Vol. 1., page 351.
** The women of Bambara, who were exceedingly dirty, have
all a bit of calabash, or a thin slip of wood, stuck into the under
lip. I could scarcely persuade nlyself that this was a mere matter
of taste, and questioned my guide upon the subject; he assured
me that it was the ftishion of the country. I was equally at a loss
to conceive how this bit of wood, which was merely stuck through
the lip, could keep its place. The women allowed me to see that
this curious ornament was brought through to the inner part of
the lip, and they laughed heartily at my astonishment. I asked
one of them to remove the piece of wood from her lip ; but she
told me that if she did so the saliva would run through the hole.
In short, I was quite amazed that coquetiy could induce them to
disfigure themselves in this manner ; yet it is the general custom
of this country. I saw young girls eight or ten years of age, who
had in their lower lip little pieces of wood of the circumference
of a pen-holder pointed at one end and stuck into the flesh. They
renew it frequently, and every time use a larger bit of wood,
which gradually widens the hole, until it becomes large enough to
admit a piece of wood of the size of a half-crown piece. I ob-
served that this singular and inconvenient ornament contributed
to their uncleauliness." — CaiUie's Africa, Vol. L, page 374.
•* The male Mandingoes are circumcised between the age of
fifteen and twenty. The excision which females should undergo
when they are marriageable, is often delayed until they are prom-
ised in marriage. I even saw a married w^oman, who, after having
a child, submitted to this operation. It is always performed by
women, and on several patients at once, who are thereby ren-
dered for some time unable to work. In this state they are taken
care of by their mothers, who bathe the Avound several times a
day with an indigenous caustic, with the use of which they are
acquainted." — CaiUie's Africa, Vol. I., page 351.
*' In Guinea, some of the customs practised on women, aftei
148 MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES^ HABITS^ ETC.
their confinement, are most barbarous and inhuman. The mother
is separated from her husband for a period of three years, that
she may give undivided attention to her offspring ; and, in the
mean time, the husband supplies himself with another partner." —
Valdez's Africa, Vol. L, page 218.
*' Their dances are mere steppings and turnings, in which there
is nothing graceful, accompanied by the clapping of hands, and
various distortions and gestures." — Valdez's Africa, Vol. II,, page
344,
*' On our walk to the house, we first saw a woman of the Bos-
jesman race, and had ocular conviction of the ti'uth of all we
had previously heard respecting the uncommon ugliness of these
people, particularly of the females. She sat more than half-naked,
at the entrance of a miserable straw hut, near a fire of fresh
brushwood, which exhaled a terrible smoke and vapor, and was
occupied in skinning a lean hare. The greasy swarthiness of her
skin, her clothing of animal hides, as well as the savage wildness
of her looks, and the uncouth manner in which she handled the
hare, presented altogether a most disgusting spectacle. She took
no further notice of us than now and then to cast a shy leer to-
ward us." — Lichtenstein's Africa, Vol. I., page bQ.
'* They generally eat their flesh raw, and chew it very little.
If they dress it, they scarcely make it hot through, and bite it with
their teeth the moment it is taken out of the ashes. The incisive
teeth, therefore, of the old Bosjesmans are commonly half worn
away, and have one general flat edge. They drink out of the
rivers and streamlets, lying down flat on their bellies, even when
the bank is very steep, so that they are obliged to support them-
selves in a fatiguing manner with their arms, to avoid falling into
the water." — Lichstenteiii's Africa, Vol. II., page 48.
** The queen, who accompanied her lord, and who was de-
cidedly the ugliest woman I ever saw, and very old, was called
MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES^ HABITS^ ETC. 149
Mashumba. She was nearly naked, her only article of dress
being a strip of the Fan cloth, dyed red, and about four inches
wide. Her entire body was tattooed in the most fanciful man-
ner ; her skin, from long exposure, had become rough and knotty.
She wore two enormous iron anklets, — iron being a precious
metal with the Fans, — and had in her ears a pair of copper ear-
rings two inches in diameter, and very heavy. These had so
weighed down the lobes of her ears that I could have put my
little finger easily into the holes through which the rings were
run." — ])u ChaiUu's Equatorial Africa, page 104.
*' The men take care to put all the hardest work on their wives,
who raise the crops, gather firewood, bear all kinds of burdens ;
and, where the bar-wood trade is carried on, as it is now by
many Shekiani villages, the men only cut down the trees and
split them into billets, which the women are then forced to bear
on their backs through the forests and jungle down to the river-
banks, as they have but rude paths, and beasts of burden are un-
known in all this part of Africa. This is the most severe toil
imao^inable, as the loads have to be carried often six or seven
miles or more." — Bu Chaillu's Equatorial Africay page 197.
"It is curious what a stirring effect the sound of the tam-tam
has on the African. He loses all control over himself at its sound,
and the louder and more energetically the horrid drum is beaten,
the wilder are the jumps of the male African, and the more dis-
gustingly indecent the contortions of the women." — Du Chaillu's
Equatorial Africa, page 236.
"Many of the Hottentots wear, as ornaments, the guts of
beasts, fresh and stinking, drawn two or three times, one through
another, about their necks, and the like about their legs." —
Ogilhy^s Africa, page 591.
"The women are so addicted to dancing, that they cannot for-
bear upon the hearing of any instrument, though they be ladea
13*
150 MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES^ HABITS, ETC.
with one child in the belly, and another at the back, where they
commonly carry them." — Ogilhy''s Africa^ page 466.
** The king of Congo eats and drinks in secrecy. If a dog en-
ters the house while he is at meals, it is killed ; and an instance is
recorded of the king's son having accidentally seen his father
drinking palm wine, and of his being executed on the spot." —
Beade's Savage Africa, page 286.
** When the aged become too weak to provide for themselves,
and are a burden to those whom they brought forth and reared to
manhood, they are not unfrequentlj'' abandoned by their own
children, with a meal of victuals and a cruse of water, to perish
in the desert; and I have seen a small circles of stakes fastened
in the ground, -witliin which were still lying the bones of a parent
bleached in the sun, who had been thus abandoned." — MoffaVs
Africa, page 97.
*' When a mother dies, whose infant is not able to shift for it-
self, it is, without any ceremony, buried alive with the corpse of
its mother." — Moffafs Africa, page 48.
** They delight to besmear their bodies with the fat of animals,
mingled with ochre, and sometimes with grime. They are utter
strangers to cleanliness, as they never wash their bodies, but
suffer the dirt to accumulate, so that it will hang a considerable
length from their elbows. Their huts are formed by digging a
hole in the earth about three feet deep, and then making a roof
of reeds, which is however insufficient to keejD off the rains. Here
they lie close together like j^igs in a sty. They are extremely
lazy, so that nothing will rouse them to action but excessive
hunger. They will continue several days together without food
rather than be at the pains of procuring it. When compelled to
sally forth for prey, they are dexterous at destroying the various
beasts which abound in the country, and they can run almost as
well as a horse. They are total strangers to domestic happiness.
MISCELLANEOUS PECULIARITIES^ HABITS^ ETC. 151
The men have several wives, but conjugal affection is little
known. They take no great care of their children, and never
correct them, except in a fit of rage, when they almost kill them
by severe usage. In a quarrel between father and mother, or the
several wives of a husband, the defeated party wreaks his or her
vengeance on the ehild of the conqueror, which in general loses
its life." — Kicherer, quoted in MoffaVs Africa, page 49.
"The women of Pongo disfigure their faces very much by
making large holes in their ears, and through the cartilaginous
parts of the nose. Weights are attached to make the hole large
enough to pass the finger through. Pieces of fat meat are fre-
quently worn in these holes, but whether for ornament or fra-
grance is not known. I inquired of one of them once why she did
it, and received the laconic answer, *My husband likes it.'" —
Wilson's Africa, page 288.
" The person of the King of Loango is sacred, and he is, in
consequence, subjected to some very singular rules, especially in
connection with his eating and drinking. There is one of his
houses in which alone he can eat, and another where alone he can
drink. When the covered dishes which contain his food are car-
ried into the eating-house, a crier proclaims it, and everybody gets
out of the way as quick as possible. The doors are then carefully
closed and bolted, and any person that should see the king in the
act of eating would be put to death. Proyart mentions the fact
that a favorite dog was immediately put to death for looking up
into his master's face while eating. Another is mentioned of a
child that was accidentally left in the banqueting-room of the king
by his father, and who awoke and accidentally saw the king eat-
ing. It was spared five or six days, at the earnest request of its
father, but was then put to death, and its blood sprinkled upon the
king's fetich. Others might be present when the king drank, but
they were bound to conceal their faces. In like manner no one is
allowed to drink in the king's presence without turning their
backs to him." — Wilson''s Africa, page 309.
'♦The King of Dahomi is one of the most absolute tyi'ants in
152 HVTS^ HOVELS, AND HOLES IN NEGROLAND.
the world ; and, being regarded as a demi-god by his own sub-
jects, his actions are never questioned. No person ever ap-
proaches him, — even his favorite chiefs, — without prostrating
themselves at full length on the ground, and covering their faces
and heads with earth. It is a grave offence to suppose that the
king eats, drinks, sleeps, or performs any of the ordinary func-
tions of nature. His meals are always taken to a secret place, and
any man that has the misfortune or the temerity to cast his eyes
upon him in the act is put to death. If the king drinks in public,
which is done on some extraordinary occasions, his person is con-
cealed by having a curtain held up before him, during which
time the people f)rostrate themselves, and afterward shout and
cheer at the very top of their voices." — Wilson's Africa^ page 202.
CHAPTER XXTII.
HUTS, HOVELS, AND HOLES (BUT NO HOUSES) IN NEGROLAND.
**It is impossible to look at some of their domiciles without the
inquiry involuntarily rising in the mind. Are these the abodes of
human beings ? In a bushy country, they will form a hollow in a
central position, and bring the branches together over the head.
Here the man, his wife, and probably a child or two, lie huddled
in a heap, on a little grass, in a hollow spot not larger than an os-
trich's nest. Where bushes are scarce, they form a hollow under
the edge of a rock, covering it partially with reeds or grass, and
they are often to be found in fissures and cav^ of the mountains.
When they have abundance of meat, they do .lothing but gorge
and sleep, dance and sing, till their stock is exhausted. But hun-
ger, that imperious master, soon drives him to the chase. It is
astonishing to what a distance they will run in pursuit of the ani-
mal which has received the fatal arrow. I have seen them, on the
successful return of a hunting party, the merriest of the merry,
exhibiting bursts of enthusiastic joy ; while their momentary hap-
nUTSy HOVELS^ AXD HOLES IN NEGROLAKD. 153
piness, contrasted with their real condition, produced on my mind
the deepest sorrow." — MoffaVs Africa, page 48.
**It is a curious fact that the circular form of hut is the only
style of architecture adopted among all the tribes of Central Af-
rica ; and that, although these differ more or less in the form of
the roof, no tribe has ever yet sufficiently advanced to construct a
window." — Baher''s Great Basin of the Nile, page 141.
" Their sheep, goats, and poultry eat and sleep in the same hut
with them, and a most intolerable stench is exhaled from all their
dwellings. They do not appear to have the least affection for
their offspring : a parent will sell his child for the merest trifle in
the world, with no more remorse or repugnance than he would a
chicken." — Landefs Africa, page 348.
"These huts are erected so close to each other, and with so
little reo;ard to comfort and a free circulation of air, that there is
scarcely a foot-path in the town wide enough for more than one to
walk on at a time ; and, not having the advantage of shady trees,
the heat of the town is excessive and distressing. Its uncleanness,
filth, and extreme nastiness have already been alluded to ; and the
odor emitted from the dirty streets is offensive and almost insup-
portable."— Landefs Travels in Africa, Vol. II., page 45.
" Their houses somewhat resemble a beehive or ant-hill, con-
sisting of boughs of trees stuck into the gi'ound in a circular
form, and lashed down across one another overhead so as to form
a framework, on which they spread large mats formed of reeds.
These mats are also used instead of cloth, and are very effectual
in resisting both sun and rain. The diameter of these dome-shaped
huts varies from ten to fifteen feet." — Cummi)ig''s Africa, Vol. I.,
page 127.
*' In the construction of their dwelliuor-houses the Mandingoes
154: HUTS^ HOVELS, AND HOLES IN NEGROLAKD.
also conform to the general practice of the African nations on this
pait of the continent, contenting themselves with small and in-
commodious hovels. A circular mud wall, about four feet high,
upon which is placed a conical roof, composed of the bamboo cane,
and thatched with grass, forms alike the palace of the king and
the hovel of the slave. Their household furniture is equally sim-
ple. A hurdle of canes placed upon upright stakes, about two
feet from the ground, upon which is spread a mat or bullock's
hide, answers the purpose of a bed. A water-jar, some earthen
pots for dressing their food, a few wooden bowls and calabashes,
and one or two low stools, compose the rest." — Mungo Parle's 1st
Journal, page 31.
*' Houses are jotted down without any regard to the evenness
or regularity of the ground on which they are erected. The hig-
gledy-piggledy order of architecture prevails throughout ; and the
axiom of Bacon that * a house was meant to live in,' is carried
out in its most original simplicity in Old Kalabar. As I walk
through the passages intended for streets, I have to scramble over
eminences and down declivities in the best way I can. In a path-
way between two houses opposite each other, or perhaps side by
side, there may be an ascent or a descent of a dozen or score of
feet ; and in wet weather it is impossible to escape a foot-bath in
some of the many ruts to be met with as one goes along. Heaps
of dirt and all kinds of refuse are thrown indiscriminately through
the town, as if to allow pasture-ground for the many turkey-buz-
zards, styled by Swainson, the * scavengers of nature,' that con-
gregate upon them, and have a perpetual carnival in browsing
upon the festering offal." — Hutchinson's Western Africa, page 116.
"Their buildings generally resemble the humbler sort of Eng-
lish cow-house, or an Anglo-Indian bungalow." — Burton^s Africay
page 90.
•' Beyond the line of maritime land the dwelling-house assumes
the normal African form, the circular hut described by every trav-
eller in the interior. Dr. Livingstone appears to judge rightly
HUTS^ HOVELS^ JXD HOLES IN NEGROLAND. 155
that its circularity is the result of a barbarous deficiency in invent-
iveness."— Burtoii's Africa^ pctge 251.
** The inner side of the roof is polished to a shiny black with
smoke, which winds its way slowly through the door. Smoke
and grease are the African's coat and small clothes ; they contrib-
bute so much to his health and comfort that he is by no means
anxious to get rid of them, and sooty lines depend from it like
negi'o-stalactites." — Burtoii's Africa^ page 253.
*' The settlements of the Wak'hutu are composed of a few
straggling hovels of the humblest description, with doors little
higher than an English pigsty, and eaves so low that a man can-
not enter them except on all-fours. In shape they difier, some
being simj)le cones, others like European haystacks, and others
like our old straw beehives." — Burtons Africa, page 97.
** All the accommodations of life throughout this continent are
simple, and limited in the greatest degree. There does not, prob-
ably, without some foreign interposition, exist in Africa a stone
house, or one which rises two stories from the ground. The ma-
terial of the very best habitations are merely stakes of wood
plastered with earth, built in a conical form like beehives, and
resembling the first rude shelter which man framed against the
elements." — Murray^ s African Discoveries^ page 231.
*' Except the state chairs or thrones of the great monarchs,
ascended only on very solemn occasions, there is not throughout
native Africa a seat to sit upon. The people squat on the ground
in circles, and if the chief can place beneath him the skin of a lion
or leopard, he is at the height of his pomp. For a table there is
at best a wooden board, whereon is neither plate, knife, fork, nor
spoon ; the fingers being supposed fully adequate to the j)erform-
ance of every function." — Mwrafs African Discoveries, page 233.
156 BUTS, HOVELS^ AND HOLES IN KEGEOLAND, •
*' Their appearance indicated wretchedness in the extreme, and
they seemed to behold us with astonishment. Their dwellings
were so low as to be hardly visible among the bushes till quite
close to them. They were the shape of the half of a hen's egg,
with the open part exposed to the weather, which must be ex-
tremely inconvenient in the rainy season, unless they are able to
turn the inclosed side to the storm, which might easily be done.
. . . The inhabitants were so covered with dirt, mixed with
spots of very red paint, that it appeared probable none of them
had had any part of their bodies washed since they were born."
— CamphelVs Africa, page 316.
*' Throughout the whole country the huts are small, ill-con-
structed, and extremely filthy ; the door is so low that to enter
you are obliged to crawl on all-fours. The residence of each fam-
ily is composed of several huts surrounded by quick hedges,
planted at random and without taste. Sometimes this inclosnre is
formed merely of posts and rails, or a kind of palisade of straw.
The streets are extremely narrow, winding, and dirty, all sorts of
filth being thrown into them. Both men and women are very un-
cleanly, as in all the negro villages in this country, and they rub
a great quantity of butter upon their heads." — Caillies Africa, VuL
I., page 24.
"The village was a new one, and consisted mostly of a single
street about eight hundred yards long, on which were built the
houses. The latter were small, being only eight or ten feet long,
five or six wide, and four or five in height, with slanting roofs.
They were made of bark, and the roofs were of a kind of matting
made of the leaves of a palm-tree. The doors run up to the eaves,
about four feet high, and there were no windows. In these houses
they cook, eat, sleep, and keep their store of provisions, chief of
which is the smoked game and smoked human flesh, hung up to
the rafters." — Du Chaillu's Equatorial Africa, page 105.
•* The palaver-house is an open shed, which answers the pur-
pose of a public-house, club-room, or town-hall, to these people ;
HUTS^ HOVELS^ AND HOLES IK NEGROLAND. 157
they meet there daily, to smoke and gossip, hold public trials or
palavers, and receive strangers." — Du Chaillu's Ashango-Land,
page 264.
«« The best sort of Makololo huts consist of three circular walls,
with small holes as doors, each similar to that in a dog-house ;
and it is necessaiy to bend down the body to get in, even when on
all-fours. The roof is formed of reeds or straight sticks, in shape
like a Chinaman's hat, bound firmly together with circular bands,
which are lashed with the strong inner bark of the mimosa-tree.
When all prepared except the thatch, it is lifted on to the circular
wall, the rim resting on a circle of poles, between each of which
the third wall is built. The roof is thatched with fine grass, and
sewed with the same material as the lashings ; and, as it projects
far beyond the walls, and reaches within four feet of the ground,
the shade is the best to be found in the country. These huts are
very cool in the hottest day, but are close and deficient in ventila-
tion by night." — Livingstone's Africa, page 225.
*' The Bosjesman has no settled residence ; his whole life is
passed in wandering from place to place ; it even rarely happens
that he passes two nights together on the same spot. One excep-
tion may, however, be found to this general rule, and that is,
when he has eaten till he is perfectly gorged ; that is to say, when
he has for several days together had as much as his almost incred-
ible voracity can possibly eat. Such a reveliy is followed by a
sleep, or at least a fit of indolence, which will continue even for
weeks, and which at last becomes so delightful to him, that he
had rather buckle the girdle of emptiness round him, than submit
to such an exertion as going to the chase, or catching insects. He
is fond of taking up his abode for the night in caverns among the
mountains, or clefts in the rocks ; in the plain he makes himself
a hole in the ground, or gets into the midst of a bush, where, bend-
ing the boughs around him, they are made to serve as a shelter
against the weather, against an enemy, or against wild beasts. A
bush that has served many times in this way as the retreat of a
Bosjesman, and the points of whose bent boughs are beginning to
grow again upwards, has perfectly the appearance of an immense
14
158 PROBABLE EXTINCTION OF THE NEGRO RACE,
bird's nest. In this state many sorts of the pliant tarconanthus,
abundance of which grows on the other side of the Great River, are
often to be found ; and if they have been recently inhabited, hay,
leaves, and w*ool may be seen, forming the bottom of the nest. It
is the custom w^hich has given rise to the name by which the sav-
ages in question are now known. Bosje signifjing, in African
Dutch, a shrub or bush ; Bosjesman, consequently, a bush-man.
An additional reason for giving it being derived from their often
shooting at game, or at an enemy, from this retreat." — Lichten-
steiii's Africa^ VoL II.., page 46.
** The holes in the ground above mentioned, which sometimes
serve these people as beds, are only a few inches deep, of a long-
ish-round form, and even when they are to serve for a whole fam-
ily, not more than five or six feet wide. It is incredible how they
manage to pack together in so small a space, — perhaps two grown
persons and several children \ each is wraj^ped in a single sheep-
skin, in which they contrive to roll themselves up in such a man-
ner, round like a ball, that all air is entirely kept from them. In
very cold nights they heap up twigs and earth on the windward
side of the whole ; but against rain they have no other shelter
than the sheepskin." — Lichtensteiii's Africa, Vol. II., page 47.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
GRADUAL DECREASE AND PROBABLE EXTINCTION OF THE
NEGRO RACE.
** I HAVE been struck with the steady decrease of the population,
even during the short time I have been in Africa, on the coast
and in the interior ^ but before I account for it, let me raise my
voice in defence of the white man, who is accused as being the
cause of it. Wherever he settles, the aborigines are said to disap-
pear. I admit that such is the case ; but the decrease of the pop-
rnOBABLE EXTINCTION OF THE NEGRO HACE. 159
ulation had already taken place before the white man came ; the
white man noticed it, but could not stop it. Populous tribes
whom I saw for a second time, and who had seen no white man
and his fiery water, have decreased, and this decrease took place
before the terrible plague that desolated the land had made its
api^earance. The negi'oes themselves acknowledge the decrease.
Clans in the life-time of old men have entirely disappeared ; in
others, only a few individuals remain." — Du Chaillu's Ashango-
Land, page 225.
"The decrease of the African population is owing to several
causes : the slave-trade, polygamy, barrenness of women, death
among children, plagues, and witchcraft, — the latter taking
away more lives than any slave-trade ever did. The negro does
not seem to diminish only in the region I have visited ; but in
every other part of Africa, travellers, who after the lapse of a
few years have returned a second time in the same country, have
noticed a decrease of population. . . . The women of the in-
terior are prolific, and in despite of it shall we assume that the
negro race has run its course, and that in due course of time it
will disappear, as many races of mankind have done before him ?
The Southern States of America were, I believe, the only country
in which the negro is known to have increased." — Du Chaillu.s
AsJiango-Land, page 435.
*' The name of Hottentot will soon be forgotten, or remembered
only as that of a deceased person of little note. Their numbers
of late years have been rapidly on the decline. It has generally
been observed that wherever Europeans have colonized, the least
civilized have always dwindled away, and at length totally dis-
appeared."— Barrow's Africa^ Vol. I., page 93.
*' It is impossible to conceal one's fears for the ultimate exist-
ence of most of the colored races in South Africa ; I mean those,
in the first instance, within the colony, and those in the neighbor-
hood of places where the emigrant Boers have lately settled.
The lands of the native tribes become gradually encroached on j
IGO PROBABLE EXTINCTION OF THE NEGRO RACE.
jealousies and animosities, wars and retaliations arise ; the na
tive tribes are driven back, lose their property, their lands, their
courage ; they fall back on other tribes, where they encounter
more or less resistance, become weaker and weaker, and the
white man advances, and absorbs the whole." — Freeman's Mis-
sionary Travels in Africa, page Q^.
** At present, it appears to me that the prospects of the colored
races of South Africa, taken on the broadest scale, are such as
Christian philanthropy may weep over. I see no prospect of their
preservation for any very lengthened period. The struggle may
last for a considerable time. Missionary effort may not only save
many of the souls of men, but help to defer the evil day of anni-
hilation as to many of the aboriginal tribes. But annihilation is
steadily advancing ; and nothing can arrest it without an entire
change in the system of government, wherever British subjects
come in contact with the native tribes." — Freeman'' s Missionary
Travels in Africa, page 261.
" In our own day a disintegrating process is ever spreading
among the nations of Eastern Africa, and the East Africans them-
selves avow that things went better with them in their fathers'
time ; that greater kings and chiefs existed then than now, and
that a new element must be introduced among them. The de-
scendants of Ham have outlived themselves." — Krapfs Africa^
page 393.
*' How the negro has lived so many ages without advancing,
seems marvellous, when all the countries sun'ounding Africa are
so forward in comparison ; and judging from the progressive
state of the world, one is led to suppose that the African must
soon either step out from his darkness, or be superseded by a
being superior to himself. Could a government be formed for
them like ours in India, they would be saved ; but, without it, I
fear there is very little chance ; for at present the African neither
can help himself, nor will he be helped by others, because his
country is in such a constant state of turmoil he has too much
PROBABLE EXTINCTION OF THE NEGRO RACE, 161
anxiety on hand looking out for his food to think of anything else.
As his fathers ever did, so does he. He works his wife, sells his
children, enslaves all he can lay hands upon, and, unless when
fighting for the property of others, contents himself with drinking,
singing, and dancing like a baboon, to drive dull care away." —
Speke's Africa, page 24.
Rev. E. M. Wheelock, Secretary of the Board of Educa-
tion of Freedmen, Department of the Gulf, — formerly
Chaplain of one of the New Hampshire Regiments, — under
date of New Orleans, Feb. 8, 1865, wrote to William Lloyd
Garrison as follows : —
**0n scores of plantations, labor was wholly suspended; and
the laborers in hundreds, with their wives and little ones, had
gathered around the forts and soldiers' camps. There they earned
a precarious living by such uncertain and intermitted employ-
ment as they might find ; the men as servants, hostlers, camp
followers, and hangers-on, — their wives as cooks, washerwomen,
etc. Hunger, cold, fever, and small pox were caiTying ofi" the
children at a fearful rate of mortality. The morals of the men
were being undermined by idleness and evil example, and the
modesty of the women debauched by contact with all that is
bebasing in military life. From month to month their numbers
visibly decreased ; and it really seemed as though the Southern
Negro, like the Indian, the Caffre, the Carib, and the Australian,
would become extinct before the rude shock of the war, and the
corrosive venom of our vices. The slave in Louisiana had
become free, de facto, and in a qualified sense ; but, alas ! his
freedom only meant the power to become idle, to become im-
moral, to sicken and to die."
14*
162 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WRITES AND BLACKS,
CHAPTER XXIX.
NATURAL, REPULSIVE, AND IRRECONCILABLE POINTS OF DIFFER-
ENCE, PHYSICAL, MENTAL, AND MORAL, BETWEEN THE WHITES
AND THE BLACKS.*
" So great a diflference of opinion has ever existed upon the
intrinsic value of the negro, that the very perplexity of the ques-
tion is a proof that he is altogether a distinct variety. So long as
it is generally considered that the negro and the white man are to
be governed by the same laws and guided by the same manage-
ment, so long will the former remain a thorn in the side of every
community to which he may unhappily belong. When the horse
and the ass shall be found to match in double harness, the white
man and the African black will pull together under the same re-
gime. It is the grand error of equalizing that which is unequal
that has lowered the negro character, and made the black man a
reproach." — Baker'^s Great Basin of the Nile, page 195.
** The obtuseness of the savages was such, that I never could
make them understand the existence of any good principle ; —
their one idea was power, — force that could obtain all, — the
strong hand that could wrest from the weak. In disgust I frc-
quently noted the feelings of the moment in my journal, — a mem-
orandum from which I copy as illustrative of the time. * 1863,
10th April. — I wish the black sympathizers in England could
see Africa\s inmost heart as I do ; much of their sympathy would
subside. Human nature viewed in its crude state as pictured
amongst African savages is quite on a level with that of the
brute, and not to be compared with the noble character of the
dog. There is neither gratitude, pity, love, nor self-denial ; no
* For a fuller and more minute elucidation of the physical, mental, and moral
difl'ereuces whicli exist between white people and negroes, see the remaining por-
tions of this work, especially the next succeeding chapter, entitled "American
Writers on the Negro." The testimonies given in the present chapter are almost
exclusively those of intelligent white travellers, who have seen (and who, as care-
ful and correct observers, have always seen only with indignation and disgust) the
negroes in Negrolaud.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHITES AND BLACKS, 1G3
idea of duty ; no religion ; but covetousness, ingratitude, selfish-
ness, and cruelty. All are thieves, idle, envious, and ready to
plunder and enslave their weaker neighbors.'" — Baker's Great
Basin of the Nile, page 164.
** In childhood I believe the negro to be in advance, in intellec-
tual quickness, of the white child of a similar age, but the mind
does not expand ; it promises fruit, but does not ripen ; and the
negro mind has grown in body, but has not advanced in intellect.
