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The Atlanta University Publications, No. 12

ECONOMIC

COOPERATION

AMONG

NEGRO AMERICANS

A Social Study made by Atlanta University under the patronage of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D. C.

'

PRICE, ONE DOLLAR

The Atlanta University Press ATLANTA, GEORGIA

1907

Jti ZA-A—Xl Z£_A_Xi

I AM convinced myself that there is no more evil thing in this present world than Race Prejudice ; none at all. I write deliberately — it is the worst single thing in life now. It justifies and holds together more baseness, cruelty and abomination than any other sort of error in the world. Thru its body runs the black blood of coarse lust, suspicion, jealousy and persecution and all the darkest poisons of the human soul.

[ H. G. WELLS in the New York Independent]

I:

ECONOMIC

COOPERATION

AMONG

NEGRO AMERICANS

Report of a Social Study made by Atlanta University, under the patronage of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C., together with the Proceedings of the 12th Conference for the Study of the Negro Problems, held at Atlanta University, on Tuesday, May the 28th, 1907

EDITED BY

W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE CONFERENCE

The Atlanta University Press

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

1907

b 1

V V 7ER ihnen (i. e. the Negroes of Africa) selbftan- * * dige Erfindung und Eigenen Geschmack in ihren Arbeiten abspricht, der verschliesst sein Auge absicht- lich den offenkundigen Thatsachen, oder Mangel an Kenntniss derselben macht ihn unfahig zum competenten Beurtheiler. Soyaux.

A MONG the great groups of "natural" races, the Negroes are the be& and keenest tillers of the

ground. Ratzel

"'HE market is the center of all the more birring life in [African] Negro communities, and attempts to train him to culture have made the moft effedual £art from this tendency. Ratzel.

At

Contents

Page

Resolutions of the Conference 4

Preface 5

Select Bibliography of Economic Co-operation among Negro Ameri cans 6

Part I. The Background 10

Section 1. The Scope of this Study 10

Section 2. Africa 12

Section 3. The West Indies 18

Section 4. The Colonies 20

Part II. The Development of Co-operation 24

Section 5. An Historical Sketch 24

Section 6. The Underground Railroad 26

Section 1. Emancipation 32

Section 8. Migration 45

Part III. Types of Co-operation 54

Section 9. The Church 54

Section 10. Schools 73

Section 11. Beneficial and Insurance Societies . . . . 92 —

Section 12. Secret Societies 109 — *

v Section 13. Co-operative Benevolence 128""

Section 14. Banks 134 ~

Section 15. Co-operative Business 149 #

Section 16. The Group Economy 179^

Section 17. The Twelfth Atlanta Conference 181

174920

Resolutions of the Conference

The Conference regards the economic development of the Negro Americans at present as in a critical state. The crisis arises not so much because of idleness or even lack of skill as by reason of the fact that they unwittingly stand hesitating at the cross roads — one way leading to the old trodden ways of grasping fierce individualistic com petition, where the shrewd, cunning, skilled and rich among them will prey upon the ignorance and simplicity of the mass of the race and get wealth at the expense of the general well being; the other way leading to co-operation in capital and labor, the massing of small savings, the wide distribution of capital and a more general equality of wealth and comfort. This latter path of co-operative effort has already been entered by many; we find a wide development of industrial and sick relief, many building and loan associations, some co-operation of arti sans and considerable co-operation in retail trade. Indeed from the fact that there is among Negroes, as yet, little of that great inequality of wealth distribution which marks modern life, nearly all their eco nomic effort tends toward true economic co-operation. But danger lurks here. The race does not recognize the parting of the ways, they tend to think and are being taught to think that any method which leads to individual riches is the way of salvation.

The Conference believes this doctrine mischievously false, we believe that every effort ought to be made to foster and emphasize present tendencies among Negroes toward co-operative effort and that the ideal of wide ownership of small capital and small accumulations among many rather than great riches among a few, should persistently be held before them.

N. O. NELSON,

R. P. SIMS,

W. E. B. DuBois.

01

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Preface

This study, which forms the twelfth of the annual publications of Atlanta University, and the second investigation of the new decade, is a further carrying out of a plan of social study by means of recurring decennial inquiries into the same general set of human problems. The object of these studies is primarily scientific — a careful search for truth conducted as thoroughly, broadly, and honestly as the material re sources and mental equipment at command will allow; but this is not our sole object: we wish not only to make the Truth clear but to present it in such shape as will encourage and help social reform. Our financial resources are unfortunately meagre: Atlanta University is primarily a school and most of its funds and energy go to teaching. It is, however, also a seat of learning and as such it has endeavored to advance knowl edge, particularly in matters of racial contact and development which seemed obviously its nearest field. In this work it has received unusual encouragement from the scientific world, and the published results of these studies are used in America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Scarcely a book on the Negro problem or any phase of it has been published in the last decade which has not acknowledged its indebtedness to our work.

On the other hand, the financial support given this work has been very small. The total cost of the twelve publications has been about $13,000, or a little over $1,000 a year. The growing demands of the work, the vast field to be covered and the delicacy and equipment needed in such work call for far greater resources. We need, for workers, lab oratory and publications, a fund of $6,000 a year, if this work is going adequately to fulfill its promise. This year a small temporary grant from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D. C., has greatly helped us.

In other years we have been able to serve the United States Bureau of Labor, the United States Census, the Board of Education of the English Government, many scientific associations, professors in nearly all the leading universities, and many periodicals and reviews. May we not hope in the future for such increased financial resources as will enable us to study adequately this the greatest group of social problems that ever faced America?

Select Bibliography of Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Alvord, J.W.— Letters from the South relating to the condition of the Freedmen,

addressed to General Major O. O. Howard. 42 pp. Washington, 1870. Fifth Seml-Annual Report on Schools for Freedmen. 55 pp. Washington, 1868.

Allen, Walter.— Governor Chamberlain's Administration in South Carolina. 544 pp. London and New York, 1888.

American Negro and his economic value. B.T. Washington. International Monthly , 2:672-86.

American Negro Artisan. T. J. Calloway. Cassier's Magazine, 25:435-45.

Allen, Richard.— First Bishop of the A. M. E. Church. The life, experience and gos pel labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen. Written by himself. Philadelphia, 1798. 69 pp., 8vo.

American Colonization Society. Annual reports of the American Society for the colonizing of the Free People of color of the United States. Numbers 1-72, with minutes of the meetings and of the board of directors. 1818-1889, 8v., 8vo.

Anderson, Matthew.— Presbyterianism and its relation to the Negro. Philadelphia, 1897.

Arnett, B. W.— The Budget for 1881-1884. 651 pp. The Centennial Budget. 1887-1888. 589 pp.

The Budget, containing annual reports of the general officers, etc., 1885-6. 575 pp. The Budget, 1891. 241 pp. The Budget, 1901. 78pp. The Budget of 1904. 873pp. Philadelphia.

Bacon, Benjamin C.— Statistics of the colored people of Philadelphia. Phila., 1856. Ibid. Second Edition with statistics of crime. Phila., 1859. 2 (1), 3-24 pp., 8vo.

Blyden, Edward Wilmot.— Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race. Introduction by Samuel Lewis. London, 1887 (4), vii (1), 428 pp., 12mo.

Boston, Mass., Grammar School Committee. Report of a special committee of the grammar school board. Abolition of the Smith colored school. Boston, 1849. 71 pp., 8vo.

Brackett, Jeffrey Richardson.— The Negro in Maryland. A study of the institution of slavery. Bait., 1889 (5), 268 pp. (Johns Hopkins University Studies, extra vol. 6),8vo.

Buecher, Carl.— Industrial Evolution, translated by S. M.Wickett. 393pp. New York, 1904.

Bradford, Sarah H.— Harriet, the Moses of Her People. 171 pp. New York, 1901.

Banks, Ohas.— Negro Town and Colony. Mound Bayou, Miss. 10 pp.

Brooks, Chas. H.— (Grand Secretary of the Order). The Official History and Manual of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America. A Chronological Treat ise, etc. 274pp. Philadelphia, 1902.

Boas, Franz.— Commencement Address at Atlanta University, May, 1906. Atlanta

University Leaflet No. 19, 15 pp. •Colored People's Blue Book and Business Directory of Chicago, 111. 1905.

Colored men as cotton manufacturers. J. Dowd. Gunton's Magazine, 28:254-6.

Condition of the people of color in Ohio. With interesting anecdotes. Boston, 1839. 48 pp., 12mo.

Constitution of National Association of Colored Women. Tuskegee, 7 pp., 1898.

Constitution of the National League of Colored Women of the United States. Wash ington, 1892.

College-bred Negro, Atlanta University Publication, No. 5. 115pp., 1900.

Bibliography 7

Oatto, W. T.— History of the Presbyterian Movement. Phila., 1857, 8vo. A semi-cen tenary discourse and history of the first African Presbyterian Church, Phila delphia, May, 1857, from its organization, including a notice of its first pastor, John Gloucester, also appendix containing sketches of all the colored churches in Philadelphia.

Cincinnati convention of colored freedmen of Ohio. Proceedings, Jan. 14-19, 1852. Cincinnati, 1852, 8vo.

Clark.— Negro Mason in Equity.

Cromwell, John W. — The Early Negro Convention Movement. The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 9. 23 pp., Washington, 1904.

Campbell, Sir George.— White and Black in the United States. 482 pp., London, 1879.

Delaney, Martin R.— Condition, elevation, emigration and destiny of the colored people of the United States. Phila., 1852. 215 pp., 12mo.

DuBois, W. E. B.— The Negro in the Black Belt: Some Social Sketches. In the Bul letin of the Department of Labor, No. 22. Philadelphia Negro. 520pp. Philadelphia, 1899.

Denniker, J.— The Races of Man. 611 pp., New York, 1904.

Eaton, John. — Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen. 331 pp., New York, 1907.

Edwards, Bryan.— History, civil and commercial, of the British Colonies in West

Indies. 3 vol. London, 1807.

—The Economic Position of the American Negro. Reprinted from Papers and Pro ceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Asso ciation, December, 1904.

Fourth Annual Report of the Colored Woman's League. 13 pp. Washington, Janu ary, 1897.

Freedmen's Saving Bank. Bankers' Magazine. 29:936; 86:14.

Freedmen at Port Royal. E. L. Pierce. Atlantic. 12:291.

Freedmen's Saving Bank. Old and New. 2:245.

Fletcher, Frank H.— Negro Exodus. 24 pp., 8vo.

Games, W. J.— African Methodism in the South. Atlanta, 1890.

Gannett, Henry-— Occupations of the Negroes. Balti., 1895. 16pp., 8vo.

Garnett, Henry Highland.— The past and present condition and the destiny of the colored race. - Troy, 1848. 20 pp., 8vo. Plates.

Goodwin, M. B.— History of schools for the colored population in the District of Columbia. U. S. Bureau of Education. Special Report on District of Columbia for 1869, pp. 199-300.

Grimke, Archibald H.— Right on the Scaffold. Washington, r.toi. 27 pp., 8vo.

Grimshaw, Wm. H.— Official History of Free Masonry, etc. New York, 1903. 392 pp., 12mo.

Georgia State Industrial College for Negroes. L. B. Ellis. Gunton's Magazine, 25:218-26.

Gibbs, M. W.— Shadow and Light. 372 pp., Washington, 1902. •-Garner, J. W.— Reconstruction in Mississippi. 422 pp. New York, 1901.

Georgia Equal Rights Convention. 16 pp. Macon, February, 1906.

Grand United Order of Odd Fellows. Journal and Proceedings of General Meeting. 48 Reports, 1843-1907.

Howard, O. O.— Autobiography. 2 vol. New York, 1907.

Hayford, Casely.— Gold Coast Native Institutions. 418 pp. London, 1903. t Hampton Conference Reports, Annually, 1897-1907.

Hickok, Chas. T.— The Negro in Ohio, 1802-1870. A Thesis, etc. 182 pp. Cleveland, 1896.

Hilyer, Andrew F.— The Twentieth Century Union League Directory. A Compila tion of the .Efforts of the Colored People of Washington for Social Betterment. 174 pp. Washington, 1901.

Jones, Robert.— Fifty years in the Lombard Street Central Presbyterian Church. Phi la., 1894, 170pp.

Knights of Labor and Negroes. Public Opinion. 2:1.

Love, E. K.— History of the First African Baptist Church. Savannah, 1889.

McPherson, J. H. T.— History of Liberia. Balti., 1891. 61 pp., 8vo.

8 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Moore, J. J.— History of the A. M. E. Z. Church. York, Pa., 1880.

Moreau de Saint Mery.— Description Topographique, Physique, Civile, Politique, et Hlstorique, de la Partie Francaise, de L'isle Saint-Dominique. Vol. 2, 790 pp. Philadelphia,, 1798. Mossell, N. F. Mrs.— Forerunners of the Afro- American Council. Howard Magazine.

Washington April, 1900.

-Negro in Business, Atlanta University Publication, No. 4. 78 pp. 1899. .Negro Enterprise, B. T. Washington. Outlook. 77:115-8. Negro as he really is, W. E. B. DuBois. World's Work. 2:848-66. Negro Exodus, 1879, F. Douglass. American Journal of Social Science. 11:1. Negro Exodus, 1879, R. T. Greener. American Journalof Social Science. 11 :22. Negro Exodus, 1879, J. B. Runnion. Atlantic. 44:222. Negroes in Baltimore, J. R. Slattery. Catholic World. 66:519. Negro Exodus, 1879, J. C. Hartzell. Methodist Quarterly Review. 39:722. Negro as a mechanic, R. Lowry. North American Review. 156:472. •Negroes an industrial factor, C. B. Spahr. Outlook. 62:31. Negro In Business, I. T. Montgomery. Outlook. 69:738-4. The Negro in the cities of the North, Charities. Vol. 15, No. 1. New York, October,

1905.

The Negro Common School, Atlanta University Publication, No. 6. 120 pp.. 1901. •The Negro Artisan, Atlanta University Publication, No. 7. 200 pp., 1902. The Negro Church, Atlanta University Publication, No. 8. 212 pp., 1903.* The Negroes of Farmville, Va.— In Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 14. Negroes of Xenia, Ohio.— In Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, No. 48. Negroes of Sandy Spring, Md.— In Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 32. Negroes of Litwalton, Va.— In Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 37. ^Negro Landholder of Georgia.— In Bulletin of the Department of Labor, No. 35. National convention of Colored men and their friends. Troy, N. Y., 1847, 38 pp., 8vo. National convention of Colored men. Syracuse, N. Y., October 4-7, 1864. Boston,

1864. 62 pp., 8vo. National convention of Colored men of America, 1869. Proceedings, Wash., 1869. 42

pp., 8vo.

Ohio anti-slavery convention. Putnam, Ohio. Report on the condition of the peo ple of color, etc. 1835. N. Y., 1835. 24 pp., 8vo.

Proceedings of the Select Committee of the United States Senate to Investigate the Causes of the Removal of the Negroes from the Southern States to the North ern States. 3 Parts, 1486 pp. Washington, 1879-1880.

Platt, O. H.— Negro Governors. In Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical So ciety. Vol. 6. New Haven, 1900. Prospectus of the Coleman Manufacturing Co., of Concord, N. C. 17 pp. Richmond,

1897.

Proceedings of the National Negro Business League, annually, 1900- '06. Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, issued annually or

biennially, in the following states:

Alabama. Michigan.

Arkansas. Minnesota.

California. Mississippi.

Colorado. Missouri.

Connecticut. New Jersey.

District of Columbia. New York.

Delaware. Ontario (B. C.)

Florida. Oklahoma.

Georgia. Ohio.

Illinois. Pennsylvania.

Indiana. Rhode Island.

Iowa. South Carolina.

Kansas. Tennessee.

Kentucky. Texas.

Liberia (Africa). Virginia.

Bibliography 9

Louisiana. Washington and Oregon.

Maryland. West Virginia.

