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SLAVE CHILDREN OF
THOMAS JEFFERSON
PAUL CUFFEE
DAVID WALKER
RICHARD ALLEN AND
THE AME CHURCH
WAR OF 1812
THE JOHN BROWN
TEST
BLACK PEOPLE OF
THE OLD WEST
BLACK WOMEN OF THE
OLD WEST
AFRICAN AMERICANS
AND THE CIVIL WAR |
In
the 1860 census in the South, there were 500,000 mulatto or
mixed race slaves and 350,000 slave owners. Thus, every slave
owner had on average produced more than one slave child. The
slave children of former President Thomas Jefferson, and their
direct descendants, are among the most carefully studied
families in the history of America because of their outstanding
achievements up to and including Chairman of the Board of DuPont
Chemical Corporation.
Thomas
Jefferson is considered the greatest and most brilliant
statesman this country has ever produced. Moreover, among the
founding fathers, he was the one who was the most vocal opponent
of slavery and did the most to contribute to its abolition. He
wrote the Declaration of Independence with a clause opposing
slavery, which was taken out at the insistence of the other
signers. He wrote the Northwest Ordinance in 1783, and included
a clause that prohibited slavery in the new areas of Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois. Jefferson negotiated the Louisiana
Purchase from France in 1803, and included a provision, which
prohibited the introduction of slavery into these new areas.
While president, Thomas Jefferson pushed through Congress a bill
in 1808, which prohibited the importation of slaves and
authorized the U.S. Navy to seize and confiscate ships
containing slaves on the high seas. Thomas Jefferson was
married to Martha Wayles, the daughter of John Wayles, for 10
years before she died in 1776. Upon the death of Martha Wayles
and her father, Jefferson inherited 11,000 acres of land and 135
slaves. Sally Hemmings was one of the slaves inherited. She
was also a daughter of John Wayles and an African slave, and
thus his wife's half sister. Jefferson fell in love with this
mulatto slave after she accompanied his daughter to France,
where he was U.S. Ambassador in 1787. Their first son "Tom" was
born in 1789. Sally Hemmings produced Beverly Hemmings in 1798,
while Thomas Jefferson was Vice President, and three other
children while Jefferson was President, including Harriet in
1801, Madison in 1805, and Eston in 1808.
Beverly
and Harriet Hemmings were allowed to run away in 1822. Harriet
married a White person and never acknowledged her parents.
Beverly ended up in England where he also passed for White. His
great-grandson, Edward Graham Jefferson, migrated back to the
U.S. and became a naturalized American citizen. He subsequently
became CEO of DuPont Chemical Corporation, retiring in 1986 and
was a member of the Board at AT&T Corporation, Chemical Bank,
and Seagram Corporation.
Sally
Hemming's first son, Tom, eventually married Jemima, the slave
daughter of a master named Drury Woodson, and changed his name
to Tom Woodson. He became the distributor of an abolitionist
newspaper and a leader in the Black community. Federal Judge
Timothy Lewis in 1991, became the first prominent person to
admit publicly that he was a descendant of Sally Hemmings and
son, Tom Woodson. This was only after his Senate confirmation
hearings. Most descendants were ashamed of their slave
ancestry.
Frederick
Madison Roberts, the grandson of Madison Hemmings, became the
first Black man ever elected to the State Assembly of
California. He also became a close friend of Earl Warren and
helped found UCLA, that is, the University of California at Los
Angeles. Sally Hemming's last born son, Eston, had a son named
John Wayles Jefferson who founded the Continental Cotton
Company, which was very successful.
Thomas
Jefferson was the most vocal opponent against slavery and spent
his entire life working for the abolition of slavery. He
strongly believed that “all men are created equal” and that they
could achieve equally if only given the opportunity. Jefferson
would be proud to know that his slave children confirmed his
theory about racial equality by their outstanding achievements.
AMERICA’S RICHEST AFRICAN
AMERICAN
Paul Cuffe
(1759-1817) was the richest African American in the United
States during the early 1800’s, but never stopped championing
the cause of better conditions for his people. At the age of
19, he sued the Massachusetts courts for the right to vote
stating that taxation without representation should be illegal.
He built on his own farm, New Bedford’s only school for the
children of “free Negroes” and personally sponsored their
teachers. He authored the first document of its kind addressed
to the New Jersey Legislature asking that body “to petition the
Congress of the United States that every slave be freed and that
every Colored man that so desired be allowed to leave America.”
By 1811, Paul Cuffe finally concluded that if the richest Black
person in America was considered a second class citizen, then
emigration back to Africa was the only answer for Black social,
economic, and political self-determination. On December 12,
1815 Cuffe personally sponsored and transported nine families
(38 people) back to Africa in what he hoped would be the first
of many such voyages.
Paul Cuffe
was one of ten children born to a slave father, Saiz Kufu
(later, Cuffe) and an Indian mother. The father was freed by
his Quaker master in 1745, and earned enough money working for
ship owners to buy a 116-acre farm in Dartmouth, Mass. in 1766.
Paul left the farming to his siblings and chose a maritime life
and by age 14 was working full time on whaling ships. By age
18, he had become so thoroughly self-taught in mathematics,
navigation, and other seafaring skills that he decided to built
his own boat for self-employment. During the Revolutionary War,
he made enough money smuggling goods pass British blockade
patrol ships that he was able to purchase a shipyard and
construct three small whaling boats between 1787 and 1795.
During one season alone, Cuffe and his crew captured six whales
and Cuffe proved his courage and commitment by asking his crew
to lower him to the side of the boat where he personally
harpooned two whales.
Paul
Cuffe’s early activity was fraught with danger as he purchased
and delivered freight along the Atlantic seaboard. Pirates were
a constant threat and on more than one occasion his ship was
captured and all of his merchandise stolen, but he never stopped
pursuing his dream. The Fugitive Slave Act was also a constant
threat, especially since Cuffe exclusively staffed his
businesses and ships with Blacks to demonstrate their equally
and to reinforce their self-confidence and sense of racial
pride. The Fugitive Slave Act legalized the seizure of any
Black person suspected of escape from slavery by any White
person. Since African Americans could not testify in court,
“the Black accused would have to find and persuade a White
person to appear at his trial and convince the authorities that
the accused was free” or risk being resold into slavery.