The puppy of three months old is superior in intellect to a child
of the same age, but the mind of the child expands, while that of
the doo- has arrived at its limit. The chicken of the common fowl
has sufficient power and instinct to run in search of food the mo-
ment that it leaves the egg, while the young of the eagle lies
helpless in its nest ; but the young eagle outstrips the chicken in
the course of time. The earth presents a wonderful example of
variety in all classes of the human race, the animal and vegetable
kingdoms. People, beasts, and plants belonging to distinct class-
es, exhibit special qualities and peculiarities. The existence of
many hundred varieties of dogs cannot interfere with the fact that
they belong to one genus, — the greyhound, pug, bloodhound,
pointer, poodle, mastiff, and terrier, are all as entirely different
in their peculiar instincts as are the varieties of the human race.
The different fruits and flowers continue the example, — the wild
grapes of the forest are grapes, but, although they belong to the
same class, they are distinct from the luscious Muscatel ; and the
wild dog-rose of the hedge, although of the same class, is inferior
to the moss-rose of the garden. From fruits and flowers we may
turn to insect life, and watch the air teeming with varieties of the
same species, —the thousands of butterflies and beetles, the many
members of each class varying in instincts and peculiarities. Fish-
es, and even shell-fish, all exhibit the same arrangement; that
every group is divided into varieties, all differing from each other,
and each distinguished by some pecuhar excellence or defect." —
Baker'^s Great Basin of the Nile, page 195.
**The negro is a being who invents nothing, originates nothing,
improves nothing; who can only cook, nurse, and fiddle; who
164 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHITES AND BLACKS.
has neither energy nor industry, save in rare cases, that prove the
rule ; he is the self-constituted thrall that delights in subjection
to, and in imitation of, the superior races. The Aboriginal Amer-
ican has never been known to slave ; the African, since he landed
in Virginia, in 1620, has chosen nothing else ; has never, until
egged on, dreamed of being free." — Burton'' s Wanderings in West
Africa, Vol. J., page 175.
"Eastern and Central intertropical Africa also lacks antiqua-
rian and historic interest ; it has few traditions, no annals, and
no i-uins, — the hoary remnants of past splendor so dear to the
traveller and to the reader of travels. It contains not a single
useful or ornamental work; a canal or a dam is, and has ever
been, beyond the naiTOW bounds of its civilization." — Burton^s
Africa, page 88.
**The African's wonderful loquacity and volubility of tongue
have produced no tales, poetry, nor display of eloquence ; though,
like most barbarians, somewhat sententious, he will content him-
self with squabbling with his companions, or with repeating some
meaningless word in every different tone of voice during the
weary length of a day's march." — BuHon''s Afnca, page 497.
*' Music is at a low ebb. Admirable tunists, and no mean
tunists, the people betray their incapacity for improvement by re-
maining contented with the simplest and the most monotonous
combinations of sounds. As in everything else, so in this art, —
creative talent is wanting. A higher development would have
produced other results ; yet it is impossible not to remark the de-
light which they take in harmony. The fisherman will accompany
his paddle, the porter his trudge, and the housewife her task of
shelling grain, with a song; and for long hours at night the
peasants will sit in a ring repeating, with a zest that never flags,
the same few notes, and the same unmeaning line." — Burton's
Africa, page 468.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHITES AND BLACKS. 165
•* Devotedly fond of music, the negro's love of tune has invented
nothing- but whistling and the whistle ; his instruments are all
borrowed from the coast people. He delights in singing, yet he
has no metrical songs ; he contents himself with improvising a
few notes without sense or rhyme, and repeats them till they
nauseate. . . . When mourning, the love of music assumes
a peculiar form; w^omen weeping or sobbing, especially after
chastisement, will break into a protracted threne or dirge, every
period of which concludes with its own particular groan or wail.
After venting a little natural distress in a natural sound, the long,
loud improvisation, in the highest falsetto key, continues as be-
fore." — Burton's Africa, page 497.
** The sebaceous odor of the skin among all these races is over-
powering, and is emitted with the greatest effect during and after
excitement, whether of mind or body." — Burtons Africa, page
89.
" Up to the age of fourteen, the black children advance as fast
as the white, but after that age, unless there be an admixture of
white blood, it becomes, in most instances, extremely difficult to
carry them forward." — Sir Charles LyelVs Second Visit to the United
States, Vol. L, page 105.
«' A certain skill in mechanics, without the genius of invention;
a great fluency of language, without energy in ideas ; a correct
ear for music, without a capacity for composition, — in a word,
a display of imitative faculties, with an utter barrenness of
creative power ; there is your negro at the very best. Even these
are rare, almost exceptional, cases; and to show such trained
animals as fair samples of the negro is to make an exhibition of
black lies. One might almost as well assert, after the sights
which one sees at a country fair, that all pigs are learned ; that
the hare plays on a drum in its native state ; and that it is the na-
ture of piebald horses to rotate in a circle to the sound of a brass
band." — JReade''s Savage Africa, page 33.
166 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHITES AND BLACKS.
** It has been proved by measurements, by microscopes, by
analysis, that the typical negro is something between a child, a
dotard, and a beast. I cannot struggle against these sacred facta
of science." — Meade's Savage Africay ijage 399.
** I shall be blamed by ignorant persons when I say that, if war
is waged against savages, it must be a massacre, or it is useless.
Cruel as this maxim may appear, it would, if followed out, be the
cause of less misery and bloodshed afterward. It must be re-
membered that the minds of savages are as differently constituted
from our minds, as are their bodies from our bodies
Forbearance these negroes ascribe to fear, and mercy to personal
interest." — Eeade^s Savage Africa, page 327.
"The Shangalla go all naked; they have several wives, and
these very prolific. They bring forth children with the utmost
ease, and never rest or confine themselves after deliveiy; but,
washing themselves and the child with cold water, they wrap it
up in a soft cloth made of the bark of trees, and hang it upon a
branch, that the large ants, with which they are infested, and the
serpents may not devour it. After a few days, when it has gath-
ered strength, the mother carries it in the same cloth upon her
back, and gives it suck with the breast, which she throws over
her shoulder, this part being of such a length as, in some, to
reach almost to their knees." — Bruce's Travels, Vol. 11., p«<7e 553,
"A Shangalla woman, upon bearing a child or two, at ten or
eleven years old, sees her breast fall immediately down to near
her knees. Her common manner of suckling her children is by
carrying them upon her back, as our beggars do, and giving the
infant the breast over her shoulders. They rarely are mothers
after twenty-two, pv begin child-bearing before they are ten ; so
that the time of child-bearing is but twelve years." — Bruce's
Travels, Vol. 11. , page 559.
The women of this part of Africa are certainly singularly
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHITES AND BLACKS. 167
gifted with the Hottentot protuberance. ... So miicli de-
pends on the magnitude of those attractions for which their
southern sisters are so celebrated, that I have known a man,
about to make a purchase of one out of three, regardless of the
charms of feature, turn their faces from him, and looking at them
behind, in the vicinity of the hips, make choice of her whose per-
son most projected beyond that of her companions." — Dmhain's
Africa, Vol, II., page 89.
•* Neither in the Desert nor in the kingdoms of Central Africa
is there any march of civilization. All goes on according to a
certain routine established for ages past." — Bicliardsoii's Africa,
Vol. I., page 305.
*' There is not a tincture of letters or of writing among all the
aboriginal tribes of Africa. There is not a hieroglyphic or a
symbol, — nothing corresponding to the painted stories of iSlexico,
or the knotted quipos of Peru. Oral communication forms the
only channel by which thought can be transmitted from one
country and one age to another. The lessons of time, the ex-
perience of ages, do not exist for the nations of this vast conti-
nent." — Murray's African Discoveries, page 233.
*• I found his majesty sitting upon a bullock's hide, warming
himself before a large fire ; for the Africans are sensible of the
smallest variation in the temperature of the air, and frequently
complain of cold when a European is oppressed with heat." —
Mungo Parle's First Journal, page 41.
" They seem to have no social tenderness, very few of those
amiable private virtues which would win our affection, and none
of those public qualities that claim respect or command admira-
tion. The love of country is not strong enough in their bosoms
to incite them to defend it against the irregular incursions of a
despicable foe ; and of the active energy, noble sentiments, and
contempt of danger, which distinguish the North American tribes
168 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHITES AND BLACKS,
and other savages, no traces are to be found among this slothful
people. Regardless of the past as reckless of the future, the j)res-
ent alone influences their actions. In this respect they approach
nearer to the nature of the brute than perhaps any other people
on the face of the globe." — Lander'^s Travels in Africa, Vol. I.,
page 176
*' Clicking is a peculiarity of several South African languages.
The Bushmen, Hottentots, and Kafiirs have each several clicks.
The Natal Kaffirs use but three, and these not frequently, as there
are few words but can be understood without the click. In the
Bushmen's language, very many are used, and I have heard that
a Bushman is not considered to speak his language elegantly
until age has deprived him of all his teeth. These curious little
men use a great deal of action during their conversation ; and it
is said that if a Bushman wishes to talk during a dark night, he
is obliged to light a fire, to enable the listeners to see his action,
and thereby fully to comprehend his meaning." — Braysori's
Africa, page 58.
*'The Bosjesmans, indeed, are amongst the ugliest of all hu-
man beings. The flat nose, high cheek-bones, prominent chin,
and concave visage, partake much of the apish character, which
their keen eye, always in motion, tends not to diminish. The
upper lid of this organ, as in that of the Chinese, is rounded into
the lower on the side next the nose, and forms not an angle, as is
the case in the eye of a European, but a circular sweep, so that
the point of union between the upper and lower eyelid is not as-
certainable. Their bellies are uncommonly protuberant, and
their backs hollow. . . . As a means of increasing their speed
in the chase, or when pursued by an enemy, the men had adopted
a custom, which was sufficiently remarkable, of pushing the tes-
ticles to the upper part of the root of the penis, where they seemed
to remain as firmly fixed, and as conveniently placed, as if nature
had stationed them there." — Barrow's Africa, Vol. I., page 234.
" The great curvature of the spine inwards, and the remark-
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHITES AND BLACKS, 169
ably extended posteriors, are characteristic of the whole Hotten-
tot race ; but, in some of the small Bosjesmans, they are carried
to such an extravagant degree as to excite laughter. If the letter
S be considered as one expression of the line of beauty to which
degrees of aiDproximation are admissible, some of the women of
this nation are entitled to the first rank in point of form. A sec-
tion of the body, from the breast to the knee, forms really the
shape of the above letter. The projection of the posterior part,
in one subject, measured five inches and a half from the line
touching the spine. This protuberance consisted entirely of fat,
and, when the woman walked, it exhibited the most ridiculous
appearance imaginable, every step being accompanied with a
quivering and tremulous motion, as if two masses of jelly had
been attached behind her." — Barrow's Africa, Vol. I., page 237.
"The loose, long, hanging breasts, and disproportionate thick-
ness of the hinder parts, make a Bosjesman woman, in the eyes of
a European, a real object of horror." — Lichtensfein's A/Hca, VoL
I.f page 117.
*' For the most part, the hordes keep at a distance from each
other, since the smaller the number the easier is a supply of food
procured. So trifling is the intercourse among them, that the
names of even the most common objects are as various as the
number of hordes. Their language is disagreeably sonorous,
from the frequent clacking of the teeth, and the prevailing croak-
ing in the throat; and it is extremely poor, no less in words than
in sounds ; thej" understand each other more by their gestures
than by their speaking. No Bosjesman has a name peculiar to
himself." — LicMensteiiis Africa, Vol. II. ^ page 49.
*' If the ease with which a man is amused, surprised, or delud-
ed, is a fair measure of intellectual grade, I fear that African
minds will take only a very moderate rank in the scale of human-
ity. The task of self-civilization, which resembles the self-filter-
ing of water, has done but little for Ethiopia in the ages that have
passed simultaneously over her people and the progi'essive races
15
170 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHITES AND BLACKS.
of other lands." — Canofs Twenty Years of an African Slaver, page
231.
*• When two Namaquas are talking together, and one is relat-
ing a story, the listener repeats the last words of the speaker, even
if he should know as much of the matter as his informant. For
instance, if a man begin his recital by saying, ♦ As I walked along
the river, a very large rhinoceros rushed suddenly upon me.'
♦ Rushed suddenly upon me,' echoes the auditor. ' lie was very
fat.' ♦ Very fat,' the other ejaculates, and so forth." — Andersson'?
Africa, page 259.
*' Unfortunately the people are altogether deficient of any ra-
tional or charitable feeling. Music is scarcely known, or indeed
any other exertion of the mind calculated to correct or improve tho
natural passions." — Duncan'^s Africa, Vol. I., page 199.
** In every part of the United States, there is a broad and im-
passable line of demarcation between every man who has one
drop of African blood in his veins, and every other class in the
community. The habits, the feelings, all the prejudices of society,
— prejudices which neither refinement, nor argument, nor educa-
tion, nor religion itself, can subdue, — mark the people of color,
whether bond or free, as the subjects of a degradation inevitable
and incurable. The African in this'country belongs by birth to the
very lowest station in society ; and from that station he can never
rise, be his talents, his enterprise, his virtues what they may." —
African Repository , Vol. IV., page 118.
"The typical woolly-haired races have never invented a reasoned
or reasonable theological system; discovered an alphabet; framed
a grammatical language ; nor made the least step in science or
art. They have scarcely comprehended what they have learned ;
or retained a civilization taught them by contact with more refined
nations, so soon as that contact has ceased. They have at no time
formed great political states, nor commenced a self-evolving civ-
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHITES AND BLACKS. 171
ilization.'" — Sa>m7io?i Smith's Natural History of the Human Spe-
cies, page 196.
*' The negro is not wholly without talents, but they are limited
to imitation, — the learning of what has been previously known.
He has neither invention nor judgment. Africans may be consid-
ered docile, but few of them are judicious, and thus in mental
qualities we are disposed to see a certain analogy with the apes,
whose imitative powers are proverbial.'" — Burmeister's Black Man,
page 14.
«' The tune the negroes sing is very simple, entirely free from va-
riations, and is constantly repeated in the same key. The voice is
high, — a sort of shrieking falsetto. The key is commonly in moll,
seldom in dur, and each verse of the song terminates in a long-
protracted, soft sound, in the singing of which alone can we ob-
serve anything like freedom and variety of expression. Dull and
deep tones are disagreeable to the negro. He tries to raise his
voice to the highest possible pitch, and even his laughter has more
the sound of whistling than laughing. The shrill, drawn-out ' hie '
they constantly emit as a mark of joyful surprise, reminded me of
the harsh shrieking cries of the apes." — Burmeister's Black Man,
page 16.
*' On several occasions, when I met with a negro with a physi-
ognomy that pleased me, I attempted to begin a conversation with
him, in order to discover his intellectual and spiritual character-
istics, after having studied his body. The result, however, uni-
versally satisfied me of his deficiencies in this respect, and served
to confirm me in my opinion that the negro cares only for those
things which belong to the very lowest grades of the human fam-
ily." — Burmeister''s Black Man, page 12.
♦♦ There is not a single bookseller's shop in either Eastern or
Western Africa." — Livingstone'' s Africa, page 689.
172 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHITES AND BLACKS.
*' Among the negroes, no science has been developed, and few
questions are ever discussed, except those which have an intimate
connection with the wants of the stomach." — Livingstone's Africay
page 138.
" The thermometer, placed upon a deal box in the sun, rose to
138°. It stood at 108° in the shade by day, and 96° at sunset. If
my experiments were correct, the blood of a European is of a
higher temperature than that of an African. The bulb, held
under my tongue, stood at 100° ; under that of the natives, at
98°." — Livingstone's Africtty page 548.
'* Among the slaves living at Aniambie, to work the king's plan-
tations, were specimens of no less than eleven different tribes.
Some old slaves from the far interior seemed very little removed
from the Anthropoid apes in their shape and features, — lean legs,
heavy bodies, with prominent abdomen, retreating forehead,
and projecting muzzles ; they were more like animals than
men." — Du Chaillu's Ashango-Land, page 42.
•* The reader who has followed me through the volume of my
former exploration and the present book, will have been able to
gather an idea of the general character and disposition of the
negro of this part of Africa, as he now stands. I have made re-
searches to ascertain if his race had formerly left remains, show-
ing that he had once attained a tolerably high state of civilization ;
my researches have proved vain ; I have found no vestige what-
ever of ancient civilization. Other travellers in different parts of
Africa have not been more successful than I have," — Lu Chaillu's
Ashango-Land, page 435.
AMERICAN WHITE RS ON THE NEGRO, 173
CHAPTER XXX.
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
Thomas Jefferson, the fame of whose great intellect and
commanding abilities seems to increase with the growth of
time, was the first American who, having acquired a thorough
knowledge of the inferior and baneful nature of the negro,
wrote learnedly and truthfully about him ; and who, at the
same time, with the vision of an impassioned prophet, im-
plored his countrymen to avert, by a system of emancipation
and deportation, *he very condition of national disgrace and
ruin which has at last so nearly overtaken us. Yet such are
the vagaries of certain sophists that the opinions of the
renowned author of the Declaration of Independence are
sometimes appealed to in support of the false positions of
those who favor the recognition of the negro, upon terms of
perfect equality, as a fellow-peer, a cousin-german, and a
brother ! The latest notable instance of this fallacy is
afforded by the New York " Tribune," of April 14, 1866, in
these words : —
'* Mr. Jefferson is, and ought to be, held in sincere reverence
by all Radicals because of his agency in basing the Declaration of
Independence on the broad, comprehensive, eternal principle
of Equal Human Rights. As to the fundamental base of our
political system, Mr. Jefferson is and ought to be the highest
authority."
Now, if we will but fairly scrutinize, and weigh well,
what Mr. Jefferson really did say and write, at intervals,
during the long period of the half century immediately sub-
sequent to the date of the Declaration of Independence, we
will find that he had, indeed, no sympathy whatever with the
erroneous and unnatural views touching the negro, which are
now so strenuously advocated by the " Tribune " and other
15*
174 AMERICAN WRITERS OJV THE NEGRO.
oracular exponents of the Radical faith. For full proof of
this, remembering that, without any specific reference or
allusion to the negro, the Declaration of Independence was
written in 1776, let us, in the following pages, see something
of what Mr. Jefferson did pointedly and specifically write
about the negro, between the date of that ever-memorable
document, July 4, 1776, and the date of the death of its
illustrious author, July 4, 1826 : —
"Deep-kooted prejudices entertained by the whites;
TEN thousand RECOLLECTIONS, BY THE BLACKS, OF THE IN-
JURIES THEY HAVE SUSTAINED ; NEW PROVOCATIONS ; THE REAL.
DISTINCTIONS WHICH NATURE HAS MADE ; AND MANY OTHER CIR-
CUMSTANCES, WILL DIVIDE US INTO PARTIES, AND PRODUCE CON-
VULSIONS, "WHICH WILL PROBABLY NEVER END BUT IN THE EX-
TERMINATION OF THE ONE OR THE OTHER RACE. To these
objections, which are political, may be added others, which are
physical and moral. The first diflference which strikes us is that
of color. Whether the black of the negro resides in the reticular
membrane between the skin and scarf-skin, or in the scarf-skin
itself; whether it proceeds from the color of the blood, the color
of the bile, or from that of some other secretion, the difference is
fixed in nature, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better
known to us. And is this difference of no importance ? Is it not
the foundation of a greater or less share of beauty in the two
races ? Are not the fine mixtures of red and white, the expres-
sions of every passion by greater or less suffusions of color in the
one, preferable to that eternal monotony, which reigns in the
countenances, that immovable veil of black which covers the
emotions of the other race? .... The circumstance of
superior beauty is thought worthy of attention in the propagation
of our horses, dogs, and other domestic animals ; why not in that
of man ? Besides those of color, figure, and hair, there are other
physical distinctions proving a difference of race. They have less
hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidneys,
and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very
strong and disagreeable odor. This greater degree of transpira-
tion renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold than
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 175
the whites. . . . They are more ardent after their female ;
but love seems with them to be "more an eager desire, than a
tender, delicate mixtm-e of sentiment and sensation. Their
griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render
it doubtful whether Heaven has given life to us in mercy or in
wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten, with them. In general,
their existence appears to participate more of sensation than re-
flection. To this must be ascribed their dis^iosition to sleep when
abstracted from their diversions and unemployed in labor. An
animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must
be disposed to sleep, of course. Comparing them by their facul-
ties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me that in
memory they are equal to the whites ; in reason much inferior, as
I think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and com-
prehending the investigations of Euclid ; and that in imagination
they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous." — Jefferson's Works, Vol.
VIII. , page 380. Notes on Virginia; written in 1782.
*' The "West Indies offer a more probable and practicable retreat
for the negroes. Inhabited already by a people of their own race
and color ; climates congenial with their natural constitution ; in-
sulated from the other descriptions of men ; nature seems to have
formed these islands to become the receptacle of the blacks trans-
planted into this hemisphere. Whether we could obtain from the
European sovereigns of those islands leave to send thither the per-
sons under consideration, I cannot say; but I think it more proba-
ble than the former propositions, because of their being already
inhabited more or less by the same race. . . . Africa would
offer a last and undoubted resort, if all others more desirable
should fail." — Jefferson's Works, Vol. IV., page 421. Letter to
Gov. Monroe, Nov. 24, 1801.
*' You have asked my opinion on the proposition of Mrs. Mif-
flin, to take measures for procuring, on the coast of Africa, an
establishment to wliich the people of color of these States might,
from time to time, be colonized, under the auspices of different
governments. Having long ago made up my mind on this sub-
ject, I have no hesitation in saying that I always thought it the
176 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
most desirable measure which could be adopted for gi'adually
drawing off this part of our population most advantageously for
themselves as well as for us. Going from a country possessing all
the useful arts, they might be the means of transplanting them
among the inhabitants of Africa, and would thus carry back to
the country of their origin the seeds of civilization, which might ren-
der their sojournment and sufferings here a blessing in the end to
that country." — Jejferson's Works, Vol. F., pa^e 563. Letter to
John Lyncli, January 21, 1811.
* I concur entirely in your leading principles of gradual eman-
cipation, of establishment on the coast of Africa, and the patron-
age of our nation until the emigrants shall be able to protect
themselves. The subordinate details might be easily arranged.
But the bare proposition of purchase by the United States gener-
ally would excite infinite indignation in all the States north of
Marj'land. The sacrifice must fall on the States alone which hold
them ; and the difficult question will be how to lessen this so as to
reconcile our fellow-citizens to it. Personally I am ready and
desirous to make any sacrifice which shall ensure their gradual
but complete retirement from the State, and elFectuall}', at the
same time, establish them elsewhere in freedom and safet}'. But
I have not perceived the growth of this disposition in the rising
generation, of which I once had sanguine hopes. No s3'mptoms
inform me that it will take place in my day. I leave it, therefore,
to time, and not at all without hope that the day will come, equally
desirable and welcome tons as to them." — Jefferson'^s Works, Vol.
VJL, 2Jage bl . Letter to Dr. Thomas Hiunjjhreys, February 8, 1817.
"The bill on the subject of slaves was a mere digest of the
existing laws respecting them, without any intimation of a plan
for a future and general emancipation. It was thought better that
this should be kept back, and attempted only by way of amend-
ment, whenever the bill should be brought on. The principles
of the amendment, however, were agreed on ; that is to say, the
freedom of all born after a certain day, and deportation at a
proper age. But it was found that the public mind would not yet
bear the proposition ; nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 177
day is hot distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will
follow. ISToxniXG IS MOKE CERTAINLY WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OP
FATE THAN THAT THESE PEOPLE ARE TO BE FREE ; NOR IS IT
LESS CERTAIN THAT THE TWO RACES, EQUALLY FREE, CANNOT
LIVE IN THE SAME GOVERNMENT. Nature, habit, opinion, have
drawn indelible lines of distinction between them. It is still in
our power to direct the process of emancipation and deportation,
peaceably, and in such slow degree, as that the evil will wear off
insensibly, and their place be, pari passu, filled up by free white
laborers." — Jefferson's Works, Vol. I., page AS). Autobiography;
written in 1821.
** The article on the African colonization of the people of color,
to which you invite my attention, I have read with great consid-
eration. It is indeed a fine one, and will do much g-ood. I learn
from it more, too, than I had before known, of the degree of
success and promise of that colony. In the disposition of this un-
fortunate people, there are two rational objects to be distinctly
kept in view. First : the establishment of a colony on the coast
of Africa, which may introduce among the aborigines the arts of
cultivated life, and the blessings of civilization and science. By
doing this, we may make to them some retribution for the long
course of injuries we have been committing on their population.
. . . The second object, and the most interesting to us, as
coming home to our physical and moral characters, to our happi-
ness and safety, is to provide an asylum to which we can, by de-
grees, send the whole of that population from among us, and es-
tablish them, under our patronage and protection, as a separate,
free, and independent people, in some country and climate friendly
to human life and happiness. . . . I do not go into all the
details of the burdens and benefits of this operation. And who
could estimate its blessed effects ? I leave this to those who will
live to see their accomplishment, and to enjoy a beatitude forbid-
den to my age. But I leave it with this admonition, to rise and be
doing:' —Jeffersofi's Works, Vol. VIL, page 332. Letter to Jar ed
Sparks, February 4, 1824.
*'The proverbs of Theognis, like those of Solomon, are ob-
178 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO,
seryntions on human nature, ordinary life, and civil society, with
moral reflections on the facts. I quote him as a witness of the
fact tliat there is as much difference in the races of men as in the
breeds of sheep, and as a sharp reprover and censurer of the sor-
did, mercenary practice of disgracing birth by preferring gold to
it. Surely no authority can be more expressly in point to prove
the existence of inequalities, not of rights, but of moral, intellect-
ual, and physical inequalities in families, descendants, and gen-
erations."— John Adams. Correspondence with Jefferson, Nov. 15,
1813.
'•Inequalities of mind and body are so established by God Al-
mighty, in his constitution of human nature, that no art or policy
can ever plane them down to a common level." — John Adams.
Correspondence with Jefferson.
** I have never read reasoning more absurd, sophistry more
gross, in proof of the Athanasian creed, or Transubstantiation,
than the subtle labors of Ilelvetius and Rousseau, to demonstrate
the natural equality of mankind. The golden rule, ' Do as you
would be done by,' is all tlie equality that can be supported or de-
fended by reason, or reconciled to common sense." — John Adams.
Correspondence with Jefferson.
*'It is only as immortal beings that all mankind can, in any
sense, be said to be born equal ; and when the Declaration of In-
dependence affirms, as a self-evident truth, that all men are born
equal, it is precisely the same as if the affirmation had been that
all men are born with immortal souls." — John Quincy Adams.
Lettei" to citizens of Bangor, Maine, July 4, 1813.
•' I would not dwell with any particular emphasis upon the sen-
timent, which I nevertheless entertain, with respect to the great
diversity in the races of men . I do not know how far, in that re-
spect, I might not encroach on those mysteries of Providenca
which, while I adore, I may not comprehend." — Daniel Webster
AMERICAyr WRITERS OX THE NEGRO. 179
•* In my observations upon slavery as it existed in this country,
and as it now exists, I have expressed no opinion of the mode of
its extinguishment or melioration. I will sa}^ however, though
I have nothing to propose, because I do not deem myself so com-
petent as other gentlemen to take any lead on tliis subject, that
if any gentleman from the South shall jDropose a scheme to be
carried on b}- this government upon a large scale, for the trans-
portation of the colored people to any colony or any place in the
world, I should be quite disposed to incur almost any degree of
expense to accomplish that object." — Webster's Works, Vol. V.,
page 364.
"It is a question of races, involving consequences which go to
the destruction of one or the other. This was seen fifty years
ago, and the wisdom of Virginia balked at it then. It seems to
be above human reason now. But there is a wisdom above hu-
man, and to that we must look. In the mean time do not extend
the evil.'" — Thomas Hart Benton.
" Of the utility of a total separation of the two incongruous por-
tions of our population (supposing it to be practicable) none have
ever doubted. The mode of accomplishing that desirable object
has alone divided public opinion. Colonization in Hayti for a
time had its partisans. Without throwing any impediments in
the way of executing that scheme, the American Colonization
Society has steadily adhered to its own. The Haytien project has
passed away. Colonization beyond the Stony Mountains has
sometimes been proposed ; but it would be attended with an ex-
pense and difficulties far surpassing the African project, whilst
it would not imite the same animating motives." — Henry Clay.
Speec/i in the House of Bepresentatives, 1827.