Massachusetts. Official Proceedings of the Biennial Session of the Supreme Lodge of Knights of

Pythias. 18 reports, 1879-15)05. Penn, 1. G., and J. W. E. Bowen, Editors.— The United Negro: His Problems and His

Progress. Containing the Addresses and Proceedings of the Negro Young Peo ple's Christian and Educational Congress, held August 6-11, 1902. 600 pp. At lanta, 1902. Pierce, Edward Lillie.— The Negroes at Port Royal. Report to S. B. Chase, Sec. of

Treas. Boston, 1862. 36 pp., 12mo.

Ratzel, F.— History of Mankind. 3 vol. New York, 1904. Report of the Committee of Senate upon the Relations between Labor and Capital,

and Testimony taken by the Committee. 5 vol. Washington, 1885. Report of Major General O. O. Howard, Commissioner, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen

and Abandoned Lands, etc. 30 pp. Washington, 1869, Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the condition of affairs in the

late Insurrectionary States. ^Ku Klux Conspiracy). 13vol. Washington, 1872. Social and Physical Condition of Negroes in Cities. Atlanta University Publication,

No. 2. 89 pp., 1897. Some Efforts of Negroes for Social Betterment. Atlanta University Publication,

No. 3. 66 pp., 1898.

Social and Industrial Condition of the Negro in Massachusetts. 319 pp. Boston, 1904. Siebert, Wm. H.— Underground Railroad. 478 pp. New York, 1898. Still, William.— Underground Railroad Records. Hartford, Conn., 1886. Schneider, Wilhelm.— Die Culturfsehigkeit des Negers. 220 pp. Frankfurt, a. M.,

1885. Smith, T. W.— The Slave in Canada. In the Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical

Society. Vol. 10. Halifax, N. 8., 1889.

Second Annual Report of the Colored Woman's League. 23 pp. Washington, 1895. The Southern Workman, monthly, 37 volumes. Hampton, Va. Savings of Black Georgia, W. E. B. DuBois. Outlook. 69:128-30. Smedley, R. O.— The Underground Railroad. Phila., 1883. State Convention of colored men of South Carolina. Proceedings at Columbia, 1883.

Columbia, 1883. 6 pp., 8vo. Statistical inquiry, A, into the condition of the people of color of the city and the

districts of Philadelphia, 1849. 44 pp., 8vo.

Tuskegee cotton planters in Africa, J. N. Oalloway. Outlook. 70:772-6. Tobin, Father.— A Model Catholic Community of Colored People. Upton, Wm. H.— Negro Masonry. 264 pp. Cambridge, Mass., 1902. Vass, S. N.— The Progress of the Negro Race. 31 pp. Raleigh, 1906. Village improvement among the Negroes, R. L. Smith. Outlook. 64:733-6. Walker, David.— Appeal, in Four Articles, together with a Preamble to the Colored

Citizens of the World, etc. 66 pp. Boston. Mass., 1829. Williams, George W. — History of the Negro Race in America. 2 vol. in one, 481 pp.,

611 pp. New York and London, 1882.

Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Part 1. The Background Section 1 . The Scope of this Study

In 1898 the Atlanta Conference made a limited study entitled "Some Efforts of American Negroes for their Own Social Betterment." The present study is a continuation and enlargement of this initial study made nearly ten years ago, with certain limitations and changes. The question set before us in the present study is: How far is there and has there been among Negro Americans a conscious effort at mutual aid in earning a living? In answering this question we must first con sider just how broad an interpretation we are giving to the phrase, "earning a living." In a highly developed economic society like that which surrounds us here in America and in other countries under the lead of European civilization, the phrase "earning a living" is pretty clear, because there are large numbers of persons engaged simply or principally in that occupation ; and all persons recognize the efforts toward earning a living as a distinct set of efforts in their general life. It must be remembered, however, that this situation is, to an extent, abnormal; that neither in the undeveloped races nor in the fully devel oped Race, when it comes, will earning a living as such, occupy the large space that it does today in human endeavor. Among the semi-civ ilized races the work of getting the material things necessary for life is looked upon as incidental to a great many other larger and, in their opinion, better things, such as hunting, resting, eating and perhaps carousing. So, too, in an ideal community, we would expect that the purely economic efforts to supply human beings at least with the necessities of life would occupy a comparatively small part of the com munity for short spaces of time.

All this is trite, but we must not forget it, as we are apt to do, when we come to study a group like of the Negro American, which has not reached the economic development of the surrounding nation, and which perhaps never will surrender itself entirely to the ideals of the surrounding group. We must not expect, for instance, to find a sepa rately developed economic life among the Negroes except as they became under compulsion a part of the economic life of the nation before emancipation ; and except as they have become since the eman cipation, a part of the great working force. So far as their own inner economic efforts are concerned we must expect in looking over their history to find great strivings in religious development, in political life and in efforts at education. And so completely do these cultural aspects of their group efforts overshadow the economic efforts that at

Scope of the Study 11

first a student is tempted to think that there has been no inner economic co-operation, or at least that it has only come to the fore in the last two or three decades. But this is not so. While to be sure the religious motive was uppermost during the time of slavery, for instance, so far as group action among the Negroes were concerned, even then it had an economic tinge, and more so since slavery, has Negro religion had its economic side; so, too, the political striving after the war was a matter even more largely of economic welfare than it was of political preferment so far as the great mass of the race was concerned. And then and now the strife for education is, if not primarily, certainly to a very large extent an effort at earning a living in some manner which will satisfy the higher cravings of the rising classes of Negroes. When, therefore, we take up under the head of economic co-operation such institutions as the church, such movements as the Exodus of 1879 and the matter of schools, etc., it is from the economic side that we are studying these things, and because this economic side was really of very great importance and significance.

Then again we are studying the conscious effort in economic lines not, primarily, so far as individual effort is concerned, but so far as these efforts are combined in some sort of effort for mutual aid, that is: it is a matter of group co-operation that we have before us. Now this brings certain difficulties because a race in the state of development in which the Negro American is today must of necessity depend tremend ously upon the individual leader. He is in the period of special indi vidual development, and while the group development is going on rap idly, yet it is the individual as yet who stands forth. Consequently very often we must touch upon individual effort and touch upon things which strictly speaking are not co-operative, in the narrow sense, and yet in the present state of Negro development they have a significance which is co-operative, because the leader has been called forth by a group movement and not simply for his own aggrandizement. In other words, the kind of co-operation which we are going to find among the Negro Americans is not always democratic co-operation; very often the group organization is aristocratic and even monarchic, and yet it is co operation, and the autocracy holds its leadership by the vote of the mass, and even the monarch does the same, as in the case of the small Baptist church.

Finally a study like this must throw great light upon the develop ment of all social classes. We are apt to say that in Economics and in the Social Sciences we cannot segregate the class and make the "crucial test," as we can in certain physical experiments. This is true in a great many cases, but it is not universally true, as witness the present in stance, where we have a segregation, and where we can study a class by itself. Moreover the analogy goes still further: The rise of a lower social class in any community is in no wise different from the develop ment of a race; in fact, we realize in studying races, and particularly primitive races as we have them today in contact with more highly de veloped races, that what we have going on around us every day in civ-

12 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

ilized society is the same thing in microcosm which the world has seen going on from the beginning: that whereas in the world we have sepa rate large groups in varying degrees of civilization and development, and they gradually rise and fall and sometimes even change their rela tive positions, so, too, in any separate group or nation, we have smaller groups with differing developments, and these classes into which the group is divided, are coming forward or retrograding in the same way, and with many of the same phenomena. Therefore, a study of the Negro American in the United States today in his economic aspect, as well as in other aspects, throws peculiar light upon the problems of all social classes in a great modern nation.

Section 2. Africa

It used to be assumed in studying the Negro American that in any development we might safely begin with zero so far as Africa is con cerned ; the later studies are more and more convincing us that this former attitude has been wrong, and that always in explaining the de velopment in America of the Negro we must look back upon a consid erable past development in Africa. We have, therefore, first to ask ourselves in this study, How far are there traces in Africa of economic life and economic co-operation among Negroes?

Ratzel thoughtfully says: "Even in earlier days a deeper thinker might not have agreed with our great, but in this respect short-sighted historical philosophers, who held that Africa was only in the ante chamber of universal history. The land which bore Egypt and Car thage will always be of importance in the world's history ; and even the transplantation without their will of millions of Africans to America remains an event having most important consequences. But since Africa, both politically and economically, has been brought nearer to us, the above mentioned idea has had altogether to give way. That continent, the greatest portion of which longest remained a terra incog nita, has suddenly been called on to play a great part in the history of the expansion of the European races. In our days Africa has become the scene of a great movement, which must fix its destiny in history for thousands of years. While a century ago the great political and trading powers were still merely hanging on like leeches to its out skirts, today the ' 'spheres of interest," domains of power of which the extent is not yet known even to their owner, are meeting in the far interior of the continent. Herewith for the first time Europeans are coming into very close connections with the most vigorous shoot of the dark branches of nations, on the soil most appropriate to it, but to them in the first place by no means favorable. Now it will be decided whether much or little of these, the oldest of all now living stocks, will pass into mankind of the remoter future. And this is one of the greatest problems of the history of the world, which must be the history of mankind."

Not only is there this new attitude toward the meaning of Africa as a whole, but we are also revising our ideas as to the exact status of Africa

Africa 13

in its development toward civilization. We are beginning to see that the Africans, notwithstanding the fact that they have not reached European culture, nevertheless have made great advances. In 1885 Dr. Wilhelm Schneider summed up the cultural accomplishments of the Negro by bringing together the testimonies of African travellers up to that time. If we take from that excellent summing up the condition of the African in economic organization we shall have a fairly trust worthy picture. Schneider first takes up the matter of agriculture, and says that the Negro pursues agriculture together with cattle raising and dairying. Sheep, goats and chickens are domestic animals all over Africa, and cows are raised in regions where grass grows. Von Fran- zius considers Africa the home of the house cattle and the Negro as the original tamer.

Northeastern Africa especially is noted for agriculture, cattle raising and fruit culture. In the eastern Soudan and among the great Bantu tribes extending from the Soudan down toward the south, cattle are evidences of wealth, one tribe, for instance, having so many oxen that each village had ten or twelve thousand head. Lenz (1884), Bouet-Wil- laumez (1848), Hecquard (1854), Bosnian (1805), and Baker (1868), all bear witness to this, and Schweinfurth (1878), tells us of great cattle parks with 2,000-3,000 head, and of numerous agricultural and cattle raising tribes. Von der Decken (1859-61), describes the paradise of the dwellers about Kilimanjaro — the bananas, fruit, beans, and peas, and cattle raising with stall-feed, the fertilizing of the fields, and irriga tion. The Negroid Gallas have seven or eight cattle to each inhabi tant. Cameron (1877), tells of villages so clean, with huts so artistic, that — save in book knowledge — the people occupied no low plane of civ ilization. Livingstone bears witness to the busy cattle raising of the Bantus and Kaffirs.

Hulub (1881), and Chapman (1868), tell of agriculture and fruit raising in South Africa. Shu'tt (1884), found the tribes in the Southwestern basin of the Congo with sheep, swine, goats and cattle. The African elephant, however, never was tamed by the natives in later years, partly because he is much wilder than the Indian.

Schneider sums up the Africans' accomplishments in handwork and industry by quoting Soyaux on Africans, as follows: ''Whoever denies to them independent invention and individual taste in their work, either shuts his eyes intentionally before perfectly evident facts, or lack of knowledge renders him an incompetent judge." Gabriel de Mortillet (1883), declares them the only iron users among primitive people, and at any rate they are far beyond others in the development of iron industry, and their work bears strong resemblance to that of the ancient Egyptians. Some would therefore argue that the Negro learned it from other folk, but Andree declares that the Negro developed his own "Iron Kingdom," and still others believe that from him it spread to Europe and Asia.*

*Of. Boas, In our day.

14 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Various tribes have been described : Baker and Felkin tell of smiths of wonderful adroitness, goat-skins prepared better than a European tailor could do, drinking cups and kegs of remarkable symmetry and polished clay floors. Schweinfurth says: "The arrow and spear heads are of the finest and most artistic work; their bristle-like barbs and points are baffling when one knows how few tools these smiths have." Excellent wood-carving is found among the Bongo, Ovambo and Makololo. Pottery and basketry and careful hut-building distinguish many tribes. The Monbuttu work both iron and copper. "The mas terpieces of the Monbuttu smiths are the fine chains worn as ornaments, and which in perfection of form and fineness compare well with our best steel chains.1' Such chains are hardened by hammering. Barth found copper exported from central Africa in competition with Euro pean copper at Kano.

Nor is the iron industry confined to the Soudan. About the great lakes and other parts of central Africa it is widely distributed. Thorn ton says: "This iron industry proves that the East Africans stand by no means on so low a plane of culture as many travellers would have us think. It is unnecessary to be reminded that a people who without instruction and with the rudest tools do such skilled work, could do if furnished with steel tools. Arrows made east of Lake Nyanza were found to be nearly as good as the best Swedish iron in Birmingham. From Egypt to the cape Livingstone assures us that the mortar and pestle, the long handled axe, the goat skin bellows, etc., have the same form, size, etc., pointing to a migration south westward. Holub (1879), on the Zambesi found fine workers in iron and bronze (copper and tin). The Bantu huts contain spoons, wooden dishes, milk pails, calibashes, handmills and axes. Kaffirs and Zulus, in the extreme south, are good smiths and the latter melt copper and tin together and draw wire from it, according to Kranz (1880). West of the Great Lakes, Stanley (1878), found wonderful examples of smith work: figures worked out of brass and much work in copper. Cameron (1878), saw vases made near Lake Tanganyika which reminded him of the amphorae in the Villa of Diomedes, Pompeii. Horn (1882), praises tribes here for iron and cop per work. Livingstone (1871), passed thirty smelting houses in one journey and Cameron came across bellows with valves, and tribes who used knives in eating. He found tribes which no Europeans had ever visited, who made ingots of copper in the form of St. Andrew's cross, which circulated even to the coast. In the southern Con'go basin iron and copper are worked ; also wood and ivory carving and pottery are pursued. In equatorial west Africa, Lenz and Du Chaillu (1861), found the iron workers with charcoal, and also carvers of bone and ivory. Near Cape Lopez, Hiibbe-Schleiden found tribes making ivory needles inlaid with ebony, while the arms and dishes of the Osaka are found among many tribes even as far as the Atlantic ocean. Wilson (1856), found natives in West Africa who could repair American watches.

The Ashanti are renowned weavers and dyers, smiths and founders. Gold coast Negroes make gold rings and chains, forming the metal into

Africa 15

all kinds of forms. Soyauxsays: "The works in relief which natives of Lower Guinea carve with their own knives out of ivory and hippopota mus teeth, are really entitled to he called works of art, and many wooden figures of fetiches in the Ethnographical Museum of Berlin show some understanding of the proportions of the human body." Great Bassam is called by Hecquard the "Fatherland of Smiths." The Mandingo in the Northwest are remarkable workers in iron, silver and gold, we are told by Mungo Park (1800), while there is a mass of testimony as to the work in the northwest of Africa in gold, tin, weaving and dyeing. Caille" found the Negroes in Bambana manufacturing gunpowder (1824-8), and the Haussa make soap; so, too, Negroes in Uganda and other parts have made guns after seeing European models.