Moreover, Paul Cuffe was once arrested for several days and his
boat seized during a delivery to Vienna, Maryland by Federal
Collector of Customs, James Frazier. In 1796, Maryland had
passed a law “requiring any ‘suspicious’ free Black to six
months of servitude.” Since a vessel owned and operated by
Blacks was unprecedented, it was certainly “suspicious”. Whites
were also concerned about what this demonstration of Black
achievement might have on otherwise obedient slaves. However,
Cuffe had “impeccable mercantile credentials, proof of registry
at Bedford, Massachusetts, and receipts from such reliable
merchant houses as William Rotch and Sons.”
As the
Cuffe commercial enterprises continued to prosper, he expanded
by purchasing a 200-acre farm, a gristmill, and by building
ships large enough to enable him to purchase and deliver freight
internationally. In 1800 Cuffe built the 162-ton “Hero” which
sailed around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope eight times while
delivering merchandise from Portuguese East Africa to Europe.
Paul Cuffe’s largest ship was the 268-ton “Alpha” which Cuffe
and nine Black crewmembers sailed from Savannah, Georgia to
Gothenburg, Sweden with a large cargo in 1806.
Despite
the fact that Paul Cuffe was the richest Black man and largest
Black employer in America, he was convinced that no amount of
wealth would make a Black man socially acceptable in America and
that Blacks would always be “resident aliens.” He felt the only
answer was to develop a strong Black African nation. Cuffe
declared: “Blacks would be better off in Africa, where we could
rise to be a people.” When William Rotch told him of a British
program to repatriate unwanted Blacks living in London to Sierra
Leone, he immediately sailed to England for more information.
Cuffe
hoped that a strong Black nation could trade with Great Britain
and the United States and that educated “free Negroes” from
America could provide the much needed technology. American
technology was needed because a British law (1731) forbid any
White person from teaching any Black person a trade, thus
reducing London’s “Black Poor” to unemployable beggars whom the
government wanted sent to Africa.
While
traveling to England and Sierra Leone, Paul Cuffe used an
introductory letter from President Thomas Jefferson to help him
gather data on manufacturing, operating costs, threatening
colonial practices, and available trade opportunities. Cuffe
found the residents of Sierra Leone very receptive to his
prescription for reviving Black industry. They also hoped that
a strong economic and social return of Africa to its past glory
would help dissuade the slave trade. A large percentage of the
population of Freetown were former American slaves who had
fought with the British during the Revolutionary War and then
were evacuated to Nova Scotia, Canada with the White British
Loyalists. Both severe racism and severe climate encouraged the
Black Nova Scotians to leave en-mass for Sierra Leone in
November 1792. Paul Cuffe hired Aaron Richards, a Black settler
in Freetown as the captain’s apprentice “to prepare the road to
progress,” and before leaving, Cuffe founded the “Friendly
Society for the Emigration of Free Negroes from America”. After
his return to America, “Cuffe began a speaking tour to introduce
free Blacks to the notion of nation building in Africa.”
The War of
1812 interrupted Cuffe’s trade and emigration plans until 1815,
at which time he paid $4,000 from personal funds to transport
38 African Americans to Sierra Leone, and he successfully
secured homesteads for all of his Black American brethren at his
expense. Failing health prevented any future trips and Cuffe
died on September 9, 1817. Paul Cuffe’s legacy is not as a
wealthy Black man but as a wealthy Black man who fought for the
betterment of his people and was always willing to back his
convictions with self-sacrifice, discipline, determination, and
financial resources.
In 1829,
David Walker published the first of four articles that he called
“Walker’s Appeal.” In it he encouraged all slaves to become
free by killing their masters. The South exploded in anger and
offered a reward for Walker of $10,000 dead or alive. Laws were
passed threatening to hang anyone with “Walker’s Appeal” in
their possession. Anti-slavery leaders of both races in the
North and South rejected the violence advocated in Walker’s
publication and forced him to circulate it at his own risk and
expense.
David
Walker proclaimed to the slaves: “…it is no more harm for you to
kill the man who is trying to kill you than it is for you to
take a drink of water.” Walker hated slavery despite the fact
that he was born free as the product of a free mother and slave
father. Afraid that his stirring publication meant eminent
danger, Walker’s wife and friends urged him to flee to Canada
but he refused. Walker said: “I will stand my ground. Somebody
must die in this cause. I may be doomed to the stake and the
fire or to the scaffold tree, but it is not in me to falter if I
can promote the work of emancipation.”
Despite
the great efforts of both the North and South to stop its
publication, “Walker’s Appeal” became one of the most widely
read and circulated books ever written by a black person. David
Walker was considered a hero by most abolitionists, who
considered his book the boldest attack ever written against
slavery.
Although
the violent aspects of Walker’s Appeal are most emphasized, he
also offered whites an olive branch if they would end slavery:
“Treat us like men, and there is no danger but we will all live
in peace and happiness together. For we are not like you: hard
hearted, unmerciful, and unforgiving. What a happy country this
will be if Whites will listen.” Walker viewed his publication
as a religious document giving blacks an obligation from God to
eradicate the evils of slavery. Walker said: “…answer God
Almighty, had you not rather be killed than to be a slave to a
tyrant who takes the life of your mother, wife, and children?”
He told
the white slaveholders: “You may do your best to keep us in
wretchedness and misery to enrich you and your children, but God
will deliver us from under you.”
David
Walker was born in Wilmington, North Carolina on September 28,
1785. He was self-taught and read extensively the literature on
slavery - especially on the history of resistance and
oppression. In 1820, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts where he
opened a secondhand clothing store. He began writing for a
black newspaper called “The Freedom Journal” in 1827.