'* How natural has it been to assume that the motive of those
who have protested against the extension of slavery was an un-
natural sympathy with the negro, instead of what it always has
really been — concern for the welfare of the white man."-^— Wil'
Ham H. Seward. Speech at Detroit, September 4, I860,
ISO AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
" The great fact is now fully realized that the African race here
is a foreign and feeble element, like the Indians, incapable of as-
similation, . . . and that it is a pitiful exotic unwisely and
unnecessarily transplanted into our fields, and which it is un-
profitable to cultivate at the cost of the desolation of the native
vineyard." — William E. Seward. Speech at Detroit ^ September
4, 1860.
** I have said that I do not understand the Declaration of Inde-
pendence to mean that all men are created equal in all respects.
Certainly the negro is not our equal in color, — perhaps not in
many other respects. ... I did not at any time say I was in
favor of negro sulfrage. Twice, — once substantially, and once
expressly, — I declared against it. . . . I am not in favor of
negro citizenship." — Abraham Lincoln. Debates loith Douglas, in
Illinois, 1858.
" I am not, and never have been, in favor of making voters or
jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold ofllce, nor to
intermarry with whites ; and I will say further, in addition to this,
that there is a physical difference between the black and white
races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living to-
gether on terms of social and political equality." — Abraham Lin-
coln. Debates with Douglas in Illinois, 1858.
** I will, to the very last, stand by the law of the State which
forbids the marrying of white people with negroes." — Abraham
Lincoln. Speech at Columbus, Ohio, September, 1859.
" Why should not the people of your race be colonized ? Why
should they not leave this country ? This is, perhaps, the first
question for consideration. You and we are a different race.
We have between us a broader difference than exists between
almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong,
I need not discuss ; but this physical difference is a great disad-
vantage to us both, as I think your race suffers greatly, man^
AMERICAN WlilTEBS ON THE NEGRO. 181
of them by living with us, while ours suffer from your presence.
In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it shows
a reason why we should be separated. You, here, are freemen,
I supiDose. Perhaps you have long been free, or all your lives.
Your race are suffering, in my opinion, the greatest wrong
inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be
slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an
equality with the white race. You are still cut off from many
of the advantages which are enjoyed by the other race. The
aspiration of man is to enjoy equality with the best when free ;
but on this broad continent not a single man of your race is made
the equal of ours. Go Avhere you are treated the best, and the
ban is still upon you. I do not propose to discuss this, but to
present it as a fact with which we have to deal. I cannot alter it
if I would. It is a fact about which we all think and feel alike.
We look to our conditions owing to the existence of the races on
this continent. I need not recount to you the effects upon white
men growing out of the institution of slavery. I believe in its
general evil effects u^Don the white race. See our present condi-
tion. The country is engaged in war. Our white men are cut-
ting each other's throats, none knowing how far their frenzy may
extend ; and then consider what we know to be the truth. But
for your race among us, there could not be a war, although many
men engaged on either side do not care for you one way or the
other. Nevertheless, I repeat, without the institution of slavery,
and the colored race as a basis, the war could not have had an
existence. It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. I
know that there are free men among you who, even if they could
better their condition, are not as much inclined to go out of the
country as those w^ho, being slaves, could obtain their freedom on
this condition. I suppose one of the principal difficulties in the
way of colonization is, that the free colored man cannot see that
his comfort would be advanced by it. You may believe you can
live in Washington, or elsewiiere in the United States, the re-
mainder of your lives, perhaps more comfortably than you could
in any foreign country. Hence you may come to the conclusion
that you have nothing to do with the idea of going to a foreign
country. This (I speak in no unkind sense) is an extremely sel-
fish view of the case. But you ought to do something to help
those who are not so fortunate as yourselves. . . . For the
16
182 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
siike of 3'our race you should sacrifice something of your present
comfort, for the purpose of being as grand in that respect as the
white people. It is a cheering thought throughout life, that some-
thin f can be done to ameliorate the condition of those who have
been subject to the hard usages of the world. It is difficult to
make a man miserable while he feels that he is worthy of himself,
and claims kindred with the great God who made him ! In the
American revolutionary war, sacrifices were made by men en-
gaged in it, but they were cheered by the future. General Wash-
ington himself endured greater physical hardships than if he had
remained a British subject; yet he was a happy man, because he
was eno-aired in benefitino: his race, and in doing something for
the children of his neighbors, having none of his own." — Abraham
Lincoln. Address to a Deputation of Negroes y JunCy 1862.
*• I believe this government was made by white men, for the
benefit of white men and their posterity forever ; and I am in
favor of confining citizenship to white men, — men of European
birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon negroes, Indians,
and other inferior races." — Stephen A. Douglas. Debates with
Lincoln in Illinois, 1858.
** All the early patriots of the South — Washington, Jeflerson,
Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Clay, and others — were the advo-
cates of emancipation and colonization. The patriots of the North
concurred in the design. Is the faction now ojoposing it patriotic
or philanthropic ? Are they not rather, like Calhoun, working
the negro question to accomplish schemes of selfish ambition, and,
after his method, making a balance of power party of a phalanx
of deluded fanatics, keeping the Union and the public peace per-
petually in danger, and seeking power in the government through
its distractions ? The author of the Declaration of Independence
and his associates declared equal rights impracticable in society
constituted of masses of diflerent races. De Tocqueville, the
most profound writer of the Old World on American institutions,
predicts the extermination of the blacks, if it is attempted to con-
fer such riglits on them in the United States. It is obvious that
an election would be a mockery in a community wherein there
AMERICAN JVniTEnS ON THE NEGRO, 183
could be no other than hlach and icliite parties. In su jh commu-
nities, reason and experience show that one or the other race
must be the dominant race, and tliat democracy is impossible.
This is not less obvious to the Phillips school than it is to the Cal-
houn school, who concur in opposing the jiolicy of Mr. Jefferson,
adopted by the president, intended to effectuate the design of our
fathers to establish popular government. They concur in press-
ing here the antagonism of races, and only differ in looking to
different races to give them power. The result of this antagonism,
so far as popular government is concerned, would be the same if
either could succeed in their schemes ; and you would scarcely
have much preference between being governed hy Jeff. Davis, as
the leader of the Slave Power, and Wendell Phillips, as the
leader of the enfranchised blacks. But neither can succeed. Even
the Calhoun scheme, matured through so many years of intrigue
by men versed in public affairs, and attended with a temporary
success, is a failure as a governing contrivance, though potent
still to spread ruin widely through the land, and especially
to desolate the homes of his deluded followers. The Phillips
scheme is the dream of visionaries wholly unskilled in govern-
ment, and will be a failure from the start. He may, in turn,
make victims of the negroes, as Calhoun has of their masters.
But I think not. They are not ambitious of ruling white men,
and will, I believe, be contented to set up for themselves, in some
neighboring and congenial clime, on the plan of Jefferson and
Lincoln." — Montgomery Blair. Speech at Concord^ N. H., June 17,
1863.
"The problem before us is the practical one of dealing with the
relations of masses of two different races in the same communit}'.
The calamities now upon us have been brought about, as I have
already said, not by the grievances of the class claiming i)ropert3^
in slaves, but by the jealousy of caste awakened by the secession-
ists in the non-slaveholders. In considerinof the means of securino'
the peace of the country hereafter, it is, therefore, this jealousy
of race which is chiefly to be considered. Emancipation alone
would not remove it. It was by proclaiming to the laboring
whites, who fill the armies of rebellion, that the election of Mr.
Lincoln involved emancipation, equality of the negroes with them
184 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO,
and consequently amalgamation, that 'their jealousy was stimu-
lated to the fighting point. Nor is this jealousy the fruit of mere
ignorance and bad passion, as some suppose, or confined to the
white people of the South. On the contrary, it belongs to all
races, and, like all popular instincts, proceeds from the highest
wisdom. It is, in fact, the instinct of self-preservation which
revolts at hybridism. Nor does this instinct militate against the
natural law, that all men are created equal, if another law of
nature, equally obvious, is obeyed. We have but to restore the
subject race to the same, or to a region similar to that from which
it was brought by violence, to make it operative ; and such a sep-
aration of races was the condition which the immortal author of
the Declaration himself declared to be indispensable to give it
practical effect. A theorist, not living in a community where
diverse races are brought in contact in masses, may stifle the voice
of nature in his own bosom, and, from a determination to live up
to a mistaken view of the doctrine, go so far as to extend social
intercourse to individuals of the subject race. But few even of
such persons would pursue their theories so far as amalgamation
and other legitimate consequences of their logic." — Montgomery
Blair. Letter read at the Cooper Institute, N. T., March G, 1863.
"White men have for centuries been accustomed to vote.
They have borne all the responsibilities and discharged all the
duties of freemen among freemen ; and it is a very different thing
to take away from a freeman a privilege long exercised by him
and by his ancestors, from what it is to confer one never before
enjoyed upon ignorant, half-civilized Africans just released from
slavery. Three generations back many of them wer*? cannibals
and savages of the lowest type of human kind The only
civilization they have is that which they have received during
their slavery in America. To confer this great privilege ujjon the
more enlightened negroes might tend to elevate the mass in the
end. But to confer it now upon their ignorant hordes can only
degrade the ballot and the republican institutions which rest upon
it. No answer to this view has ever been given, no answer can
be given, by the friends of universal negro suffrage, except this :
•' The ignorant foreigner is allowed to vote, why not let the igno-
rant negro vote ? Thus to compare the civilized European, accus-
AMERICAN WRITERS OX THE NEGRO. 185
tomed to free labor, to self-support, and self-governrnent, to all
the duties and resi^onsibilities of a freedman, and who withal,
before he is allowed to vote in most of the States, must appear
in open court, and, after five years' residence, prove by the testi-
mony of two citizens a good moral character and that he is well
disposed towards the government and institutions of the United
States, — to compare him with the poor degraded mass of Afri-
cans, plantation slaves just set free, is an atrocious libel upon our-
selves, U23on our ancestors, upon the results of Christian civiliza-
tion, and upon that Caucasian race which for thousands of years
has ruled the world. . . . Why press this negro domination
over the whites of the South ? What reason can you give ? The
answer is, because the negroes were loyal and the whites dis-
loyal. Let us examine this bold assertion. Is it true ? Were the
negroes loyal during the rebellion? Recall the facts. Who does
not remember that at least three-fourths of all the negroes in
those States during the whole war did all in their power to sustain
the rebel cause ? They fed their armies ; they dug their trenches ;
they built their fortifications ; they fed their women and children.
There were no insurrections, no uprisings, no effort of any kind
anywhere outside the lines of our armies on the part of the ne-
groes to aid the Union cause. In whole districts, in whole States
even, where all the able-bodied white men were conscripted into
the rebel army, the great mass of negroes, of whose loyalty you
boast, under the control of women, decrepit old men and boys,
did all they were capable of to aid the rebellion." — James B. Doo-
Utile. Speech in the Senate, January 23, 1868.
"In the name of constitutional liberty; in the name of our
great ancestors who laid the foundations of this government to se-
cure the liberty for themselves and for us ; in the name of all who
love that liberty, who are ready to struggle and if need be to die
rather than allow it to be overthrown : in the name of the comins:
generations and that race to which we belong and which has given
to the world all its civilization, — I do arraign and impeach the rad-
ical policy of the present Congress of high crimes and misdemean-
ors. At the bar of the American people, in the presence of high
Heaven and before the civilized world, I impeach it, first, as a crime
against the laws of nature which God the Almighty has stamped
10*
186 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
upon the races of mankind, because it attempts to force a politi-
cal and social and unnatural equality betweeen the African and
the Caucasian, — between an alien, inferior, and exotic race from
the tropics, with the highest type of the human race in the home
of the latter in the temperate zone. Second : I impeach it as a
crime against civilization, because it would by force wrench the
government out of the hands of the civilized white race in ten
States of this Union, to place it in the hands of the half-civilized
African. Third : I impeach it as a crime against the constitution,
because it tramples down the rights of the States to fix for them-
selves the qualifications of their own voters, — a right without
which a State ceases to be republican at all. Fourth : I impeach
it as a crime against the constitution and against national faith,
because it annuls the pardons constitutionally granted to hundreds
of thousands of the most intelligent white men of the South, and
in ojDen, palpable violation of the constitution, disfranchises them.
Fifth : I impeach it as a crime against the existence of ten States
of the Union and the liberties of eight millions of people, because
in express terms it annuls all civil government, by which alone
those liberties may be secured, and places them under an absolute
military desf)Otism. Sixth : I impeach it as a crime against hu-
manity, tending to produce a war of races, to the utter destruction
of one or both, — a result which cannot be prevented except by a
large standing army, which neither resources will bear nor our
liabilities long survive. Seventh : I impeach it as an utter aban-
donment of the puri:)ose for which the war was prosecuted, of the
idea upon which we fought and mastered a rebellion." — James
a. DooUttle. Speech at Hartford, Cojin., March 11, 1868.
" I know it is said that the objection which is felt on the jDart of
the white population of this country to living side by side in social
and civil equality with the negro race is all a mere prejudice of
caste. But its foundations are laid deeper than mere prejudice.
It is an instinct of our nature. Men may theorize on the condi-
tion of the two races living together, but the thing is impossible ;
the instincts of lioth parties are against it." — Senator BooUtiley
of Wisconsin.
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 187
**0f fill the delusions I have ever known, the idea of political
equality between the black and white races seems to me the great-
est. For more than four thousand years the history of this world
has been written, and in all that time there is not one recorded
annal of a civilized negro government; there is not one instance
of political equality between the two races that has not proved
injurious to both ; and yet it is proposed to confer upon an inferior
race the dominion over one-third of the republic, and to make it
a balance of power that, nine times out of ten, would, for that
reason, control the whole country. There can be but one end to
this scheme, if it be much longer prosecuted. It is impossible
that the race to which we belong can submit to negro domination ;
it is impossible that so inferior a race as the negro can compete
with the white man in the business, much less the politics, of the
country. The extermination of the negro, or his expulsion from
this country, must be the inevitable result of the Radical policy,
if persisted in. But before that happens, what untold evils may
await us, what anarchy, what confusion, what impoverishment,
what distress ! Worse than Mexico, worse than the South Ameri-
can Republics, will be the" condition of a large portion of this
country, if that policy prevails. And here let me caution you,
my friends, that the question of negro suffrage was not settled by
your votes last October. It is true that you voted it down in
Ohio, but it is equally true that what you refuse to permit here
you are asked to impose upon others. It is equally true that what
you have solemnly condemned, a Radical Congress may impose
uj^on you in spite of your condemnation, — impose upon you by
an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, ratified
by other States, though rejected by Ohio. If you would guard
against negro suffrage, if jo\x would guard against political
equality with tlie negro, you must not be satisfied with sending its
opponents to the Legislature of your own State, but you must
keep its advocates out of the halls of Congress." — Se^iator Thur-
man, of Oldo. Speech at Mansfield, Jan. 21, 18G8.
'* Whatever may have been the sympathies of the North on the
question of freedom from slavery, you need not think they will be
with the negro in this horrible contest now imminent; for when
the northern man sees the mother and children escaping from the
188 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
burning home that has sheltered and protected them ; when he
hears the screams of beauty and innocence in the flight from
pursuing lust, if ever he venerated a mother, or loved a sister or
wife, his heart and hand will be for the pale-faced woman and
child of his own race. Whatever may have been the sympathies
of the N'orth for the negro in the claim made on his behalf for
civil rights, just and generous men will turn with horror from the
congressional policy that places the white race under the power
and government of the negroes, and seeks to establish negro
States in the Union. . . . You have taken the robes of polit-
ical power off the shoulders of white men, and you have put
them upon the shoulders of negroes. Gentlemen may moralize
in solemn tones, as if they came from the tomb, about the gal-
lantry and distinguished services of the negroes in the war. I
can tell you that with all the political and party ambition you
have, with all the party ^Dower you have, you have not power to
take the garlands from the brows of the white soldiers and put
them on the heads of the negroes. You cannot do it. What is
right will stand. And I can tell you that all over this land, in
every neighborhood, there are the soldiers that have returned
home, who will vindicate and defend their own honor against this
effort to appropriate the glory of the white * boys ' to the negroes.
There was not a battle in the war that was won by the negroes.
There is not a point that was carried by them. . . . ]\Iy col-
league has spoken of a column, — the column of congressional
reconstruction, — and has said that 'it is not hewn of a single
stone, but is composed of many blocks.' I think he is right. Its
foundation is the hard flint-stone of military rule, brought from the
quarries of Austria, and upon that foundation rests the block from
Africa, and it is thence carried to its topmost point with fragments
of our broken institutions. That column will not stand. It will
fall, and its architects will be crushed beneath its ruins. In its
stead the people will uphold thirty-seven stately and beautiful
columns, pure and white as Parian marble, upon which shall rest
forever the grand structure of the American Union." — Thomas
A. Hendricks. Speech in the Senate, February, 1868.
«* I lay down the propositions that the white and black races
thrive best apart ; that a commingling of these races is a detri-
AMERICAN WEITERS ON THE NEGRO. 189
ment to both ; that it does not elevate the black, and it onl} de-
presses the white ; that the history of this continent, especially in
Hispano-America, shows that stable, civil order and government
are imf)ossible with such a population. . . . Equality is a con-
dition which is self-jDrotective, wanting nothing, asking nothing,
able to take care of itself. It is an absurdity to say that two races,
so dissimilar as black and white, of different origin, of unequal
capacity, can succeed in the same society when placed in competi-
tion. There is no such example in history of the success of two
separate races under such circumstances. Less than sixty years
ago, Ohio had thousands of an Indian population. She has now
but thirty red men in her borders. The negro, with a difference
of color indelible, has been freed under every variety of cir-
cumstances ; but his freedom has, in most cases, as a matter of
course, been only nominal. Prejudice stronger than all princi-
ples, though not always stronger than lust, has imperatively
separated the whites from the blacks. In the school-house, the
church, or the hospital, the black man must not seat himself beside
the white ; even in death and at the cemetery the line of distinction
is drawn." — S. S. Cox. Eight Years in Congress, pages 249, 250.
"Judge Douglass w\as right when he maintained that these
commonwealths were for white men. Aside from the question of
policy, there is an admitted right in each State to make or unmake
its citizenship ; to declare who is and who is not entitled thereto.
That will not be denied. When Minnesota came here for admis-
sion, that was settled. But my colleague seems to admit that
l^olitical privileges, like that of suffrage, may be fixed by State
laws. Indeed, the Supreme Court have decided that the State
has the exclusive right so to do. If so, by what reason can a State
deprive the black race of the right of suffrage, on which depend
all laws, all protection, all assessment of taxes, all punishments,
even the matter of life and death, and yet not have power to for-
bid such black race, as a dangerous element, from mingling with
its population ! The Constitution of Illinois, just submitted to the
people, denies to the negro the right of emigrating to or having
citizenship in that State. Hitherto the same prohibition has ex-
isted in Illinois and Indiana, and othern western States. . . .
The right and power to exclude Africans from the States north
190 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
being compatible with our system of State sovereignty and federal
supremacy, I assert that it is impolitic, dangerous, degrading,
and unjust to the white men of Ohio and of the North to allow
such immigration." — S. S. Cox. EigU Years in Congress, pages
243, 244.
" The Caucasian, or white man is five feet and between nine
and ten inches high ; the Esquimaux four feet and seven inches
high; the Mongolian type, to which the Chinese belong, five
feet and between four and five inches high. The Caucasian
type weighs one hundred and fifty-six pounds ; the Esquimaux
ninety-seven pounds; the Mongol one hundred and thirty-two
pounds. The Caucasian lives to be sixty-six years and four months
old ; the Mongol to be fifty-three years old ; and the Esquimaux
to be forty-one years old. The life-insurance companies of Eu-
rope and America all predicate their policies upon the fact that
white men and women live to be sixty-six j-ears and four months
old on an average. This average is based upon observations on
the duration of more than six million lives. The statistics of the
British and French armies are full of evidence ononis: to show and
to prove tliat in height and weight no two races of men have yet
been found alike. The feet and hands, the arms and legs, are un-
like in measurement. The hand of the negro is one-twelfth longer
and one-tenth broader than the hand of the white man; his foot
is one-eighth longer and one-ninth broader than the white man's ;
his forearm is one-tenth shorter; and the same is true of the bones
from the knee to the ankle. These last-stated measurements are
given upon the authority of Sir Charles Lyell. There has not yet
been found, as far as I can learn, one bone in the skeleton of the
white man which does not differ both in wei":ht and measurement
from its fellow-bone which may belong to any other type of man.
The skeleton is unlike in the whole in weight and measurement,
and unlike in every bone of it. These average differences ought
to be conclusive that they cannot and do not belong to the same
type ; and these unvarying dissimilarities must be produced by
causes which are not accidental." — William Mangen. Speech in
the House of Representatives ^ July 10, 1867
«* Some of our people who pretend to see in the Indian, the
AMERICA!^ WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 191
Chinaman, the Esquimaux, and especially the African, ' a man and
a brother,' claim that all the wide and impassable differences which
are found between the races or tj^pes of men have been pro-
duced by accidental causes, by climate, and by amalgamations.
I have already, for the jDresent at least, sufficiently answered the
climatic part of this proposition, and have only to say that if it be
true, as held by my Radical friends, that the negro is ♦ a man and
a brother,' — that he is the offspring of Adam, — that there was, in
other words, but one race at first, — how there could have been
* amalgamations ' I cannot imagine. Amalgamation, in the sense
in which they use it, implies a plurality of races, — just what ethnol-
ogists claim ; but in fact it upsets the Radical theory of the ' unity
of races,' upon which must depend their whole argument in favor
of ' equality and fraternity.' For as soon as they admit that the
races are of different origins they can no longer claim that all
races are equal, any more than they can claim that the horse
and the ass are equal. The principle on which the argu-
ment rests is identical. . . . Miscegenation is a subject of
vast importance to society, to posterity, and especially at the pres-
ent time to the statesmen of our country. For it is true in his-
tory and true in science that nations which allow their national
stock to be adulterated, which tolerate amalgamation with other
national types, will perish certainly, and perish forever. I have
said that this is a question of the utmost importance to the states-
men of America, — of that portion of it especially which once bore
deservedly the name of ' The United States of America; ' and I
say now, w^ith all the candor possible, that if those statesmen,
those gentlemen who are moulding and shaping the policy and
laws and regulations for our government, fail to be guided by
exijerience and science and history in shaping a policy to pre-
vent amalgamation, miscegenation, social and political equality
of the different races, white, black, red, yellow, and brown, our
nation will be suffocated, as it were, by these foolish and suicidal
projects, these Utopian schemes of equality of races." — William
Mungen. Speech in the House of Representatives, July 10, 1867.
'* There are two other subjects or sciences which bear impor-
tant testimony relative to the origin of types of the human races ;
I allude to embryology and cranioscopy. I do not profess to un-
192 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
derstand either of these subjects or sciences thoroughly ; but tho
professors of embryology assert, and they are unanimous in the
assertion, that the law of life which operates to organize man in
his earliest moment, that the spermatozoa and the cell formation
are entirely different in each type of the human race ; and that in
this department of her work, as in every other, nature displaj's
infinite variety. I repeat, then, the declaration of these learned
gentlemen, that under a powerful microscope the fact that the
different types of men are absolutely different creations is no
longer an open question. The law which operates to organize
and the being organized are different from the first and different
totally. But quite the most curious, and perhaps the most impor-
tant discovery which cranioscopy has made relates to the position
which each type holds in the scale of civilization. It is found that
the races of men whose brain measures sixty-four cubic inches or
less are always barbarous and heathen people ; that they have not
intellectual power sufficient to frame a government nor to enact
laws ; in other words, to make for themselves an}' form of gov-
ernment better than heathenism makes. The races of men whose
brain measures from seventy-four to eighty-four cubic inches are
the unprogressive people. They are half-civilized or half-barbar-
ous ; the governments they found are alwaj-s despotic ; the laws
they enact are always peculiar, and are different from the laws
enacted by any other type of people. The peoj^le of China,
Japan, India, — in short the greater portion of the types of man,
— are embraced and included between sixty-eight and eighty-four
cubic inches of brain. The nationalities whose brain measures
ninety-four cubic inches or upward are the only nationalities who
are progressive and enlightened, who are caj^able of cultivating the
physical sciences to practical results, and whose governments are
made for the benefit of the jieople. Cranioscopy declares that the
different types have each a different organization, — in other words,
a different creation ; and it further declares that there are as plainly
different kinds of men, having different kinds of humanities in the
world as there are different kinds of beasts; that the horse and the
ox are not more certainly different creations than the white man and
the Indian, the Indian and the African, the African and the Chinese,
the Chinaman and the Esquimaux. ... I have discussed this ques-
tion of races, because it lies at the foundation of our social and polit-
ical structure. All history shows that a free government, adminis-
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO, 193
tered according to law, is impossible, unless the people who create
the laws and accept them for their government are endowed with
those qualities of mind and character which have never been ex-
hibited by the negro race. The attempt to blend the races by
the coercion of statutory enactments and military violence will be
instinctively repelled by the white dominant race ; and if this
coercion should succeed, it would have no other result than a com-
mon degradation and a common ruin." — William Mungen. Speech
in tlie House of Representatives, July 10, 1867.
*' The difference is not only in the hair, but it is in the whole
anatomical structure of the head, inside and outside. The negro's
face projects like a muzzle, and the teeth are obliquely inserted,
so that their edges meet as at projecting angles. The develop-
ment of the jaw (x3rognathism) is in direct relation or proportion
to the intellectual capacity of a people, — the prognathous being con-
fined to the lowest races of men, among them the negro. Their
cranial capacity is different. The volume of an American or
English head is in cubic centimetres 1572 — 95, while that of a
negro, born in Africa, is only 1371 — 42, and the place occupied
in relation to cranial capacity and cerebral weight corresponds
with the degree of intellectual capacity and civilization. The
weight of the white man^s brain is greater than that of the negro.
The convolutions of the brain are different. The anterior and
frontal lobes of the white man show a far better mental develop-
ment. All these assertions are maintainable by high German,
French, and English, as well as American authority ; but this is
not the place nor the hour for metaphysical or psychological dis-
cussion. Every feature of the white man and negro differs. The
nose is different. The nostrils of a Caucasian form two nearly
rectangular triangles, the hypothenuses of which are turned out-
wards, whilst the septum of the nose forms a perpendicular line
common to the two triangles. On taking a similar view of the
negro, the nostrils present only a transverse aperture, or the
figure of a horizontal eight united in the middle by the nasal sep-
tum. The form and size of the mouth, the shape of the lips and
cheeks are very different. The apish chin of the negro differs
very essentially from that of the white man. The facial angle of
the distinguished writer, Camper, amounts in the negro to 70.75
17
194 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
degrees, — it may sink to 65, — whilst in the Caucasian it is rarely
below 80, and frequently a few degrees higher. The nefro's
skull is thicker than the white man's, the cervical muscles more
j)owerful, and, hence, the negro cames his burden on his head,
and, like a ram in a fight, uses his skull. The negro's shoulder
differs from the white man's. The negro's hand is larger, his fin-
gers long and thin, palms flat, thumb-balls scarcely prominent.
' All the characters of his hand - (says Carl Yoght) * decidedly ap-
proach that of the Simian hand.' The leg, the calves of the leg,
all differ from the white man's. * The femoral bones, as well as
the fibula, seem curved outwards, so that the knees are more
apart from each other than in the white.' The pelvis is organi-
cally different. ' The foot of the negro,' says Burmeister, • is in
everything ugly, — flat, of a projecting heel, a thick, flabby
cushion in the inner cavity, with wide-spreading toes. The mid-
dle part of the foot does not touch the ground.' Yoght, the Ger-
man physiologist, calls it ' the foot of the gorilla, or, if you i^lease,
the posterior hand.' I cite these facts to show that it is not the
skin alone that parts the white from the negro race, not the der-
mis, or epidermis, or pigment therein." — James Brooks. Speech
in the House of Representatives , December 18, 1867.