On the whole, as Herman Soyaux says: in art and industry the accomplishment of the African Negro is in many respects far beyond expectation and at least shows what they might do in more favorable surroundings; and Lenz adds: "Our sharpest European merchants, even Jews and Armenians, can learn much from the cunning of the Negro in trade."*

Coming down to later writers, we find Ratzel testifying that: Among all the great groups of the " natural" races, the Negroes are the best and keenest tillers of the ground. A minority despise agriculture and breed cattle; many combine both occupations. Among the genuine tillersj the whole life of the family is taken up in agriculture ; and hence the months are by preference called after the operations which they demand. Constant clear ings change forests to fields, and the ground is manured with the ashes of the burnt thicket. In the middle of the fields rise the light watch-towers, from which a watchman scares grain-eating birds and other thieves. An African cultivated landscape is incomplete without barns. The rapidity with which, when newly imported, the most various forms of cultivation spread in Africa says much for the attention which is devoted to this branch of economy. Indus tries, again, which may be called agricultural, like the preparation of meal from millet and other crops, also from cassava, the fabrication of fermented drinks from grain, or the manufacture of cotton, are widely known and sedu lously fostered, t

Biicher says :

That travellers have often described the deep impression made upon them when, on coming out of the dreary primeval forest, they happened suddenly upon the well-tended fields of the natives. In the more thickly populated parts of Africa these fields often stretch for many a mile, and the assiduous care of the Negro women shines in all the brighter light when we consider the insecurity of life, the constant feuds and pillages, in which no one knows whether he will in the end be able to harvest what he has sown. Livingstone gives somewhere a graphic description of the devastations wrought by slave hunts; the people are lying about slain, the dwellings were demolished; in the fields, however, the grain Avas ripening and there was none to harvest it. }

The economic organization thus indicated is moreover arranged for purposes of trade. Biicher says :

* Schneider: Oulturfaehigkeit des Negers.

•{-Ratzel, II., 380-881. J Buecher (Wlckett), p. 47.

16 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Travellers have of ten observed this tribal or local development of industrial technique. "The native villages," relates a Belgian observer of the lower Congo, "are often situated in groups. Their activities are based upon reci- procality, and they are to a certain extent the complements of one another. Each group has its more or less strongly denned specialty. One carries on fishing, another produces palm wine; a third devotes itself to trade and is broker for the others, supplying the community with all products from out side ; another has reserved to itself work in iron and copper, making weapons for war and hunting, various utensils, etc. None may, however, pass beyond the sphere of its own specialty without exposing itself to the risk of being universally proscribed." From the Boango Coast, Bastian tells of a great number of similar centres for special products of domestic industry. Loango excels in mats and fishing baskets, while the carving of elephants' tusks is specially followed in Chilungo. The so-called "Mafooka" hats with raised patterns are drawn chiefly from the bordering country of Kakongo and May- yumbe. In Bakunya are made potter's wares, which are in great demand, in Basanza excellent swords, in Basundi especially beautiful ornamented cop per rings, and the Zaire clever wood and tablet carvings, in Loango orna mented clothes and intricately designed mats, in Mayumbe clothing of finely woven mat-work, in Kakongo embroidered hats and also burnt clay pitchers, and among the Bayakas and Mantetjes stuffs of woven grass.*

A recent native African writer thus describes the trade organiza tion of Ashanti:

The king of Ashanti knew mostof these merchant princes and His Majesty, at stated times in the commercial year, sent some of his head tradesmen with gold dust, ivory and other products to the coast to his merchant friends in ex change for Manchester goods and other articles of European manufacture. In one visit the caravan cleared off several hundred bales of cotton goods which found their way into the utmost parts of Soudan.

It was a part of the state system of Ashanti to encourage trade. The king once in every forty days, at the Adai custom, distributed among a number of chiefs various sums of gold dust with a charge to turn the same to good account. These chiefs then sent down to the coast caravans of tradesmen, some of whom would be their slaves, sometimes some two to three hundred strong, to barter ivory for European goods, or buy such goods with gold dust, which the king obtained from the royal alluvial workings. Down to 1873 a constant stream of Ashanti traders might be seen daily wending their way to the coast and back again, yielding more certain wealth and prosperity to the merchants of the Gold Coast and Great Britain than may be expected for sometime yet to come from the mining industry and railway development put together. The trade chiefs would, in due time, render a faithful account to the king's stewards, being allowed to retain a fair portion of the profit. In the king's household, too, he would have special men who directly traded for him. Important chiefs carried on the same system of trading with the coast as did the king. Thus every member of the state from the king downwards, took an active interest in the promotion of trade and in the keeping open of trade routes into the interior.

Nor was the Fanti petty trader left in the lurch; for, while the merchant princes drove magnificent trade with the caravans from Ashanti, the native petty trader hawked his goods to great advantage in the intermediate towns and villages, his customers being private speculators from the interior.

* Buecher's Industrial Evolution (Wickett), pp. 57-H.

Africa 17

Often the men in the coast towns acted as middlemen between men of the interior tribes coming down to trade with the merchant houses, and gained an honest means of livelihood in that way.

Some of the chiefs in the intermediate districts would sometimes prove obstreperous to the caravans coming down, which became a grievance to His Majesty, the king of Ashanti, whose ruffled temper would often be smoothed down by diplomatic messages and an exchange of presents. Thus all went merrily and the country prospered until the dawn of that evil day when its protectors, instead of letting well enough alone, began to meddle with un scientific hands in the working of its state system.*

Batzel describes further the market places:

From the Fish river to Kuka, and from Lagos to Zanzibar, the market is the centre of all the more stirring life in Negro communities, and attempts to train him to culture have made their most effectual start from this tendency. Trade is a great implement of civilization for Africa; and this is as true of the furthest interior whither Europeans or Africans seldom penetrate, as of the places on the coast. In the larger localities, like Ujiji and Nyangwe, perma nent markets of more than local importance are found. Everything can be bought and sold here, from the commonest earthenware pots to the prettiest girls from Usukuma. Hither flock from 1,000 to 3,000 natives of both sexes and various ages. How like is the market traffic, with all its uproar and sound of human voices, to one of our own markets! There is the same rivalry in praising the goods, the violent, brisk movements, the expressive gesture, the inquiring, searching glance, the changing looks of depreciation or triumph, of apprehension, delight, approbation. So says Stanley. Trade customs are not everywhere alike. If when negotiating with the Bangalas of Angola you do not quickly give them what they want, they go away and do not come back. Then perhaps they try to get possession of the coveted object by means of theft. It is otherwise with the Songos and Kiokos, who let you deal with them in the usual way. To buy even some small article you must go to the market; people avoid trading anywhere else. If a man says to another: "Sell me this hen," or " that fruit," the answer as a rule will be " Come to the market place.'' The crowd gives confidence to individuals, and the inviolability of the visitor to the market, and of the market itself, looks like an idea of justice consecra ted by long practice. Does not this remind us of the old Germanic " market place?"t

He adds, with regard to roads:

The permanent caravan roads call for special attention. They are of the greatest importance to the culture of Africa at large, since they have long formed the channels through which everjr stimulus to culture found its way from foreign countries, into the interior. The most important of all come in from the east, since they lead directly into the heart of the Negro countries. The south and west, too, are less favored in this respect; only the Portuguese road to Cazembe's country had a certain importance here. The northern roads throughout the desert to the Soudan, however, do not lead directly to the Ne groes, but at first into tke mixed states of the Canooris, Fulbes and Arabs, whose intercourse with the Negroes to the south unhappily results, as in the case of the old Egyptians, in slavery.

In the east, however, not foreigners but the Negroes themselves have been active in the caravan trade. Here is the true seat of the trade in Negroes ;

* Hay ford, pp. t»5-97. i Ratzel, p. 370.

18 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

here especially the porter system is organized. It was formerly far easier to reach Uganda or Ujiji from Bagamoyo than Stanley Pool from the mouth of the Congo. The Wany amwesi, those talented, keen traders and colonists, have made their-roads to the coast from time immemorial. When one was closed by war or a blood feud, they opened up another; but the caravans proper- called Safari in Kiswaheli, Lugendo in Kinyamwesi — for long consisted only of hired porters from the coast. Burton states that it was only shortly before this time that the inhabitants of the coast began to go on this business.*

As to money Ratzel says :

Where [African] trade with Arabs or Europeans begins, beads are almost indispensable in any trade transactions. The quality in demand is not always the same, but is in a certain degree governed by the fashion. Even in the sixteenth century beads had a currency value among the inhabitants of the Angola coast, and the old Venetian beads which are found, quite worn down, in graves, point to the still greater antiquity of this tendency. But excessive importation has everywhere caused a rapid fall in value. Glass beads depre ciate more and more every year, and now serve only the object of feminine vanity; it is long, says Schweinfurth, since they were hoarded as treasures and buried like precious stones. The preference for cowries shows more per sistence. These have spread, especially from east Africa, as money ; but even in the sixteenth century they were in use on the west coast. They were how ever given up, as too heavy, in places where they no longer had a high value. Cowries are also used as dice. In Nyangwe, besides the cowries, slaves and goats were generally current in Cameron's time.

On the upper Nile copper and brass have commonly taken their place, and in the form of rings have a money value throughout Equatorial Africa. Be sides these iron— axes and rings— are in circulation, also pieces of iron shaped like horse-shoes or hoes.

On Lake Bemba three iron hoes were the fare asked of Livingstone for put ting ten persons across. Cotton cloth in uselessly narrow strips passes as money in the Soudan to beyond Adamwa, while in Bornu money even takes the form of " tobes " or shirts, never intended for wearing. Cattle are currency among all pastoral races; but, with the exception of Abyssinia and many parts of the Sahara and the Soudan, where sums are reckoned in Maria Theresa dollars, coins have established themselves only in the most progressive and prosperous districts, like Basutoland or the equatorial east coast; now, too, on the Niger.f

Section 3. The West Indies

From such an environment as we have very imperfectly Indicated, the Negroes were suddenly snatched and brought first to the West In dies and afterward to the American continent. In this change a great deal of the past organization was destroyed. Still the transition could not utterly break them from the past, and several institutions remained. The first was, of course, the religious institution which showed itself in the beginning of the Negro church. This was especially manifest in the organization called Obe or Obeah worship; considera ble collections were made of money and kind by the Obi or Voodoo priests; still the organization was scarcely one which one could call economic.

* Ratzel, II :377. -j- Ratzel, II :879.

The West Indies 19

•

A second survival was that of political organization. This could be seen, of course, in such revolts as that of the Maroons in Jamaica, who set up apolitical organization and maintained themselves for years; but it can be seen more instructively in the Negro governors of New England. Most persons have looked upon this survival of political organization among the Negroes as simply an imitation of the whites, and a rather ludicrous one; but certain ones have noticed that it was not wholly an imitation and we find moreover that the organization had some political power. Senator Platt, for instance, in his researches tells us that the Negro governor and other officials in Connecticut had no legal power, and yet exercised considerable control over the Negroes throughout the state. The black governor directed the affairs of his people and his directions were obeyed; the black justices tried cases both civil and criminal, and rendered judgments and executed punish ments. The idea of the Negroes doing this originated with the Negroes themselves, it seems, for Platt says: "They conceived the project of imitating the whites by establishing a subordinate jurisdiction and jurisprudence of their own. The old Negroes aided in the plan but not without the approbation of their masters, who foresaw that a sort of police managed wholly by the slaves would be more effectual in keep ing them within the bounds of morality than if the same authority was exercised by whites." He goes on to say that the judicial depart ment of this government within a government consisted of the governor who sometimes sat at judgment in cases of appeal; the other magis trates and judges tried all charges brought against any Negro by an other or by a white person; masters complained to the governor and the magistrates of the delinquencies of their slaves, who were tried, con demned and punished at the discretion of the court. The punishment was sometimes quite severe, and what made it the more effectual was that it was the judgment of their peers, people of their own rank and color. Thus we find surviving in New England for a long time a system of government which must have gone far enough to have some control over the slave as a workman, and was to some extent economic in its effects. *

It is, however, in the West Indies that we find the most direct survival of African economic customs. In Jamaica, for instance, the practice prevailed of giving the Negroes land to cultivate and expecting them to maintain themselves from the product of these lands, giving most of their labor, of course, to the master. The Negroes acquired, therefore, some little property of their own and on holidays and Sundays and on one week day each fortnight they went to market. They took to market not only the things raised on their part of ground, but also some of them made a few coarse manufactures, such as mats, bark ropes, wicket chairs and baskets, earthen jars, pans, etc. Of course these things were relics of their African trade; they could not be as well made because the Negroes did not have more than about sixteen

•Compare Papers of the New Haven Colony Hist. Soc., Vol. VI.

20 Economic Cooperation Among Negro Americans

hours a week to cultivate their gardens and to do work of this sort.

Edwards says: "Sunday is their market day and it is wonderful what numbers are then seen hastening from all parts of the country toward the towns and shipping places ladened with fruits and vegeta bles, pigs, goats and poultry, their* own property. In Jamaica it is supposed that upwards of ten thousand assemble every Sunday morn ing in the market of Kingston, where they barter their provisions, etc.* for Salted beef and pork or fine linens for their wives and children.1'* We have here, then, a peculiar survival of African economic customs in the new world, and we shall find that in the continental colonies there were traces of the same thing.

Section 4. The Colonies

Tn the continental colonies the remembrance of the African organiza tion and society was more and more lost sight of. The -Negroes had become Americans, speaking another language and forgetting much of the past. The plot of ground which they cultivated for themselves still remained in most cases, but it was supplemented by regular rations from the store-house of the master. Tendencies toward political au tonomy still showed themselves in the insurrections that took place from time to time, but these were sternly suppressed and only in a few cases did they gain a wide following. Religious institutions remained and the church gained for itself a wide and ever wider following, but its economic activities were still very much curtailed.

Beneficial and burial societies began to appear, however, even in the time of slavery. We are told, for instance:

The history of the Negro insurance extends far beyond the days of his free dom in this country. While there are no recorded data available, yet from reliable sources we learn that more than seventy-five years ago there existed in every city of any size in Virginia organizations of Negroes having as their object the caring for the sick and the burying of the dead. In but few in stances did the society exist openly, as the laws of the time concerning Negroes were such as to make it impossible for this to be done without serious conse quences to the participants. History shows that no matter how the oppressed and enslaved may have been watched and hedged in, there was always found a way by which they could get together, and this has been no less true of the Negro in his attempt to combine for mutual protection from the results of sickness and death. Although it was unlawful for Negroes to assemble with out the presence of a white man, and so unlawful to allow a congregation of slaves on a plantation without the consent of the master, these organiza tions existed and held these meetings on the " lots" of some of the law-makers themselves. The general plan seems to have been to select some one who could "read and write" and make him the secretary. The meeting place having been selected, the members would come by "ones and twos," make their payments to the secretary, and quietly withdraw. The book of the sec retary was often kept covered up on the bed. In many of the societies each member was known by number and in paying simply announced his number. The president of such a society was usually a privileged slave who had the

• Bryan Edwards: West Indies.

The Colonies 21

confidence of his or her master and could go and come at will. Thus a form of communication could be kept up between all members. In event of death of a member provision was made for decent burial, and all the members as far as possible obtained permits to attend the funeral. Here and again their plan of getting together was brought into play. In Richmond they would go to the church by ones and twos and there sit as near together as convenient. At the close of the service a line of march would be formed when sufficiently far from the church to make it safe to do. It is reported that the members were faithful to each other and that every obligation was faithfully carried out. This was the first form of insurance known to the Negro from which his family received a benefit.*

As soon as slaves began to be emancipated such beneficial societies began to be openly formed. One of the earliest of these became, event ually, the great African Methodist Church, and its articles of associa tion, made April 12, 1787, are of especial interest:

Preamble of the Free African Society

PHILADELPHIA, 12th, 4th mo., 1787.

Whereas, Absalom Jones and Richard Allen, two men of the African race, who, for their religious life and conversation have obtained a good report among men, these persons, from a love to the people of their complexion whom they beheld with sorrow, because of their irreligious and uncivilized state, often communed together upon this painful and important subject in order to form some kind of religious society, but there being too few to be found under like concern, and those who were, differed in their religious sen timents; with these circumstances they labored for some time, till it was pro posed, after a serious communication of sentiments, that a society should be formed, without regard to religious tenets, provided the persons lived an orderly and sober life, in order to support one another in sickness, and for the benefit of their widows and fatherless children.