David
Walker’s Appeal was published “Walker’s Appeal” on September 28,
1829. The full title is “Walker’s Appeal in Four Articles:
Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World,
but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United
States of America". Walker created such fear among slaveholding
states that governors and city officials alike held emergency
meetings to deal with its obvious implications. True to his
word, Walker did not flee the country and was murdered in 1830.
The “Appeal” was the inspiration for several slave rebellions
including the terrifying slave rebellion of Nat Turner about one
year after Walker’s death.
David
Walker’s selfless devotion to the liberation of his people and
his revolutionary spirit also served as an important model for
future militants like Henry Highland Garnet who published
Walker’s “Appeal” and his own work entitled “Address to the
Slaves of the United States” in a single volume in 1848.
From David Walker's Appeal
ARTICLE
I
Our Wretchedness in Consequence
of Slavery
My beloved brethren:-The
Indians of North and of South America-the Greeks-the Irish,
subjected under the king of Great Britain-the Jews, that ancient
people of the Lord-the inhabitants of the islands of the sea-in
fine, all the inhabitants of the earth, (except however, the
sons of Africa) are called men, and of course are, and ought to
be free. But we, (coloured people) and our children are brutes!!
and of course are, and ought to be Slaves to the American people
and their children forever!! to dig their mines and work their
farms; and thus go on enriching them, from one generation to
another with our blood and our tears!!!!
I promised in a
preceding page to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the most
incredulous, that we, (coloured people of these United States of
America) are the most wretched, degraded and abject set of
beings that ever lived since the world began, and that the white
Americans having reduced us to the wretched state of slavery,
treat us in that condition more cruel (they being an enlightened
and Christian people,) than any heathen nation did any people
whom it had reduced to our condition. These affirmations are so
well confirmed in the minds of all unprejudiced men, who have
taken the trouble to read histories, that they need no
elucidation from me. But to put them beyond all doubt, I refer
you in the first place to the children of [Old Testament Hebrew
patriarch] Jacob, or of Israel in Egypt, under [Egyptian king]
Pharaoh and his people. Some of my brethren do not know who
Pharaoh and the Egyptians were-I know it to be a fact, that some
of them take the Egyptians to have been a gang of devils, not
knowing any better, and that they (Egyptians) having got
possession of the Lord's people, treated them nearly as cruel as
Christian Americans do us, at the present day. For the
information of such, I would only mention that the Egyptians,
were Africans or coloured people, such as we are-some of them
yellow and others dark-a mixture of Ethiopians and the natives
of Egypt-about the same as you see the coloured people of the
United States at the present day.-I say, I call your attention
then, to the children of Jacob, while I point out particularly
to you his son Joseph, among the rest, in Egypt……..
RICHARD ALLEN AND THE AME
CHURCH
The
African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME Church) was one of the
first Black organizations dedicated to Black self-improvement
and Pan-Africanist ideals. The AME Church was also
distinguished by its commitment to political agitation, Black
education, and social activism. The interest in education
initially culminated in the founding of Wilberforce University
in 1863, as the first Black College founded by Blacks. Numerous
other AME Colleges soon followed. AME pastors were also
responsible for numerous lawsuits against public school
segregation, which eventually led to the 1954 case: “Brown vs.
Board of Education.” During the Civil Rights movement, the AME
Church was very active, and in addition to a pragmatic gospel,
the church addressed the housing, welfare, and unionization
issues of new immigrants to northern cities. However, nothing
more completely captures the spirit and embodiment of the AME
Church than its founder and first bishop, Richard Allen.
Richard
Allen was born into slavery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on
February 14, 1760 and shortly thereafter his entire family was
sold by a Philadelphia lawyer, Benjamin Chew, to a Delaware
plantation owner, Stokely Sturgis. Although the slave master
was unconverted, he allowed Richard Allen to attend Methodist
meetings. In addition to their antislavery beliefs, Allen was
especially impressed by their emphasis on a simple set of
virtues including honesty, modesty, and sobriety and converted
to Methodism at age 17. By age 20, Allen was able to convert
his slave master and to convince him that slaveholding was
wrong. Allen was allowed to buy his freedom for $2000 by
working a variety of odd jobs over the next five years. Once
freed, “Allen traveled widely on the Methodist circuits,
preaching, holding prayer meetings, and giving religious counsel
to groups of White and Black Christians in the small towns and
rural settlements of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New
York.” While in Philadelphia, Allen was asked by the elders at
St. George Methodist Church to preach to their Black members.
After the Black membership increased dramatically, Richard Allen
determined that his calling was to minister to the “uneducated,
poor, and unchurched community” and that he could best reach
them in a separate Black church. However, the White Methodist
elders ridiculed the whole idea with “very degrading and
insulting language.”
St.
George’s Black membership became so large that the church was
forced to build a new seating gallery. When church authorities
demanded that Blacks sit in the rear of the gallery, Allen and
others decided they had been insulted enough: “We all went out
of the church in a body and they were no more plagued with us.”
The Black Methodists agreed to purchase a blacksmith shop and to
move it to a lot Allen had purchased with his own savings.
Carpenters were hired to make the building suitable for church
meetings and on April 9, 1794, Bishop Asbury dedicated the
structure as “Bethel African Church.” Bishop Asbury also
ordained Allen as the first Black Methodist deacon and within
four years the Bethel membership increased from 45 to 457
members. Richard Allen’s success was the inspiration for many
other Black Methodist groups to form African Methodist Churches
throughout the Northeast especially in New York, Delaware, and
Maryland.
Since
Bethel African Church was still under White Methodist
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, White Methodists sued for legal
control of Bethel, but in 1807 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court
ruled in Allen’s favor. In 1816, Allen organized a national
convention of Black Methodists, since many of them had similar
White Methodist challenges. The convention delegates resolved
that the churches they represent “should become one body under
the name ‘African Methodist Episcopal Church’ in order to secure
their privileges and promote union and harmony among
themselves.” Richard Allen became the new denomination’s first
Bishop and retained that title until his death in 1831.