"Where, oh, tell me where, sir, has the pure-blooded negro
unassisted by the white man, exhibited any of the triumphs of
genius ? Where have we found that race producing a Homer, a
Phidias, a Praxiteles, a Socrates, a Demosthenes, a Yirgil, or a
Milton, or a Shakespeare? Where has it i^roduced any great
architect like iMichael Angelo ? Where any great poet, where any
heroic soldier like Alexander, Cassar, or Napoleon ? Where any
wonderful mechanic ? What negro of pure blood ever started a
steam-engine, or a spinning-jenny, a screw, a lever, the wheel,
or the pulley? What negro has invented a telegraph, or dis-
covered a star, a satellite, or an asteroid ? What negro ever con-
structed a palatial edifice like this in which we are assembled, —
these Corinthian columns, — these frescoed walls? Xegro his-
tory makes no mark in the great world's progress. That history
is all a blank, blank, blank, sir. The negro can never rise above
a certain range of intelligence. The children of the negro, up to
ten or fifteen years of age, may be as bright and as intelligent as
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 195
white children. They acquire knowledge as rapidly; but after
that early age the negro youth does not advance as does the
white youth. While the white man is increasing in knowledge till
the day of his death, the negro reaches before the age of maturity
a point beyond which he cannot well advance in anything save in
the arts of mere imitation." — James Brooks. Speech in the House
of Representatives, December 18, 1867.
"I need not cross the Atlantic to show the fatal step you are
taking by this Reconstruction Bill in going into this copartnership
with negroes. Our continent has been settled by two classes of
men, — Anglo-Saxon, Celt, and Teuton in the North, and the
Spanish-Latin race in the South. God never made a nobler race
of men than the old Hidalgos of Spain, who, under Columbus, in a
little caraval of forty tons, started on the trackless Atlantic in search
of the then unknown America. God never made a nobler race, I
repeat, than these Hidalgos of Spain. What did they do ? They
ran all along the Gulf of Mexico, from Florida on the north to
Cape Horn on the southern verge of South America. They settled
Mexico and Venezuela, Xew Grenada and Chili, and Peru, and,
coasting all the Xorthern Pacific, imprinted the holy, classic names
of old Spain upon the now golden mountains and vine-covered
valleys of the State of California. They climbed the snow-clad
Cordilleras, and planted their banner on every hill and every val-
ley of Mexico, Peru, and Chili. They drove Montezuma from
the halls of his Aztec ancestors ; and, under Cortez and Pizarro,
Peruvian, Mexican, and semi-barbarian civilization fell before the
mighty prowess of their arms. Their heroic deeds, their lofty
chivalry, their Christian loyalty, now read more like the romances
of a Froissart than, as they are, the true records of history.
*' Our Anglo-Saxon fathers started later from the shores of Eng-
land, and landed upon the rock of Plymouth or upon the flats of
Jamestown. The Puritan himself, trembling over his rock for a
while, in terror of the tomahawk, ventured at last on what was then
deemed gigantic heroism. He crossed the Connecticut and the
Hudson, and slowly crept up the Mohawk, and halted for years and
years upon Lakes Erie, Ontario, and Huron. The cavaliers of
Jamestown threaded their way up the River James, stealthily
wound over the passes of the Alleghanies, and looked down at last
196 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
with astonishment and affright upon la belle riviere of Ohio. But all
this time these heroic Hidalgos of Spain were spreading the name
and fame of Castile and Arragon throughout the whole American
continent, from Florida on the north to Cape Horn on the south, and
from Cape Horn to California, while our Anglo-Saxon race stood
shivering upon the Ohio and Lake Erie without the courage to ad-
vance further. What, sir, happened then ? What has produced
this difference between us and the lofty Hidalgo ? Why are they
fallen, these men of the Armada, so exalted among all the nations
of the earth, who made our ancestors, in the days of Queen Eliza-
beth, tremble on the throne ? Why was it that in the Mexican war
one regiment of our Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Teutonic blood, again and
again put whole regiments of these once noble Hidalgos of Spain
to flight at Chapultepec, the Garita, and elsewhere ? I will tell
you why, sir. The Latin, the Spanish race, freed from that in-
stinct of ours which abhors all hybrid amalgamation, revelled in a
fatally tempting admixture of blood, — indulged in social and
governmental copartnership with Aztecs, Indians, Negroes, one
and all. The pure blood, the azure blood, of the old Hidalgos of
Spain, lost and drained, dishonored and degraded, has dwindled
into nothing, while the pure blood of the Anglo-Saxons, the Celts,
the Teutons, abhorring all such association and amalgamation
with the negro or the Indian, has leaped over Lake Erie, crossed
la belle riviere, the great Father of Waters, the Mississippi, crowded
the mountain passes of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Montana,
rolled over the Rocky Mountains, and spread for hundreds of
miles on the Pacific Ocean, — carrying not only there, but every-
where, triumphant, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, the glorious
flag of our country, — that emblem of a pure race, — and ever con-
trasting the glory and honor, the prowess of that race with the
degradation of the race of these once noble Hidalgos of Spain."
— James BrooJcs, Speech in the House of Eepresentatives, Dec. 18,
1867.
*' Our four millions of negro slaves absorb the public mind,
and the thoughts and the time of government, by the dangers
they evoke. They have produced sectional animosity and strife
where peace and good-will should reign. They have thrown the
administration of the law throughout the South into lynch-law
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 197
committees, and have forbidden any northern man to go there,
unless he leaves his independence, and freedom of thought and
speech behind him. They have destroyed all industry but their
own, and made the South dependent upon foreign suj^plies for
every article which human ingenuity has invented for the com-
fort and accommodation of man. The}'' must be sentinelled and
watched, to protect society from horrors worse than war. They
inspire terror daring peace, and, in case of invasion, would be
more fearful than the enemy. By means of their weakness they
control our jDolitics ; they conquer us by abject submission ; they
overwhelm us by mere prolific growth ; they have manacled our
hands and feet with fetters of gold, and, nominally slaves, they
are really the masters of our destiny." — Fisher^ s Laics of Bace,
page 30.
"White men alone possess the intellectual and moral energy
which creates that development of free government, industry, sci-
ence, literature, and the arts, which we call civilization. Black
men can neither originate, maintain, nor comprehend civiliza-
tion." — Fislier''s Laws of Bace, page 10.
*' Surely no argument is necessary to prove that a nation must
be happier, wiser, richer, more powerful, and more glorious, where
the whole people are of the strongest, most intellectual, and most
moral race of mankind, than where any portion of the people are
degraded by nature, and incapable of progress or civilization.
Barbarism is barbarism, whether in Africa or America ; and a
country inhabited by barbarians cannot be civilized. Just in pro-
portion to the number of its barbarians is it wanting in the ele-
ments of civilization, and just in that proportion, too, is it weak
and liable to overthrow from dangers within and without." —
Fisher's Laws of RacCj page 33.
" Though the negro in the North is not a slave, he is made an
outcast and a pariah. There is no j^lace for him in northern so-
ciety ; no aspiration nor hopes to stimulate him ; none of the
prizes of life, wealth, power, respectability, are held out to him,
17*
198 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
to nerve his efforts and elevate his desires. He is governed and
protected in all liis rights wholly by the white race, without his
participation. He is excluded from office, from the hustings,
from the court-house, from the exchange, from every intellectual
calling or pursuit, not by legal enactment, but by his own incapac-
ity, and by opinion ; by the feeling of caste and race, — that is to
say, by divine laws, which are stronger than any the legislature
can make. He has no civil or political power whatever, by which
to protect himself, and he may not lay a finger on one of those
three wonderful boxes, the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the car-
tridge-box, which contain the instruments and weapons by which
freemen defend their rights. They are for the white race only.
A negro governor, legislator, judge, magistrate, or juryman does
not exist, could not by possibility exist, in the whole North. This
race is not only excluded from all political and civil place and
power, but the avenues to social rank and respectability are
closed against him ; or rather they are too steep and difficult for him
to climb. He is not a land-owner, a manufacturer, a merchant.
There is no legal obstacle ; but land, machinery, and shif)S are things
he cannot manage. There are no black attorneys-at-law, ph3'Si-
cians, authors, or capitalists in the North. The law opens to the
negro these spheres of activity as widely as to the white man, but
they are far beyond the negro's wildest dreams, because beyond
his talents. He is thus pushed down by a superior moral and in-
tellectual force, which he can neither comprehend nor resist, into
those pursuits which the Saxon, and even the Celt, avoids if
he can, — into labors which require the least strength of mind or
body, which 3'ield the least profit, and are menial and degrading.
The spirit of caste drives the negro out of churches, theatres,
hotels, rail-cars, and steamboats, or assigns to him, in them, a
place apart. It drives him into the cellars, dens, and alleys of
towns, into hovels in the country ; and it does all this without
laws, without concert or design, without unkindness or cruelty,
but unconsciously, simply because it cannot help doing it, obey-
ing this instinctive impulse, and the immutable, eternal laws by
which the races of men are kept apart, and are preserved through
countless ages without change. These laws are divine. They
execute themselves in spite of party combinations or fanatical
legislatures, or philanthropic enthusiasts, or visionary dreamers
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 199
about human perfectibility and the rights of man." — Z'Vs/igr'^
Laws of Bacc, j^agcs 21-23.
" Strikingly apparent is it that the negro is a fellow of many
natural defects and deformities. The wretched race to which he
belongs exhibits, among its several members, more cases of lusus
naturce than any other. Seldom, indeed, is he to be seen except
as a preordained embodiment of uncouth grotesqueness, malfor-
mation, or ailments. Not only is he cursed with a black com-
plexion, an apish aspect, and a woolly head; he is also rendered
odious by an intolerable stench, a thick skull, and a booby brain.
An accurate description of him calls into requisition a larger num-
ber of uncomplimentary terms than are necessary to be used in
describing any other creature out of Tophet ; and it is truly as-
tonishing how many of the terms so peculiarly appropriate to him
are compound ^vorks of obloquy and detraction.
"The night-born ogre stands before us ; we observe his low,
receding forehead, his broad, depressed nose ; his stammering,
stuttering speech ; and his general actions, evidencing monkey-
like littleness and imbecility of mind. By close attention and ex-
amination, we may also discover in the sable individual before us,
if, indeed, he be not an exception to the generality of his race,
numerous other prominent defects and deficiencies. Admit that
he be not warp-jawed, maffle-tongued, nor tongued-tied, is he
not skue-sighted, blear-eyed, or blobber-lipped? If he be not
wry-necked, wen-marked, nor shoulder-shotten, is he not stiff-
jointed, hump-backed, or hollow-bellied? If he be not slab-
sided, knock-kneed, nor bow-legged, is he not (to say the least)
spindle-shanked, cock-heeled, or flat-footed? If he be not
maimed, halt, nor blind, is he not feverish with inflammations,
festerings, or fungosities ? If he be not afflicted with itch, blains,
nor blisters, does he not squirm under the pains of boils, burns, or
bruises? If he be not the child of contusions, sprains, nor dislo-
cations, is he not the man of scalds, sores, or scabs ? If he be not
an endurer of the aches of pneumonia, pleurisy, nor rheumatism,
does he not feel the fatal exacerbations of rankling wounds, tu-
mors, or ulcers? If he be no complainer over the cramps of
coughs, colics, nor constipation, doth he not decline and droop
under the discomforts of dizziness, dropsy, or diarrhoea ? If he be
200 AMERICAN WniTERS ON THE NEGRO,
no sufferer from hemorrhoids, erysipelas, nor exfoliation, is he
not a victim of goitre, intumescence, or paralysis ? If he expe-
rience no inconvenience from gum-rasli, cholera-morbus, nor
moon-madness, doth he not wince under the pangs of the hip-
gout, the tape-worm, or the mulli-grubs? If he be free from
idiocy, insanity, or syncope, is he not subject to fits, spasms, or
convulsions ? " — Helper'^s Nojoqiie, pages 68-69.
"Weak in mind, frail in morals, torpid and apathetic in phy-
sique, the negro, wherever he goes, or wherever he is seen, car-
ries upon himself, in inseparable connection with abjectness and
disgrace, such glaring marks of inferiority as are no less indelible
and conspicuous than the base blackness of his skin. Upon this
point, all the records of the past, all the evidences of the present,
all the prognostications of the future, are plain and positive. In
the long catalogue of the great names of the world — names
which, whether they have caused nations to tremble with fear
and suspense, to quiver with awe and admiration, to laugh with
satisfaction and delight, or to weep with innocent sadness and
love — there does not appear the cognomen of a single negro !
To overlook the ponderous significance of this fact, to gainsay it,
to wink it or to l)link it, let no unworthy attempt be made. In
nothing that ennobles mankind has any negro ever distinguished
himself. For none of the higher walks of life has he ever dis-
played an aptitude. To deeds of true valor and patriotism he
has always proved recreant. Over none of the wide domains of
agriculture, commerce, nor manufactures, has any one of his race
ever won honorable mention. Within the classic precincts of art,
literature, and science, he is, and forever will be, utterly un-
known." — Helper's Nojoqiie, page 300.
*' Shabbiness and drollery of dress, and awkwardness of gait
are also notable characteristics of the negro. Faultless garments,
and well-shaped hats and shoes are things that are never found
upon his person. Once or twice a year he buys (or begs) a suit
of second-hand clothing ; but seldom does he wear any article of
apparel more than two or three weeks before the outer edges of
the same become ragged ; then unsightly holes and shreds and
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 201
patches follow in quick succession, — and yet the slovenly and
slipshod tatterdemalion is as contented and mirthful as a merr] -
making monkey." — Eeljjer's Nojoqiie, j^age 70.
**Xow come I to a sulDJect of somewhat novel importance, — a
subject which has occupied my attention for a great while, and
one for the discussion of which, it is believed, the present is a
suitable time. I allude to the presence of so many negroes in our
cities and towns, — places where not one of them should ever be
permitted to reside at all ; and if I shall succeed, as I hope and be-
lieve I shall, in presenting such a combination of facts and argu-
ments as will demonstrate the propriety of removing them all into
the country (if far and forever beyond the limits of the United States,
so much the better), I shall regard it as evidence complete that
these lines have been judiciously penned. It may, I think, be
safely assumed that, as a general rule, no person ought to be
admitted as a resident of any city, unless he can readily command
one of two things, namely, capital or talent. Of these two in-
dispensable requisites, the negro can command neither the one
nor the other ; he should, therefore, never be allowed to live in
any situation, or under any circumstances, within the corporate
limits of any city or town.
*' With few exceptions, all sane white persons have sufficient
tact to render themselves useful in some manner or other, to gain
an honorable livelihood, and to add something to the general
stock of human .achievements. If their minds can accomplish
nothing in the domains of science, their hands may be rewarded
in the fields of art. If they cannot invent labor-saving machines,
they can make duplicates of such as have already been invented.
If they cannot enrich and embellish their country, by building
factories, stores, warehouses, hotels, and banks, they can always
fill situations in such establishments with profit to themselves
and with advantage to others. The negro can do none of these
things. On the contrary, he is, indeed, a very inferior, dull,
stupid, good-for-nothing sort of man. Past experience proves
positively that he is not, and never has been, susceptible of a high
standard of improvement. His capacities have been fully and
frequently tested, and have always been found sadly deficient.
To the neo-lect of a large and meritorious class of our own race,
202 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGLO.
we have made numerous experiments in favor of the Avorthless
negro. "We have earnestly endeavored, time and again, to infuse
into the brain of the benighted bUick a ray of intellectual light, to
teach him trades and professions, and to prepare him for the dis-
charge of higher duties than the common drudgeries of every-day
life. Thus far, however, all our efforts in his behalf have proved
abortive ; and so will they continue to prove, so long as he re-
mains what he always has been, and still is, — a negro. Further
attempts, on our part, to elevate him to a rank equal to that held
by the white man, would certainly betray in us an extraordinary
and unpardonable degree of folly and obtuseness. . . . Ne-
groes are, in truth, so far inferior to white people, that, for many
reasons consequent on that inferiority, the two races should never
inhabit the same community, city, nor state. The good which
accrues to the black from the privileges of social contact with the
white is more than counterpoised by the evils which invariably
overtake the latter when brought into any manner of regular
fellowship with the former.
"Whatever determination may be come to with regard to a
final settlement or disjDosition of the negroes, — whether it be de-
cided to colonize them in Africa, in Mexico, in Central America,
in South America, or in one or more of the West India Islands, or
elsewhere beyond our present limits ; or whether they be permit-
ted to remain (a while longer) in the United States, — it is to be
sincerely hoped that there may be no important division of opinion
as to the expediency of soon removing them all from the cities
and towns. A city is not, by any means, a suitable place for
them. They are j^ositively unfit for the performance of in-door
duties. Sunshine is botli congenial and essential to their natures ;
and they ought not to be emjDloyed or retained in situations that
could be so much more advantageously filled by white jDcople.
One good white person will, as a general rule, do from two to five
times as much as a negro, and will, in addition, always do it with
a great deal more care, cleanliness, and thoroughness. A negro
or a negress, in or about a white man's house, no matter where,
or in what capacity, is a thing monstrously improper and inde-
cent.
•' B}^ removing all the negroes into the country, our agricultural
districts would receive a large addition of laborers, and conse-
quently, the quantity of our staple products — cotton, corn, wheat,
AMERICAN WniTERS OX THE NEGRO. 203
sugar, rice, and tobacco — would be greatly increased. Crowds
of enterjDrisiug white people would flock to our cities and towns,
fill the vacancies occasioned by the egress of the negroes, and
give a£i-esh and powerful impetus to commerce and manufactures.
The tides of both domestic and foreign immigration, which have
been moving westward for so long a period, would also soon be-
gin to flow southward, and everywhere throughout the whole
leno-th and breadth of our land new avenues to various branches
of profitable industry would be opened.
" Let it not be forgotten, however, that this proposition does
not contemplate anj pemianent settlement of the negroes, even in
the agricultural districts of our country. Only a temporary ac-
commodation of the case is here held in view. Perhaps the best
thing that we could do just now, would be to take immediate and
complete possession of Mexico (we shall acquire the whole of North
America, from Behring's Strait to the Isthmus of Darien, by and
by), and at once push the negroes — every one of them —
south of the Eio Grande. On no part, — to say the least, — on no
part of the territory of the United States, as at present organized,
should any but the pure white races ever find a permanent
domicile.
" Xow comes the last, not the least, reason why I advocate the
removal of the negroes from the cities and towns. I believe that
the yellow fever (which is only another name for the African
fever), and other epidemic diseases, — those terrible scourges
which have so signally retarded the growth of Southern seaports,
— have, to a very great degree, been induced by the peculiarly
obnoxious filth engendered by the black population. Who has
ever heard of the yellow fever prevailing to an alarming extent
in any city or state inhabited almost exclusively by white people?
How fearfulh^ how frequently, does it rage in such despicable,
negro-cursed communities, as Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah,
Mobile, and New Orleans !
" Only from the base colored races is it, as a rule, that we are
overwhelmed and prostrated by wide-spread contagions and epi-
demics. Even the cattle-plague, the murrain among the sheep,
and other fatal distempers to which our domestic animals are
subject, have almost invariably had their origin in the countries
which are inhabited by the blacks and the browns, who are them-
selves ]mt the rjckety-franied and leprous remnants of thoso
204 AMERICAN WRITERS OX THE NEGRO.
unworthy races of men, v/lio have been uTevocably doonaed to
destruction. ... It is, indeed, fully and firmly believed that
the only way to get rid of yellow fever is to get rid of the negroes ;
and the best way to get rid of the negroes is now the particular
question which, of all other questions, should most earnestly en-
gage the undivided attention of the American people." — Helper's
Nojoque, pages 62-68.
" When the negro in Africa, in the year 1620, fastening anew
upon both himself and his posterity the condition of perpetual
bondage, allowed himself, as a guaranty of his passive and pro-
digious dastardy, to be brought in chains all the way across the
Atlantic, — it was then that, for the first time, was reached the
uttermost depth of human degradation. That the negro had,
and has, always been a slave, in his own country or elsewhere,
according to the habitat or journeyings of his master, is well
known ; but it was only when, as the cringing tool of the meaner
sort of white men, he came to America, that his obsequiousness
and pusillanimity began to assume monstrous proportions. Of all
the miscreants and outcasts who have ever brought irreparable
disgrace upon mankind, the slave is at once the most despicable
and the most infamous. To be a slave of the white man, yet, if
possible, to be a slave exempt from the necessity of labor, has
always been the ruling ambition of the negro, — not less so now
than it was four thousand years ago, and not less so then than
it is now." — Helper's Nojoque, page 193.
" The negroes, like the poodles and the pointers, will always
be the dependents and the parasites of white men, just so long
as white men, unnaturally submitting to a wrongful relation, are
disposed to tolerate the black men's infamously base and beggarly
presence. . . . Certain it is that we owe it to ourselves — and
we ought to be able — to get rid of the negroes soon ; but if they
are to be retained much longer in the United States (which may
God, in his great mercy, forbid !) we may as well build immedi-
ately,'for their relief and correction, in alternate adaptation, a
row of hospitals and prisons, all the way from the Atlantic to the
Pacific; and, upon the sarne plan, a range or series of alms-
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 205
houses and penitentiaries the entire distance from Lake Superior
to the Gulf of IMexico !
"All the devil-begotten imps of darkness, whether black or
brown, w^hether negroes or Indians, whether Mongols or mu-
lattoes, should at once be dismissed, and that forever, from the
care, from the sight, and even from the thoughts, of the heaven-
born w^hites. Wherever seen, or wherever existing, the black and
bi-colored races are the very personifications of bastardy and beg-
gary. In America, these races are the most unwieldy occasioners
of dishonor and weakness ; they are the ill-favored and unwelcome
instruments of disservice ; they are the ghastly types of effeteness
and retrogression." — Helper's Nojoque, pages 209-211.
** When, under the auspices of monarchical institutions ; when,
to pander to the cupidity of crowned heads ; when, to supply the
vicious necessities of courtiers and sycophants, a pack of shirtless
and shiftless negroes were brought from the coast of Africa and
planted in America, — a pack of black and beggarly barbarians,
so bestial and so base as to prefer life to liberty, — they, like all
other foreign felons and outlaws, should at once have been re-
turned to the places whence they came ; or, to say the least, they
should have been compelled to depart, with the greatest possible
despatch, from the land which they had so foully desecrated by
their odious and infamous presence.
In the political organizations of mankind, it ought to be an
axiom of peculiar and universal acceptation, that he who values life
above liberty is unworthy to have his existence prolonged beyond
the hour w^hen to-morrow's sun shall set. This right and truthful
proposition, practically established, would leave the whole earth
absolutely negi-oless ere the lapse of two supper-times." — ^eZper's
Nojoque, page 214.
•' Under the euphemism of * Removal,' the American government
has already expelled, and rightly expelled, from time to time, more
than one hundred thousand Indians from the States of the Atlantic
slope, to the wild lands west of the Mississippi, — these expulsions
by the government having been independently of the less systemat-
ic but (in the aggregate) much larger expulsions by unorganized
18
206 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
communities of the white people themselves. It should also be rec-
ollected, that all the Indians thus expelled or * removed,' were
people of indigenous origin, autochthones, by whom the whole of
America had, from time immemorial, prior to the days of Colum-
bus, been held in fee-simple. Now, if we may rightfully expel the
aboriginal owners of America from the old homes and possessions
which they have enjoyed from a period of time so distant in the far
past that it is absolutely untraceable, what may we not do with
the alien and accursed negroes, who, base-minded and barbarous,
and bound hand and foot with the fetters of slavery, were brought
hither from the coast of Africa ? " — IIelper''s Nojoque, page 220.
'* The negro should never, under any circumstances whatever,
be permitted to reside in greater proximity to white people than
the distance which separates Cuba from the United States ; if the
distance could be lengthened to the extent of one thousand miles,
so much the better ; if, in point of duration, rather than in point
of space, the distance could be lengthened from now to the end
of time (supposing such an end possible), better still.
*' On the premises of no respectable white person ; in the man-
sion of no honorable private citizen ; in no lawfully convened
public assembly ; in no rationally moral or religious society ; in no
decently kept hotel ; in no restaurant worthy of the patronage of
white peoj^le ; in no reputably established store nor shop, — in no
place whatever, where any occupant or visitor is of Caucasian
blood, — should the loathsome presence of any negro or negress
ever be tolerated." — Helper's Nojoqiie, page 219.
" To live in juxtaposition with the negro, or to tolerate his pres-
ence even in the vicinity of white men, is, to say the least, a
most shameful and disgraceful proceeding, — a proceeding which,
if persisted in, will, sooner or later, bring down upon all those
who are guilty of it, the overwhelming vengeance of Heaven.
By cringing and fawning like a cudgel-deserving dog, by pas-
sively yielding and submitting like a dumb brute, by mimicking
and begging like a poll-parrot, the negro has but too generally
succeeding in foisting himself, as a parasitical slave or servant,
upon white men ; and has thus, upon all occasions, afforded incon-
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 207
testable proofs of the fact that he is, and ever has been, equally
with his master, a sheer accomplice in the crime of slavery." —
Helper'' s Kojoqne, ^;«^e 28-4.
" It was by no merit nor suggestion of his own, but rather by
the demerits of both himself and his master, that the negro was
brought to America. Not by any spirit of commendable enter-
prise was he induced to immigrate hither. He came under com-
pulsion ; and under compulsion he must (in the event of the fail-
ure of gentler adominitions on our part) be prevailed upon to
emigrate back to Africa, to Mexico, to Central America, to South
America, or to the islands of the ocean.
"Ilis coming to the New World was neither voluntary nor
honorable. It was not for the purpose of bettering his condition
in life. He sought not an asylum from the oppressions of rank
and arbitrary power. In unresistingly allowing himself to be
forced from his family and from his country, without even the
promise or the prospect of ever being permitted to return, and in
passively submitting to be taken in chains he knew not whitiier,
he f)usillanimously yielded to the most abject and disgraceful vas-
salage.
"For his passage across the Atlantic he paid no money, no
corn, no wine, no oil, nor any other thing whatever. He brought
with himself no household property, no article of virtu (nor
principle of virtue), no silver, no gold, nor precious stones.
" He was hatless, and coatless, and trouserless, and shoeless, and
shirtless ; in brief, he was utterly resourceless, naked and filthy.
He came as the basest of criminals, — he came as a slave ; for
submission to slavery is a crime even more heinous than tiie crime
of murder ; more odious than the guilt of incest ; more abomi-
nable than the sin of devil-worship.
'* With himself he brought no knowledge of agriculture, com-
merce, nor manufactures ; no ability for the salutary management
of civil affairs ; no tact for the successful manoeuvring of armies ;
no aptitude for the right direction of navies ; no acquaintanceship
with science, literature, nor art ; no skill in the analysis of theo-
ries; no sentiment stimulative of noble actions; no soul for the
encouragement of morality. Brin2:ino: with himself nothinir but
his own black and bastard body, denuded and begrimed, he came
208 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
like a brute ; he was a brute then ; he had always been a brute ;
he is a brute now ; and there is no more reason for believing that
he will ever cease to be a brute, than there is for supposing
that the hound will ever cease to be a dog, — only that the
black biped, the baser of the two, will be the sooner exter-
ruinated.
*' Yet this is the fatuous and filthy fellow whom, by certain de-
graded and very contemptible white persons, we are advised to
recognize as an equal and as a brother! This is the incorrigible
and grovelling ignoramus upon whom it is proposed to confer at
once the privilege of voting, — the right of universal suffrage !
This is the loathsome and most execrable wretch (rank-smelling
and hideous arch-criminal that he is), who has been mentioned as
one fit to have a voice in the enactment of laws for the govern-
ment of the American people.
*' Shall we confer the elective franchise on this base-born and ill-
bred blackamoor, — this heathenish and skunk-scented idiot?
No ! Wliy not ? Because he does not know, and cannot know,
how to vote intelligently. It would therefore, to say the least, be
an act of gross folly on our part, to extend to the negro the privi-
lege of doing what the omnipotent God of nature has obviouslj',
and for all time, denied him the power to do.
" Those of our half-witted and demagogical legislators who waste
time in attempting to prove the equality of the negro, and in the
drafting Of absurd laws for his recognition in good faith as a citi-
zen of the United States, might, with equal propriety, busy them-
selves in the ridiculous irrationality of framing codes for allowing
the gorilla and the chimpanzee to attend common schools, and
for the baboon and the orang-outang to testify in courts of
equity !
** No man should ever be recognized as a citizen of the United
States, nor be allowed to participate in any of the rights or privi-
leges of citizenship, who did not come hither honorably and of
his own accord, — who did not immigrate to these shores, he or
his ancestors, free, free from the gyves and chains of slavery. It
was not of his own choosing, it was not at his own option, it was
only in a state of the most abject and criminal servitude, — a sort
of compound felony between himself and his master, — that the
neo-ro came hither from Africa. Therefore, for these and other
sudacient reasons, the negro should have no voice, no part, nor lot,
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 209
in any of the public affairs or private concerns of America." —
Helper'^s Nojoque, imges 215-217.