The following persons were the charter members: Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Samuel Boston, Joseph Johnson, Cato Freeman, Cyesar Cranchell, James Potter and William White.

Articles

17th, 5th mo., 1787.

We, the free Africans and their descendants of the City of Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania, or elsewhere, do unanimously agree, for the benefit of each other, to advance one shilling in Pennsylvania silver currency, a month ; and after one year's subscription from the date thereof, then to hand forth to the needy of this society, if any should require, the sum of three shill ings and nine pence per week of the said money; provided, this necessity is not brought on them by their own imprudence.

And it is further agreed, that no drunkard nor disorderly person be admit ted as a member, and if any should prove disorderly after having been re ceived, the said disorderly person shall be disjoined from us if there is not an amendment, by being informed by two of the members, without having any of his subscription returned.

And if any one should neglect paying his subscription for three mouths, and after having been informed of the same by two of the members, and no sufficient reason appearing for such neglect, if he do not pay the whole the

* Hampton Negro Conference, No. 8, pp. 43-14,

22 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

next ensuing meeting, he shall be disjoined from us by being informed by two of the members as an offender, without having any of his subscription money returned.

Also, if any person neglect meeting every month, for every omission he shall have to pay three pence, except in case of sickness or any other com plaint that should require the assistance of the society, then and in such case, he shall be exempt from the fines and subscription during said sickness.

Also, we apprehend it to be just and reasonable, that the surviving widow of the deceased member should enjoy the benefit of this society so long as she remains his widow, complying with the rules thereof, excepting the subscrip tions.

And we apprehend it to be necessary that the children of our deceased mem bers l)e under the care of the society, so far as to pay for the education of their children, if they can not attend the free school; also to put them out as ap prentices to suitable trades and places, if required.

Also, that no member shall convene the society together; but it shall be the sole business of the committee, and that only on special occasions, and to dis pose of the money in hand to the best advantage for the use of the society, after they are granted the liberty at a monthly meeting, and to transact all other business whatsoever, except that of clerk and treasurer.

And we unanimously agree to choose Joseph Clarke to be our clerk and treasurer ; and whenever another should succeed him, it is always understood, that one of the people called Quakers, belonging to one of the three monthly meetings in Philadelphia, is to be chosen to act as clerk and treasurer of this useful institution.

The following persons met, viz: Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Samuel Boston, Joseph Johnson, Cato Freeman, Caesar Cranchell and James Potter, and also William White, whose early assistance and useful remarks were found truly profitable. This evening the articles \vere read, and after some beneficial remarks were made, they were agreed unto. *

In 1790 this society had £42 9.s. Id. on deposit in the Bank of North America.

At about this same time secret societies began to arise. The origin of the Negro Masons was as follows: t

On March 6, 1775, an army lodge attached to one of the regiments stationed under General Gage in or near Boston, Mass., initiated Prince Hall and fourteen other colored men into the mysteries of Freemasonry. From this beginning, with small additions from foreign countries, sprang the Masonry among the Negroes in America. These fifteen brethren were, according to a custom of the day, authorized to assem ble as a lodge, "walk on St. John's Day" and bury their dead "in man ner and form;" but they did no "work"— made no Masons— until after they had been regularly warranted. They applied to the Grand Lodge of England for a warrant March 2, 1784. It was issued to them as ^'African Lodge, No. 459,11 with Prince Hall as Master, September 29. 1784, but — owing to various vexatious misadventures — was not received until April 29. 1787. The lodge was organized under the warrant May 0, 1787. It remained upon the English registry — occasionally con tributing to the. Grand Charity Fund— until, upon the amalgamation of

• Arnetfs Budget, 1904, pp. 93-94. f Upton: Negro Masonry.

Negro Masons 23

the rival Grand Lodges of the "Moderns" and the "Ancients" into the present United Grand Lodge of England, in 1813, it and the other Eng lish lodges in the United States were erased.

Prince Hall, a man of exceptional ability, served in the Ameri can Army during the Revolutionary War and, until his death, in 1807, was exceedingly zealous in the cause of Masonry. j£s early as in 1792 he was styled "Grand Master," and from that date at least he ex ercised the functions of a Grand Master or Provincial Grand Master.

In 1797 he issued a license to thirteen black men who had been made Masons in England and Ireland to "assemble and work" as a lodge in Philadelphia. Another lodge was organized by his authority in Provi dence, Rhode Island, for the accommodation of members of African Lodge who resided in that vicinity. This was in accordance with an old usage, the validity of which had then but recently been confirmed by the Grand Lodge of Scotland. In 1808 these three lodges joined in forming the "African Grand Lodge" of Boston, subsequently styled the "Prince Hall Lodge of Massachusetts." Masonry gradually spread over the land.

The second colored Grand Lodge, called the "First Independent Afri can Grand Lodge of North America in and for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," was organized in 1815; and the third was the "Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania." These three Grand bodies fully recog nized each other in 1847 by joining in forming a National Grand Lodge, and practically all the Negro lodges in the United States are descended from one or the other of these.

The original warrant of Prince Hall Lodge reads:

To all and every our right Worshipful and loving Brethren, we, Thomas Howard, Earl of Effingham, Lord Howard, etc., etc., acting Grand Master under the authority of His Royal Highness, Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, etc., etc., Grand Master of the Most Ancient and Honorable Society of Free and Accepted Masons, send greeting ;

Know Ye, That we, at the humble petition of our right trusty and well be loved Brethren, Prince Hall, Boston Smith, Thomas Sanderson and several other Brethren residing in Boston, New England, in North America, do here by constitute the said Brethren into a regular Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, under the title or denomination of the African Lodge, to be opened in Boston aforesaid, and do further, at their said petition, hereby appoint the said Prince Hall to be Master, Boston Smith, Senior Warden, and Thomas-: Sanderson, Junior Warden, for the opening of the said Lodge and for such further time only as shall be thought proper by the brethren thereof, it being our will that this our appointment of the above officers shall in no wise affect any future election of officers of the Lodge, but that such election shall be regulated agreeable to such by-laws of said Lodge as shall be consistent with the general laws of the society, contained in the Book of Constitutions ; and we hereby will and require you, the said Prince Hall, to take especial care that all and every one of the said Brethren are, or have been regularly made Ma sons, and that they do observe, perform and keep all the rules and orders con tained in the Book of Constitutions; and further, that you do, from time to time, cause to be entered in a book kept for the purpose, an account of your proceedings in the Lodge, together with all such rules, orders and regulations,

24 Economic Co=operation Among Negro Americans

as shall be made for the good government of the same; that in no wise you omit once in every year to send us, or our successors, Grand Master, or to Ro land Holt, Esq., our Deputy Grand Masfer, for the time being, an account in writing of your said proceedings, and copies of all such rules, orders and regu lations as shall be made as aforesaid, together with a list of the members of the Lodge, anfl such a sum of money as may suit the circumstances of the Lodge and reasonably be expected towards the Grand Charity. Moreover, we hereby will and require you, the said Prince Hall, as soon as conveniently may be, to send an account in writing of what may be done by virtue of these presents.

Given at London, under our hand and seal of Masonry, this 29th day of Sep tember, A. L. 5784, A. D. 1784.

By the Grand Master's Command.

Witness : WM. WHITE, G. S. R. HOLT, D. G. M.

Part 2. The Development of Cooperation

Section 5. An Historical Sketch

A sketch of co-operation among the Negro Americans begins natur ally with the Negro church. The vast power of the priest in the Afri can state was not fully overcome by slavery and transportation ; it still remained on the plantation. The Negro priest, therefore, early became an important figure and "found his function as the interpreter of the supernatural, the comforter of the sorrowing, and the one who expressed rudely but picturesquely the longing, disappointment and resentment of a stolen people. From such beginnings rose and spread with marvel lous rapidity the Negro church in America, the first distinctively Negro American social institution. It was not at first by any means a Chris tian church, but rather an adaptation of those heathen rites which we roughly designate by the term Obi worship or Voodooism. Association and missionary effort soon gave these rites a veneer of Christianity and gradually after two centuries the church became Christian with a Calvinistic creed and with many of the old customs still clinging to the services. It is this historic fact, that the Negro church of today bases itself on 'one of the few surviving social institutions of the African Fatherland, that accounts for its extraordinary growth and vitality. We must remember that in the United States today there is a church organization for every sixty Negro families." This institution there fore naturally assumed many functions which the other harshly sup pressed social organs had to surrender, and especially the church became the center of economic activity as well as of amusement, education and social intercourse.

It was in the church, too, or rather the organization that went by the name of church, that many of the insurrections among the slaves from the sixteenth century down had their origin ; we must find in these in surrections a beginning of co-operation which eventually ended in the peaceful economic co-operation. A full list of these insurrections it is impossible to make, but if we take the larger and more significant ones

Historical Sketch 25

they will show us the trend. The chief Negro insurrections are as fol lows :

Revolt of the Maroons, Jamaica.

Uprising in Danish Islands.

New York, 1712.

Cato of Stono, South Carolina, 1734.

New York, 1741.

San Domingo, 1791.

Gabriel, Virginia, 1800.

Vesey, South Carolina, 1822.

Nat Turner, Virginia, 1831.

Both Vesey and Turner were preachers and used the church as a cen ter of their plots; Gabriel and Cato may have been preachers, although this is not known.

These insurrections fall into three categories: unorganized outbursts of fury, as in the Danish Islands and in early Carolina; military organi zations, as in the case of the Maroons; movements of small knots of conspirators, as in New York in 1712 and 1741; and carefully planned efforts at widespread co-operation for freedom, as in the case of San Domingo, and the uprisings under Cato, Gabriel, Vesey and Turner. It was these latter that in most cases grew out of the church organiza tions.

It was the fact that the Negro church thus loaned itself to insurrec tion and plot that led to its partial suppression and careful oversight in the latter part of the seventeenth and again in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Nevertheless there arose out of the church in the latter part of the eighteenth and early in the nineteenth centuries the beneficial society, a small and usually clandestine organization for burying the dead ; this development usually took place in cities. From the beneficial society arose naturally after emancipation the other co operative movements: secret societies (which may date back even be yond the church in some way, although there is no tangible proof of this), and cemeteries which began to be bought and arranged for very early in the history of the church. The same sort of movement that started the cemeteries brought the hospital in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and from the secret societies came the homes and orphanages. Out of the beneficial society also developed late in the nineteenth century the first attempts at co-operative business, and still later the insurance societies, out of which came the banks in the last ten years.

Meantime, however, the spirit of insurrection and revolt had found outlet earlier than by this slower development.

There was early discovered an easier method of attaining freedom than by insurrection and that was by flight to the free states. In the West Indies this safety valve was wanting and the result was San Do- rningo. In America freedom cleared a refuge for slaves as follows:

Vermont, 1779.

Massachusetts, 1780.

26 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Pennsylvania, 1780.

New Hampshire, 1783.

Connecticut, 1784.

Rhode Island, 1784.

Northwest Territory, 1787.

New York, 1799.

New Jersey, 1804.

Consequently we find that the spirit of revolt which tried to co-oper ate by means of insurrection led to widespread organization for the rescue of fugitive slaves among Negroes themselves, and developed before the war in the North and during and after the war in the South, into various co-operative efforts toward economic emancipation and land -buying. Gradually these efforts led to co-operative business, building and loan associations and trade unions. On the other hand, the Underground Railroad led directly to various efforts at migration, especially to Canada, and in some cases to Africa. These migra tions in our day have led to certain Negro towns and settlements; arid finally from the efforts at migration began the various conventions of Negroes which have endeavored to organize them into one national body, and give them a group consciousness. Let us now notice in de tail certain of these steps toward co-operation. We have already spoken of insurrections and can now take up the Underground Railroad and the co-operative efforts during emancipation, and the various schemes of migration.

Section 6. The Underground Railroad

From the beginning of the nineteenth century slaves began to escape in considerable numbers from the region south of Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio to the North. Even here, however, they were not safe from the fugitive slave laws, and soon after 1812 the Negro soldiers and sailors discovered a surer refuge in Canada and the tide set thither. Gradually between 1830 and 1850 there were signs of definite concerted co-operation to assist fugitives which came to be known as the Under ground Railroad. The organization is best known from the side of the white abolitionists who aided and sheltered the fugitives and furnished them means.

But it must not be forgotten that back of these helpers must have lain a more or less conscious co-operation and organization on the part of the colored people. In the first place, the running away of slaves was too systematic to be accidental; without doubt there was widespread knowledge of paths and places and times for going. Constant com munication between the land of freedom and the slave states must be kept up by persons going and coming, and there can be no doubt but that the Negro organization back of the Underground Railroad was widespread and very effective. Redpath, writing just before the war, says: uln the Canadian provinces there are thousands of fugitive slaves; they are the picked men of the Southern states, many of them are intelligent and rich and all of them are deadly enemies of the South ;

Underground Railroad 27

five hundred of them at least annually visit the slave states, passing from Florida to Harper's Ferry on heroic errands of mercy and deliv erance. They have carried the Underground Railroad and the Under ground Telegraph into nearly every Southern state. Here obviously is a power of great importance for a war of liberation." Siebert says that in the South much secret aid was rendered the fugitives by persons of their own race, and he gives instances in numbers of border states where colored persons were in charge of the runaways. Frederick Douglass' connection with the Underground Railroad began long before he himself left the South. In the North people of the African race would be found in most communities, and in many cases they became energetic workers.

It was natural that Negro settlements in the free states should be resorted to by fugitive slaves. The colored people of Greenwich, New Jersey, the Stewart, settlement of Jackson county, Ohio, the Upper and Lower Camps, Brown county, Ohio, and the colored settlement, Hamilton county, Indiana, were active. The list of towns and cities in which the Negroes became co- workers with white persons in harboring and concealing runaways is a long one. Oberlin, Portsmouth and Cincinnati, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Phila delphia, Pennsylvania, and Boston, Massachusetts, will suffice as examples. Negro settlements in the interior of the free states, as well as along their southern frontier, soon carne to form important links in the chain of stations leading from the Southern states to Canada.*

In the list of Underground Railway operators given by Siebert there are 128 names of Negroes, and Negroes were on the vigilant commit tees of most of the larger towns, including Boston, Syracuse, Spring field and Philadelphia.

The largest number of abduction cases occurred through the activities of those well disposed towards fugitives by the attachments of race. There were many Negroes, enslaved and free, along the southern boundaries of New Jer sey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Iowa, whose opportunities were numerous for conveying fugitives to free soil with slight risk to themselves. These persons sometimes did scarcely more than ferry runaways across streams or direct them to the home of friends residing near the line of free states. In the vicinity of Martin's Ferry, Ohio, there lived a colored man who frequented the Virginia shore for the purpose of persuading slaves to run away. He was in the habit of imparting the necessary information and then displaying himself in an intoxicated condition, feigned or real, to avoid sus picion. At last he was found out, but escaped by betaking himself to Canada. In the neighborhood of Portsmouth, Ohio, slaves were conveyed across the river by one Poindexter, a barber of the town of Jackson. In Baltimore, Maryland, two colored women who engaged in selling vegetables, were effi cient in starting fugitives on the way to Philadelphia. At Louisville, Ken tucky, Wash Spradley,a shrewd Negro, was instrumental in helping many of his enslaved brethren out of bondage. These few instances will suffice to il lustrate the secret enterprises conducted by colored persons on both sides of the sectional line once dividing the North from the South.

Another class of colored persons that undertook the work of delivering some of their race from cruel uncertainties of slavery may be found among the

* Siebert, 82, 91.