Richard
Allen dedicated his entire life toward uplifting his fellow
African Americans. He felt that true Christians had to stretch
out their hands beyond the circle of family and friends “to
comfort the poor neighbor, the stranger, the widow, and the
orphan.” He helped establish the Free African Society, the
Bethel Benevolent Society, and the African Society for the
Education of Youth “in order to support one another…from a love
to the people of our complexion whom we behold with sorrow.”
Bethel Church became the scene of numerous Black conventions to
discuss the abolition of slavery and racial discrimination, and
Richard Allen was commonly recognized as the leader of free
Northern Blacks. Allen also published “An Address to Those Who
Keep Slaves” in which he attacked slavery and the arguments for
it.
Allen
spent the final years of his life vehemently opposing the
American Colonization Society, which Whites organized in 1817 to
support the emigration of free Blacks from America to Africa.
The American Colonization Society argued that free Blacks would
have to leave this country to find true freedom, since the
Fugitive Slave Act allowed any White person to call a free Black
a fugitive slave. Since African Americans could not testify in
court and therefore could not defend themselves, they had to
find someone White who could speak in their behalf or they would
become enslaved. Richard Allen himself was once called a
fugitive slave, but fortunately, he was so famous that he not
only won his case but had his accuser thrown into jail for three
months. The American Colonization Society also argued that
African Americans could help civilize and convert their less
fortunate African brothers. However, Allen angrily responded
that American Blacks could not convert or civilize anyone since
they were mostly illiterate and uneducated themselves. He felt
the real purpose of the colonizationists was to expel the most
vociferous opponents of slavery. Allen told the American
Colonization Society: “We will never separate ourselves
voluntarily from the slave population in this country; they are
our brethren and we feel there is more virtue in suffering
privations with them than fancied advantage for a season.”
Richard
Allen propelled the AME Church to the center of Black
institutional activity during his lifetime. Allen’s life, as
much as his sermons, remained an effective example for the
future leadership of the AME Church. Moreover, his leadership
direction is responsible for the continued proliferation of AME
membership throughout the 19th and 20th century, which today
boasts a total of over 1.2 million members.
African
American soldiers and sailors played a tremendous role in
helping America defeat the British during the Revolutionary
War. Most northern states were so grateful for the
contributions of Black soldiers that they abolished slavery
shortly after the war. Even Virginia passed a law freeing all
slaves who had participated in the Revolutionary War. However,
peacetime produced a total amnesia to the contributions of
Blacks in the military and a request for their participation was
not made again until the War of 1812 (June 18, 1812-December 24,
1814).
After the
Revolutionary War, southerners were determined to never again
allow African Americans, neither free nor slave, to “gain
dignity and prestige by fighting for the United States.” They
were instrumental in the passage by Congress of the Military Act
(May 8, 1792), which called for the enrollment of “each and
every able-bodied White male citizen between the ages of 18 and
45.” When the Marine Corps was established by a congressional
act on July 11, 1798, Secretary of War Henry Knox issued a
directive that “No Negro, mulatto, or Indian is to be enlisted,”
and this directive was followed for the next 150 years. Only
World War II manpower shortages forced the Marine Corps to
change its 150-year policy and recruit African Americans.
Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert followed the lead of the
Army and Marine Corps and instructed his recruiters in August
1798 “…no Negroes, mulattos, or Indians.”
During the
early 1800s, the British had the most powerful Navy in the
world, especially after defeating France’s Napoleonic Navy.
Still at war with Napoleon, a British naval blockade from Maine
to Georgia was used to prevent American trading with French
merchants. Moreover, because of a tremendous shortage of
sailors, the British not only boarded and searched merchant
vessels on the high seas but would frequently claim that
American sailors were British deserters and force them to work
on British ships (called impressment).
The
impressment of three African American sailors from the American
frigate “Chesapeake” on June 22, 1807 is called the first major
incident leading to the War of 1812, and is frequently compared
to the killing of Crispus Attucks which was called the first
major incident leading to the Revolutionary War.
A group of
expansionist congressmen called “War Hawks” convinced President
James Madison to sign a declaration of war against Great Britain
on June 18, 1812. In addition to conquering the British on the
high seas, they hoped to expel the British from Canada, since
most British troops were still fighting Napoleon. However,
extreme racism left America ill prepared for this unpopular
war. Not only did White men fail to enlist, but New England
Whites also started a separatist movement and held a convention
in Hartford, Connecticut in December 1814 to further solidify
their demands. Moreover, the Canadian invasion was a total
failure, and the British continued to defeat American Whites
until they occupied Detroit and most of Ohio. JA Rogers states
that the British practically wiped out American sea-borne trade
and captured Florida and much of the South with Black volunteers
whom they promised freedom. On August 24, 1814 the British Army
captured Washington DC and burned many public buildings to the
ground including the White House and Capital. The Encyclopedia
Britannica says America was thoroughly defeated in this war
while gaining none of the avowed aims and that only legend has
converted defeat into the illusion of victory. Military
historian Gary Donaldson states that only after the United
States was brought to the edge of losing its independence were
African Americans allowed in the military.
The White
residents of both Pennsylvania and New York now welcomed Blacks
into the military to defend their cities from the advancing
enemy and even promised slaves freedom after three years of
service. General Andrew Jackson begged Blacks in New Orleans to
fight the British and promised them equal pay with Whites, 160
acres of land, and participation in all Black battalions led by
Black officers to avoid White prejudices. Jackson said:
“Through a mistake in policy, you have heretofore been deprived
of participation in the glorious struggle for national rights in
which our country is engaged. This no longer shall exist. As
Americans, your country looks with confidence to her adopted
children for a valorous support.”
On March
3, 1813 the Navy officially authorized the recruitment of Blacks
because of the severe manpower shortage, thus reversing their
official exclusion since the congressional act of 1798.