" I maintain, without reservation, the following among other
opinions, — that the human race has not sprung from one pair, but
from a plurality of centres, that these were created ah initio in
those parts of the world best adapted to their physical nature ; that
the epoch of creation was that undefined period of time spoken of
in the first chapter of Genesis, wherein it is related that God
formed man, ' male and female created he them ; ' that the deluge
was a merely local phenomenon ; that it affected but a small part
of the then existing inhabitants of the earth ; and, finally, that
these views are consistent with the facts of the case, as well as
with analogical evidence." — Samuel George Morton. Letter to
Mr. GUddon, May, 1846.
*' After twenty years of observation and reflection, during which
period I have always approached this subject with diflSdence and
caution ; after investigating for myself the remarkable diversities
of opinion to which it has given rise, and after weighing the diffi-
culties that beset it on every side, I can find no satisfactory ex-
planation of the diverse phenomena that characterize physical
man, excepting in the doctrine of an original plurality of races."
Samuel George Morton. Types of Mankind, page 305.
'* For my own part, if I could believe that the human race had
its origin in incest, I should think that I had at once got the clue
to all ungodliness. Two lines of catechism would explain more
than all the theological discussions since the Christian era. I have
put it into rhyme : —
" Question. — Whence came that curse we call primeval sin?
Answer. — From Adam's children breeding in and in."
— Samuel George Morton. Types of Mankind, page 409.
18*
210 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
♦* I shall conclude these remarks on this part of the inquiry, by
olDserving, that no mean has been taken by the Caucasian races
collectively, because of the very great preponderance of Hindoo,
Egyptian, and Fellah skulls, over those of the Germanic, Pelasgic,
and Celtic families. Nor could any just collective comparison be
instituted between the Caucasian and negro groups in such a
table as we have presented, unless the small-brained people of
the latter division were proportionate in number to the Hindoos.
Egyptians, and Fellahs of the other group. Such a comparison,
were it practicable, would probably reduce the Caucasian average
to about eighty-seven cubic inches, and the negro to seventy-
eight at most, — perhaps even to sevent^^-five ; and thus confirm-
atively establish the difference of at least nine cubic inches between
the mean of the two races." — Samuel George Morton. Types of
mankind, page 321.
"There are only two alternatives before us at present : —
"1st. Either mankind originated from a common stock, and
all the different races with their peculiarities, in their present dis-
tribution, are to be ascribed to subsequent changes, — an assump-
tion for which there is no evidence whatever, and which leads at
once to the admission that the diversity among animals is not an
original one, nor their distribution determined by a general plan,
established in the beginning of the creation, — or,
" 2d. We must acknowledge that the diversity among animals
is a fact determined by the will of the Creator, and their geograpli-
ical distribution part of the general plan which unites all organ-
ized beings into one great organic conception ; whence it foUovvs
that what are called human races, down to their sj)ecialization as
nations, are distinct primordial forms of the type of man.
" The consequences of the first alternative, wiiich is contrary to
all the modern results of science, run inevitably into the Lamark-
ian development theor}^ so well known in this country through
the work entitled * Vestiges of Creation ;' though its premises are
generally adopted by those who would shrink from the conclusions
to which they necessarily lead." — Prof. Agassiz. Types of Man^
kind, page 75.
AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 211
** Do not the instincts of our nature, the social laws of man, all
over the civilized world, and the laws of God, from Genesis to
Kevelation, cry aloud against incest? Does not the father shrink
with horror from the idea of marrying his own child, or from
seeing the bed of his daughter polluted by her brother ? Do not
children themselves shudder at the thought? And can it be cred-
ited that a God of infinite power, wisdom, and foresight, should
have been driven to the necessity of propagating the human family
from a single pair, and then have stultified his act by stamping
incest as a crime ? I do not believe that true religion ever intended
to teach a common origin for the human race. ' Cain knew his
wife,' whom he found in a foreign land, when he had no sister to
marry; and although corruption and sin were not wanting
among the patriarchs, yet nowhere in Scripture do we see, after
Adam's sons and daughters, a brother marrying his sister." —
Josidh Clark Nott. Ti/j^es of Mankind^ page ^08.
" Much as the success of the infant colony at Liberia is to be
desired by every true philanthropist, it is with regret that, while
wishins: well to the nen:roes, we cannot divest our minds of mel-
ancholy forebodings. Dr. Morton, quoted in another chapter, has
proved that the negro races possess about nine cubic inches less of
brain than the Teuton ; and, unless there were really some facts in
history, something beyond bare hypothesis, to teach us how these
deficient inches could be artificially added, it would seem that the
negroes in Africa must remain substantially in that same be-
nighted state wiierein Nature has placed them, and in which
they have stood, according to Egyptian monuments, for at least
five thousand years." — Josiali Clark Nott. Types of Mankind,
page 189.
"The negro has never taken one step towards mental develop-
ment, as we understand it. He has never invented an alphabet, —
that primal starting-point in mental cultivation, — he has never
comprehended even the simplest numerals, — in short, has had no
instruction except that which is verbal and imitated, which the
child copies from the parents, which is limited to the existing gen-
eration ; and therefore the present generation are in the same con-
212 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO,
dition that their progenitors occupied thousands of years ago." —
Van Evrie's Negroes and Negro Slavery, page 218.
** The negro mind, in essential respects, is always that of a
child, — the intelligence, as observed, is more rapidly developed
in the negro child, — those faculties more immediately connected
with sensation, perception, and perhaps memory, are more ener-
getic; but when they reach twelve and fifteen, they diverge ; the
reflective faculties in the white are now called into action, the real
Caucasian character now oj^ens, the mental forces fairly evolved,
while the negro remains stationary, — a perpetual child. The
negro of forty or fifty has more experience or knowledge, per-
haps, as the white man of that age has a more extended knowl-
edge than the man of twenty-five, but the intellectual calibre — the
actual mental capacity — in the former case is no greater than it
was at fifteen, when its utmost limits were reached." — Van Evrie's
Negroes and Negro Slavery, page 219.
"White husbands and wives, Miien one dies in early life, often
remain unmarried, faithful to a memory forever ; and still more
frequently, perhaps, the affections that bound them together in
their youth remain bright and untarnished in age and to the bor-
ders of the grave. Such a thing never happened with a negro.
Not one of the countless millions that have lived upon the earth
was ever kept from marrying a second time by a sentiment or a
memory. With their limited moral endowment such a thing is an
absolute moral impossibility. They live with each other to ex-
treme old age, because they imitate the superior race, and be-
cause it has become a habit, perhaps ; but the grand purposes of
nature accomplished, there is little or nothing more, or of those
blessed memories of joy and suffering, of early hopes and chast-
ened sorrow, which so bind and blend together the white husband
and wife, and often render them quite as necessary to each other's
happiness as in the flush and vigor of youth." — Van Evrie's Ne-
groes and Negro Slavery, page 242.
"It may be confidently asserted that no community can be
AMERICAN' WRITERS ON THE NEGRO. 213
found, who, as an original proposition, are prepared to commit
their industrial and economical relations into the hands of Afri-
cans. The acknowledged inferiority of the negro is a sufficient
guaranty against the suicidal step. . . . Why is it that the
negro should be preferred to the white man in the occui^ation of
our territory ? There is no place, state, condition, or relation af-
fecting the good of society in which the negro is not inferior to
the white man. In labor, in battle, in knowledge, in council, in
citizenship, in statesmanship, the white man prevails over the Af-
rican. If you introduce these people into a new community, as it
appears to me, for every man whose place is filled by a negro,
you injure the community in that degree. If these people mingle
their blood with the white race, the progeny is debased and fallen
from the white status ; if you hold them in slavery, they are hurt-
ful to the progress and prosperity of the community ; if you set
them free, they are not desirable for citizens. . . . There is
no disguising the fact, that if you legislate to giye the Africans
place, position, and employment which would otherwise belong to
white men, you depreciate white men, — you invidiously stigma-
tize their race." — Samuel T. Glover. St. Louis, July 26, 1860.
''"We have noticed, with some surprise, what we regard as a
strange confusion of thought in England, in regard to the feeling
here about slavery and about the negro. It seems to be taken for
granted by most European, and even most British, writers upon
the subject, that opposition to slavery and a liking of the negro,
or at least a special good-will to him, must go together, and vice
versa ; and that consequently a war which was accepted rather
than that the point of the exclusion of slavery from free territory
should be yielded, and which was prosecuted in a great measure
for the extinction of slavery where it had been already established,
must have as its result the elevation of the negro to the political
and social level of the dominant race, or else that its professed
anti-slaveiy motive was a mere pretence. No supposition could
be more erroneous. I tell you frankly that the mass of the people
here were glad to fight against slavery, but had no intention of fight-
ing for the negro. They felt that slavery was a great crime, a
sin against human nature. They wished to purge the republic of
that wickedness, but they had no particular sympathy with, though
214 AMERICAN WRITERS ON THE NEGRO.
most of them much compassion for, the race against whom the
wrong was committed. You in Europe seemed to be thinking
about the individual negroes ; we, in the mass, thought little or
nothing of the individual negroes, but much of the barbarous in-
stitution of slavery." — Richard Grant Wliite. Letter to the Lon-
don Spectator, 1865.
**In the last year of the war, a clergyman who had been a pro-
fessor in the college where I studied, and who is one of those gen-
tle, firm, wuse men, with large souls, and wide sympathies, who
can control men, and particularly young men, by mere personal
influence, so that when the under-graduates were unruly or had a
grievance, they would give up at once to Dr. for pure love,
when his colleagues could do nothing, and all the terrors of college
discipline were laughed to scorn, — this man went to the South on
a tour of observation, and was placed in authority, as far as slavery
was concerned, over a considerable reclaimed district by one of our
most eminent generals. For years before the w\ar he had been
one of our strongest anti-slavery men, and had by his writings
done as much as any one person in the country, who was not a
professed journalist or politician, to bring about the state of pub-
lic feeling that provoked secession. I met him on his return home,
and had not talked with him three minutes before he said to me,
* I come back hating slavery more than ever, but loathing the
negro with an unutterable loathing. What a curse to have that
people on our hands ! ' And not long ago, one of the editors of
one of the leading anti-slavery papers in the countr}^ and one
which advocates giving suffrage to the freed slaves, said to me,
* These negroes are doubtless here by a disjoensation of Provi-
dence, but,' with an earnestness which a whimsical smile could
not conceal ; ' oh, that the Lord had been pleased to dispense his
negroes somewhere else ! ' " — Richard Grant White. Letter to the
London Spectator , I860.
" There has never been the slightest danger of an insurrection
of the slaves. The real victim of slavery is the white man.
Whatever little good there is in the system, the black man has had ;
while most of the evil has fallen to the white man's share." —
Farton^s Gen. Butler in Neio Orleans, 2^<^0^ ^9-
AMEEICAy WRITERS OX THE NEGRO. 215
"The United States are young, fresh, and vigorous, abounding
in wealth, exulting in strength, and eager for action. They come
of a race, the Anglo-Saxon, seemingly endowed with a deathless
spring and vitality, — a race which crushed old Rome, when Rome
oi^pressed the world, — which reared the stupendous structure of
British enterprise, — which impelled the armies of the Reforma-
tion, — which planted in the New World the hardiest of its colo-
nists, — and which now, commanding the citadel as well as the
outposts of civilization, wields the destinies of all the tribes." —
Farke Godwin. Political Essays, page 115.
** The population in America of European extraction has grown
so large, and the accessions to it by immigration are so vast, that
we can begin to see that the mission of the negro here is nearly
completed, and that the limits of his possible expansion may be
computed. In fifty years, the white races now in the United
States, and their descendants, will number more than one hun-
dred millions. While it is impossible to predict exactly the march
of this great multitude, or to define precisely the regions it will
occupy, it is easy to see that the negro in North America must be
pressed into narrow bounds. And it is in North America only
that he is formidable, because it is here only that his numbers are
increasins: : the African race in South America and in the West
Indies being either stationary or declining, except so far as it is
kept up by the slave-trade, which is reduced now to a single isl-
and, restrained even there within close limits, and menaced con-
stantly by that complete extinction which it cannot long escape."
— Westoii's Progress of Slavery, page 158.
*• The experiment of Africanizing America has had a long trial,
of more than three centuries, and has failed at all j^oints and in
every particular. Of course, it was not expected to bring civili-
zation and the arts to the New World, and it has failed even to
populate it. The policy of Africanization ought now to be given
up ; but whether given up or not, it must soon yield to a nev%^ and
better order of events." — Weston^ s Progress of Slavery y page 161.
216 MULATTOES ; THE OFFSPRING OF CRIMES.
" Anatomy, physiology, and microscopy concur in proving that
the negro is of a distinct and inferior sj^ecies to the Caucasian;
and history confirms the evidence furnished by the investigation
of the natural philosopher. The unvarying color of the hair, —
the distinctive mark of all animals incapable of civilization, — as
well as the peculiarity of its structure ; the volume, shape, and
weight of the brain, inferior to that of the dominant species, and
the half-brute-like character of the physiognomy, and general
formation are evidences not to be disregarded by the careful and
conscientious philosopher. Neither in ancient nor modern times
has the negro, even when placed under the most favorable cir-
cumstances, achieved anything of moment. The steady advance
of the white species meets with no parallel in the black. The
"latter has proved itself, when left to itself, to be incapable of prog-
ress. Even when taught by a superior sj^ecies, it soon retro-
grades to hopeless barbarism. . . . No man who values him-
self, who has any regard for sound morality, or who feels any
desire to see intellectual progress made certain, can join in the
absurd attempt to raise the negro to his own level. A movement
for such ends is necessarily impotent, and can only result, at the
best for the nesfro, in the degiradation of the white." — Thomas
Dunn Englisli. Letter to John Campbell, Philadelphia^ 1851.
CHAPTER XXXI.
MULATTOES; THE OFFSPRING OF CRIMES AGAINST NATURE.
*• In 1842, 1 published a short essay on Hybridity, the object of
which was, to show that the white man and the negro were
distinct species, illustrating my position by numerous facts from
the natural history of man and that of the lower animals. The
question, at that time, had not attracted the attention of Dr. Mor-
ton. Many of my facts and arguments were new, even to him ;
MULATTOES ; THE OFFSPRING OF CRIMES, 217
and drew from the great anatomist a private letter, leading to the
commencement of a friendly correspondence, to me, at least, most
agreeable and instructive, and which endured to the close of his
useful career.
"In the essay alluded to, and in several which followed it at
short intervals, I maintained these propositions : —
*' 1. That mulattoes are the shortest-lived of any class of the
human race.
♦* 2. That mulattoes are intermediate in intelligence between the
blacks and the whites.
*' 3. That they are less capable of undergoing fatigue and hard-
ship than either the blacks or whites.
*' 4. That the mulatto women are peculiarly delicate, and subject
to a variety of chronic diseases. That they are bad breeders, bad
nurses, liable to abortions, and that their childi-en generally die
young.
" 5. That when mulattoes intermarry, they are less prolific than
when crossed on the parent stocks.
*' 6. That when a negro man married a white woman, the off-
spring partook more largely of the negro type than when the re-
verse connection had effect.
** 7. That mulattoes like negroes, although unacclimated, enjoy
extraordinary exemption from yellow-fever, when brought to
Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, or New Orleans.
*' Almost fifty years of residence among the white and black races
spread in nearly equal proportions through South Carolina and
Alabama, and twenty-five years' incessant professional intercourse
with both, have satisfied me of the absolute truth of the preceding
deductions." — Dr, Josiali Clark Nott, Types of Mankind, page
373.
** It was not until the discovery of a new world that races of
man of strikingly contrasted qualities came to intermix. In the
Western world, the intermixture of nations which followed the
conquests — first of the Romans, and afterwards of the northern na-
tions — was a union of races of equal quality ; and hence it
cannot be predicated that either improvement or deterioration was
the result. Very different was the case in the Eastern world.
There Greeks, Romans, and Goths intermingled with races
19
218 MULATTOS S ; THE OFFSPRING OF CRIMES.
gi'eatly inferior to themselves, — such as Egyptians and Syrians,
— and hence the deterioration to wliich, in a great measure, must
be ascribed that decline in civilization which ended in the down-
fall of the Roman power. Nature has endowed the various races
of man with widely different qualities, bodily and mental, much
in the same way as it has done with several closely allied species
of the lower animals. When the qualities of different races of
man are equal, no detriment results from their union. The mon-
grel French and English are equal to the pure breeds of Germany
and Scandinavia. When, on the other hand, they are unequal,
deterioration of the higher race is the inevitable result." — John
Crawfurd. Anthropological Bevieio^ Vol. I., page 4,0b.
*' Nature appears to have guarded against the alterations of
species which might proceed from mixture of breeds, by influenc-
ing the various species of animals with mutual aversion from each
other. Hence all the cunning and all the force that man is able
to exert is necessary to accomplish such unions, even between
species that have the nearest resemblances. And when the mule-
breeds, that are thus j^roduced by these forced conjunctions, hap-
pen to be fruitful, which is seldom the case, this fecundity never
continues beyond a few generations, and would not probably pro-
ceed so far, without a continuance of the same cares which ex-
cited it at first. Thus we never see in a wild state intermediate
productions between the hare and the rabbit, between the stag
and the doe, or between the martin and the weasel. But the
power of man changes this established order, and contrives to
produce all these intermixtures of which the various species are
susceptible, but which they would never produce if left to them-
selves." — Cuvier. Theory of the Earthy page 118.
" In regard to the sterility of hybrids in successive generations ;
though Gartner was enabled to rear some hybrids, carefully guid-
ing them from a cross with either pure parent, for six or seven,
and in one case for ten generations, yet he asserts positively that
their fertility never increased, but generally greatly decreased.
I do not doubt that it is usually the case, and that the fertility often
MULATTOS S ; THE OFFSPRING OF CRIMES, 219
suddenly decreases in the first few generations." — Danoui's Origin
of Species, page 220.
** I doubt whether any ease of a perfectly fertile hybrid animal
can be considered as thoroughly well authenticated." — Darwiii's
Origin of Species, page 223.
Some one, who signs himself " Ariel," has recently pub-
lished, in Cincinnati, a pamphlet, in which, with wonderful
ingenuit}^ of citation and argument, he endeavors to prove,
even from the Bible itself, that the negro is a mere beast, a
creature without a soul. If " Ariel's " positions be admitted
as true, what terrible penalties have been incurred by the
many very vile and very disreputable individuals who have
violated the following law : —
" K a man lie with a beast he shall surely be put to death ; and
ye shall slay the beast. And if a woman approach unto any beast,
and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman and the beast ;
they shall surely be j)ut to death." — Leviticus XX. 15.
*' Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind ; thou
shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed." — Leviticus XIX. 19.
•' Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds, lest the
fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown and the fruit of thy vine-
yard be defiled; thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass
together." — Deuteronomrj XXII. 9.
" The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron, say-
ing, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath
any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.
For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish he shall not ai>
proach ; a blind man or a lame, or he that hath aflat nose, or any-
thing superfluous, or a man that is broken-footed, or broken-
handed, or crook-backed, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his
220 MULATTOS S ; THE OFFSPRING OF CRIMES.
eye, or be scurvy or scabbed, or hath his stones broken ; . . .
he hath a blemish ; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of
his God.' " — Leviticus XXL 16.
** You asked me, in conversation, what constituted a mulatto
by our law ? and I believe I told you four crossings with the
whites. I looked afterwards into our law and found it to be in
these words : * Every person, other than a negro, of whose grand-
fathers or grandmothers, any one shall have been a negro, shall
be deemed a mulatto, and so every such person who shall have
one-fourth part or more of negro blood shall, in like manner, be
deemed a mulatto.' . . . The case put in the first member of
this paragraph of the law is exempli gratia. The latter contains
the true canon, which is, that one-fourth of negro blood, mixed
with any portion of white, constitutes the mulatto. As the issue
has one-half of the blood of each parent, and the blood of each of
these may be made up of a variety of fractional mixtures, the es-
timate of their compound, in some cases, may be intricate ; it be-
comes a mathematical problem of the same class with those on
the mixtures of different liquors or different metals ; as in these,
therefore, the algebraical notation is the most convenient and in-
telligible. Let us express the pure blood of the white in the capi-
tal letters of the printed alphabet, the pure blood of the negro in
the small letters of the printed alphabet, and any given mixture
of either, by way of abridgement, in MS. letters.
** Let the first crossing be of a, pure negro, and A, pure white.
The unit of blood of the issue being composed of the half of that
a A
of each parent, will be — [- — Call it, for abbreviation, h (half
2 2
blood).
* ' Let the second crossing be of h and B ; the blood of the issue will
^ B h a
be — 4- — , or substituting? for — its equivalent, it will be — -H
2 2 2 4
A B
— -j- - ; call it q (quarteroon) , being i negro blood.
4 2
" Let the third crossing be of q and C ; their offspring will be
-H = -4- h-4- -; call this e (eighth), who, having
22 8842
MULATTOES; THE OFFSPRING OF CRIMES, 221
less than J of a pure negro blood, — to wit, \ only, — is no
longer a mulatto, so that a third cross clears the blood.
*« From these elements, let us examine their compounds. For
h q a
example, let Ji and q cohabit ; their issue will be - -|- - = - -f-
Z ^ ^
__i___i -|-_:=z --[-— +-, wherem we find § of a, or
negro blood.
he a A
♦* Let 7i ande cohabit: their issue will be - -] =r--^- -f-
2 2 4 4
a A B.c 5^5A,B,c , .5
__L„J 4-_iz= h— -1 A » wherem — a makes
16 ^ 16 8 ^ 4 16 ' 16 8 4 16
still a mulatto.
"Let q and e cohabit; the half of the blood of each will be
2^2 8^8^4^16^16^8'4 16' 16
3"r> f^ O
_ -J , wherein — of a is no longer a mulatto ; and thus may
8 4 16
every compound be noted and summed, the sum of the fractions
composing the blood of the issue being always equal to unit. It
is understood in natural history that a fourth cross of one race of
animals with another gives an issue equivalent for all sensible
purposes to the original blood. Thus a Merino ram being crossed,
first with a country ewe, second with his daughter, third with his
grand-daughter, and fourth with his great-grand-daughter, the last
1 ^ ^
issue is deemed pure Merino, having in fact but — of the country
blood. Our canon considers two crosses with the pure white, and
a third with any degree of mixture, however small, as clearing
the issue of the negro blood." — Jefferson's WorJcs, Vol. VL, page
436. Letter to Francis C. Gray, March 4, 1815.
'* Amalgamation in races is more than a revolution in govern-
ment. It is an attempt to make a fundamental change in the
laws of nature, and, by blending different species of the human
race, create a hybrid nation. This will prove to be an impossi-
bility. The red, white, and black races have mingled very freely
19*
222 MULATTOES ; THE OFFSPRING OF CRIMES.
on this continent, but the hybrids gradually wear out, while the
old stock preserves its original type. The French, from the in-
fancy of discovery on this continent, intermarried with the Indian
tribes. But where is the French tribe of Indians to be found ?
They made the same experiment with the blacks in St. Domingo,
and a mongrel race appeared, for a time, of various tints, but it
is gradually vanishing. So the old Spanish blood that mixed with
that of the Indians in Spanish America has almost run out, and
Indians and Spaniards are as incongruous with each other as in
the beginning, and the fatal result of this attempted amalgama-
tion is shown in the degradation of both races, and in the insta-
bility of their governments. If the history of the world, and the
present aspect of both hemispheres, did not make manifest the
absurdity of the proposed system of mixing the black and white
races in the management of a common government, and blending
the two colors to make a third, or, rather, a piebald people of
all colors, the repugnance of caste which has grown up in this
country on the part of the white freeman to the black man, — con-
trasted by his servile condition, from his first appearance among
us, as strongly as by his ebony skin and curled hair, — certainly
shows that nothing short of insanity could hope to reconcile the
dominant, and, I might say, the domineering race, to such a con-
junction."— Montgomery Blair. Speech at Concord^ N. H., June
17, 1863.
The following item, recently published in the newspapers,
showing a determination on the part of the people of Cali-
fornia to prevent, by law, the amalgamation of the white and
black races, is, it is believed, suggestive of what ought to
be done immediately by the people of that and every other
State in the Union : —
** A bill introduced into the lower House of the California Leg-
islature on the 30th of January, to prevent the amalgamation of
different races of men, provides that any white person who shall
be convicted of marrying or otherwise cohabiting with a negro,
mulatto, Chinese, or Indian, shall be punished by fine and impris-
onment, or both ; and that the fact that a person beds, boards.
ALBIXOS^ ETC. 223
cohabits, or intermames with an individual of any of said races,
shall be prima facit evidence that such a person is not a white
citizen, and shall subject him to all constitutional disabilities im-
posed on persons of color."
It is said that there is not a life-insurance company in all
the world that will take a risk on the life of any mulatto.
Why ? Because common sense and common experience alike
teach that the mulatto is the offspring of a crime against
nature ; that he is always, even from his earliest infancy^,
predisposed to disease ; that he seldom recovers when once
overtaken by severe sickness ; that he usually falls an easy
victim to epidemics ; and that he is (speaking briefly and
to the point) a nature-abhorred and short-lived monstrosity ;
and yet mulattoes and negroes are the sort of creatures with
whom Radical politicians would populate American States !
CHAPTER XXXII.
albinos; white negroes and other creatures of super-
natural WHITENESS.
*' I WILL now add a short account of an anomaly of nature, tak-
ing place sometimes in the race of negroes brought from Africa,
who, though black themselves, have, in rare instances, white
children, called albinos. I have known four of these myself, and
have faithful accounts of three others. The circumstances in
which all the individuals agree are these : They are of a pallid
cadaverous white, untinged with red, without any colored spots or
seams ; their hair of the same kind of white, short, coarse, and
curled as is that of the negro ; all of them well formed, strong,
healthy, perfect in then* senses, except that of sight, and born of
224 ALBINOS, ETC,
parents who had no mixture of white blood. Three of these al-
binos were sisters, having two other full sisters, who were black.
The youngest of the three was killed by liglitning, at twelve years
of age. The eldest died at about twenty-seven years of age, in
child-bed, with her second child. The middle one is now alive, in
health, and has issue, as the eldest had, by a black man, which
issue was black. They are uncommonly shrewd, quick in their
apprehensions and in reply. Their eyes are in a perpetual tremu-
lous vibration, very weak, and much affected by the sun ; but they
see much better in the night than we do. They are the prop-
erty of Colonel Skipwith, of Cumberland. The fourth is a negro
woman, whose parents came from Guinea, and had three other
children, who were of their own color. She is freckled, and her
eyesight so weak that she is obliged to wear a bonnet in the sum-
mer; but it is better in the night than day. She had an albino
child, by a black man. It died at the age of a few weeks. These
were the property of Colonel Carter, of Albermarle. A sixth in-
stance is a woman, the property of a Mr. Butler, near Petersburg.
She is stout and robust, has issue a daughter, jet-black, by a black
man. I am not informed as to her eyesight. The seventh in-
stance is of a male belonging to a Mr. Lee, of Cumberland. His
eyes are tremulous and weak. lie is tall of stature, and now ad-
vanced in years. Ho is the only male of the albinos which have
come within my information. Whatever be the cause of the dis-
ease in the skin, or in the coloring matter, which produces this
change, it seems more incident to the female than male sex. To
these I may add the mention of a negro man within my own
knowledge, born black, and of black parents ; on whose chin,
when a boy, a M^iite spot appeared. This continued to increase
till he became a man, by which time it had extended over his
chin, lips, one cheek, the under jaw, and neck on that side. It is
of the albino white, without any mixture of red, and has for sev-
eral years been stationary. He is robust and healthy, and the
change of color was not accompanied with any sensible disease
either general or topical." — Jeffersoii's Works, Vol. VIII. , page
318.