28 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

refugees of Canada. Describing the early development of the movement of slaves to Canada, Dr. Samuel G. Howe says of these persons : " Some, not con tent with personal freedom and happiness, went secretly back to their old homes and brought away their wives and children at much peril and cost." It has been said that the number of these persons visiting the South annually was about five hundred. Mr. D. B. Hodge, of Lloydsville, Ohio, gives the case of a Negro that went to Canada by way of New Athens, and in the course of a- year returned over the same route, went to Kentucky, and brought away his wife and two children, making his pilgrimage northward again after the lapse of about two months. Another case, reported by Mr. N. C. Buswell of Nefouset, Illinois, is as follows : "A slave, Charlie, belonging to a Missouri planter living near Quincy, Illinois, escaped to Canada by way of one of the underground routes. Ere long he decided to return and get his wife, but found that she had been sold South. When making his second journey east ward he brought with him a family of slaves who preferred freedom to remain ing as the chattels of his old master. This was the first of a number of such trips made by the fugitive, Charlie. Mr. Seth Lin ton, who wras familiar with the work on a line of this road running through Clinton county, Ohio, reports that a fugitive that had passed along the route returned after some months, saying he had come back to rescue his wife. His absence in the slave state continued so long that it was feared he had been captured, but after some weeks he reappeared, bringing his wife and her father with him. He told of having seen many slaves in the country and said they would be along as soon as they could escape."*

The stations at Mechanicsburg were among the most widely known in central and southern Ohio. They received fugitives from at least three regu lar routes, and doubtless had "switch connections" with other lines. Passen gers were taken northward over one of the three, perhaps, four roads, and as one or two of these lay through pro-slavery neighborhoods a brave and expe rienced agent was almost indispensable. George W. S. Lucas, a colored man of Salem, Columbiana county, Ohio, made frequent trips with the closed car riage of Philip Evans between Barnesville, New Philadelphia and Cadiz, and two stations, Ash tabula and Painesville, on the shore of Lake Erie. Occa sionally Mr. Lucas conducted parties to Cleveland and Sandusky and Toledo, but in such cases he went on foot or by stage. His trips were sometimes a hundred miles and more in length. George L. Burroughes, a colored man at Cairo, Illinois, became an agent for the Underground Road in 1857 while act ing as porter of a sleeping car running on the Illinois Central Railroad between Cairo and Chicago. At Albany, New York, Stephen Myers, a Negro, was an agent of the Underground Road for a wide extent of territory. At Detroit there were several agents, among them George DeBaptiste and George Dolar- son.t

The most celebrated of these abductors were Harriet Tub-man and .Josiah Henson, who are said to have been the means of releasing many hundreds of slaves from slavery.

Outside of this general co-operation there was, however, evidence of real organization among the Negroes. Hinton says that John Brown knew of this secret organization and sought to take advantage of it. Gill also testifies to the same organization ; extracts from their writing will show their knowledge of this more secret co-operation :

•Siebert, 151. t Siebert, 70.

Underground Railroad 29

On leaving Boston, March 8th, he [i. e., John Brown] carried with him $500 in gold and assurance of other support. He passed through New York on the 2d, preferring to go around rather than take the risk of being recognized in western Massachusetts. On the 10th of March Frederick Douglass, Henry Highland Garnett of New York, Stephen Smith and William Still of Phila delphia, [all colored] with John Brown, Jr., met the captain in conference at the dwelling of either Smith or Still. Of course the object of these was to find out the Underground Railroad routes and stations, to ascertain the persons who were actually to be relied upon, places to stop at, means of conveyance, and especially to learn of the colored men who could be trusted. The Phila delphia conference must have gone over this ground with the two Browns, and the experience of those who were the most active of Underground Rail road directors in that section, could not but have been useful John

Brown's purpose in calling and holding the convention at Chatham, Canada West, was in harmony with the conception and plans he had evolved. There was a large number of colored residents under the British flag. They were mainly fugitive slaves, among whom were many bold, even daring men. In the section of which Chatham was one of the centers, considerable direction had been given to the settlement of these people. There were among them (and still are) a good many farmers, mechanics, storekeepers, as well as labor ers. It would not be correct to say that no prejudice existed against them, but it was not strong enough, as in the land from which they fled, to prevent industry and sobriety from having a fair chance, while intelligence, well di rected, made its way to civic and business recognition. There were probably not less than 75,000 fugitive residents in Canada West at the time of the Chatham gathering. Their presence, well-ordered lives and fair degree of prosperity, had brought also to live with them as doctors, clergymen, teachers, lawyers, printers, surveyors, etc., educated freemen of their own race. Martin Delany, a physician, editor, ethnologist and naturalist, was one of them. Mr. Holden, a well-trained surveyor and civil engineer, at whose residence in Chatham John Brown stayed, the Rev. William Charles Munroe, Osborne Perry Anderson and others, were among these helpers. But it was not simply the presence of these forces which took John Brown to Chatham. As one may naturally understand, looking at conditions then existing, there existed some thing of an organization to assist fugitives and for resistance to their masters. It was found all along the borders from Syracuse, New York, to Detroit, Michi gan. As none but colored men were admitted into direct and active member ship with this "League of Freedom," it is quite difficult to trace its workings or know how far its ramifications extended. One of the most interesting phases of slave life, so far as the whites were enabled to see or impinge upon it, was the extent and rapidity of communicatkm among them. Four geo graphical lines seem to have been chiefly followed. One was that of the coast south of the Potomac, whose almost continuous line of swamps from the vi cinity of Norfolk, Ya., to the northern border of Florida afforded a refuge for many who could not escape and became " marooned " in their depths, while giving facility to the more enduring to work their way out to the North Star Land. The great Appalachian range and its abutting mountains were long a rugged, lonely, but comparatively safe route to freedom. It was used, too, for many years. Doubtless a knowledge of that fact, for John Brown was always an active Underground Railroad man, had very much to do, apart from its immediate use strategically considered, with the captain's decision to begin operations therein. Harriet Tubman, whom John Brown met for the first time at St. Catherine's in March or April, 1858, was a constant user of the Appalach-

30 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

ian route in her efforts to aid escaping slaves. " Moses," as Mrs. Tubman was called by her own people, was a most remarkable black woman, unlettered and very negrine, but with a great degree of intelligence and perceptive in sight, amazing courage and a simple steadfastness of devotion which lifts her career into the ranks of heroism. Herself a fugitive slave, she devoted her life after her own freedom was won, to the work of aiding others to escape. First and last Harriet brought out several thousand slaves. John Brown always called her "General," and once introduced her to Wendell Phillips by saying, "I bring you one of the best and bravest persons on this continent— General Tubman, as we call her." William Lambert, who died in Detroit a few years since, being very nearly one hundred years old, was another of those of the race who devoted themselves to the work for which John Brown hoped to strike a culminating blow. Between 1829 and 1862 — thirty-three years — Wil liam is reported to have aided in the escape of 30,000 slaves. He lived in De troit, and was one of the foremost representatives of his people in both Michi gan and Ontario. Underground Railroad operations culminating chiefly at (Cleveland, Sandusky and Detroit, led by broad and denned routes through Ohio to the border of Kentucky. Through that state in the heart of the Cum berland mountains, northern Georgia, east Tennessee and northern Alabama, the limestone caves of the region served a useful purpose. And it is a fact that the colored people living in Ohio were often bolder and more determined than was the rule elsewhere. The Ohio-Kentucky routes probably served more fugitives than others in the North. The valley of the Mississippi was the most westerly channel until Kansas opened a bolder way of escape from the South west slave section. John Brown knew whatever was to be known of all this unrest, and he also must have known of the secret organization which George B. Gill mentions in his interesting paper. This organization served a purpose of some value to the government in the earlier parts of the Civil War, a fact that lies within my own knowledge, and then fell into disuse as the hours moved swifter to the one in which the gate-way of the Union swung aside, and the pathway of the law opened, to allow the colored American to reach emancipation and citizenship.

Dr. Alexander Milton Ross, in a letter January 21st, 1893, says: * Now in reference to the "Liberty League," I was one of their members at large; Gerrit Smith and Lewis Tappan were the others. As to the actual members I had very little acquaintance. I knew of George J. Reynolds of Hamilton (Sandusky, also), George W. Brown and Glover Harrison of this city (Toronto). The branch of the League in Upper Canada had no connection with the armed and drilled men along the United States border, whose duty it was to help the slaves to escape to Canada. Of course I knew many of them — Liberators, as they were called, — from Erie to Sandusky and Cleveland.

The list of the men who met John Brown in the celebrated Chatham convention also shows the large number of co-workers, whom he tried to get to help him at Harper's Ferry. The names of the members of the Chatham convention were: William Charles Monroe, G. J. Rey nolds, J. C. Grant, A. J. Smith, James Monroe Jones, George B. Gill, M. F. Bailey, William Lambert, S. Hunton, John J. Jackson, Osborne P. Anderson, Alfred Whipper, C. W. Moffett, James M. Bell, W. H. Lehman, Alfred M. Ellsworth, John E. Cook, Steward Taylor, James

•Hlnton: John Brown and His Men.

Underground Railroad 31

W. Purnell, George Akin, Stephen Dettin, Thomas Hickerson, John Cannel, Robinson A lexander, Richard Realf, Thomas F. Gary, Richard Richardson. Luke F. Parsons, Thos. M. Kennard, Jeremiah Anderson, J. H. Delaney, Robert Van Vauken, Thos. M. Stringer, Charles P. Tidd, John A. Thomas, C. Whipple, Alias Aaron D. Stevens, J. D. Shadd, Robert Newman, Owen Brown, John Brown, J. H. Harris, Charles Smith, Simon Fislin, Isaac Holden, James Smith, John H. Kagi; the secretary, Dr. M. R. Delaney, was a corresponding member. The mem bers whose names are in italics were colored men.

In addition to the educational facilities the colored folk of Chatham had churches of their own, a newspaper conducted in their interest by Mr. I. D. Shadd, an accomplished colored man, and societies for social intercourse and improvement, in which their affairs were discussed, mutual wants made known and help provided. But there were also here and elsewhere, at each center of colored population, meetings and discussions of a more earnest character: Conductors of the tkUnder- ground Railroad,'1 an organization whose influence in aid of the fleeing slaves was felt from the lakes and St. Lawrence river to the center of the slave populations, were often seen here.

The League of Gileadites formed by John Brown in Springfield, Mass., just after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law also became undoubtedly an effective organization, and was carried on largely by the colored people themselves. The co-operation in rescuing fugitive slaves just before the war was due in considerable degree to this organ ization and others like it in different places. Siebert says:

Soon after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed John Brown visited Spring field, Massachusetts, where he had formerly lived. The Valley of Connecticut had long been a line of underground travel and citizens of Springfield, colored and white, had become identified with operations on this line. Brown at once decided that the new law made organization necessary, and he formed, there fore, the League of Gileadites to resist systematically the enforcement of the law. The name of this order was significant in that it contained a warning to those of its members that should show themselves cowards: "Whosoever is fearful or afraid let him return and depart from Mount Gilead." In the "Agreement and Rules" that John Brown drafted from the order, adopted January 15, 1851, the following directions for action were laid down: "Should one of your number be arrested, you must collect together as quickly as possi ble so as to outnumber your adversaries Let no able bodied man

appear on the ground unequipped or with his weapons exposed to view. Your plans must be known only to yourselves and with the under standing that all traitors must die wherever caught and proven guilty.

Let the first blow be the signal for all to engage Make

clean work with your enemies, and be sure you meddle not with any others.

After effecting a rescue, if you are assailed, go into the houses of

your most prominent and influential white friends with your wives, and that will effectually fasten upon them the suspicion of being connected with you,

and will compel them to make a common cause with you You

may make a tumult in the court-room \vhere the trial is going on by burning gunpowder freely in paper packages But in such case the pris oner will need to take the hint at once and bestir himself; and so should his

32 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

friends improve the opportunity for a general rush Stand by one

another and by your friends while a drop of blood remains ; and be hanged, if you must, but tell no tales out of school. Make no confessions." By adopting the Agreement and Rules, forty-four colored persons constituted themselves I "A branch of the United States League of Gileadites," and "agreed to have no officers except a treasurer and secretary pro tern, until after some trial of courage," when they could choose officers on the basis of "courage efficiency and general good conduct." Doubtless the Gileadites of Springfield did effi cient service, for it appears that the importance of the town as a way station on the Underground Road increased after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill. *

That slaves should run away from slavery is, of course, perfectly nat ural, but there is also a further development of this idea in the desire of free Negroes to move either to different parts of the country or out of the country for the sake of having better chances for development. These movements were in some cases encouraged by the American Col onization Society, but in most cases the Negroes were suspiciousof that organization, and the first efforts in the line of migration began among themselves. These efforts commenced as early as 1815, and lasted down to 1880. In the midst of them came the war and emancipation. Let us, therefore, first take up the economic co-operation consequent on eman cipation and then the efforts toward migration.

Section 7. Emancipation

The first thing that vexed the Northern armies on Southern soil was the question of the disposition of the fugitive slaves. Butler confiscated them, Fremont freed them and Halleck caught and returned them, but their numbers swelled to such proportions that the mere economic problem of their presence overshadowed everything else, especially after the Emancipation proclamation. Lincoln was glad to have them come after once he realized their strength to the Confederacy. In 1864,

The President's heart yearned for peace; his mind sought out every means of stopping the bloodshed. He referred to the really astonishing extent to which the colored people were informed in regard to the progress of the war, and remarked that he wished the "grapevine telegraph " could be utilized to call upon the Negroes of the interior peacefully to leave the plantations and seek protection of our armies. This as a war-time measure he considered le gitimate. Apart from the numbers it would add to our military forces, he explained the effect such an exodus would have upon the industry of the South. The Confederate soldiers were sustained by provisions raised by Ne gro labor; withdraw that labor, and the young men in the Southern army would soon be obliged to go home to " raise hog and hominy," and thus pro mote the collapse of the Confederacy, t

Meantime, as Howard writes, the economic problem of these massed freedmen was intricate:

In North Carolina, Chaplain Horace James of the Twenty-fifth Massachu setts Volunteers became Superintendent of Negro Affairs for North Carolina, and other officers were detailed to assist him. These covered the territory

• Siebert, pp. 78-75. f Eaton, p. 173.

Emancipation 33

gradually opened by the advance of our armies in both Virginia and North Carolina. Becoming a quartermaster with the rank of captain in 1864, he, for upward of two years, superintended the poor, both white and black, in that region. He grouped the refugees in small villages, and diligently attended to their industries and to their schools. Enlisted men were his first teachers; then followed the best of lady teachers from the North, and success crowned his efforts.

In February, 1864, there were about two thousand freed people in the villager

outside of the New Berne, North Carolina, intrenchments L*>ts were

now assigned and about eight hundred houses erected, which at one time sheltered some three thousand escaped slaves.*

June 28, 1862, Brigadier General Rufus Saxton, with headquarters at Beau fort, South Carolina, assumed the government and control of all places and persons in the Department of the South which were not embraced in the op erations of General Quincy A. Gilmore, commanding the department. General Saxton, as military governor, appointed three division superintendents, each having charge of several of the Sea Islands. Market houses were established at Hilton Head and Beaufort for the sale of the produce from the plantations, and Negroes put to work, the larger settlement being Port Royal Island and near the town of Beaufort.

Colored men in that vicinity were soon enlisted as soldiers and an effort was made to cause the laborers left on each plantation, under plantation superin tendents appointed for the purpose, to raise sufficient cotton and corn for their own support, rations being given from the Com missionary Department only when necessary to prevent absolute starvation. These conditions were, with hardly an interruption, continued until the spring of 1865.

Grant's army in the West occupied Grand Junction, Miss., by November, 1862. The usual irregular host of slaves then swarmed in from the surround ing country. They begged for protection against recapture, and they, of course, needed food, clothing and shelter. They could not now be re-enslaved through army aid, yet no provision had been made by anybody for their sus tenance. A few were employed as teamsters, servants, cooks and pioneers, yet it seemed as though the vast majority must be left to freeze and starve; for when the storms came with the winter months the weather was of great severity.