Experienced Black sailors who had previously worked on whaling
boats and as merchant marines flocked to the Navy and were
credited with much of America’s success in defeating the British
Navy in the Great Lakes region. Commodore Thomas McDonough said
the accuracy of his Black gunners was responsible for his
victory on Lake Champlain. Commodore Isaac Chancey said he had
fifty Black crewmembers that were among his very best.
On
September 10, 1813, Commodore Oliver Perry defeated the British
fleet on Lake Erie after a savage three hour battle and
acknowledged the contributions and individual bravery of his 100
Black seamen in his Battle Report and also noted: “They seemed
to be absolutely insensitive to danger.” Military historian
Michael Lanning states: “The American naval victories in which
Black sailors played such a critical role, finally forced the
war-weary British to agree to a peace treaty.” The “Treaty of
Ghent” was signed on December 24, 1814 in Belgium restoring
pre-war conditions.
Unaware
that the war had ended, sixty British ships containing 12,000
men sailed up the Mississippi River on January 8, 1815 in an
attempt to capture New Orleans. The men of the “Louisiana
Battalion of Free Men of Color” were in the front line of
American soldiers who dealt the British their worst defeat of
the war, inflicting 4,000 casualties compared to only sixty of
their own. After the battle, General Andrew Jackson praised the
Black soldiers: “I was not ignorant that you possessed qualities
most formidable to an invading enemy…the President of the United
States shall hear how praise worthy was your conduct in the hour
of danger.” Jackson kept his promises of $124 and 160 acres of
land to both White and Black soldiers. However, glory faded
quickly for the “Louisiana Battalion of Free Men of Color”; they
were soon disbanded and again faced pre-war prejudices. In city
celebrations of the “Battle of New Orleans” for the next 100
years, not a single Black person was allowed to participate in
the festivities.
White
America, again, quickly forgot the contributions of Blacks in
the military. A War Department memorandum on March 3, 1815
discharged all Blacks from the military stating: “A Negro is
deemed unfit to associate with the American soldier.” The Navy
issued orders in 1839 restricting Black enlistments to less than
5% and only in positions of cooks, mess boys, and servants, and
this was signed by the same Isaac Chauncey who had highly
praised his Black sailors during the War of 1812. Peacetime
again became the chief promoter of racial exclusion in America
and as always, when African Americans were no longer needed,
they were also no longer wanted.
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REFERENCES AND
ADDITIONAL READING
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Dr.
Leonard Jeffries recommends that before you call a white person
a “true friend,” that person should pass the “John Brown Test.”
Since history records numerous John Browns the question is,
exactly which John Brown does Dr. Jeffries consider a good role
model for white friendship? Rhode Island College changed its
name to Brown University in 1804 to honor one person named John
Brown. However, this John Brown made his fortune exchanging rum
for slaves, so he couldn’t possibly be the White friend role
model. John Robert Brown (1909-1993) was Chief Justice for the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and played a pivotal role in
championing and enforcing civil rights legislation in the
South. He is most noted for ordering in 1962 that
African-American James Meredith be enrolled in the all-white
University of Mississippi. Most black people would be happy to
have a White friend like John Robert Brown, but Leonard Jeffries
says the “real” John Brown died at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia
in 1859.
The “real”
John Brown had an entire book written about him in 1909 by W.E.
Burghardt DuBois which was most recently reprinted in 1996 by
International Publishers. One of the greatest women in African
American history, Harriet Tubman, regarded this John Brown and
not President Abraham Lincoln as the true emancipator of her
people. The “real” John Brown was born in Torrington,
Connecticut on May 9, 1800 about four months before the
attempted insurrection of slaves under Gabriel in Virginia in
September of the same year. He was raised in Hudson, Ohio where
his family migrated in 1805. By the age of 16, he had already
joined the church and soon became such an experienced bible
student that “when any person was reading he would correct the
least mistake.” His love for religion was exceeded only by his
love for family where he fathered 20 well-disciplined,
hard-working children. After seven of his children died before
adulthood, he concluded that in some way his own sin and
shortcomings were bringing upon him “the vengeful punishment of
God.” He felt his greatest sin was not doing enough “to
increase the amount of human happiness.”
In 1839, a
turning point occurred in Brown’s life when he was visited by a
black preacher named Fayette. Fayette described slavery as “the
foulest and filthiest blot on 19th century civilization.” He
added: “as a school of brutality and human suffering, of female
prostitution and male debauchery; as a mockery of marriage and
defilement of family life; as a darkening of reason, and
spiritual death, slavery has no parallel.” John Brown fell to
his knees and “implored God’s blessing on his purpose to make
active war on slavery, and he bound his family in solemn and
secret compact to labor for emancipation.”
John Brown
was convinced that the first step toward emancipation was
education. He noted that all pro-slavery states were vehemently
opposed to educating slaves and made this a capital offense.
John was also aware that slaveholders actively pursued African
American schools and churches and burned them to the ground
after Nate Turner’s slave revolt on August 21, 1831. Brown felt
that once the master-slave relationship was broken, Black people
deserved their own state and educated blacks would be needed for
self-government. He actively campaigned for the establishment
of African American schools and even tried to establish a school
himself in Hudson, Ohio. When Oberlin College opened its doors
to “Negroes” in 1839, and appointed his father as a trustee,
John Brown was overjoyed.
On August
1, 1846, Gerrit Smith, a wealthy New York abolition leader,
offered free Blacks 100,000 acres of his land in North Elba, New
York for farms. Because of the bleak climate and harsh soil,
black farmers found it very difficult to succeed until John
Brown volunteered to help. He went to Gerrit Smith at
Petersboro, New York in April 1848 and said: “I am something of
a pioneer…I will take one of your farms myself, clean it up and
plant it, and show my Colored neighbors how such work should be
done. I will look after them in all needful ways and be a kind
of father to them.”