*' The name albino was originally applied by the Portuguese to
the white negroes they met with on the coast of Africa. With
ALBINOS, ETC. 225
the features of the negro and the peculiar woolly form of the hair,
the color of the skin was white like pearl, and the hair resembled
that of the whitest horse. The eye, instead of the jet-black hue,
which seems given to the inhabitants of the tropics to enable them
to bear the intense glare of the sun, was like that of the white
rabbit and ferret, and like this better suited for use in the moon-
light, and in places sheltered from the light of day. From this
inability to bear the light, which, however, is said to be much ex-
aggerated, LinnEeus called the albinos nocturnal men. They
generally lack the strength of other men ; and a peculiar harsh-
ness of the skin, such as is noticed in cases of leprosy, would seem
to indicate that the phenomenon might result from a diseased or-
ganization. Yet the albinos suffer from no different complaints
from other persons. As in their physical development, they are
correspondingly deficient in their mental capacity. In the same
family several children are sometimes born albinos. They are
most generally of the male sex. . . . It is not understood to
what ultimate cause the phenomenon is to be attributed. It is
observed in all climates, and among all races of men. Indeed, it
is not limited to man ; for individuals possessing the same pecu-
liarities are found among a great variety of the warm-blooded
animals, and, according to Geoffrey St. Hilaire, in fishes and some
species of molluscous animals as well. Examples are not very
rare among the feathered tribe, the effect being seen in the color
of the plumage, as in other animals in that of the hair. The
white crow and the white blackbird are albinos. Albino mice are
not very uncommon. Blumenbach notices the feebleness of their
eyes, and their disposition to avoid the light, by their closing their
eyelids even in the twilight. The white elephants of India are
venerated by the natives, who believe them to be animated with
the souls of their ancient kings. In the human race, perhaps, more
albinos are to be found among the negroes than among any other
people; but this may be owing to the peculiarities being with
them more prominent, and attracting more attention. One of the
kings of the Ashantees is said to have had particular regard for
these people, and collected around him about one hundred of
them. According to Humboldt, albinos are more common among
nations of dark skin, and inhabiting hot climates. In the copper-
colored races they are more rare, and still more so among the
whites." — Neio American Cydopcedia, Vol. J., ^^ar/e 284.
226 ALBINOS^ ETC,
" Albinos may be found in almost every community in Southern
Guinea. Everywhere they are regarded as somewhat sacred, and
their persons are considered inviolable. On no condition what-
ever would a man strike one of them. Generally they are very
mild ; and I have never heard of their taking advantage of their
acknowledged inviolability. In features they are not unlike the
rest of their race, but their complexion is very nearly a pure
white, their hair of the ordinary texture, but of a cream color,
and their eyes are gray, and always in motion." — Wilson^ s Africa,
page 311.
"At the mouth of the Brass River, when an albino girl is sacri-
ficed, the officiator at this ceremony is an old man named Onteroo.
He has an enormous tuberosity on the back of his head ; but wheth-
er his divinity is believed to exist in this or not, my informant
cannot say. Several canoes accompany him and the victim, who,
it seems, is quite satisfied with her fate, as she is indocti-inated
with the idea that her future destiny is to be married to a white
man. As soon as they reach the bar, the canoes are all turned
with their heads homewards ; the word is given, and the girl is
thrown into the water, with a weight round her neck to prevent
her floating, thus obviating the possibility of an escape." — Ten
Years'' Wanderings among the Ethiopians, by Thomas J. Hutchinson,
F. B. a. s.
*' A curious superstition is connected with Parrot Island, and is
observed with religious punctuality by the natives of Old Kalabar,
on the occasion of need arising from its performance. Whenever
a scarcity of European trading ships exists, or is apprehended,
the Duketown authorities are accustomed to take an albino child
of their own race, and offer it up as a sacrifice, at Parrot Island,
to the God of the white man." — Hutchinson'' s Western Africa,
page 112.
PRE-EMINENCE OF THE WHITE RACES, 227
CHAPTER XXXIII.
INCREASING PRE-EMINENCE AND PREDOMINANCE OF THE
WHITE RACES.
** The Caucasian race, to which we belong, is distinguished by
the beauty of the oval formed by his head, varying in complexion
and the color of the hair. To this variety, the most highly civil-
ized nations, and those which have generally held all others in
subjection, are indebted for their origin. . . . The race from
which we are descended has been called Caucasian, because tra-
dition and the filiation of nations seem to refer its origin to that
group of mountains situated between the Casj^ian and Black Seas,
whence, as from a centre, it has been extended like the radii of a
circle. Various nations in the vicinity of Caucasus, the Georgians
and Circassians, are still considered the handsomest on earth." —
Cuvier''s Animal Kingdom, page 50.
*' Let us raise ourselves higher still, and pass into the province
of man himself. . . . The white race is distinguished above
them all ; the most jDcrfect t3"pe of humanit}" ; the race best en-
dowed with the gifts of intelligence, and with the profound moral
and reliofious sentiment that brino^s man near to Him of whom he
is the earthly image. To this race belong, without exception, all
the nations of high civilization, the truly historical nations ; tkis
still represents the highest degree of progress attained by man-
kind," — Arnold Guyot. Earth and Man, page 228.
** Let us take the head of a Caucasian. What strikes us imme-
diately is the regularity of the features, the grace of the lines, the
perfect harmony of all the figure. The head is oval ; no part is
too prominent beyond the others ; nothing salient nor angular
disturbs the softness of the lines that round it. The face is di-
vided into three equal parts by the line of the eyes and that of the
mouth. The eyes are large, well cut, not too near the nose nor
too far from it ; their axis is placed on a single straight line, at
228 PRE-EMINENCE OF THE WHITE RACES.
right angles with the line of the nose. The facial angle is ninety
degrees. The stature is tall, lithe, well proportioned ; the shoul-
ders neither too broad nor too narrow. The length of the ex-
tended arms is equal to the whole height of the body; in one
word, all the proportions reveal the perfect harmony which is the
essence of beauty. Such is the type of the white race, — the
Caucasian, as it has been agreed to call it, —the most pure, the
most perfect type of humanity." — Arnold Guyot. Earth and
Man, page 255.
" Asia has yielded to Europe the sceptre of civilization for two
thousand years. At the present day, Europe is still unquestion-
ably the first of the civilizing continents. Nowhere on tlie sur-
face of our planet has the mind of man risen to a sublimer height ;
nowhere has man known so well how to subdue nature, and to
make her the instrument of intelligence. The nations of Europe
represent not only the highest intellectual growth which the human
race has attained at any epoch, but they rule already over nearly
every part of the globe, and are preparing to push their conquests
further still." — Arnold Guyot. Earth and Man, page 31.
*• The establishment of European civilization in the New World,
which has more than doubled the territorial extent of the culti-
vated nations, prepares an epoch of aggrandizement more rapid
still. The two Americas, situated between the other four conti-
nents, seem destined to become, in their turn, a new centre of
action, or a point of support for the establishment of easy and
more rapid relations with all the nations of the world, and
the irresistible logic of facts passing under our eyes compels U3
to believe that, during the epoch which is preparing, the boun-
daries of the domain of the civilized world can only be those of
the globe itself." — Arnold Guyot. Earth and Man, page 328.
"We belong to the Anglican race, which carries Anglican
principles and liberty over the globe, because, wherever it
moves, liberal institutions and a common law full of manly rights
and instinct with the principle of an expansive life, accompany it."
PBE-EMINENCE OF THE WHITE RACES. 229
We belong to that race whoso obvious task it is, among other
proud and sacred tasks, to rear and spread civil liberty over vast
regions in every part of the earth, on continent and isle. We
belong to that tribe which alone has the word Self-Government."
— Francis Lieber. Civil Liberty and Self- Government, page 21.
*• There are many nations and tribes which have already dis-
appeared from the earth, because they did not resist the power of
move powerful nations, or were unable to become powerful them-
selves. We do not grieve over the fall of the Celts, because we
ourselves destroyed them. We look on with tranquillity as the
aboriginal people of America decay and pass away, while our own
race is the sole cause of their destruction." — Burmeister's Black
Man, page 13.
"The Negro or African, with his black skin, woolly hair, and
compressed, elongated skull ; the Mongolian of Eastern Asia and
America, with his olive complexion, broad and all but beardless
face, oblique eyes, and square skull ; and the Caucasian of West-
em Asia and Europe, with his fair skin and face, full brow, and
rounded skull; such, as every school-boy knows, are the three
great types or varieties into which naturalists have divided the in-
habitants of our planet. Accepting this rough initial conception
of a world peopled everywhere, more or less completely, with
these three varieties of human beings or their combinations, the
historian is able, in virtue of it, to announce one important fact at
the very outset, to wit, that, up to the present moment, the des-
tinies of the species appear to have been carried forward almost
exclusively by its Caucasian variety." — North British Review,
August, 1819.
♦'We now come to the typical Caucasian family, which em-
braces the greatest cerebral development in width and depth,
combined with the highest form of beauty, strength, and power of
endurance, coupled with a nervous system less swayed by impulse.
In this group is found tlie most perfect notions of the ideal beauti-
ful, of relative proportion in art and in literature, of logic and of
20
230 PRE-EMINENCE OF THE WHITE RACES,
the mathematical sciences in general. ... It is here that
female beauty is possessed of the highest human loveliness, grace,
and delicacy ; and the manly character attains the most majestic
and venerable aspect." — Hamilton Smith's Natural History of the
Human Species, page 401.
** The Caucasian form of man combines, above the rest, strength
of limb with activity of motion, enabling it to endure the great-
est vicissitudes of temperature in all climates ; to emigrate, colo-
nize, and multiply in them, with the sole exception of the positive
extremes. His longevity is more generally protracted, even in
the midst of the enervating habits of high civilization ; his solid
fibre gives a reasoned self-possession and daring in vicissitudes,
arising from the passions, from accident or from the elements 5
and his reflective powers find expedients to brave danger with
self-possession and impunity. The moral and intellectual charac-
ter we find to be in unison with his structure ; the reasoning pow-
ers outstripping the mere process of comparing sensations, and
showing, in volition, more elevated thought, more reasoning, jus-
tice, and humanity ; he alone of all the races of mankind has pro-
duced examples of free and popular institutions, and his physical
characteristics have maintained them in social life. By means of
his logical intellect, he has arrived at ideas requisite for the ac-
quisition of abstract truths ; resorting to actual experiment, he
fixed bases whereon to build demonstrable inferences, when the
positive facts are not otherwise shown ; he invented simple arbi-
trary characters to represent words and musical sounds ; and a
few signs, which, nevertheless, denote, in their relative positions,
all the possible combinations of numbers and quantity ; he has
measured time and distance, making the sidereal bodies unerring
guides to mark locality and give nautical direction ; he has ascend-
ed to the skies, descended into the deep, and mastered the powers
of lightning. By mechanical researches, the bearded man has as-
suaged human toil, multiplied the results of industry, and created
a velocity of locomotion superior to the flight of birds; by his
chemical discoveries, he has modified bodily pain, and produced
numberless discoveries useful in medicine, in arts, and manufac-
tures. He has founded a sound and connected system of the sci-
ences in general, and acquired a critical literature; while, for
PRE-EMINENCE OF THE WHITE EACES. 231
more than three thousand years, he has been the principal pos-
sessor of all human knowledge and the asserter of fixed laws.
He has instituted all the great religious systems in the world, and
to his stock has been vouchsafed the glory and the conditions of
revelation. The Caucasian type alone continues in rapid devel-
opment, covering with nations every congenial latitude, and por-
tending at no distant era to bear rule in every region, if not by
physical superiority, at least by that dominion, which religion,
science, and enterprise confer." — Hamilton Smith's Natural His-
tory of the Human Species, page 371.
'* The Saxon or Teutonic man is a lover of liberty. His is the
only race that does love it, and has been able to acquire and keep
it. He loves instinctively personal liberty, power over himself,
freedom from the will of another. He loves also political liberty ;
that is to say, a share of political power, so that he may consent
to any control to which he does submit, and form himself a part
of the government he obevs. To such a man slavery in the ab-
stract is revolting ; but his love of liberty is, in part, love of
power. He sympathizes, therefore, with the oppressed, provided
he be not the oj^pressor, and would gladly break all chains of
bondage, except those which he imposes. The characteristics of
the Saxon, his practical ability and faculty for abstract thought;
his passion for conquest and power, and his love of liberty, truth,
and justice, whilst they make him a colonizer and a ruler, also
render his rule beneficent. Churches, charities, law, order, indus-
try, wealth, arts, and letters, follow his footsteps. . . . The
Saxon loves power; his is the conquering, colonizing race.
Wherever he goes, — to India, to China, to Australia, or America,
— he subdues and governs the 'weaker and lower races." — Fish-
er''s Laws of Race, page 16.
♦
''No delusion has so little foundation as that assumed law of
climate which would confine the white races to the latitude of the
free States of this Union. But when it is insisted upon in refer-
ence to our own country, where the facts which overthrow it are
familiar to everybody, it is not wonderful that it is kept uj) in
reference to countries of which we know less. When it is denied
232 PRE-EMINENCE OF THE WHITE RACES.
that the Southern States can be occupied by anybody l3ut negroes,
two-thirds of their inhabitants being actually whites, and the in-
crease of the whites being greater than that of the blacks, what
absurdities may not be maintained?" — Westoii's Progress of
Slavery, page 159.
** Humboldt observes that the Caucasian races are distinguished
by their flexibility of organization in respect to climate ; and of
this we have a remarkable instance in the French, who have long
occuj^ied the lower Mississippi and the most northerly of the Can-
adas, and without any loss of their original vigor in either of those
widely separated latitudes. The descendants of that race, ex-
pelled from Acadia, suffered a dispersion equally wide, being
found in the Carolinas, on the Gulf of Mexico, and on the ui)per
St. John in the latitude of Quebec. If there are malarious re-
gions at the South, on the coasts of the Atlantic and the Gulf of
Mexico, they are of limited extent, and, as a whole, the white race
exhibits as much physical vigor at the South as at the North, and,
in the opinion of many observers, decidedly more." — Weston^s
Progress of Slavery, page 160.
** I believe that the greatness or abjectness of every people is
due primarily, if not solely, to one cause, — race. Indeed seeing,
as it appears to me, that the manifestation of the immutable qual-
ities of race is the one great fact of history ; that the annals of the
world teach us that the power of race is the one master and pos-
itive force, the operation of which can be calculated upon as a
certainty ; that it is the primal law of humanity ; that it is work-
ing as irresistibly and with action as positive and simple as it
worked thousands of years ago ; that at this very day it is break-
ing the bonds of treaties and destroying kingdoms to make nations,
— to deny its force, or to rate it at less than paramount importance,
seems to me like calculating eclipses or building houses with like
disrespect to the force and law of gravitation." — Richard Grant
Willie. Letter to the London Spectator, 1865.
'♦Most distinctly do I deny that this country is great only be-
PRE-EMINENCE OF THE WHITE HACES, 233
cause it is ' spacious in the possession of dirt ; ' because, like Rus-
sia, it is vast, or even because, like France, it is rich and warlike.
Its real greatness, I believe, with a belief having the clearness of
conviction and the earnestness of fiiith, has its sole origin in the
qualities of the race by which the land was settled and reclaimed,
and by which its government and its society were framed." —
Richard Grant White. Letter to the London Spectator, 1865.
** It is the strictly white races that are bearing onward the flam-
beau of civilization, as displayed in the Germanic families alone."
— Josiah Clark Kott. Types of Mankind, page 405.
" History, tradition, monuments, osteological remains, every
literary record and scientific induction, all show that races have
occupied substantially the same zones or provinces from time im-
memorial. Since the discovery of the mariner's compass, mankind
have been more disturbed in their primitive seats ; and, with the
increasing facilities of communication by land and sea, it is im-
possible to predict what changes coming ages may bring forth.
The Caucasian races, which have always been the representatives
of civihzation, are those alone that have extended over and colo-
nized all parts of the globe ; and much of this is the work of the
last three hundred years. The Creator has implanted in this
group of races an instinct that, in spite of themselves, drives them
through all difficulties to carry out their great mission of civilizing
the earth. It is not reason or philanthropy which urges them on,
but it is destiny. AYhen we see great divisions of the human fam-
ily increasing in numbers, spreading in all directions, encroaching
by degrees upon all other races wherever they can live and pros-
per, and gradually supplanting inferior types, is it not reasonable
to conclude that they are fulfilling a law of nature." — Josiah Clark
Nott. Types of Mankind, page 11.
'* No two distinctly marked races can dwell together on equal
terms. Some races, moreover, appear destined to live and pros-
per for a time, until the destroying race comes which is to exter-
minate and supplant them. Observe how the aborigines of Amer-
20*
234 PRE-EMINENCE OF THE WHITE HACES.
ica are fading away before the exotic races of Europe. Those
groups of races heretofore comprehended under the generic term
Caucasian, have in all ages been the rulers ; and it requires no
prophetic eye to see that they are destined eventually to conquer
and hold every foot of the globe where climate does not interpose
an impenetrable barrier. No philanthropy, no legislation, no
missionary labors, can change this law ; it is written in man^s na-
ture by the hand of his Creator.*' — Josiah Clark Nott. Types of
Mankind, page 79.
*'When we are free from this plague-spot of slavery, — the
curse to our industry, our education, our politics, and our relig-
ion, — we shall increase more rapidly in number, and still more
abundantly be rich. Tlie South will be as the North, — active,
intelligent, — Virginia rich as New York, the Carolinas as active
as Massachusetts. Then by peaceful purchase, the Anglo-Saxon
may acquire the rest of this North American continent. The
Spaniards will make nothing of it. Nay, we may honorably go
further south, and possess the Atlantic and Pacific slopes of the
Northern continent, extending the area of freedom at every step.
We may carry thither the Anglo-Saxon vigor and enterprise, the
old love of liberty, the love also of law ; the best institutions of
the present age, — ecclesiastical, political, social, domestic. Then
what a nation we shall one day become ! America, the mother of
a thousand Anglo-Saxon States, tropical and temperate, on both
sides of the equator, may behold the Mississippi and the Amazon
uniting their waters, the drainage of two vast continents, in the
Mediterranean of the Western World ; may count her children at
last by hundreds of millions, — and among them all behold no
tyrant and no slave ! " — Theodore Parker. Speech at New York,
May 12, 1854.
**The Caucasian differs from all other races; he is humane, he
is civilized, and progresses. He conquers with his head as well
as with his hand. It is intellect, after all, that conquers, — not
the streno;th of a man's arm. The Caucasian has been often mas-
ter of the other races, — never their slave. He has carried his
religion to other races, but never taken theirs. In history all re-
PBE-EMINENCE OF THE WHITE It ACES, 235
ligions are of Caucasian origin. All the great limited forms of
monarchies are Caucasian. Republics are Caucasian. All the
great sciences are of Caucasian origin ; all inventions are Cauca-
sian ; literature and romance come of the same stock ; all the great
poets are of Caucasian origin ; Moses, Luther, Jesus Christ, Zo-
roaster, Buddha, Pythagoras, were Caucasian. No other race can
bring up to memory such celebrated names as the Caucasian race.
The Chinese philosopher, Confucius, is an exception to the rule.
To the Caucasian race belong the Arabian, Persian, Hebrew, Egyp-
tian ; and all the European nations are descendants of the Cau-
casian race." — Theodore Parker. Quoted in Types of Mankind,
page 462.
*• If the ancestors of the present three millions of slaves had
never been brought here, — if their descendants had never been
propagated here, for the supposed value of their services, their
pla,ces would have been supplied by white laborers, by men of
the Caucasian race, — by freemen. Instead of the three millions
slaves, of all colors, we should doubtless now have at least three
million white, free-born citizens, adding to the real prosperity of
the country, and to the power of the republic. If the South had
not had slaves to do their work for them, they would have become
ingenious and inventive, like the North, and would have enlisted
the vast forces of nature in their service, — wind and fire and
water and steam and lightning, the mighty energies of gravita-
tion and the subtle forces of chemistry." — Horace Mann. House
of Representatives, February 23, 1849.
*' It has been said that whosoever would see the Eastern world
before it turns into a Western world must make his visit soon, be-
cause steamboats and omnibuses, commerce, and all the arts of
Europe, are extending themselves from Egypt to Suez, from Suez
to the Indian Seas, and from the Indian Seas all over the explored
reo-ions of the still farther East. ... I onlv can see that on
this continent all is to be Anglo-American from Pymouth Rock to
Pacific Sea, from the North Pole to California. That is certain;
and in the Eastern world, I only see that you can hardly place a
finger on the map of the world and be an inch from an English
236 PRE-EMINENCE OF THE WHITE RACES.
settlement. If there be anything in the supremacy of races, the
experiment now in progress will develop it. If there be any
truth in the idea that those who issued from the great Caucasian
fountain, and spread over Europe, are to react on India and on
Asia, and to act on the whole Western world, it may not be for us,
nor our children, nor our grandchildren to see it, but it will be
for our descendants of some generation to see the extent of that
progress and dominion of the favored races. For myself, I be-
lieve there is no limit fit to be assigned to it by the human mind,
because I find at work everywhere, on both sides of the Atlantic,
under various forms and degrees of restriction on the one hand,
and under various degrees of motive and stimulus on the other
hand, in these branches of a common race, the great principle of
the freedom of human thought, and the respectability of individual
character." — Webster'' s Works, Vol. //.,^a^e214.
APPENDIX I.
RADICALISM IN THE SOUTH:
ITS BLACK AND BLIGHTING SWAY.
BY HINTON ROWAN HELPER,
Author of" The Impending Crisis of the South."
AsHEViLLE, North Carolina, November 11, 1867.
To the Editors of the National Intelligencer :
In the accompanying communication, addressed *'To the Good
People of the Old Free States," it is not at all unlikely that I have
said some things to which both you and many of your readers may
take exception. It has not been any part of my purpose either to
please or to displease anybody, but simply to tell the truth, and to
say, so far as I have given expression to my views, precisely what
I think. If, in your opinion, the publication of the article w^ould
promote, even in part only, the object at which I have aimed, —
namely, the imparting to the pul)lic mind of the North a more
accurate and adequate knowledge of the actual and prospective
condition of things at the South, under the black and blio'hting
sway of Radicalism, — you may, if you please, publish it in the
columns of the " Intelligencer. ""^ Deeply impressed with the impor-
tance, at all times, of earnest and honest appeals to men's reason,
rather than to their passions or their prejudices, I have purposely
delayed writing what I have here written until after the partial
sul)sidence of the general excitement and confusion which have
but so recently attended the great elections in many of the whiter
and (therefore) better parts of our common country.
H. R. H.
To fJie Good People of the Old Free States .•
Mi^re than ten years ago, as many of you will recollect, I, a Carolinian, made a
special appeal to vour enlightened and patriotic judgments in behalf of a large
majority of the white people of the Southern States, — tlie non-slaveholdu g whites,
— who.'wliether thev knew it or not, were greatly oppressed and impoverished by
the nnlortunate exi^tence among us of negroes and negro shivery. Tlie generous
hearing wliich vou then accorded to me inspires me with contidence that you are
again prepared'to listen to anv protest, or complaint, or other statement from me,
that lias for its basis truth and justice. Thus surmising, I respectfully request tliat
you will favor me with vour attention while I explain, or while I endeavor to
explain, that the great mass of the poor whites here, in whose behalf I have
especially and persistently written, are still enthralled; and that, within the last
few years, the condition of their thraldom has been so aggravated, that it is now
in constant process of becoming worse and worse, with the further and appalhug
danger, under Radical misrule, of being rendered unparalleled and perpetual. _
Before entering directly into this subject, however, permit me to indulge in a
few general but pertinent reflections. Although chiefly for the sake of the whites,
237
238 APPENDIX.
yet it was not alone for their sakes that I was, and am, and always will be, hostile
tc» slavery. I believed, many years since, as I believe now, that there is in slavery
itself, and more especially in negro slavery, a moral and social guilt of no less
revolting magnitude than the political blunders which are also a part of its base
oflspring. I believed then, and I believed rigiitly, I think, that the negroes ought
to be freed, and then speedily colonized somewhere beyond the present limits of
the United .states. I do not believe, and never did believe, that the two races —
the white and the black — widely and irreconcilably different as they are in their
natures, ought ever to inhabit the same country. Living in close association,
living together beneath tlie same roof, living in juxtaposition within the acknowl-
edged limits of any hamlet, village, town, or city, or even within the boundaries
of any farm or plantation, as they did live under the system of slavery, and as they
still live nnderthe condition of freedom, is, as I solemnly believe (particularly as
it affects the whites), a gross shame, a shocking indecency, and a glaring crime.
I believe that the whole negro race is a weak and worthless race, an eifete and
time-worn race, which, like the Indian race, is no longer fit, if ever tit foi' any
useful trust or tenantcy in this world; and I believe, fiirtlier, that it is the will oif
Heaven that all these people, and many others of similar color and character,
sliould at once be put in position to be let alone; and that, if duly colonized,
properly provided for, and then prudently and suitably let alone. Providence will
soon cut them off, root and branch, and thus happily rid tlie earth of at least the
bulk of the superannuated and inutile organisms Avhich so unpropitiously encumber
it in the current epoch.
While one of tlie inevitable effects of enduring any manner of association or
relation between the two races is the partial elevation of the blacks, the other is
only the too positive and irremediable degradation of the whites. The influence
of the white on the black is always for good to the black at the expense of the
white; the influence of the black on the white is always bad for the white; and
the wliite is again, and invariably, tlie victim. In anything and in everything
•wherein the wliite people of tlie .South are worse than tlie people of the Nortli,and
in whatever mental, moral, or material interest we of tiie 8outh are less advanced
than you of the North, the delinquencies or thedeflciencies, as the case may be, are
alone attributable to theprolitless and pernicious presence of the negroes among us.
In quality of i)0})ulation, the great difference Ix^tween the Nortli and the .South
is simply this : while we here are cursed with the black imps of Africa, you there
are blessed with the white genii of Europe. Wliat I would do to bring the South
up to an honorable and ever-friendly equality with the North (and what must be
done sooner or later, or the object thus aimed at will never be accomplished), is to
prepare the wav, on the one hand, for the egress of all our imps of darkness and
of death, and, on the other hand, to open wide the way for the ingress of your
superabundant genii of life and of light. I contend, tlich, that, in order to insure
the true safety and success of the South, in order to maintain, in peri)etuity, the
integrity of our national Union, and in order to guarantee uninterrupted peace and
prospcritv thronirhout tlie greater and better j^art of this vast continent, we must,
with' as little delav as possible, colonize t'le negroes in Mexico, or elsewhere out
of our own country ; or, as a last but temixirary method of relief from their baneful
existence among us, we must remove them all, much the same as we have hitherto
removed certain tribes of Indians, into one or more of the South-bordering States
or Territories of the United States.
The necessity for the removal and colonization of the negroes was as plain to me
ten years ago as it is to-day; but I foresaw then, and I see now, that there could
be no general nor effectual demand raised for the displacement of the blacks on
the one hand, and for the tilling up of the South by white people from the North
and from Europe on the other, until after slavery, tlie great nursery and stronghold
of negroes, should flrst be abolished. Equally did I foresee then, and I perceive
now, that, in a state of freedom and self-dependence, one of two fatal dilemmas
would certainly befall the negro; but neither of which dilempias was ever likely
to befall him so long as he had the benelit of guides and protectors in the persons
of a few unfortunate white men, his masters, who, however, as is well known,
guided and protected him as an easy and questionable method of procuring their
own bread and butter; and this, too, thougii not always wilfully, to the serious, if
not irreparable, detriment of the great majority of their own while fellow-citizens.
To me it was plain then, and it is plain now, that if the negro, in a condition of
political equalitv, is left here, he will, from the fated and complicated causes of
neglect and hostility on the part of the whites, gradually die out and disappear;
but this not without entailing on the whites a multiplicity of long-lasting injuries
and calamities meanwhile. If colonized, whether within or without the United
Stares, and after a fair but final amount of advice and assistance, put entirely upon
Ms own resources, — as, indeed, it is but right and proper that he should have been
, APPENDIX, 239
put long ago, — his doom, it is also plain, would be equally inevitable : it would only
be, as I conscientiously believe, anotlier use of the whites as instruments to
modify, or to seemingly modify, the indestructible plan of Providence for extermi-
naling the negro.