General Grant, with his usual gentleness toward the needy and his fertility in expedients, introduced at once a plan of relief. He selected a fitting super intendent, John Eaton, chaplain of the Twenty-seventh Ohio Volunteers, who was soon promoted to the colonelcy of a colored regiment, and later for many years was a Commissioner of the United States Bureau of Education. He was then constituted Chief of the Negro Affairs for the entire district under Grant's jurisdiction. The plan which Grant conceived, the new superintend ent ably carried out. They were all around Grand Junction, when our opera tions opened, large crops of cotton and corn ungathered. It was determined to harvest these, send them North for sale, and place the receipts to the credit of the Government. The army of fugitives, willingly going to work, produced a lively scene. The children lent a hand in gathering the cotton and corn. The superintendent, conferring with the general himself, fixed upon fair wages for this industry. Under similar remuneration woodcutters were set at work to supply with fuel numerous government steamers on the river. After in spection of accounts, the money was paid for the labor by the quartermaster,

* Howard: Vol. 2, 176-7.

34 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

but never directly to the fugitives. The superintendent, controlling this money, saw to it first that the men, women and children should have sufficient clothing and food, then Colonel Eaton built for them rough cabins and pro vided for their sick and aged, managing to extend to them many unexpected comforts. General Grant in his memoirs suggests this as the first idea of a u Freedmen's Bureau."

Even before the close of 1862 many thousands of blacks of all ages, clad in rags, with no possessions except the nondescript bundles of all sizes which the adults carried on their backs, had come together at Norfolk, Hampton, Alexandria and Washington. Sickness, want of food and shelter, sometimes resulting crime, appealed to the sympathies of every feeling heart. Landless, homeless, helpless families in multitudes, including a proportion of wretched white people, were flocking northward from Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri. They were, it is true, for a time not only relieved by. army ra tions, spasmodically issued, but were met most kindly by various volunteer societies of the North — societies which gathered their means from churches and individuals at home and abroad.

During the spring of 1863 many different groups and crowds of freemen and refugees, regular and irregular, were located near the long and broken line of division between the armies of the North and South, ranging from Maryland to the Kansas border and along the coast from Norfolk, Ya., to New Orleans, La. They were similar in character and condition to those already described. Their virtues, their vices, their poverty, their sicknesses, their labors, their idleness, their excess of joy and their extremes of suffering were told to our home people by every returning soldier or agent or by the missionaries who were soliciting the means of relief. Soon in the North an extraordinary zeal for humanity, quite universal, sprang up, and a Christian spirit which was never before exceeded began to prevail. The result was the organizing of numerous new bodies of associated workers whose influence kept our country free from the ills attending emancipation elsewhere; it saved us from Negro insurrection, anarchy and bloody massacre, with which the proslavery men and even the conservative readers of history had threatened the land.

The secretary of the treasury, Salmon P. Chase, always anxious for success ful emancipation, had had brought to his attention early in 1862 the accumu lations of the bestcotton on abandoned sea island plantations; there was the opportunity to raise more, and the many slaves in the vicinity practically set free and under governmental control could be worked to advantage. The cotton was to be collected by treasury agents and thefreedmen benefited.

During the summer of 1864 Wm. Pitt Fessenden, who had replaced Mr. Chase as secretary of the treasury, inaugurated a new plan for the freedmen and abandoned lands. He appointed and located supervising special agents of his department in different portions of the South which were now free from Confederate troops. These agents had charge of the freedmen. Each was to form here and there settlements on abandoned estates, each dominated a "Freedman's Home Colony," and situated in his own district, and he must appoint a supervisor for such colonies as he should establish. A number of such colonies were formed. The supervisor provided buildings, obtained work animals and implements of husbandry and other essential supplies; he kept a book of record which mentioned the former owner of the land, the name, age, residence and trade or occupation of each colonist; all births, deaths and mar riages ; the coming and going of each employee and other like data. These agents and supervisors were sometimes taken under military control by the local commander and sometimes operated independently.

Emancipation 35

Under this plan the freed people were classified for fixed wages varying from $10 to $25 per month, according to the class, and whether male or female. There was a complete and detailed system of employment. Food and cloth ing were guaranteed at cost, and all parties concerned were put under written contracts. For a time in some places this system worked fairly well. It was a stepping-stone to independence. The working people usually had in the supervisors and treasury agents friendly counselors; and when courts of any f.ort were established under them for hearing complaints of fraud or oppres sion, these officials reviewed the cases and their decisions were final. These were rather short steps in the path of progress ! They were experiments.

From the time of the opening of New Orleans in 1862 till 1865, different sys tems of caring for the escaped slaves and their families were tried in the .Southwest. Generals Butler and Banks, each in his turn, sought to provide for the thousands of destitute freedmen in medicines, rations and clothing. Colonies were soon formed and sent to abandoned plantations. A sort of gen eral poor farm was established and called "The Home Colony." Mr. Thomas W. Con way, when first put in charge of the whole region as "Superintendent of the Bureau of Free Labor," tried to impress upon all freedman who came under his charge in these home colonies that they must work as hard as if they were employed by contract on the plantation of a private citizen. His avowed object, and indeed that of every local superintendent, was to render the freedmen self-supporting. One bright freedman said: "I always kept master and me. Guess I can keep me."

Two methods at first not much in advance of slavery were used : one was to force the laborers to toil ; and the second, when wages were paid, to fix exact rates for them by orders. Each colony from the first had a superintendent, a physician, a clerk and an instructor in farming. The primary and Sunday schools were not wanting, and churches were encouraged.

Early in 1863, General Lorenzo Thomas, the adjutant general of the army, was organizing colored troops along the Mississippi river. After consulting various treasury agents and department commanders, including General Grant, and having also the approval of Mr. Lincoln, he issued fromMilliken's Bend, La., April 15th, a lengthy series of instructions covering the territory bordering the Mississippi and including all the inhabitants.

He appointed three commissioners, Messrs. Field, Shickle and Livermore, to lease plantations and care for the employees. He adroitly encouraged pri vate enterprise instead of government colonies ; but he fixed the wages of able-bodied men over fifteen years of age at $7 per month, for able- bodied women $5 per month, for children twelve to fifteen years half price. He laid a tax for revenue of $2 per 400 pounds on cotton, and five cents per bushel on corn and potatoes.

This plan naturally did not work well, for the lessees of plantations proved to be for the most part adventurers and speculators. Of course such men took advantage of the ignorant people. The commissioners themselves seem to have done more for the lessees than for the laborers; and, in fact, the wages were from the beginning so fixed as to benefit and enrich the employer. Two dollars per month was stopped against each of the employed, ostensibly for medical attendance, but to most plantations thus leased no physician or medi cine ever came, and there were other attendant cruelties which avarice con trived.

On fifteen plantations leased by the Negroes themselves in this region there was a notable success ; and also a few instances among others where humanity and good sense reigned, the contracts were generally carried out. Here the

36 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Negroes were contented and grateful and were able to lay by small gains. This plantation arrangement along the Mississippi under the commissioners as well as the management of numerous infirmary camps passed, about the close of 1863", from the war to the treasury department. A new commission or agency with Mr.W. P. Mellen of the treasury at the head, established more careful and complete regulations than those of General Thomas. This time it was done decidedly in the interest of the laborers.

Then came another change of jurisdiction. On March 11, 1865, General Ste phen A. Hurlbut at New Orleans assumed the charge of freedmen and labor for the state of Louisana. He based his orders on the failure of the secretary of the treasury to recognize the regulations of that secretary's own general agent, Mr. Mellen. Mr. Thomas W. Conway was announced as " Superintend ent of Home Colonies," the word having a larger extension than before. A registry of plantations, hire and compensation of labor, with a fair schedule of wages, penalties for idleness and crime, time and perquisites of labor, the poll tax of $2 per year, liens and security for work done, were carefully pro vided for by General Hurlbut's specific instructions.

General Edward R. S. Canby, a little later, from Mobile, Ala., issued similar orders, and Mr. Conway was also placed over the freedmen's interests in his vicinity. Thus the whole freedmen's management for Alabama, Southern Mississippi and Louisiana was concentrated under Mr. Con way's control. He reported early in 1865 that there were about twenty colored regiments in TAHiisiana under pay and that they could purchase every inch of confiscated and abandoned lands in the hands of the government in that state. All the soldiers desired to have the land on the expiration of enlistment. One regi ment had in hand $50,000 for the purpose of buying five of the largest planta tions on the Mississippi. It was at the time thought by many persons inter ested in the future of the freedmen that the abandoned and confiscated lands if used for them would afford a wholesome solution to the Negro problem

A few days after the triumphal en trance, Secretary of War Stanton came in person from Washington to convey his grateful acknowledgement to General Sherman and his army for their late achievements. While at Savannah he examined into the condition of the liberated Negroes found in that city. He assembled twenty of those who were deemed their leaders. Among them were barbers, pilots and sailors, some ministers, and others who had been overseers on cotton and rice plantations. Mr. Stanton and General Sherman gave them a hearing. It would have been wise if our statesmen could have received, digested and acted upon the answers these men gave to their ques tions

As a result of this investigation and after considerable meditation upon the perplexing problem as to what to do with the growing masses of unemployed Negroes and their families, and after a full consultation with Mr. Stanton, General Sherman issued his Sea Island Circular January 16, 1865. In this pa per the islands from Charleston south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea and the country bordering the St. Johns river, Florida, were reserved for the settlement of the Negroes made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President,

General Rufus Saxton, already on the ground, wras appointed Inspector of Settlements and Plantations; no other change was intended or desired in the settlements on Beaufort Island which had for three years been established.

The inspector was required to make proper allotments and give possessory titles and defend them till Congress should confirm his actions. It was a bold move. Thousands of Negro families were distributed under this circular, and

Emancipation 37

the freed people regarded themselves for more than six months as in perma nent possession of these abandoned lands.*

Taxes on the freedmen furnished most of the funds to run these first experiments, and also, later, the Freedmen's Bureau:

On all plantations, whether owned or leased, where freedmen were em ployed a tax of one cent per pound on cotton and a proportional amount on all other products was to be collected as a contribution in support of the helpers among the freed people. A similar tax, varying with the value of the property, was levied by the government upon all leased plantations in lieu of rentt

Eaton explains many details of the operations under him:

As to the management of property, both government and private, the regu lation of wages and all general disciplinary measures, the following state ments should be made: One of my officers, Lieutenant B. K. Johnson, was assigned to duty as acting assistant quartermaster and acting commissary of subsistence of freedmen. He accomplished much for the economical manage ment of property, rendering satisfactory reports to Washington, as usually required of officers of those departments. All officers handling supplies re ceived from the government adjusted their methods of business, forms of reports, vouchers, etc., to army regulations, which required them to keep careful records of every transaction. Not a cent of money was ever drawn from the government for the freedmen on any account.

For the support of the sick and those otherwise dependent a tax was temp orarily required (by Orders No. 63) on the wages of the able-bodied. It was thought at first that the Negroes would submit with reluctance to the collec tion of such a tax. But in this we were mistaken. Being a tax on wages, it compelled the employer and the employed to appear, one or both, before the officer charged with its collection, and this officer allowed no wages to go un paid. The Negro soon saw in the measure his first recognition by govern ment, and although the recognition appeared in the form of a burden, he re sponded to it with alacrity, finding in it the first assurance of any power pro tecting his right to make a bargain and hold the white man to its fulfilment. This comprehension of the affair argued a good sense of economic justice to a people entirely unused to such responsibilities. It was most interesting to watch the moral effect of the taxing ex-slaves. They freely acknowledged that they ought to assist in bearing the burden of the poor. They felt enno bled when they found that the government was calling upon them as men to assist in the process by which their natural rights were to be secured. Thous ands thus saw for the first time any money reward for their labor. The places where the tax was least rigidly collected were farthest behind in paying the colored man for his services. This tax, together with funds accruing from the profits of labor in the department, met all the incidental expenses of our widespread operations; paid $5,000 for hospitals; the salaries of all hospital stewards and medical assistants (as per Orders No. 94), and enabled us to supply implements of industry to the people, in addition to abandoned property. The same funds secured to the benefit of the Negroes, clothing, household utensils, and other articles essential to their comfort, to the amount of $103,000. The Negroes could not themselves have secured these commodities for less than -$350,000. The management of these funds and supplies was regulated by the •exigencies of the people's condition, and was adapted as far as necessary to army methods, requiring a rigid system of accounts, monthly reports covered

* Howard : Vol. 2, 178-80, 183-92. + Eaton, p. 147.

38 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

by certificates and vouchers, followed by careful inspections, not only from my office, but from the generals commanding.

According to Orders Xo. 9, issued by General L.Thomas, certain officers known as provost marshals were selected from the men of the Freedmen's Department to discharge toward the Negroes scattered on plantations the du ties of superintendent of freedmen. These officers were appointed by the commanding generals, and themselves appointed assistant provost marshals, who patrolled the districts assigned to them, correcting abuses on plantations and acting as the representatives of the law as upheld by the military power. There was some difficulty in maintaining the incorruptibility of these officers, and the territory which had to be covered by each individual was too extended, but the system, nevertheless, worked extremely well.*

In 1864, July 5, Eaton reports:

These freedmen are now disposed of as follows: In military service as sol diers' laundresses, cooks, officers' servants and laborers in the various staff departments, 41,150; in cities, on plantations and in freedmen's villages and cared for, 72,500. Of these, 62,300 are entirely self-supporting— the same as any individual class anywhere else— as planters, mechanics, barbers, hackmen, draymen, etc., conducting on their own responsibility or working as. hired laborers. The remaining 10,200 receive subsistence from the government, Three thousand of them are membersNof families whose heads are carrying on plantations and have under cultivation 4,000 acres of cotton. They are to pay the government for their subsistence from the first income of the crop. The other 7,200 include the paupers, that is to say, all Negroes over and under the self-supporting age, the crippled and sick in hospital, of the 113,650, and those engaged in their care. Instead of being unproductive this class has now under cultivation 500 acres of corn, 790 acres of vegetables and 1,500 acres of cotton, besides working at wood-chopping and other industries. There are reported in the aggregate over 100,000 acres of cotton under cultivation. Of these about 7,000 acres are leased and cultivated by blacks. Some Negroes are managing as high as 300 or 400 acres, t

This same year a report from Chaplain A. S. Fiske says: This inspection has covered ninety-five places leased by whites and fifty-six plats of land worked by the blacks for themselves, in the districts of Natchez, Vicksburg and Helena. In these districts I have left but few places without examination. %

The experiment at Davis Bend, Miss., was of especial interest: Late in the season — in November and December, 1864, — the Freedmen's De partment wras restored to full control over the camps and plantations on Presi dent's Island and Palmyra or Davis Bend. Both these points had been orig inally occupied at the suggestion of General Grant, and were among the most successful of our enterprises for the Negroes. With the expansion of the les see system, private interests were allowed to displace the interests of the Ne groes whom we had established there under the protection of the government, but orders issued by General N. J. T. Dana, upon whose sympathetic and in telligent co-operation my officers could always rely, restored to us the full control of these lands. The efforts of the freedmen on Davis Bend were par ticularly encouraging, and this property under Colonel Thomas' able direction, became in reality the "Negro Paradise" that General Grant had urged us to

» Eaton, pp. 126-9. f Eaton, p. 134. J Eaton, p. 157.

Emancipation 39

make of it. Early in 1865 a system was adopted for their government in which the freedmen took a considerable part. The Bend was divided into districts, each having a sheriff and judge appointed from among the more reliable and intelligent colored men. A general oversight of the proceedings was main tained by our officers in charge, who confirmed or modified the findings of the court. The shrewdness of the colored judges was very remarkable, though it wras sometimes necessary to decrease the severity of the punishments they pro posed. Fines and penal service on the Home Farm were the usual sentences imposed. Petty theft and idleness were the most frequent causes of trouble, but my officers were able to report that exposed property was as safe on Davis Bend as it would be anywhere. The community distinctively demonstrated the capacity of the Negro to take care of himself and exercise under honest and competent direction the functions of self-government. *

Finally came the Freedmen's Bureau. Its work was thus summar ized by General O. O. Howard, its chief, in 1869:

One year ago there wrere on duty in this bureau one hundred and forty-one (141) commissioned officers, four hundred and twelve civilian agents, and three hundred and forty-eight (348) clerks. At present there are fifteen (15) com missioned officers, seventy-one (71) civilian agents, and seventy-two clerks. . . .