In 1854,
the government announced that Kansas would become a slave-free
state open for settlement. Consequently, five of Brown’s sons
moved to Kansas in October 1854 but were appalled at what they
discovered. Large pro-slavery gangs were traveling throughout
Kansas killing anti-slavery farmers and burning their
properties. When John Brown’s sons informed him what was
happening, he loaded a wagon full of weapons and headed for
Kansas. In May 1856, shortly after John Brown’s arrival in
Kansas, two thousand pro-slavery Missourians surrounded
Lawrence, Kansas, the capital city, and brutally killed many of
the anti-slavery settlers and sacked and burned half the town.
On the same day, Senator Brooks killed Senator Charles Sumner by
a crushing blow to the head in the U.S. Senate Chamber for
telling the truth about Kansas. John Brown was angry and
“indignant that there had been no resistance; that Lawrence was
not defended; and denounced the men as trembling cowards, or
worse.” In retaliation, Brown and his sons entered Missouri at
night and dragged five of the pro-slavery ringleaders out of
their cabins and hacked them to death with swords. This blow,
called the Pottawatomie murders, is said to have freed Kansas by
plunging it into civil war, and compelling men to fight for
freedom, which they had vainly hoped to gain by political
diplomacy. Kansas’s anti-slavery settlers repelled Missouri’s
pro-slavery settlers’ last invasion on September 15, 1856, and
Kansas was finally declared a slave-free state. John Brown was
now free to return to the East to resume his plan to free
southern slaves by force.
Between
1857 and 1859, John Brown visited the homes of Frederick
Douglas, Harriet Tubman, Henry Highland Garnet, Martin Delaney,
and many other leading African American abolitionists to gain
their support for his plan to free all southern slaves by
force. All of the abolitionists were extremely impressed by
John Brown’s intense desire to end slavery. Although they
believed in John Brown, most did not believe his plan was
humanly possible. Nevertheless, only sickness prevented Harriet
Tubman from joining John Brown on his southern invasion after
she had actively recruited soldiers for his cause.
When told
that he might die executing his plan, Brown exclaimed: “Did not
my Master Jesus Christ come down from Heaven and sacrifice
Himself upon the altar for the salvation of the race, and should
I, a worm, not worthy to crawl under his feet, refuse to
sacrifice myself?” On October 16, 1859, John Brown with an
armed band of 16 Whites (including 2 of his sons) and 5 Blacks
attacked the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.
He had hoped that by capturing the armory arsenal, escaped
slaves would join his rebellion, forming an “army of
emancipation” with which to liberate their fellow slaves.
Unfortunately, he was surrounded by U.S. Marines and
overpowered. He was tried and convicted of slave insurrection
and hanged on December 2, 1859. Many believe that Brown’s
attack helped immortalize him and hasten the Civil War, which
did bring emancipation.
If Leonard
Jeffries could find a single friend, Black or White, who even
comes close to passing the “John Brown Test”, he should consider
himself truly blessed. The truth is, only one person in this
country’s history, either Black or White has ever passed the
“John Brown Test”, and he was the “REAL” John Brown.
President
Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, the day Pearl Harbor was
bombed, as a day that will forever be recorded in infamy. For
Black pioneers in the old west, February 2, 1848 will forever be
recorded in infamy. This is the day the peace treaty was signed
which ended the Mexican War and gave to the United States the
territories of Texas, California, Nevada, Utah and parts of
Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.
The
African Americans who arrived with the earliest Spanish
expeditions to California helped create a culture that accepted
them as equals. Blacks purchased large segments of land and
became successful businessmen with the establishment of hotels
and trading centers. Los Angeles was founded by 26 people of
African ancestry and only two Caucasians. Maria Rita Valdez,
whose Black grandparents were among the founding members of Los
Angeles, owned Rancho Rodeo de Las Aguas, today called Beverly
Hills. Francisco Reyes, another Black resident, owned the San
Fernando Valley. In the 1790's, he sold it and became mayor of
Los Angeles. Pio Pico, whose grandmother was listed as mulatto
in the 1790 census, was governor of California from 1845-1846
when the Mexican War started. Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles is
named after this Black governor.
William
Leidesdorff is one of San Francisco's most famous citizens. He
was born in St. Croix, Virgin Islands to a Danish planter and
his African wife. He sailed for California in 1841, after
becoming a wealthy businessman, aboard his 160-ton schooner
called "Julia Ann." He shortly thereafter became a landowner,
having purchased a 35,000-acre estate in San Francisco and soon
became treasurer of the San Francisco City Council. He helped
set up the first public school system which was open to
everyone, regardless of race, creed, or color. Leidesdorff
opened the first hotel in San Francisco, introduced the first
steamboat to the city, and organized its first horse race.
Today a street in downtown San Francisco bears the name of this
remarkable early Black citizen.
Things
changed rapidly after February 2, 1848, when the United States
assumed control of California. President Polk announced the
discovery of gold in California in 1849, and the population
soared 10 fold within two years. Although racial lines had been
ignored before California became American territory, Black
hatred and discrimination moved westward with the White wagon
trains. Most White Californians were convinced that no matter
how honest, reliable, hard working or wealthy a Black neighbor
might be, he ought not be granted any rights a White man was
bound to respect. In 1852, the legislature of California passed
a law, deeply hated by Blacks, which prohibited any Black person
from testifying in court. This prevented Black men from
supporting their land claims, Black women from identifying rape
assailants, and Black businessmen from suing those who had
cheated or robbed them. Other anti Black laws produced
segregated schools and prohibited Blacks from voting as well as
from serving in the military.
In
addition, the "fugitive slave law" was passed in 1852 by a 14 to
9 vote, which also permitted a slave owner to remain an
indefinite time in the state, thus institutionalizing slavery
despite its prohibition in the state constitution.
A Black
exodus from California to Canada occurred in 1858, when the
California legislature tried to pass a bill banning Black
immigration. Blacks were terrified because Oregon's legislature
passed a law the previous year, which provided for the expulsion
of all Black people within 3 years. Any Black remaining after
three years would be whipped every six months or forced into
labor without pay. Oregon's exclusion provision was passed in
1857 and was not repealed until 1927.