I admit, and, at the same time, insist upon it, that men, everywhere and at all
times, should be exceedingly careful how they attemi)t to interpret any will or
purpose of Heaven. Further, 1 will say that I do not believe that any mere man,
like any one of you, or like myself, ever did, or ever will, truly interpret or explain
the exact purpose of God in reference to anything whatsoever, except only and
possibly through conjecture. It is true, that in years gone by the " >i"ew York
Tribune " and several other gazettes of less ability and weight, seriously proclaimed
me a prophet; but I deny the soft impeachment, and respectfully protest against
that sort of infringement and libel on the preeminent prerogatives of the ancient
Hebrews. Tiie exercise of common sense is the only prophecy with which 1 have
ever yet been gifted ; and beyond that, in matters of seership, 1 never expect to be
gifted. In this respect, any and every other rational white man may be, and ought
to be, equally gifted ; if not so gifted, it is because he is a mere idler ; and if so, he
is, for that reason, highly reprehensible for not improving and disciplining the
mind of whatever bent or capacity which a mighty and merciful God has been
pleased to create within him. If, then, we may seek to comprehend and interpret
the will of God touching any one or more of the several races of mankind, I hesi-
tate not to say that, in my humble judgment, the efforts which the Radical and
other blind and fanatical friends of the negro are now making for his retention
and equality among us are directly in conflict with the Divine purpo.^e, and are,
therefore, fragrantly wrong and impiously wicked. To what end, or for what pur-
pose, was the great Columbus and his white-faced and Heaven-guided successors
in maritime discovery safely wafted to this western world but to redeem it from
the fruitless occupancy ancf from the wild and weird desecration of the savage
Indian ? AVhy was Moses and his compatriots and kinsman, in their bloody ag-
gressions against the Canaanites, not only permitted, but encouraged, and com-
manded, to •• leave alive none that breatheth,"if it were not tliat Jehovah had
ceased to have a use for those who had already accomplisht d the ends for which
they liad been created ? If we see, or if we think we see, a purpose on the part ot
the Deity to cut olf all the Canaanites ot old, on the one hand, and all tlie Indian
tribes of the three great Americas and their adjacent islands of modern times, on
the other, it is, I contend, quite as easy for us to perceive His desire and purpose
to use us, whether we be willing or not, as his swift avengers against the negroes,
both in America and in Africa, — tirst here and then there ; for even before we get
America filled up with the white races, we shall need Africa as a new continent
for the enterprise and habitation of the redundant populations of Europe and of
other portions of tiie white world; and then the negroes, and all the other black
and bicolored weaklings, whether in Africa or elsewhere, must stand aside, or be
laid low, and give undisputed and permanent place to their white superiors. In
this way, and in this way only, can this great worlil of ours ever be made a world
given to the worship of the one only living and true God ; and in no other way
may we ever reasonably expect to lind the mountains and the valleys, the hill-tops
and the dales, the ghides and the glens, auspiciously dotted over with schools and
with colleges, with libraries and with churches, with galleries and with museums.
But from tliis cursory reference to the Avorld at large, both as to its realities
and its possibilities, let us come back for a little while to North Carolina, and to the
other .Southern States. And just here I want to show how, under a very criminal
public policy of the past, and under a most atrocious public policy of the present,
a large majority of tiie white people of the >outh have been, and are still, treated
with less consideration, with less favor, and with less justice, than if they were
negroes. In other words, astounding as the statement may appear, it is neverthe
less true — demonstrably true — that tiie negroes here, very many of them at least,
have hitherto been ailorded opportunities, for both an education and for an
easy and comfortable livelihood, far superior to the opportunities which were gen-
erally enjoyed by the poorer classes of white people I A full and just understand-
ing of this crueland flagitious discrimination in favor of the blacks as against tlu
whites, in favor of the incompetent as against the competent, in favor of the vile
as against the virtuous, should make the blood of every decent and respectable
white man, between Maine and Texas, and between Florida and Oregon, literally
boil with indignation; and there sliould be no cessation of the quick and forcible
ebullition of his vital fluid, until, to say the least, the worthy whites of the South
are at last allowed a fair and equal chance with the unworthy blacks. But it ia
just this fair and equal chance which the slaveholders, in the time of slavery, al-
ways denied to the great majority of Southern whites ; and it is precisely thi9
fair and equal chance which is now meanly and treacherously, and with increased
240
APPEXDIX.
hardsliips, denied them now by tliose wanton and reckless dcmajifognos who con-
stitute II usurpatory and tyiaiuiical nuijority of the present Conj^ress.
Let mo exphiin: As is well known, wliile slavery existed in the South tlu're
was no respectahility of la])or. Kvery sort of actual work with the hands, wlietiier
upon one's own account or in the way of hel]) or assistance to otlars, was always
looked upon as menial and degrading. Negroes, as slaves and as servants, were
employed everywhere, not only out t)f doors, but also within doors. Indecent,
disgraceful, and criminal as it was in reality, this universal ride or custom of
♦' having negroes around " was both fasiiiomible and aristo(;ratic. There were
never any vacancies or situations for poor white people; ar.d yet the nund)er of
these, in the South generally, was always much greater than the nund)er of tlie ne-
groes. ,Tust look at iti dust think of it I Tlie mass of the white ])opulation of tiie
Soutli ahsolutely debarred Irom tlie pecuniary profits and other advantages of em-
ployment, and forced into the distant purlieus of povertv and ignorance I Thebase-
oorn and incajiahle blacks, by the force of a vulgar public oiiinion, placed above the
meritoiious AvhitesI Yet it was not at all because of any inherent power or good
quality in tin; negroes that tlie poor whites were tlius crowded away from the
manv desirable einplovinents and places to whicli t!iey alone should have been
heartily welcomed. Tlie fault of tlie tidng, up to the close of the war, is traceable
directly to the slaveholders themselves, who. in the short-sighted aiul vicious pol-
icy which they pursued, made every other interest in tlie country, both great and
small, subordinate and subservient to tlie negroes and negro slavery. Since the
war, the blame, in a grossly aggravated and unexpected form, rests e.xcluslvely
with tlie Kadical party. The slaveholders are now beginning to see and lament
the folly and bliiKlness and bigotry of their unseemly devotion to the worthless
negroes. For the sakeoft lie country, let us sinct'rely hope and jiray that the Itadicals
may soon give evidence of similar iierceptiou, and also of true sorrow for their very
numerous, very black, and very grievous ^lolitical sins. Never did Ibahmins, Ma-
lioinmedans, or Christians, sacrifice their country, their property, their friiiids, their
familv, or themselves, with more fidelity to their CJod, than the slaveholders here
have Vacriticed everything whicli they held dear on earth, in order to jireserve alive
and unscathed the iH'gro, — the very blackest and basest wretcli that ever lived.
Was .such black and abominable idolever so besottedly worshi|)ped before { Them-
selves, their sons, their near and distant relatives, theirneiglibors, and their coun-
trymen, all of their own kith and kin and color, the slaveholders cheerfully gave
to the battle and to death; but the negro, the meanest and most degrjided of man-
kind, was keiitalive, and is still among us, a nuisance, a leper, and a jilague.
'June and sjiace both fail here of a suitable opportunity for entering into idl the
sad and sliockiiig niinutiie of the cruelly unjust luoscription of the Southern jioor
whites, who, by the common exigencies of their nature, and as tiic mere ontskirt
tenants of tlu^ ricli hiiidcd jiroprietors, were compelled to seek such an incidental
and nncertain liveliliood as they could jirocure by hunting and fishing, and by such
occasional jobs, here and tlu're, as they could beg, too often only as a sort of spec-
ial favor from one or more of their wealthier and better-hearted neiglibors. Kven
n slight knowledge of tlie facts, however, and ujion these facts a little sagacious
reflection will enable you to jierceive at once the numerous opportunities, both for
education and for i)hysical comforts, which were, as a matter of course, given to
the negroes, but which, at the same time, and eipially as a matter of course, were
withheld from the whites. For netirly two hundred and fifty years, the negroes
here, as waiters in hotels, and in the families of the most learned and refined, as
barbers and as body-servants to ijrofessional men, pleasure-seekers and others,
have had the constant benefit of hearing the intelligent conversation of their mas-
ters and mistresses, ami also of listening to the interesting and instructive stories
of well-informed visitors and cosmopolitan strangers, lietained in great numbers
in the cities and towns (just where not one of tliem ought ever to have been, and
just where not one of them ought ever to be), they always had free and undisputed
admission to the. public Tueetings in the court-houses and in the town halls, and
also to tlie religious meetings held in the c!nir(;hesand elsewlu're. As a class, tliey
alone, of all the \wov people in the South, had access, at all times, in the families
of the ricli and refined, to books, magazines, and newspapers. On the other hand,
the i)oor whites, Ireati'd as outcasts, merely because tln-y did not own slaves, en-
j()\ed none of tlie opportunities which were llius so easily within tlie reach of tlie
nt'groes, whether for the enlargement and cultivation of the mind, or f(,r the
health and comfort of tlie body; and, what is worse, — ay, what, indeed, is very
much worse, — the condition of things in this respect is still unchanged. Hordes
of hungry, sliiftless, and worthless blacks, who, relying, as of old, on their impor-
tunate tiiid resistless art of begging, to stijiply themselves, among other things,
with all the threadbiire and bad-fitting ganiients of their white superiors, are
everywhere ollering their services for the merest nominal wages ; and the old mas-
APPENDIX, 21 1
ters and employers, accustomed only to such wretched and barharoua assistance
as can h(^ f^ot. iVoin negro sla\('s and iicirro ser\aMts,are vet uiuler llic spell of
t^able witch and .-able wizard, and, with rare txccptions, hiive as yet learned lit-
tle or nothin}? of either the advantage or the duty, tin; decency or the resiu'ciabil-
ity, of employing and having aboii^ them none but white persons. In this way tiie
negro, a ju'sterer of detestable character and color, continues to be bauel'ully in-
terposed between the two great wiute elements in the .Si)uth, where, like a slug-
gish, yet meandering woodworm, he is all tlie while gnawing deeper and deeper
into the vitals of tirst one side and then the other. Of the two classes of wiutes
•who are tlms iiu-essantly preyed upon and despoiled by the blacks, the j)ooriT
Avliites are invariably the greater victims; for against tliese are arrayed the. low
prejudice and the liostile influences of not oidy all the negroes, but (siuinu'f'ul and
shocking to relate) of many of the wealthier whites also. This is whatconu's of
that unnatural and execrai)le bond of sympathy and sellishness which has so long
existed, and which still exists, between the negro owni-rs, or those who were but
latelvso, and the negroes themselves; and now, to this double and distressing op-
{ position, against which the poor whites of the South have for so long a time barely
leen able to offer even a feeble resistance, is added a third power, far nnire crafty,
and far nu)re potent for nuschief than either of the others. This third powiT-—
whether it seems to be so or not, or wbetlier it was intended to be so or not, it is
BO, nevertheless — this third power, in alliance with the negroes and the ex-slave-
holders, to utterly crush out and ruin forever the poor whites of the South, is the
whole Kadical l)arty, but more especially that very unscrupidous and de.-perate
embodiment of it now justly described anil detested as the rump Congress. Un-
der the wrongfully discrindnating, negro-favt)ring enactments of this unconstitu-
tional ami unprin"cii)led Congress, not only are white enugranis from liie North
and from Euroj)e now condng hither in less munbers tliau they came under the(>ld
condition of things, but nniny of the whites who are already iu're are every day be-
coming more and nu)re anxious to abandon their homes and eudgrat*' to distant
and foreign lamls, rather than renniin the victims of that terribh^ thraldom of
negro supremacy, which a most mean and malignant assemblage of heartless Rad-
icals are now fa.>^teuing upon them.
Alnu)st every day, for several moidhs past, — ever since 1 last returned to the
State, — have I seen whole fanulies, and sometinu's two or three together, leaving
North Carolimi, some going in the direction of Illinois, some travelling toward
Indiana, and olliers, of the more able and venturesome sort, bound for llra/iland
elsewhere, far beyond the utmost linnts of their own native soil. While thus,
under the oppressive- and tyrannical operations of {{adical nulilary despotisms, our
own native white people are robbed of their natural freedom, and forced to flee to
foreign lands, European enngrants and emigrants from the North are restrained
almost entirely from coming to the South ! And thus swiftly and infamously arc
the narrow-minded and revengeful Kadicals converting all the States of the South
into one vast Hayti, or Jamaica, or Mexico, — driving from tlu; country the white
people, who are, whether her(> or elsewhere, the only worthy and saving elements
of i)oi)ula1ion, and .surrendering it completely to tiie pollution, devastation, and
ruin of stupid and beast-like honUvs (d" black barbarians.
Of the extreme i*overty and distress of numy of the poor whites who are now
emigrating from the State, and of a still larger nund)er who, rather tlian sidjnnt
to the further danger and disgrace of IJadical-negro and negro-Uadical donnnation,
are anxious to leave, but are destitute even of the scanty nuMus necessary to lake
them away, I have scarcely the heart to speak. To enter adecpiately into details
or particulars upon this subject in a mere newspaper article, is <|uite out of the
question, and so 1 will only remark here, in a general way, but with all theemjihasis
of earnestness and truth, that I do not believe any people in any part of America
were ever subjected to such unjust and oppressive straits, such miserable and
wretched shifts, as the poorer classes of the white peojde of North (^arolina, and of
the South generally, are now having to struggle against ; and all this mainly in con-
sequence of the blundering and unconsfilutional enactments, the uustatesmanlikc
and infamous legislation of that oligarchy of sectional demagogues known as the
rumi> Congress.
Within the last few weeks especially, many white families have T seen leaving
the State, all on foot, and barefooted at that , api)arently possessed of no «-lothing,
except the two or three soiled and tattered garnuuts which they were wearing at
the time, and carrying in a small bumlle on their backs <'very article of j)roi)('rty,
of whatever nature or kind, of which they could claim the ownership. One fam-
ily of eight persons, whom I nu't on the road, particidarly attracted my attention;
and my heart, from an involuntary feeling of commiseration, almost bled when
I became a witness of their dire destitution and wretchedness, i'liis family wa.s
composed of the father, mother, grandmother, and five children, the eldest child
21
242 APPENDIX.
being not more than twelve years of age. Except the youngest child, which was
in its mother's arms, all were travelling on foot, and all were barefooted, with the
single exception of the father, who had on very old and rudely patched brogans.
A single outer dress, of the commonest and cheapest stuff, and that much worn,
and bv no means clean, with a dingy-looking sun-bonnet, appeared to be the only
article of clothing of which any one of the females was possessed. The head of
the family had no coat; and as for the boys, uncombed, ragged, and ignorant, they
had, indeed, in a truly serious and melancholy sense, almost literally " nothing to
wear." Coarse straw hats, common shirts,' and very common pantaloons, all
badly worn, were the only things they had as shields from the weather; and these
shabby vestments seemed to constitute the sum total of their personal eflects. la
aFmail cotton-clotii wallet, which was swung across the shoulders of the father,
and which he evidently carried without its causing him any particular burden or
inconvenience, were deposited the only movables, the only goods and chattels
the only household gods of this poor, this uneducated, this politically oppressed
and unfortunate family. Xor is this an exaggerated picture. Were it but a soli-
tary case, or but one of few, the condition of things would not be so bad : but,
sad to reflect, it is only one of many, and the number is increasing. Whether
fleeing from oppression (this time not so much the oppression by ex-slaveholders,
as the oppression bv Radicals and negroes), or whether remaining at home under
the galling yoke of tyranny, the whole South is now full of just such victims as
the family just mentioned. And these victims, for the most part, as poor as poor
can be, and as ignorant and miserable as possible, are principally of the former
class of poor whites, for the utter crushing out and destruction of whom there is
now in force a most foul and formidable triple alliance of Radicals, ex-slave-
holders, and negroes; but, as already intimated, the least harm tliat is felt from
this alliance comes from the ex-slaveholders, who, for the first time in their lives,
are only now beginning to accept in practice the correctness of their ancient and
all-the-while preaching, that wliite people are better than negroes. In behalf of
these lo.ng and sorely oppressed poor whites, and for the means not merely to
enable them to withstand, but eventually to overcome, th.e threefold and inicjuitous
opposition thus arrayed against them, I, here and now, with all due deference and
respect, appeal to Go'd and to the good people of the North,
Scarcely anywhere can one travel in the South, at the present time, without
meeting, on every hand, especially among the poor whites, —and there are few
now who are not poor, — numerous cases of actual want, sickness, sutfering, and
despair; and were it not that I fear to tax too severely your patience, I should
feel it my duty to give a somewhat full and minute account of several of them.
As it is, however, 1 will onlv advert to two or three cases in addition to the one
already mentioned. In JIarion, the county seat of McDowell county, in this State,
adjoining the county in which I am now writing, and where I now reside, it was
ascertained a short while since that unless the pressing necessities of a large
number of the poor white people could soon be relieved, there was great danger
that many of them, during the ensuing winter, would sutler intensely, if not die
outright, of cold and hunger. In their behalf, an appeal was made to a lew
wealthy gentlemen of Baltimore, who nobly responded in the form of a liberal
contribution of monev. There were and are in that county, as, indeed, in every
other countv, district/and parish throughout the South, a great many poor widows
and orphans, whose husbands and fathers were conscripted and killed during the
late war, and who now, without lands, without houses, — except here and there a
dilapidated log-cabin, — and without employment, are in a manner naked, re-
sourceless, and starved. In view of the w'retchedly ill-clad condition of these
poor widows and orphans, it was thought best to spend the money, which, as
already explained, had been generously contributed in Baltimore, for cotton
thread, such as is used for the weaving of plain cloth, and to distribute a bunch of
that, so far as it would go, to each fatherless family. Mr. Alfred Krwin, a kind-
hearted and very estimable citizen of that county, a lawyer by profession, was ap-
pointed to make the distribution. As soon as it became known that Mr. Erwin
had received this thread, to be given awav at his discretion to the persons indi-
cated, his office was literally besieged, until very soon there was not a single bunch
left, and then it was truly touching to witness the profound disappointment and
grief, amounting almost to despair, of the numerous careworn and indigent
mothers who were still unprovided for, some of whom had come twelve or fifteen
miles over the rough mountain roads, on foot, barefooted, and with scarcely
clothes enough upon themselves to cover, in the usual way, their own persons.
The sight, I sav,the sight of these very poor widowed mothers having to return
home emptv-handed, but heavv-hearted, as I myself saw many of them returning,
to ricketv, cold, comfortless log cabins, in a manner destitute not only of furni-
ture and' bedding, but also of almost every other thing, except a troop of half-
APPENDIX, 243
»
starved, half-clad, and helpless children, was, indeed, a spectacle too sorrowful to
behold with any ordinary emotion.
During the earlv part of last month I was in Columbia, South Carolina. There
also did I see agaiu, as I had frequently seen before, hoAv poor white persons are
treated as the inferiors of negroes, and how to the latter are given places of in-door
ease and profit, which should In all cases, without exception, be given only totiio
former. At ditlerent times, while walking about the city (or rather the ruins of a
city, for, as is well known, it was almost entirely destroyed by lire during the
brief occupation of Sherman's army, — a piece of warfare about as brave and
defensible as that of Semmes, who burned unarmed merchant ships at sea), —
several white women and girls, who were so emaciated by a long and distressful
period of hunger, little short of actual starvation, that some of them were re-
duced to mere skin and bone, meL me in the street, and, with tears and laments,
besought me for a little money to buy bread ! Of one of them, who was evidently
but an indifferent sliadow of her former self, I asked a few questions. She was
but fifteen vears of age. Her father Avas forced into tlie war, and was killed. The
house in which she and her mother lived, and everything in it, v.as burned to
ashes during the great conflagration. Almost immediately afterward her mother,
yielding to excess of grief and despondency, became very sick, and soon died in a
paroxvsm of despair and delirium'; and slie, the daughter, an only child, was left
in the world without means, without friends, and witliout employment. My heart
sickened under the plaiutiveness, the childlike simplicitv, and tiie obvious truth-
fulness of her statement ; and, regrettingthat I Ivad not the ability to place in her
attenuated and leather-like hands dollars instead of dimes, I returned to tlie
Kickerson House, where I had stopped, and there I looked hither and thither
through hall, parlor, dining-room, side apartments, and elsewhere, to see wliether
it was possible for me to obtain a glimpse of even one white servant, old or young,
male or female; but I looked in vain. Again I passed into the street, and from
one street into another, examining and ascertaining, as far I could perceive,
whether white servants were employed in or about any of the private houses ; but,
alas ! not one could be seen. Yet, on the right hand and on the left, as stumbling-
blocks in front, and as drones and sluggards behind, I saw multitudes of sleek,
stupid, foul-smelling, filthy, greasy, and grinning negroes, who, as the curse-inflict-
ing pets, alike of infatuated and folly-governed ex-slaveholders and Radicals,
were lazily occupying places which would have been inflnitely better occupied by
whites, and which, by the great laws that indicate the common justice and decency
of things, should have been occupied by wliites alone.
As is well known to many intelligent and worthy persons all over the country,
this is not the first time that I have made an appeal for justice for the poor and
oppressed whites of the South. Ten years ago, I made a similar appeal in my
anti-slavery and anti-negro book, entitled " The Impending Crisis of the South."
Four months ago I reiterated that appeal in my anti-negro and anti-slavery book,
entitled " Nojoque." And yet there are certain scribblers and babblers of non-
sense,— mere penny-a-liners, who criticise books without reading them, — who
feign obliviousness of these facts, and who aflect to find disagreements and antag-
onisms between the two publications here named. I complain of this charge
siniplv and solely because it is not true. In such perfect accord, upon all points,
are "The Impending Crisis of the South" and " Nojoque," that, but for the dif-
ference in time of writing and printing, the two books might have been fitly bound
together, in which case the contents of both would have lormed but a single Avork,
— two volumes in one, — the whole, as a whole, and in all its parts, constituting a
carefully constructed engine of literary warfare against negroes and negro slavery.
The prominent and important fact that " The impending Crisis of the ^^outh " was
written in the interest of the white people of the Southern States, and was an
appeal to the whites alone, and not an appeal to the negroes, to the extent of any
page, paragraph, sentence, line, or word, was distinctly admitted, and elaborately
dwelt upon and denounced by many of the pro-slavery politicians who, though iu
the wrong, were noted for their sagacity and eloquence immediately before the
war; such politicians, for instance, as Pryor of Virginia, Hindman of Arkansas,
and Clark of Missouri. The fact Avas also freely admitted, and repeatedly in-
veighed against with great severity by such negro-loving abolitionists (but other-
wise able and excellent men) as George B. Cheever, William Goodell, and Wen-
dell Phillips. Some years ago it was the boast of certain distinguished and patri-
otic Kepublicans, — Kepublicans who have since, Lucifer-like, fallen from the
white heights of Republicanism into the black depths of Hadicalism, — that no
honest-minded man could calmly and attentively peruse my " Impending Crisis of
the South " without learning to abhor slavery. "^Vere it not tiiat these same men,
having ceased to be Republicans, have taken upon themselves the despicable
character of Radicals, they, even they themselves, would readily perceive and
244 APPENDIX,
acknowledge that every sane person who familiarizes himself with the contents
of " Nojoque " must, by the irresistible force of the facts and logical inferences
therein recorded, learn to love white people as so infinitely the superiors of negroes
us to burn with a deep and unquenchable desire to save the former from any and
all manner of cjntamination by the latter; and, therefore, to demand, with un-
abating energy and lirmness, as affecting the two races, an absolute, total, and
eternal separation. •
Because of its gross excesses, its shortcomings, and its corruptions, the first
and most important tiling necessary to be done, in order to remedy existing evils,
is to utterly break down and destroy the whole IJadical party, — a party whicli, in its
monstrous afiiliation with negroes, is bringing utter abjectness and ruin upon at
least ten .States of the Union, and disgracing and crippling all tlie others. Here,
in the Southern .States, tlie Kadical influence, wiiich is just as black and bad as it
can be, coupled, not in name, but in reality, with the old slavehokUng influence,
keeps the negro unnaturally and dissentiously interlarded between the two great
white elements of the .South, thus preventing here, among the eiglit millions of
people who alone are good for anything, that unity of sentiment and purpose, and
tluit liarrnony of plan and action, without which it is impossible for us ever to
attain anything like permanent peace, prosperity, or greatness. Indeed, under
the actual military despotisms whicli an unrepublican and malignant Radical
Congress have foisted upon us, and under the atrocious Radical threats of un-
limited confiscation and perpetual disfranchisement, leading us to fear tliat a still
more oppressive and galling yoke is held in reserve for us, there is already an
almost total suspension of all public and private works; men have no heart to do
anything, their hopes and their energies have been crushed; their dwellings,
their out-houses, and their fences are, in most cases, in u state ot dilapidation;
their institutions of learning, their churclies, and their public buildings of all
kinds — such as were not actually burned to ashes during the war, having been
greatly misused and abused — arc going to decay; and in many places, where at
least ordinary instructors and schools are still to be found, the ciiiklren, if not of
necessity required to remain at home and work, are too frequently so destitute
of clotliing that their parents are ashamed to let them go beyond the narrow
limits of tlieir own mournfully foreboding and gloomy observation. Jlany of the
public roads and bridges, and not a few of tlie fords and ferry-boats, have been so
long out of repair tiiat they have become absolutely dangerous; and, unless, in the
good Providence of God, the desolating and destructive rule of Radicalism can
soon be checked and averted, tiiose who travel here extensively, wlietiier by
steam-power or by horse-power, will do so at the imminent peril of tlieir lives.
Especially among the negroes here crime and lawlessness of every sort are now
far more rife than ever before ; while, in many cases, under the vicious protection
aflbrded tliem by the Radical negro bureau, before whose Dogberry agents the
presence and the testimony of as good white men as ever lived are but too often
treated with contempt, they (the delinquent negroes) are never jiunished at all;
or, if punished, punished only in the mildest possible manner. I have known in-
stances where white men, coming to a knowledge of crimes committed by negroes,
— those very whites themselves being the victims, — would endure the wrong, and
pass the whole matter by in silence, and without action, rather than subject them-
selves to the insult, expense, and loss of time which they well knew they would
be but too likely to incur by making complaint, whether at the negro bureau, or
at anyone of those other bureaus of military despotism, which have been so unne-
cessarily and so wickedly inflicted upon us by the Radical Congress. Everywhere
throughout the .South, the increasing demoralization of the negroes is now,
indeed, sadly seen and sadly felt. Nor would it be an easy matter to make up a
full and complete indictment against them of all their high crimes and misde-
meanors. In every district or community of a considerable size, on the right hand
and on the left, they are almost constantly committing brutal murder and high-
Avay robbery ; breaking into dwellings and warehouses ; depredating on orchards,
fields of grain, and granaries; appropriating to their own use other people's cattle,
pigs, and poultry ; stealing everything that they can lay their hands upon ; outrag-
ing pure and innocent white girls ; and not uuifrequently, in a spirit of the most
savage wantonness and revenge, setting on fire and utterly destroying the houses
and other property of their white neighbors. Terrorism reigns supreme among
the white females of every family, and sleep is banished.
Not far from here, I was, a few weeks ago, in a small town, where there were
just eight stores, every one of which had, at different times, been broken into and
robbed. Either at the actual time respectively of each robbery, or afterward, it
was fully ascertained and proven, that six of these stores had been forcibly and
feloniously entered by negroes, and the otTier two by persons unknown. All of
them had been entered since the establishment oi' the Radical negro bureau.
APPENDIX. 245
Prior to that time, no store in that town liarl ever teen entered by hur^i^lars.
These fiicts, well considered, must lead to the most solemn and profound convic-
tion, in the breast of every right-thinking man, tliat the negroes, strongly fortified
in tlie morbid and misplaced sympathy of the Radicals, are feeling themselves at
comparative liberty to commit, with ' impunity, every species of outrage and
crime.
Broken-hearted over the disastrous realities of the present, and dimly peering
into the dark and uncertain future, all the white people here, of whatever condi-
tion in life, are dejected and sorrowful to an extent tliat I never before witnessed.
Sometimes it has seemed to me that I could discern something holy, something
SDcred, in the deep and troubled sadness of those about me; as if, indeed, God, in
his great mercy, had come to dwell in their hearts, and to protect them from
further outrage'. I would that this were so. Among men whose hearts are not
entirely callous to every consideration of justice and humanity, there should
always' prevail a sentinient keenly alive to the suggestion, that there should be
both' a measure and a limitation of punishment. Yet, strange to sav, more
strange to say of white men, and still more strange to say of white men in this
nineteenth century, tlie Radicals, as represented in the Radical Congress, seem to
be actuated by no such sentiment as this. For the crimes which were committed
by only a few dozen actual traitors (the more prominent and guilty of whom
oiight, in my opinion, to have been hanged more than two years ago), they are
inflicting all manner of severe penalties and ptmishments "on eight millions of
people ! They complain, and justly, of the cruel treatment and death of some
thousands of Union soldiers in Libby Prison, at Salisbury, and at Andersonville;
but, by laws more tyrannical and barbarous than were ever before enacted by any
civilized legislature, they are deliberately crushing out the spirit and the life of
millions of innocent men, women, and children 1 In the vain effort to exculpate
themselves, they vauntingly proclaim to the world that tlieir measures of military
reconstruction were enacted in great part, if not principally, for the protection
and for the beneflt of Union men in the South. I tell them' that the true Union
men of the South (the white Union men, and except these there were none, and
are none worthy of the name) detest, with a detestation unutterable, the entire
batch of their disgraceful and ruinous military measures of reconstruction. With
few exceptions, the white Union men of the South feel that they have been most
foully and shamefully betrayed and dishonored; and we reject, with immeasurable
scorn and indignation, the imputation that we have any sympathies or purposes
in common ^vith base-minded and degenerate partisans, who, like the Radicals,
are abandoned to every high principle of honor and right reason. We were, and
are still. Republicans; not black Republicans, but white Republicans. Radicals
we never were, nor can we be. It is, then, the Republican party, in the persons
of factious and fanatical multitudes of Radical demagogues, that has left us, and
not we who have left the Republican party. And I here tell these Radicals, and I
tell them with emphasis and distinctness, not as a threat, but as a warning, that,
in any future conflict of arms (which, however, may God and good men avert !) be-
tween the friends and enemies of the Constitution^ and of the Government of the
United States as constitutionally organized, the better class of Union white men
of the South would be precisely where they were before, — they would be with the
right, but not with the Radicals.