The law establishing a Bureau committed to it the control of all subjects re lating to refugees and freedmen under such regulations as might be prescribed by the head of the Bureau and approved by the President. This almost unlim ited authority gave me great scope and liberty of action, but at the same time it imposed upon me very perplexing and responsible duties. Legislative, ju dicial and executive powers were combined in my commission, reaching all the interests of four millions of people, scattered over avast territory, living in the midst of another people claiming to be superior, and known to be not altogether friendly. It was impossible at the outset to do more than lay down general principles to guide the officers assigned as assistant commissioners in the several states

The first information received from these officers presented a sad picture of want and misery. Though large sums of money had been contributed by generous Northern people ; though many noble-hearted men and women, with the spirit of true Christian missionaries, had engaged zealously in the work of relief and instruction; though the heads of the departments in Washing ton and military commanders in the field had done all in their power, yet the great mass of the colored people, just freed from slavery, had not been reached. In every state many thousands were found without employment, without homes, without means of subsistence, crowding into towns and about military posts, where they hoped to find protection and supplies. The sudden collapse of the rebellion, making emancipation an actual, universal fact, was like an earthquake. It shook and shattered the whole previously existing social sys tem. It broke up the old industries and threatened a reign of anarchy. Even well-disposed and humane landowners were at a loss what to do, or how to begin the work of reorganizing society, and of rebuilding their ruined for tunes. Very few had any knowledge of free labor, or any hope that their for mer slaves would serve them faithfully for wages. On the other hand, the freed people were in a state of great excitement and uncertainty. They could hardly believe that the liberty proclaimed was real and permanent. Many wrere afraid to remain on the same soil that they had tilled as slaves lest by

* Eaton, p. 1(55.

40 Economic Cooperation Among Negro Americans

some trick they might find themselves again in bondage. Others supposed that the Government would either take the entire supervision of their labor and support, or divide among them the lands of the conquered owners, and furnish them with all that might be necessary to begin life as independent farmers.

In such an unsettled state of affairs it w^as no ordinary task we undertook to inspire hostile races with mutual confidence, to supply the immediate wants of the sick and starving, to restore social order, and to set in motion all the wheels of industry. ... . .

Surely our government exercised a large benevolence. We have under our care no less than five hundred and eighty-four thousand one hundred and seventy-eight (584,178) sick and infirm persons, for whom no provision wras made by local authorities, and who had no means themselves of procuring the attendance and comforts necessary to health and life. It has not been possi ble to provide for the proper treatment of the insane. For some of this un fortunate class admission has been gained by earnest correspondence to state asylums, but the majority have been of necessity retained in the bureau hos pitals, and all that could be done for them was to supply them with food and clothing and prevent them from doing injury.

For more than a year our principal aim has been to relieve the general Gov ernment by transferring to the civil authorities all these dependent classes for future cure and treatment. To this end medicine and hospital stores have been furnished as an outfit where state or municipal governments have con sented to assume charge of destitute sick and disabled freedmen within their borders. By means of this aid, and by patient and persistent effort on the part of my officers, the hospitals, at one time numbering fifty-six (56), have been reduced to two (2), and one (1) of these is about to be closed.

In addition to the sick, many others were destitute and required aid. To re lieve this destitution without encouraging pauperism and idleness was at all times a difficult problem

The wonder is not that so many, but that so few, have needed help; that of the four millions of people thrown suddenly upon their own resources only one in about two hundred has been an object of public charity ; and nearly all who have received aid have been persons who, by reason of age, infirmity or disease, would be objects of charity in any state at any time.

It would have been impossible to reach such satisfactory results and reduce the issue of supplies to so small proportions had not employment been found for a great multitude of able-bodied men and women, who, when first free, knew not where to look for remunerative labor

They were uniformly assisted by us in finding good places and in making reasonable bargains. To secure fairness and inspire confidence on both sides, the system of written contracts was adopted. No compulsion was used, but all were advised to enter into written agreements and submit them to an offi cer of the Bureau for approval. The nature and obligations of these contracts were carefully explained to the freedmen, and a copy filed in the office of the agent approving it; this was for their use in case any difficulty arose between them and their employers. The labor imposed upon my officers and agents by this system was very great, as evinced by the fact that in a single state not less than fifty thousand (50,000) such contracts were drawn in duplicate and filled up with the names of all the parties. But the result has been highly satisfactory. To the freedmen, the Bureau office in this way became a school in which he learned the first practical business lessons of life, and from year to year he has made rapid progress in this important branch of education.

Emancipation 41

Nor can it be doubted that much litigation and strife were prevented. It could not be expected that such a vast and complicated machinery would work without friction. The interests of capital and labor very often clash in all communities. The South has not been entirely exempt from troubles of this kind. Some employers have been dishonest and have attempted to defraud the freedmen of just wages. Some laborers have been unfaithful and unreas onable in their demands. But in the great majority of cases brought before us for settlement, the trouble and misunderstanding; have arisen from vague verbal bargains and a want of specific written contracts

In spite of all disorders that have prevailed and the misfortunes that have fallen upon many parts of the South, a good degree of prosperity and success has already been attained. To the oft-repeated slander that the Negroes will not work, and are incapable of taking care of themselves, it is a sufficient answer that their voluntary labor has produced nearly all the food that supported the whole people, besides a large amount of rice, sugar and tobacco for export, and two millions of bales of cotton each year, on which was paid into the United States treasury during the years 1866 and 1867 a tax of more than forty millions of dollars ($40,000,000). It is not claimed that this result is wholly due to the care and oversight of this Bureau, but it is safe to say, as it has been said repeatedly by intelligent Southern white men, that without the Bureau or some similar agency, the material interests of the country would have greatly suffered, and the Government would have lost a far greater amount than has been expended in its maintenance

Of the nearly eight hundred thousand (800,000) acres of farming land and about five thousand (5,000) pieces of town property transferred to this Bureau by military and treasury officers, or taken up by assistant commissioners, enough was leased to produce a revenue of nearly four hundred thousand dol lars ($400,000). Some farms were set apart in each State as homes for the des titute and helpless, and a portion was cultivated by freedmen prior to its restoration

Notice the appropriations by Congress :

For the year ending July 1, 1867 $ (5,940,450 (X)

For the year ending July 1, 1868 3,936,300.00

For the relief of the destitute citizens in District of Co lumbia 40,000. 00

For relief of the destitute freedmen in the same 15,000.00

For expenses of paying bounties in 1869 214,000 00

For expenses for famine in Southern states and trans portation 1,865,645.40

For support of hospitals 50,000.00

Making a total, received from all sources, of $12,961,395 40

Our expenditures from the beginning (including assumed accounts of the "Department of Negro Affairs"), from January 1, 1865, to August 31, 1869, have been eleven million two hundred and forty-nine thousand and twenty-eight dollars and ten cents ($11,249,028.10). In addition to this cash expenditure the subsistence, medical supplies, quartermaster stores, issued to the refugees and freedmen prior to July 1, 1866, were furnished by the commissionary, medical and quartermaster's department, and accounted for in the current expenses of those departments; they were not charged to nor paid for by my officers- They amounted to two million three hundred and thirty thousand seven hun dred and eighty-eight dollars and seventy-two cents ($2,330,788.72) in original cost ; but a large portion of these stores being damaged and condemned as unrit for issue to troops, their real value to the Government was probably less than

42 Economic Cooperation Among Negro Americans

one million of dollars ($1,000,000). Adding their original cost to the amount expended from appropriations and other sources, the total expenses of our Government for refugees and freedmen to August 31, 1869, have been thirteen millions five hundred and seventy-nine thousand eight hundred and sixteen dollars and eighty-two cents ($13,579,816.82). And deducting fifty thousand dol lars ($50,000) set apart as a special relief fund for all classes of destitute people in the Southern states, the real cost has been thirteen millions twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and sixteen dollars and eighty-two cents ($13,- 029,8 16.82). *

That the economic co-operation of the freedrnen under outside lead ership made the Freedmen's Bureau thus possible goes without saying. Not only that, but there is much testimony as to independent co-opera tion on their part:

In a few instances freedmen have combined their means and purchased farms already under cultivation. They have everywhere manifested a great desire to become landowners, a desire in the highest degree laudable and hopeful for their future civilization.

The Negroes were also showing their capacity to organize labor and apply capital to it. Harry, to whom I referred in my second report as "my faithful guide and attendant, who had done for me more service than any white man could render," with funds of his own and some borrowed money, bought at the recent tax sales a small farm of three hundred and thirteen acres for three hundred and five dollars. He was to plant sixteen and a half acres of cotton, twelve and a half of corn, one and a half of potatoes. I rode through his farm on the tenth of April, my last day in the territory, and one-third of his crop was then in Harry lives in the house of the former over seer, and delights, though not boastingly, in his position as a landed proprie tor. He has promised to write me, or rather to dictate a letter, giving an ac count of the progress of his crop. He has had much charge of Government property, and when Captain Hooper and General Saxton's staff was coining North last autumn, Harry proposed to accompany him ; but at last, of hi.s own accord, gave up the project, saying, " It'll not do for all two to leave to gether."

Another caseof capacity for organization should be noted. The Government is building twenty-one houses for the Kdisto people, eighteen feet by fourteen, with two rooms, each provided with a swTinging-board window, and the roof projecting a little as a protection from rain. The journeymen carpenters are seventeen colored men who have fifty cents per day without rations, working ten hours. They are under the direction of Frank Barnwell, a freedman, who receives twenty dollars a month. Rarely have I talked with a more intelli gent contractor. It was my great regret that I had not time to visit the village of improved houses near the Hilton Head camp, which General Mitchell had extemporized, and to which he gave so much of the noble enthusiasm of his last days.

Next as to the development of manhood. This has been shown in the first place, in the prevalent disposition to acquire land. It did not appear upon our first introduction to these people, and they did not seem to understand us when we used to tell them that we wanted them to own land. But it is now an active desire. At the recent tax sales, six out of forty-seven plantations sold were bought by them, comprising two thousand five hundred and ninety -

* Howard, Vol. 2, 361-7, 371-2.

Emancipation 43

five acres, sold for twenty-one hundred and forty-five dollars. In other cases the Negroes had authorized the superintendent to bid for them, but the land was reserved by the United States. One of the purchases was that made by Harry, noted above. The other five were made by the Negroes on the planta tions combining the funds they had saved from the sale of their pigs, chickens and eggs, and from the payments made to them for work, they then dividing off the tract peaceably among themselves. On one of these, where Kit, before mentioned, is the leading spirit, there are twenty-three field hands. They have planted and are cultivating sixty-three acres of cotton, fifty of corn, six of potatoes, with as many more to be planted, four and a half of cowpeas, three of peanuts, and one and a half of rice. These facts are most significant. The instinct for land — to have one spot on earth where a man may stand and whence no human can of right drive him — is one of the most conservative elements of our nature ; and a people who have it in any fair degree will never be nomads or vagabonds.*

Some relief and compensation were given by the act of Congress approved June 21, 1866, which opened for entry, by colored and white men without dis tinction, all the public lands in the states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida. Information was published through my officers and agents respecting the location and value of these lands, and the mode of pro cedure in order to obtain possession of them. Surveys were made and some assistance granted in transporting families to their new homes. Want of teams and farming implements, as well as opposition from their white neigh bors, prevented many from taking the benefit of this homestead act; but about four thousand families have faced and overcome these obstacles, have acquired homes of their own and commenced work with energy, building houses and planting. In a few instances freedmen have combined their means and purchased farms already under cultivation. They have everywhere manifested a great desire to become landowners, a desire in the highest degree laudable and hopeful for their future civilization. Next to a proper religious and intellectual training, the one thing needful to the freedmen is land and a home. Without that a high degree of civilization and moral culture is scarcely possible. So long as he is merely one of a herd working for hire, and living on another's domain, he must be dependent and destitute of manly in dividuality and self-reliance. f

South Carolina appropriated last year $200,000 to buy land in the upper part of the state which has been sold to freedmen for homesteads. Upwards of 40,000 acres of this land have been actually sold during the year to poor men of all colors. The Governor says he intends this year to recommend for the same purpose an appropriation of ,$40,000

The freedmen are very eager for land. The savings they have placed in our banks, and the profits of cotton this year, are enabling them to make large purchases. In Orangeburg county, South Carolina, hundreds of colored men have bought lands and are building and settling upon them. In a single day, in our Charleston Savings Bank, I took the record of seventeen freedmen who were drawing their money to pay for farms they had been buying, generally forty or fifty acres each, paying about $10 per acre. I met at a cotton mer chant's in that city, ten freedmen who had clubbed together with the proceeds of their crop and bought a whole sea island plantation of seven hundred acres. The merchant was that day procuring their deed. He told me that the entire

» Freedmen at Port Royal, pp. iJOi)-10.

-t Report of Brevet Major General O. O. Howard, October 20, I860, p. 10.

44 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

purchase price was paid in cash from the balance due them on the crop of the season. Here, then, besides supporting their families with provisions raised, these men had each, by the profits of a single year bought a farm of seventy acres. What northern laborer could do better ?

I found on the islands other clubs forming to do the same thing, arid this in a season when the caterpillar had destroyed one-half their cotton. A leading ootton broker in Charleston told me that he thought nearly half the cotton on the islands belonged to the colored men. He had himself already 126 consign ments for them, and the amount of his sales on their account had reached over $30,000. As I learned, the average of the freedmen's crop, or share of crop, of Sea Island cotton is from three to six hundred pounds

Just out of the city is a settlement of about one hundred families — something like the Barry farm at Washington — where small homesteads have been pur chased and are being paid for; average value of each from $100 to $500. These families are joyously cultivating their own gardens and provision grounds, also finding work in the city. The Bureau has erected for them a convenient house, now used for a school and chapel.

Further in the interior the freedmeii are buying or renting land and raising their own crops. A community of such families, about thirty miles out (in South Carolina), came in, a few days since, to market their crops for the sea son. They had chartered a railroad car for $140 the round trip, and loading it with cotton, corn, etc., exchanged the same for cloth ing, furniture, implements of husbandry and supplies for putting in their next crop. They came to us on returning and begged very hard that a teacher might be sent to their settle ment, promising to pay all expenses. These are the indications of the drift of these people towards independent home life and profitable labor. Although the savings bank here is one of the most recently established, it has had de posited over $60,000, of which $31,000 is still to their credit,

I find the following history of the Freedmen's labor:

The first year they worked for bare subsistence; second year they bought stock — mules, implements, etc.; third year many rented lands; and now, the fourth year, large numbers are prepared to buy. This is the record of the most industrious, others are following at a slower pace. In this process diffi culties have been encountered — lowr wages, fraud, ill treatment, etc., some be coming discouraged, but the majority are determined to rise. As illustrations : Several freedmen in Houston county have bought from 100 to 600 acres of land each. One man is now planting for fifty bales of cotton. A colored company (called Peter Walker's) own 1,500 acres. Two brothers (Warren) saved in the bank $600 and with it obtained a title to 1,500 acres, having credit for the bal ance, and both are now building houses and preparing to make a crop which they expect will clear off their whole debt. In Americus fully one hundred houses and lots belong to the colored people.*

Last spring 160 Negroes banded together, chose one of the smartest of their number as superintendent and commenced work. Now they show you with pride 250 acres of rice, 250 acres of corn, nearly the same amount of peas (beans we should call them), besides many acres of smaller crops. This joint stock company is working not only with energy but with perfect harmony.