Our Black
ancestors in the old west could only dream about how wonderful
their lives may have been if the Mexican government had won the
war and had not signed the peace treaty on the infamous day of
February 2, 1848.
BLACK WOMEN OF THE OLD WEST
Although
our novels and movies are filled with heroes from the old west,
African American heroes are virtually never mentioned.
Moreover, historians have also contributed to this unjust and
unbalanced recording of our glorious western saga by completely
ignoring the many accomplishments of Black men and women,
despite the fact they were accurately reported in newspapers,
government records, military reports, and pioneer memoirs. As
members of a double minority, Black women have suffered an even
greater historical injustice, although they were an integral
part of the western fabric. Nothing more clearly demonstrates
the contributions of Black women to the western tradition than
the biographies of Biddy Bridget Mason, Clara Brown, and Mary
Ellen Pleasant.
Biddy
Bridget Mason (1815-1891) was born into slavery and given as
a wedding gift to a Mormon couple in Mississippi named Robert
and Rebecca Smith. In 1847 at age 32, Biddy Mason was forced to
walk from Mississippi to Utah tending cattle behind her master’s
300-wagon caravan. After four years in Salt Lake City, Smith
took the group to a new Mormon settlement in San Bernardino,
California in search of gold. When Biddy Mason discovered that
the California State Constitution made slavery illegal, she had
Robert Smith brought into court on a writ of habeas corpus, and
the court freed all of Smith’s slaves. Now free, Mason and her
three daughters (probably fathered by Smith) moved to Los
Angeles where they worked and saved enough money to buy a house
at 331 Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles.
Knowing
what it meant to be oppressed and friendless, Biddy Mason
immediately began a philanthropic career by opening her home to
the poor, hungry, and homeless. Through hard work, saving, and
investing carefully, she was able to purchase large amounts of
real estate including a commercial building, which provided her
with enough income to help build schools, hospitals, and
churches. Her most noted accomplishment was the founding of
First African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, now the oldest
church in Los Angeles, where she also operated a nursery and
food pantry. Moreover, her generosity and compassion included
personally bringing home cooked meals to men in state prison.
In 1988, Mayor Tom Bradley had a tombstone erected at her
unmarked gravesite and November 16, 1989 was declared “Biddy
Mason Day”. In addition, the highlights of her life were
displayed on a wall of the Spring Center in downtown Los
Angeles, an honor befitting Los Angeles’s first Black female
property owner and philanthropist.
Clara
Brown (1806-1888) is another who dedicated her life to the
betterment of others. She was born as a slave in Virginia and
then sold at age three to the Brown family in Logan, Kentucky.
At age 35, her master died, and her slave husband, son, and
daughter were sold at auction to different owners. After 20
additional years in slavery, she was able to buy her freedom and
immediately headed west to St. Louis. At age 55, she agreed to
serve as cook and laundress in exchange for free transportation
in a caravan headed for the gold mines of Colorado. Clara Brown
established a laundry in Central City and as her resources
expanded, she opened up her home, which served as a hospital,
church, and hotel to the town’s less fortunate.
Under her
direction, the first Sunday school developed, and moreover, the
whole town turned to her during illness because she was such a
good nurse. Frequently, she even “grubstaked miners who had no
other means of support while they looked for gold in the
mountains and was repaid handsomely for her kindness and
generosity by those who struck pay dirt.” Far and wide, she was
known as “Aunt Clara” and as “the Angel of the Rockies”.
By the end
of the Civil War, Clara Brown had accumulated several Colorado
properties and over $10,000 in cash. Since slavery was over,
she used her fortune to search for relatives in Virginia and
Kentucky and returned with 34 of them including her daughter.
She continued her philanthropy among the needy for the rest of
her life and also spent large sums of money helping other Blacks
come west. Upon her death at age 82, the Colorado Pioneers
Association buried her with honors, and a plaque was placed in
the St. James Methodist Church stating that her house was the
first home of the church.
Mary
Ellen Pleasant (1814-1903), a former slave, moved to San
Francisco in 1849 where she opened a successful boarding house,
famous for cards, liquor, and beautiful women. She was also a
partner of Thomas Bell, cofounder of the first “Bank of
California.” As a businesswoman, she was called mercurial,
cunning, cynical, and calculating, but personally she was
softhearted and had a passion for helping the less fortunate who
called her “the Angel of the West”. She was a leader in
California for the protection of abused women and children and
helped build and support numerous “safe havens” for them. Mary
Ellen Pleasant hated slavery and frequently rode into the rural
sections of California to rescue people held in bondage.
Because of Pleasant, the entire Black community of San Francisco
received a warning from one judge for “the insolent, defiant,
and dangerous way that they interfered with those who were
arresting slaves.” Mary Ellen Pleasant used most of her fortune
to aid fugitive slaves. “She fed them, found occupations for
them, and financially backed them in numerous small
businesses.” In 1858, she gave $30,000 to John Brown to help
finance his raid at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. This White
abolitionist had hoped to capture the national armory and
distribute the weapons to slaves for a massive insurrection.
During the Civil War, Pleasant raised money for the Union cause
and continued to fight for civil rights. Her tombstone epitaph
read: “Mother of Civil Rights in California” and “Friend of John
Brown”.
Brief
biographies of Biddy Bridget Mason, Clara Brown, and Mary Ellen
Pleasant serve to illustrate the enormous contributions and
accomplishments of Black women in the old west. Era Bell
Thompson in “American Daughter” clearly states the problem:
“Black women were an integral part of the western and American
tradition. It both impairs their sense of identity and
unbalances the historical record to continue to overlook the
role of Black women in the development of the American west.”