But why do I speak of a warlike contingency of this sort as being now evea
within th'e bounds of possibility ? I will tell you. That the whole country. North
and South, East and West, is not now in a state of general good order, peace and
prosperity, is alone due to the unwise and unjust legislation of the Radical Con-
gress. A large majority of that Congress are now evincing, or have but recently
evinced, a disposition to prosecute, even to still greater lengths, if possible, their
former schemes of revenge, despotism, and ruin. As a mere party measure, rank
with wantonness and usurpation, they now threaten to impeach' and remove a
President who, though ;it times somewhat stubborn and imprudent, has always
been rigidly faithful in the performance of his constitutional duties, inflexibly
honest, thorouglily patriotic, and eminently solicitous to promote, in all proper
ways, the public good. An intelligent and distinguislied merchant of Boston,
with whom, on a certain occasion, I dined in New York, a i^w months ago,
remarked to me, that in his opinion the present or a future Bancroft, in detailing
to posterity the true history of the administration of Andrew Johnson, would
find in him the best president, Abraham Lincoln alone excepted, that we have
had in America, thus far, since the days of John Quincy Adams. That was the
honest opinion of a highly-educated, "high-minded, and most worthy merchant
of the city of Boston. Let the whole crowd of noisy radicals, who, not unlike a
pack of poodles snarling and snapping at the heels of an elephant, are incessantly
annoying and defaming one who is, in every good quality, vastly the superior of
21*
246
APPENDIX,
themselves, reflect whether the positive opinion thus expressed was not tolerably
well founded. Another gentleman (and tliis brings me to the very gist of what I
wish to say in reference to future tigljting, and to beg that the radicals will give no
occasion for it), a New Yorker, who occupies an important judicial position, declared
to me, in June last, that in case of the attempt of the Radical Congress to remove
the President in any manner, or for any cause not explicitly prescribed in the
Constitution, — mind you, he did not even mention the name of Andrew Johnson,
he only spoke of "the President," — he, for one, would take up arms to resist
the usurpation, and he believed the people would generally do the same thing.
He further remarked that in such an event the war would be one merely for the
preservation of republican and democratic Institutions, and that it would pre-
vail only at the North, unless the South, by her own volition, should come to
be a party to It. Now, it may be that there are certain men in the South
who would be more or less rejoiced at the outbreak of a war of that sort, but if
so, I most sincerely hope and trust that they may never be gratilied ; nor will they
be, unless it be through the folly and the crime of the Kadical party. The white
Union men of the South are not only Southerners, they are also Americans, and
they wish well to the whole country ; indeed, so extensive are their good will
and aspirations in this regard, tliat they hope the day will soon come, or come
some time, wlien the entire continent of North America, from tlie Atlantic to
the Pacitic, and from Behring's Straits to the Isthmus of Darien, shall be found
to be too small to represent in full on the maps the peaceful, prosperous, and
progressive superficies and boundaries of our national domain. We believe that
Andrew Johnson has made, and Is still making, in the person of himself, a truly
able and patriotic President of these United States ; and we believe further, without
advocating his election or re-election, that he would make, for the ensuing Presi-
dential term, a better President than any one of the gentlemen whose names the
Radicals have yet mentioned in connection with that high office ; and this simply
because they have not mentioned the names of such clear-sighted and worthy
Republican statesmen as Seward, Adams, Fessenden, Sherman, McCulloch, Doo-
little, Browning, Welles, Raymond, and Randall; *nor the names of any of those
tried and trusty Democratic statesmen to wiiom, in magnanimous and praise-
worthy coalition with the Republicans, we may yet have to look for the safe pilot-
ing of the ship of State over the many rough shoals and breakers among which
the Radicals have so negligently and so culpably allowed her to drift.
We, the white Union men of the South, — and all the white men here, two or
three dozen arch-traitors excepted, would soon become firm and faithful friends
of the Union, if they were only afforded a just and reasonable opportunity to be-
come so, — are very <lesirous that all the Southern States shall at once be prudently
and properly rehabilitated; we want them to resume, without delay, their right-
ful status in the nation; we want them acknowledged and treated, in all re-
spects, as free and equal States, with enlightened and republican constitutions of
government, similar to those of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio; we want
them to retain, in the amplest possible sense, both the semblance and the reality
of white States, and so avoid the utter disgrace and wortlilessness of becoming
black States; and we insist upon it, that the infamous dogmas and teachings ot
the Radicals, who are so pertinaciously striving to reduce the white races of our
country to the low level of negrohood, ought to be everywhere refused and rejected
with the utmost disdain. We insist upon it, that the abolition of slavery among
us ought to leave the negro occupying in the South precisely the same status that
the abolition of slavery among you left him occupying in the North. We insist
upon it, that, because of his natural inferiority, his despicable characteristics, his
gross stupidity, and his brutishness, he ought not to be allowed either to vote or
to hold oliice, "nor to fill or perform any other high function which appertains, and,
of right, should always appertain exclusively, to the worthy and well-qualified
white citizens of our country. [Speaking here only for myself, as an individual, I
may say, with absolute sincerity and truth, that however much others may itch for
office, there is no position of honor, trust, or profit, within the gift of any number
of the American people, or any number of any other people, that I would accept,
unless it came to me through white votes alone. And while this is strictly true. It
is very certain, also, that, however unregenerate I may be in other respects, — and
it would seem that, according to the opinion of some,' I am a rather sinful sort of
man, — yet I feel happy in the perfect assurance that I shall never go down to the
grave nor elsewhere, with the black crime resting upon my soul of having, in any
contingency, or under any possible or conceivable circumstances, ever voted for a
negro.] We insist upon "it that the enfranchisement of the negroes, and the dis-
franchisement of the whites, whereby the supremacy of the negroes has already
been established, or is about to be established in almost every Southern State, is a
consummate outrage, au unmitigated despotism, an unparalleled ialamy, and an
APPENDIX. 247
atrocious crime. We insist upon it that our Federal government and o>ir State
governments are, as they ought to be, republican in form, and that the military
authorities ought, at all times, except only in cases of actual war, in tlie future as
iu tlie past, to be held subordinate to the civil authoritie';. We further insist upon
it, that the whole drift of radical legislation, for the last eighteen months and more,
has been, and still is, unstatesmanlike, unropublican, vindictive, and despotic, —
perilous to all the principles of enlightened self-government, and alarmingly de-
grading and inimical to the white civilization aud progress of the entire iS'ew
World. , ,, ,
It is absurd and useless for the Radicals, while tacitly admitting the black and
baneful excesses of their legislation, to tell us, in the pitiful attempt to excuse
their own gross ignorance and folly, that the numerical preponderance of the
whites in the South will save them from the corrupting and demoralizing influ-
ences of the negroes. As well might they tell us that a pound, or a less quantity,
of strychnine would do no harm in a barrel of flour; that an ounceof arsenic would
accomplish no mischief in a peck of meal; that a phial of prussic acid could eiJect
no injury in a pitcher of water; or that one idiot, feverish and frantic with conta-
gion, might not communicate the effluvium of fatal iafection to a score or more of
sane men. We insist upon it that it is pre-eminently our duty to be just and kind
to our own race, aud that the poor and distressed of the white race are those who,
here, there, and evervwhere, have the highest claims upon us, whether for ser-
vice, for food, for clothing, for education, or for wiuUevcr other thing; and also,
that if, in being but just to our own race, the negroes or others are the sufferers,
that, under the inscmtable purposes of Providence, is simply their misfortune, and
should alwavs be so considered. Further, and finally, we insist upon it, that the
good results' which the loyal and intelligent masses of the country had a right to
expect would soon follow the abolition of slavery and the suppression of the re-
bellion, shall neither be defeated nor indefinitely delayed ; and we protest that the
disingenuousness and treachery of the Itadicals since the war, seriously tlireateu
to neutralize all the wise and patriotic labors which the Republicans so heroically
and so gloriously performed both before and during the war. We ask for the
immeditite repeal of all military laws which are antagonistic to the spirit and form
of republican government, and, especially, for the speedy repeal of all such politi-
cal and mercenary monstrosities as the negro bureau bill. We also ask that the
expenses of the army and navy may be reduced at least one-half, and that the
burdens of taxation, which now weigh so heavily upon white people, may at once
be lightened.
With an eye and a purpose to these ends, we ask that every Radical Senator and
Representative in Congress, and every other Radical officer in the land, whether
national, State, county, or municipal, who is, or has been, an aider and abettor of
that nsurpatory and tvrannical oligarchy, euphemized as t!ie American Congress,
shall, one and all, at the very next elections in which their names may be brought
before the people, be wholly and summarily withdrawn from official life, and that
new and better men — men posstssed of good common-sense — men controlled
by sentiments of justice for white people, no less than by sentiments of justice for
black people — men sufficiently free from sectional bias — men of enlarged and
statesmanlike views — shall be elected in their stead. Let this be done, and all
will be well. Let it be made manifest, and let it be proclaimed abroad, throughout
the entire length aud breadth of the land, that what the short-sighted and fanati-
cal Radicals are aiming at as a mere possible good to four millions ot blacks, is
a positive disservice and evil to eight millions of whites. We want, and w^e will
have, no re-establishment of slavery. It is safe to say that there are not to-day, in
the whole State of North Carolina, two hundred men, of good standing or infiu-
ence, who would, if they could, have slavery re-established. Indeed, 1 doubt
■whether there are live thousand white men, in all the South, who would now, or
at anv future time, be so unwise, so rash, and so reckless, as to undo tiie acts of
emancipation, even if they had the power. The only persons here who, in any
considerable number, would be willing to incur the odium and the infamy of voting
for a return to the svstem of slavery, are negroes themselves, whose instincts tell
them, that if really put upon their own resources in communities of white men,
and in no manner propped up or sustained at the expense and degradation of a
greater or less number of whites, whether by servitude, under an oligarchy of
slaveholders, on the one hand, or bv negro bureaus, under an oligarchy of Radicals,
on the other, thev will graduallv tall behind in the career of life, fail to multiply
the inferior race"to which thev' belong, die out, and become fossilized. While,
therefore, we are firm in the wish aud purpose not to have any more slavery in the
South, we are equally firm in the desire and determination to get rid of the negroes
if we can, —not by taking from them one drop of blood, — not by hurting a single
fibre of liair (or wool) upon their heads, but by colonization, in or out of Mexico;
248 APPENDIX.
and in this effort, which will be in perfect harmony with that wisdom and patriot-
ism, which, through the mighty energies and enterprises of white men, liave
brought imperishable greatness and glory to tlie North, we most earnestly and
trustingly solicit your fraternal co-operation. And then, having at last imitated tlie
good example which you have held prominently before us for more than half a cen-
tury, but which, in our excessive folly and stubbornness, we have until now rejected;
having filled our States, as you have tilled your States, with white people, and not
with such intolerable human rubbish as negroes, Indians, and mulattoes, then we
mean to fight you again ; not with steam-rams, cannon, muskets, bayonets, swords,
nor sabres ; riot with any of the sanguinary and sorrowfuJ weapons of death,
but with all the pleasing and ennobling agencies of life. Then, for the first time
since you wisely abolished slavery and negroes, and we fooWshly retained them,
will it be possible for our States of the South to begin to be equal with your States
of the North. And then, as we all advance onward in the grand march ot improve-
ment,— and we want tens and hundreds of thousands of you to come among us,
and be with us and of us, and, at the same time, to aid us, by sound counsel and
otherwise, in the varied and arduous duties and responsibilities which are now
devolving upon us, — we shall begin to challenge you in good earnest; not to the
battle-field, but to courteous emulation and rivalry in all of the noble arts and re-
finements, ay, and also occasionally in some of the more innocent and manly
games and sports, of peace and civilization.
APPENDIX II.
rDENTICALXESS OF THE SENTIMENT AND SCOPE OF "THE
IMPENDING CRISIS OF THE SOUTH," AND " NOJOQUE."
A LETTER FROM MR. HELPER.
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, January 22, 1868.
To the Editors of tM Xational IntelUgcncer: —
Once more I beg leave to reiterate the fact, and, at the same time, by an appeal
to tlie record, to otfer evidences of the fact (in reply to sundry ill-founded accusa-
tions to the contrarv), that my views, of however little importance they may be,
touching the negro,"have never undergone any change whatever. I have declared
" Noioque.'" It has been said, by many persons of loose habits of utterance, both
is 'iimply untrue. And now for the proofs of my declaration. Turn to the dedica-
tion page of " The Impending Crisis" (and in order that you may be enabled to
do so conveniently, I herewith transmit a copy to your address), and you will there
find that the book is conspicuously dedicated — to whom? Not to the negroes,
mark you, nor to their masters, but " To the Non-Slaveholding Wiiitks of
THE South." Does not this dedication of itself show plainly to every candid
mind the Caucasian drift of the whole work?
Nov,', turn to the preface and see what I have said there. From the second
paragraph, I quote as follows : — ^ ^ ^ .^ .
" In writing this book, it has been no part of my purpose to cast unmerited
opprobrium upon slaveholders, nor to display any special friendliness or sympathy
for the blacks. I have considered my subject more particularly with reference to
its economic aspects as regards the whites, not with reference, except in a very
slight degree, to its humanitarian or religious aspects." _ ., ^ ,. ^.
Without going into the body of the book, these quotations from the dedication
and the preface, ought, it seems to me, to be quite sufficient ; but, it you \\m
grant me the space, I will bring forward three or four additional extracts. On
page 145, I said: — „ . , ■■ t-. t
''AH mankind may or may not be the descendants of Adam and Eve. In our
own humble way of thinking, we are frank to confess, we do not beheve m the
unity of the races."
On page 85, I said : — , , ^ /. ^ j
"Confined to the orginal States in which it existed, the system of enforced
servitude would soon have been disposed of by legislative enactments, and long
before the present dav, by a gradual process that could have shocked no interest
and alarmed no prejudice, we would have rid ourselves not only ot Atrican slav-
erv, which is an abomination and a curse, but also of the negroes themselves,
who, in our judgment, whether viewed in relation to their actual characteristics
and coudition, or through the strong antipathies of the whites, are, to say the Jeast,
an undesirable population." , . ^ . „ „ „4.-..^i„
On page 143, the country, at the time I wrote, having been in a comparatively
wealthy and uncrippled condition, I advocated the raising of a large sum : —
" One-half of which sum would be amply suflicieut to land every negro in this
country on the coast of Liberia, whither, if we had the power, we would ship
them all within the next six months."
249
250 APPENDIX.
Pursuing this idea of colonization, I said, on page 144 : —
" Let us charter all the ocean steamers, packets, and clipper ships that can be
had on liberal terms, and keep them constantly plying between the ports of Amer-
ica and Africa, until all the slaves who are here held in bondage shall enjoy free-
dom in the land of their fathers. Under a well-devised and properly conducted
system of operations, only a few years would be required to redeem the United
States from the monstrous curse of negro slavery."
Dozens of similar extracts might be given ; but I will neither trespass on my
own time by transcribing them, nor on yours by asking you to publish them. It
was my intention that my " Impending Crisis" should be an earnest anti-slavery
appeal to the great majority of the white people of the South, and not, in any
sense, nor to any extent, an appeal to the negro ; and I challenge any one to
quote from the book a single page, paragraph, sentence, line, or word, that, when
critically examined and fairly interpreted, will justify the assumption that I ever
regarded the negro otherwise than as a very inferior and almost worthless sort of
man, not to be kept in slavery, increased, and retained among us, but to be freed,
colonized, justly and liberally provided for, and then put wholly upon his own
resources, and left to himself.
My opposition to slavery (and, if possible, I am more opposed to it now than I
was ten years ago) looked to the ultimate whitening up of all the Southern States,
and not to the spreading, nor to the continuance of that foul blackness and discol-
oration of them which then existed, which still exists, and which the radical party
are now viciously and criminally endeavoring to perpetuate. No worker in wood
ever grooved a plank with more set purpose to introduce therein the tongue or the
dovetail of another plank, than I wrote the " Impending Crisis " with the fixed
determination, if spared, to follow the same, in due time, with " yojoque^ The
abolition of slavery was only a necessary step, a sine qua non, toward the accom-
plishment of a still nobler work, which, despite the formidable opposition encoun-
tered through the baseness, the treason, and the tyranny of a usurpatory Congress,
is now in rapid process of consummation. A fiew years more, and the United
States of America, if not the whole of America, will be found to be happily and
prosperously and permanently peopled by vigorous and alN triumphing oflshoots
of the white races only.
INDEX.
Adams, John, 177, 178.
Adams, John Quincy, 178.
African Anecdotes, 130-133.
African Repository, 170.
Agassiz, Prof. Louis, 210.
Albinos, 223-226.
Alexander, James Edward, 31, 76, 120.
American Writers on the Negro, 173-
216.
Andersson, Charles John, 48, 49, 86, 95,
133, 170.
«* Ariel," 219.
Baker, Samuel White, 16, 17, 33, 34, 42,
50, 75, 85, 93, 94, 115, 116, 118, 119,
123, 134, 146, 153, 162, 163.
Baldwin, William Charles, 101, 104.
Barbarity and Blood-thirstiness of the
Negroes, 29-37.
Barrow, Sir John, 120, 159, 168.
Barth, Henry, 40, 51, 78, 84, 91, 95, 129,
141.
Begging, Extortion, and Kobbery in
Negroland, 82-89.
Benton, Thomas Hart, 179.
Black (color) disliked by the Negroes,
102-105.
Blair, Montgomery, 182, 183, 221.
Blood-thirstiness and Barbarity of the
Negroes, 29-37.
Boston Post, 68.
Bowen, T. J., 138.
Britton, Harriette G., 27, 49.
Brooks, James, 193, 194, 195.
Bruce, James, 15, 64, 75, 166.
Burial Rites in Negroland, 118-122.
Burmeister, Dr. Hermann, 122, 171,
229.
Burton, Richard F., 32, 40, 51, 52, 63, 81,
82, 83, 89, 90, 99, 104, 114, 119, 120,
128, 138, 141, 142, 154, 155, 163, 164,
165.
Butcheries and sacrifices (human) in
Negroland, 19-25.
California Legislature, 222.
CaUIie, Rene, 43, 101, 146, 147, 156.
Campbell, John, 92, 111, 144, 156.
Cannibalism in Negroland, 15-19.
Canot, Theodore, 24, 25, 34-37, 44, 64,
76, 114, 123, 132, 169.
Carousals in Negroland, 80-82.
Caucasian Races, increasing Pre-emi-
nence and Predominance of the,
227-236.
Clapperton, Hugh, 38, 48, 80, 97, 103,
108, 109, 121, 127, 142, 143.
Clay, Henry, 179.
Color (black) disliked by the Negroes,
102-105.
Courtship, Marriage, and Concubinage
in Negroland, 105-117.
Cowardice of the Negroes, 125-130.
Cox, S. S., 188, 189.
Crawfurd, John, 217.
Cruickshank, Brodie, 41, 58, 135, 145,
251
252
INDEX.
Cumming, Gordon, 71, 84, 153. ]
Customs, Habits, and Manners, in Ne-
groland, 138-152.
Cuvier, 218, 227.
Darwin, Charles, 218, 219.
Decrease of the Negro Race, 158-161.
Denham, Dixon, 95, 131.
Denham and Clapperton, 16, 38, 91, 108,
128, 143, 166.
Dishonesty of the Negroes, 94-97,
Doctors in Negroland, 70-74.
Doolittle, James R., 184, 185, 186.
Douglas, Stephen A., 182.
Drayson, Alfred W., 49, 114, 168.
Drunkenness and Debauchery in Ne-
groland, 79, 80.
Du Chaillu, Raul B., 17-19, 26, 33, 44,
53-50, 59, 60, 72, 73, 77, 79, 93, 97,
112, 113, 125, 126, 130, 138, 148, 149,
156, 158, 159, 172.
Duncan, John, 23, 25, 28, 33, 39, 69, 77,
96, 110, 122, 145, 146, 170.
English, Thom&s Dunn, 216.
Extinction (probable) of the Negro
Race, 158-161.
Extortion and Robbery in Negroland,
82-89.
Failure of Missionary Enterprises in
Negroland, 134-138.
Fetichism, Priestcraft, and Idolatry
in Negroland, 57-70.
Fisher, Sydney George, 196, 197, 231.
Foote, Andrew H., 28, 30, 65, 136.
Freeman, J. J., 21-23, 31, 68, 71, 121, 159,
160.
Funeral Rites in Negroland, 118-122.
Glover, Samuel T., 213.
Gluttony of the Negroes, 100-102.
Godwin, Parke, 215.
Guyot, Arnold, 227, 228.
Habits, Manners, and Customs in Ne-
groland, 138-152.
Harris, Cornwallis, 39, 84, 102.
Helper, Hinton R. (Extracts from
"Nojoque"), 199-208. See also
the Introduction and the Appen-
dixes to the volume in hand.
Hendricks, Thomas A., 187.
Human Butcheries and Human Sacri-
fices in Negroland, 19-25.
Hutchinson, Thomas J., 29, 94, 104, 126,
154, 226.
Huts, Hovels, and Holes (but no
Houses) in Negroland, 152-158.
Huxley, Thomas H., 17.
Idolatry in Negroland, 57-70.
Indolence and Improvidence of the
Negroes, 122-125.
Inhospitality to Strangers in Negro-
land, 82-89.
Increasing Pre-eminence and Predom-
inance of the White Races, 227-
236.
Jefferson, Thomas, 173-177, 220, 224.
Kicherer, Mr., 92, 150.
Krapf, Louis, 87, 134, 160.
Lander, Richard, 24, 37, 62, 63, 75, 81, 91,
92, 97, 100, 105, 109, 126, 153, 107.
Lawlessness and Misery in Negroland
89-94.
Laziness of the Negroes, 122-125.
Lichtenstein, Dr. Henry, 91, 101, 111,
112, 148, 157, 158, 169.
Lieber, Francis, 228.
INDEX.
253
Lincoln, Abraham, 180, 181.
Livingstone, Cliarles, 26.
Livingstone, David, 21, 28, 30, 47, 60, 61,
70, 76, 80, 101, 102, 103, 110, 121,
122, 137, 138, 139, 140, 157, 171, 172.
London Dispatch, 135.
Lopez, Eduardo, 17.
Lyell, Sir Charles, 165.
Lying, an African Accomplishment, 97,
98.
Macbrair, R. M., 90.
Mann, Horace, 235.
Manners, Habits, and Customs in Ne-
groland, 138-152.
Marriage and Concubinage in Negro-
land, 105-117.
Mental, Physical, and Moral Differ-
ences between the Whites and
the Blacks, 162-172.
Missionary Enterprises, Failure of in
Negroland, 134-138.
Moffat, Robert, 30, 48, 100, 132, 150,
152.
Moore, Francis, 51, 79, 98, 118, 132.
Morton, Samuel George, 209, 210.
Mulattoes, the Offspring of Crimes
against Nature, 216-223.
Mumbo Jumbo in Negroland, 117, 118.
Mungen, William, 190, 191.
Murray, Hugh, 19, 20, 41, 49, 65, 86, 89,
110, 137, 142, 155, 167.
Nakedness and Shamelessness in Ne-
groland, 75-78.
National Intelligencer, 129.
New American Cyclopaedia, 225.
New York Tribune, 136, 173.
Night Carousals in Negroland, 80-82,
North British Review, 229.
Nott, Josiah Clark, 211, 216, 233.
22
Ogilby, John, 15, 16, 78, 87, 96, 98, 128,
133, 149.
Park, Mungo, 37, 87, 88, 94, 104, 127, 153,
167.
Parker, Theodore, 234.
Parton James, 214.
Penury and Misery in Negroland, 89-
94.
Physical, Mental, and Moral Differences
between the Wttites and the
Blacks, 162, 172.
Polygamy in Negroland, 105-117.
Priestcraft, Fetichism, and Idolatry in
Negroland, 57-70.
Probable Extinction of the Negro
Race, 158-161.
Prostitution and Nakedness in Negro-
land, 75-78.
Rain-doctors in Negroland, 70-74.
Raleigh Register, 124.
Reade, Winwood, 32, 57, 77, 90, 95, 104,
116, 117, 125, 136, 150, 165, 166.
Richardson, James, 61, 125, 144, 167.
Robbing Strangers in Negroland, 82-89.
Sacrifices, human, in Negroland, 19-
25.
Scott, Anna M., 87, 114, 137, 146.
Seward, Wm. H., 179, 180.
Shamelessness and Nakedness in Ne-
groland, 75-78.
Skulls, human, as sacred Relics and
Ornaments in Negroland, 25-29.
Slavery and the Slave-trade in Negro-
land, 37-44.
Smith, Charles Hamilton, 41, 170, 229,
230.
Speke, John Hanning, 42, 50, 98, 123,
130, 131, 160.
Steedman, Andrew, 45, 72, 144.
254
INDEX*
Strangers, Inhospitality to, in Negro-
land, 82-89.
Superstition and Witchcraft in Negro-
land, 45-57.
Theft as a Fine Art among the Afri-
cans, M-97.
Timidity and Cowardice of the Ne-
groes, 125-130.
Thurman, A. G., 187.
Untruthfulness of the Negroes, 97, 98.
Valdez, Francisco Travassos, 17, 31, 43,
53, 77, 84, 112, 125, 147, 148.
Van Evrie, J. H., 211, 212.
Venality of the Negroes, 98-100.
Voracity and Gluttony of the Negroes,
100-102.
Webster, Daniel, 178, 179, 235.
Westminster Review, 85.
Weston, George M., 215, 231, 232.
Wheelock, E. M., 161.
White (color), the Negro's Affection for
the, 102-105.
White Negroes (Albinos), 223-226.
White Races, Pre-eminence and Pre-
dominance of the, 227-236.
White, Richard Grant, 213, 214, 232.
Wilson, J. Leighton, 21, 39, 45, 65, 66,
72, 103, 105, 106, 107, 108, 118, 128,
151, 226.
Witchcraft in Negroland, 45-57.
Wrangling and Lawlessness in Negro-
land, 89-94.
There is a kind of physiognomy in the titlei.
(f books no less than in the faces of
men, by which a skiful observer
will know as well what to ex-
pect from the one as the
other,** — Butler,
.••.
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Victor Hugo.
LES MistRABLES. — The Celebrated novel. One large 8vo vol-
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LES MisERABLES. — In the Spanish language. Fine 8vo. edition,
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JARGAL. — A new novel. Illustrated. . i2mo. cloth, $1.75
THE LIFE OF VICTOR HUGO. — By himsclf. . 8vo. cloth, $1.75
Miss Mnlocli.
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Hand-Books of Society.
THE HABITS OF GOOD SOCIETY ; with thoughts, hints, and
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and the art of making oneself agreeable. The most enter-
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THE ART OF CONVERSATION. — With dire6lions for self-culture.
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Nearly 150 illustrative pidures. . i2mo. cloth, $2.00
Robinson Crnsoe.
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Mrs. Mary J. Holmes' W^orks,
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ENGLISH ORPHANS. . . do. . do. .
DORA DEANE. . . . do. , do. .
COUSIN MAUDE. . . . do. . do. .
HOMESTEAD ON THE HILLSIDE. do. . do. .
HUGH WORTHINGTON. . . do. . do. .
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MACARIA. do. do. . . do. .
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THE WHITE CHIEF. . do.
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MY SOUXnERN FRIENDS. do.
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PARIS IN '67. — Sketches of travel.
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THE PRISON-LIFE OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. — Incidents and conversa-
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SOUVENIRS OF TRAVEL. — Ncw edition. Large i2mo. cloth, $2.00
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