In a 1928
biography of Ulysses S. Grant, historian W.E. Woodward disavowed
any contributions made by black Americans in the Civil War. He
wrote: “The American Negroes are the only people in the history
of the world, that ever became free without any effort of their
own…The Civil War was not their business.” Woodward dismissed
the 200,000 African Americans who served in the war and the
28,000 who died fighting. White historians have always
diminished the wartime contributions of African Americans (who
have served honorably in every war since this country’s
inception), but no period seems more blatantly ignored than the
Civil War. Freedom for Blacks was the lasting legacy of the
Civil War, yet most history textbooks would have us believe that
Black slaves sat around playing banjoes and awaiting Yankee
soldiers to set them free. Nothing could be further from the
truth!
The Civil
War began on April 12, 1861 when the Confederate army attacked
Fort Sumter. The North initially thought they would easily
crush the South because of their 23,000,000 able-bodied white
males verses only about 6,000,000 white males available to the
South. The North was so certain of victory that they absolutely
refused to allow any black people (free or slave) to
participate. President Lincoln, however, had considerable
difficulty in obtaining volunteers. Poor White men refused to
fight in a war which, they believed, would liberate slaves who
would take their jobs. They also felt that neither saving the
Union nor ending slavery was adequate reason for risking their
lives. In July 1862 President Lincoln asked for 300,000 men,
but in five weeks less than 30,000 volunteered. On March 1,
1863, Congress passed the nation’s first draft bill, the
National Conscription Act, which was so unpopular that
anti-draft riots broke out in several northern cities.
Primarily, recently immigrated poor White males vented their
anger against local defenseless African Americans. The New York
Times wrote that people of African descent were “literally
hunted down like wild beasts and when caught either stoned to
death or hung from trees and lamp posts.”
In
addition to a manpower shortage, General Sherman told President
Lincoln that “our men are not good soldiers. They brag but they
don’t perform.” The New York World newspaper reported that
“when the Confederate Calvary charged at Bull Run the Union
soldiers ran in panic, leaving artillery, guns, ammunition,
wagons, and equipment behind.” Sir William Howard Russell, war
correspondent of the London Times wrote: “Such cowardly
scandalous behavior on the part of soldiers I should never have
considered possible.” The North was decisively defeated in its
first three major battles at Bull Run, Wilson Creek, and Balls
Bluff. Horace Greeley of the New York Tribute wrote Lincoln
that “the larger part of the army is a confused mob, entirely
demoralized.” He further added that Lincoln should “make peace
with the rebels at once and on their terms.” Conceding victory
to the Confederacy, Greeley published that “so short-lived has
been the American Union that men who saw its rise may now see
its fall.”
In July
1862, Lincoln convinced his Cabinet that all was lost unless he
could “win over the slaves of the South and have them fight on
his side by offering them freedom.” Lincoln himself wrote the
original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation and called a
special Cabinet meeting for its presentation. The Cabinet
agreed that the proclamation was their last resort, but
Secretary of War Seward asked Lincoln if he could wait for some
type of Union victory prior to its release. Otherwise, Seward
said: “It will be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted
government; a cry for help; the government stretching forth its
hands to Ethiopia, instead of Ethiopia stretching forth her
hands to the government.” The opportunity came with the
marginal Federal victory at Antietam Creek in Maryland on
September 17, 1862. One week after the Battle of Antietam,
Lincoln released the Emancipation Proclamation, which stated
that all slaves in the Confederacy (or areas still in rebellion)
would be “henceforth and forever free.” In addition, this
document also permitted for the first time, the recruitment of
Black men into the army. As a result of these actions, large
numbers of newly emancipated slaves all over the South began
joining Federal forces as soldiers and laborers.
When it
became clear to the Confederate forces in 1863 that their armies
would be facing black soldiers in the field, they responded with
a threat of death to all African Americans and their White
commanding officers. These were not idle threats. At Fort
Pillow, Tennessee in April 1864 about 300 Black Federal soldiers
were massacred under the direction of Confederate General Nathan
Bedford Forrest (who later founded the Ku Klux Klan). The Fort
Pillow incident caused Black soldiers to fight more desperately
throughout the remainder of the war. They either feared that
capture meant certain death, or they intended to exact some
revenge for the Fort Pillow atrocities or both.
On June 7,
1863 at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana, the Ninth and Eleventh
Louisiana regiment won the Civil War’s first significant battle
secured by African Americans. Assistant Secretary of War
Charles Dana reported that “a Confederate force of three
thousand attacked the camp and initially forced the Negro troops
to give way, but once reminded that those of their number who
were captured were killed, they rallied with great fury and
routed the enemy.”
Although
the Louisiana regiments fought the first major battles by
African American soldiers in the Civil War, the Fifty-Fourth
Massachusetts regiment gained the most widespread and lasting
fame of the war during its assault on Confederate Fort Wagner in
South Carolina. Most of the men of the Fifty-Fourth regiment
were killed while attacking Fort Wagner, yet Northern
politicians, newspapers, and military leaders hailed the
Fifty-Fourth as a symbol of the country’s greatest example of
valor in combat. In 1989, Hollywood honored the Fifty-Fourth
regiment in a feature film entitled “Glory” which earned an
Oscar nomination for best picture.
Black
soldiers participated in virtually every major battle once they
were allowed to join the military and earned 23 Congressional
Metals of Honor. Senior Union commanders including Generals
Daniel Ullman and Nathaniel Banks testified that “the brigades
of Negroes behaved magnificently and fought splendidly, and they
were far superior in discipline to the White troops and just as
brave.” On August 15, 1864 in an interview with John T. Mills,
Lincoln defended the use of Black troops by stating that if the
200,000 Black soldiers had decided to fight for the Confederacy
instead of the Union, he would have been “compelled to abandon
the war in three weeks.”
In
summary, history textbooks should record that African American
soldiers fought gallantly during the Civil War to end over 200
years of bondage. The Thirteenth Amendment (freeing all slaves)
was only another testimony to the magnificent accomplishments of
the Black soldiers on the Civil War’s battlefields.
Black People And Their Place In
World History Picture E-Book
Includes Dr. Vaughn's chapters, photographic
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with credit given and a linkable bibliography for further
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BLACK PEOPLE & THEIR PLACE IN WORLD
HISTORY
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