Thus it was that the Negro emerged to a semblance of economic free dom only to be met by the Black Codes and political revolution. We will now turn back to the alternate way in which both the slave

* J. \V. Alford: Letters from the South, etc., pp. 5, 9, 10, 15 and 19.

Migration 45

and the freedman sought a broader chance to live and develop, namely, migration.

Section 8. Migration

As early as 1788 the Negro Union of Newport, R. I., wrote to the free African Society of Philadelphia proposing a general exodus of Negroes to Africa. To this the Free African Society soberly replied : "With regard to the immigration to Africa you mention, we have at present but little to communicate on that head, apprehending every pious man is a good citizen of the whole world.1' But the desire to better their condition by going to some other country had taken root among the best New England Negroes. The Cuffes, for instance, John and Paul, petitioned for the right to vote in 1780, and in 1815 we find that Paul Cuffe, the younger, who was a merchant between America and Africa, had started to take a colony to Africa. Thus an early attempt at African colonization by a band of New England Negroes started the year before the American Colonization Society was organized:

It was conducted by Paul Cuffe, who was born in New Bedford, Mass., of an African father and an Indian mother. He had risen from abject poverty to wealth and respectability, and was largely engaged in navigation. He be lieved that only in Africa could his people find civil and religious liberty. At a cost to himself of four thousand dollars, and in his own vessel, he took out from Boston a colony of thirty-eight persons,* which landed at Sierra Leone, and might have resulted in something permanent and valuable but for the death of Cuffe in the following year, and the exclusion of American vessels from British colonies. The next year the Colonization Society began its work. The first important movement of the Colonization Society was to send out, on borrowed money, Samuel J. Mills and Ebenezer Burgess to select a suitable site for a colony. They sailed November 16, 1817, and arrived the 22d of the following March. They passed down the coast some one hundred and twenty miles to the island Sherbro, at the mouth of a river of the same name. Here they found a small but prosperous colony under the direction of John Kizzel, who had built a church on the island and was preaching to the people. Kizzel had been carried from Africa when a child and sold as a slave in South Caro lina, but had joined the British during the Revolutionary war, and at its close had sailed from Nova Scotia with a company of colored people to reside in Africa.*

The first ten years witnessed the struggles of a noble band of colored people, who sought a new home on the edge of a continent given over to the idolatry of the heathen. The funds of the Society were not as large as the nature and scope of the work demanded. Emigrants went slowly, not averaging more than 170 per annum — only 1,232 in ten years: but the average from the first of January, 1848, to the last of December, 1852, was 540 yearly ; and, in the single year of 1853, 782 emigrants arrived at Monrovia. In 1855 the population of Monrovia and Cape Palmas had reached about 8,000.

The Colonization Society found many eminent Negroes to help them and Liberia was in its very foundation an example of Negro co-operation. One was Lott Carey, who was born a slave in Virginia, about 1780. His father was a Baptist. In 1804 Lott removed to Richmond, where he worked in a to-

*Arnett's Budgett, 1885-6, pp. 164-5.

46 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

bacco factory and from all accounts was very profligate and wicked. In 1807, being converted, he joined the first Baptist Church, learned to read, made rapid advancement as a scholar, and was shortly afterwards licensed to preach.

After purchasing his family, in 1813, he organized, in 1815, the African Mis sionary Society, the first missionary society in the county, and within five years raised $700 for African missions.

ThatLott Carey was evidently a man of superior intellect and force of char acter is to be evidenced from the fact that his reading took a wide range — from political economy, in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, to the voyage of Captain Cook.

That he was a worker as well as a preacher is true, for when he decided to go to Africa his employers offered to raise his salary from $800 to $1,000 a year. Remember that this was over eighty years ago. Carey was not seduced by such a flattering offer, for he was determined. His last sermon in the old First Baptist Church in Richmond must have been exceedingly powerful, for it was compared by an eye witness, a resident of another state, to the burning, elo quent appeals of George Whitefield. Fancy him as he stands there in that historic building ringing the changes on the word "freely," depicting the willingness with which he was ready to give up his life for service in Africa.

He, as you may readily know, was the leader of the pioneer colony to Libe ria, where he arrived even before the agent of the Colonization Society. In his new home his abilities were recognized, for he was made vice governor and became governor, in fact, while Governor Ashmun was absent from the colony in this country. Carey did not allow his position to betray the cause of his people, for he did not hesitate to expose the duplicity of the Coloniza tion Society and even to defy their authority, it would seem, in the interests of the people.

While casting cartridges to defend the colonists against the natives in 1828, the accidental upsetting of a candle caused an explosion that resulted in his death.

Carey is described as a typical Negro, six feet in height, of massive and erect frame, with the sinews of a Titan. He had a square face, keen eyes and a grave countenance. His movements were measured; in short, he had all the bearings and dignity of a prince of the blood. *

The first Negro college graduate also went to Liberia: John Brown Russwurm was born in 1799 at Port Antonio in the island of Jamaica of a Creole mother. When 8 years old he was put at school in Quebec. His father meanwhile came to the United States and married in the District of Maine. Mrs. Russwurm, true wife that she was, on learning the relation ship, insisted that John Brown (as hitherto he had been called) should be sent for and should thenceforth be one of the family. Through his own exertions, with some help from others, he was at length enabled to enter college and to complete the usual course. It should be remembered, to the credit of his fel low students in Brunswick, that peculiar as his position was among them, they were careful to avoid everything that might tend to make that position unpleasant. From college he wrent to New York and edited an abolition pa per. This did not last long. He soon became interested in the colonization cause, and engaged in the service of the society. In 1829 he went to x\frica as superintendent of public schools in Liberia, and engaged in mercantile pur suits in Monrovia. From 1830 to 1834 he acted as colonial secretary, superin-

* Cromwell, in The Negro Church.

Migration 47

tending at the same time and editing with decided ability the Liberia Herald. In 1836 he was appointed Governor of the Maryland Colony at Cape Palmas, and so continued until his death in 1851. With what fidelity and ability he discharged the duties of this responsible post may be gathered from the fol lowing remarks of Mr. Latrobe, at the time the president of the Maryland Colonization Society. He was addressing the Board of Managers: "None knew better," he said, "or so well as the Board under what daily responsibili ties Governor Russwurm's life in Africa was passed, and how conscientiously he discharged them; how, at periods when the very existence of the then in fant colony depended upon its relations with surrounding tribes of excited natives, his coolness and admirable judgment obviated or averted impending perils; how, when the authority and dignity of the colonial government were at stake in lamentable controversies with civilized and angry white men, the calm decorum of his conduct brought even his opponents to his side; how, popular clamor among the colonists calling upon him as a judge to disregard the forms of law and sacrifice of offending individuals in the absence of legal proof, he rebuked the angry multitude by the stern integrity of his conduct; and how, when on his visit to Baltimore in 1848 he was thanked personally by the members of the board, he deprecated the praise bestowed upon him for the performance of his duty, and impressed all who saw him with the modest manliness of his character and his most excellent and courteous bearing."*

Most of the thinking Negroes of the United States were, however, opposed to emigration to Africa. Bishop Allen wrote a strong letter against it in 1827 to the Freedmen^s Journal.

In the first Negro convention held at Philadelphia in 1831,

The question of emigration to Canada West, after an exhaustive discussion which continued during the two days of the convention's sessions, was recom mended as a measure of relief against the persecution from which the colored American suffered in many places in the North. Strong resolutions against the American Colonization Society were adopted. The formation of a parent society with auxiliaries in the different localities represented in the conven tion, for the purpose of raising money to defray the object of purchasing a colony in the province of upper Canada, and ascertain more definite informa tion, having been effected, the convention adjourned to reassemble on the first Monday in June, 1831, during which time the order of the convention re specting the organization of the auxiliary societies had been carried into operation, t

Again at a second convention in 1832,

The question exciting the greatest interest was one which proposed the pur chase of other lands for settlement in Canada ; for 800 acres of land had already been secured, two thousand individuals had left the soil of their birth, crossed the line and laid the foundation for a structure which promised an asylum for the colored population of the United States. They had already erected two hundred log houses and five hundred acres of land had been brought under cultivation. But hostility to the settlement of the Negro in that section had been manifested by Canadians, many of whom would sell no land to the Ne gro. This may explain the hesitation of the convention and the appointment of an agent, whose duty it was to make further investigation and report to the subsequent convention.

'Atlanta University Publication, No. 5, pp. 32-3. •{-American Negro Academy, occasional papers, No. 9, p. 6.

48 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Opposition to the colonization movement was emphasized by a strong pro test against any appropriation by Congress in behalf of the American Coloni zation Society. Abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia was also urged at the same convention. This was one year before the organization of the American Anti-Slavery Society.

A convention at Rochester, N. Y., in 1853 pronounced against emigra tion,

But those who saw only in emigration the solution of the evils with which they were beset, immediately called another convention to consider and decide upon the subject of emigration from the United States. According to the call, no one was admitted to the convention who would introduce the subject of emigration to any part of the eastern hemisphere, and opponents of emigra tion were also to be excluded.

Bishop Holly of Hayti, writes : " The convention was accordingly held. The Rev. William Munroe was president, the Rt. Rev. (William) Paul Quiim, vice- president, Dr. Delaney, chairman of the business committee, and I was the secretary

"There were three parties in that emigration convention, ranged according to the foreign fields they preferred to emigrate to. Dr. Delaney headed the party that desired to go to the Niger V alley in Africa, Whitfield the party which preferred to go to Central America, and Holly the party which pre ferred to go to Hayti.

"All these parties were recognized and embraced by the convention. Dr. Delaney was given a commission to go to Africa, in the Niger Valley, Whit- field to go to Central America, and Holly to Hayti, to enter into negotiations with the authorities of these various countries for Negro emigrants and to re port to future conventions. Holly was the first to execute his mission, going down to Hayti in 1855, when he entered into relations with the Minister of the Interior, the father of the late President Hyppolite, and by him was presented to Emperor Faustin I. The next emigration convention was held at Chatham, Canada West, in 1856, when the report on Hayti was made. Dr. Delaney went off on his mission to the Niger Valley, Africa, via England in 1858. There he concluded a' treaty signed by himself and eight kings, offering inducements for Negro emigrants to their territories. Whitfield went to California, intend ing to go later from thence to Central America, but died in San Francisco before he could do so. Meanwhile (James) Redpath went to Hayti as a John Brownist after the Harper's Ferry raid, and reaped the first fruits of Holly's mission by being appointed Haytian Commissioner of Emigration in the United States by the Haytian Government, but with the express injunction that Rev. Holly should be called to co-operate with him. On Redpath's arrival in the United States, he tendei'ed Rev. Holly a commission from the Haytian Government at $1,000 per annum and traveling expenses to engage emigrants to go to Hayti. The first shipload of emigrants went from Philadelphia in 1861.

"Not more than one-third of the 2,000 emigrants to Hayti received through this movement permanently abided there. They proved to be neither intel lectually, industrially nor financially prepared to undertake to wring from the soil the riches that it is ready to yield up to such as shall be thus prepared ; nor are the Government and influential individuals sufficiently instructed in social, industrial and financial problems which now govern the world, to turn to profitable use willing workers among the laboring class.

"The Civil war put a stop to the African emigration project by Dr. Delaney

Migration 49

taking the commission of major from President Lincoln, and the Central American project died out with Whitfield, leaving the Hay tian emigration as the only remaining practical outcome of the emigration convention of 1854." *

Nothing more was heard of emigration from the Negroes themselves until after the war. With the overthrow of the Negro suffrage in 1870 and the consequent reign of terror, the project was revived.

Simultaneously the movement arose in several states. The first leader was Benjamin Singleton, a Negro undertaker of Tennessee, who began in 1869 and brought in all two colonies of 7,432 Negroes to Kansas.

A corporation was formed as follows:

Certificate of Incorporation The Singleton Colony

I

The name of this corporation shall be "The Singleton Colon}7 of Morris and Lyon Counties, State of Kansas."

The purpose for which this corporation is formed is to promote emigration and the encouragement of agriculture and the acquisition of homes for colored people.

The place where its business is to be transacted is at Dunlap, in the county of Morris, state of Kansas.

IV

The term for which this corporation is to exist is fifty years.

V

The number of directors or trustees of this corporation shall not be more than thirteen, f

Henry Adams started an even greater movement in Louisiana. He said to the Senate committee:

In 1870, I believe it was, or about that year, after I had left the army — I went into the army in 1866, and came out the last of 1869 — and went right back home again, where I went from, Shreveport; I enlisted there, and went back there. I enlisted in the regular army, and then I went back after I had come out of the army. After we had come out a parcel of we men that was in the army and other men thought that the way our people had been treated during the time that we were in service — we heard so much talk of how they had been treated and oppressed so much and there was no help for it — that caused me to go into the army at first, the way our people was opposed. There was so much going on that I went off and left it; when I came back it was still going on, part of it, not quite so bad as at first. So a parcel of us got together and said that we would organize ourselves into a committee and look into affairs and see the true condition of our race, to see whether it was possible we could stay under a people who had held us under bondage or not. Then we did so and organized a committee. Some of the members of the committee was ordered by the committee to go into every state in the South where we had been slaves there, and post one another from time to time about the true con dition of our race, and nothing but the truth.

•American Negro Academy: Occasional papers,No. 9, pp. 20-1.

T Negro Exodus from the Southern States, Vol. 8, pp. 887-s,3rd part.

50 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Then came increasing outrages. This organization appealed to the President and Congress in September, 1874. By 1877, however, the organization lost hopes of peace and justice in the South.

We found ourselves in such condition that we looked around and we seed that there was no way on earth, it seemed, that we could better our condition there, and we discussed that thoroughly in our organization along in May. We said that the whole South— every state in the South— had got into the hands of the very men that held us slaves— from one thing to another— and we thought that the men that held us slaves was holding the reins of govern ment over our heads in every respect almost, even the constable up to the governor. We felt we had almost as well be slaves under these men. In re gard to the whole matter that was discussed, it came up in every council.

Then we said there was no hope for us and we had better go We

had several organizations; there were many organizations; I can't tell you how many immigration associations, and so forth, all springing out of our colonization council. We had a large meeting, some five thousand people present, and made public speeches in 1877 on immigration.

The convention met April 17, 1879, and it declared:

The fiat to go forth is irresistible. The constantly recurring, nayrever pres- ent,fear which haunts the minds of these our people in the turbulent parishes of the state is, that slavery in the horrible form of peonage is approaching ; that the avowed disposition of the men now in power is to reduce the laborer and his interest to the minimum of advantages as freemen and to absolutely none as citizens, has produced so absolute a fear that in many cases it has become a panic. It is flight from present sufferings and from the wrongs to come. The committee finds that this exodus owes its effectiveness to society organizations among plantation laborers ; that it began with the persecutions and the political mobs of the years 1874 and 1875, and was organized as a coloni zation council in August, 1874, for emigration. This organization beginning in Caddo Parish, spread rapidly from parish to parish until it had permeated the state, and in sections particularly known as the cotton belt, where law lessness and outrages upon black persons are most frequent, the society has been most active.

Today this organization, as your committee has definitely learned, numbers on its rolls 92,800 names of men, women and children over twelve years of age, in Louisiana, Northwestern Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama; 69,000 of these are represented in the different parishes of this state. The cohesive- ness of this organization in its secrecy and management being entirely com mitted to the plantation laborers and their direct representatives, has secured its potency. The representative political leader was neither intrusted with nor informed of its existence. Year by year since 1874 the organization, as encroachment after encroachment was made on the rights of the colored peo ple, grew and strengthened, and now when reduced to virtual peonage and the threatened deprivation of all rights as freemen and citizens is imminent, the exodus has ensued and its consequences are manifest.*

Actual movement of immigrants began in 1879. In Alabama the movement took shape in a labor convention, at Montgomery in 1872, which listened to a report from an agent sent to Kansas. The commit tee on labor and wages declared :

* Negro Exodus from Southern States, Vol. 8, part 2, pp. 39, 101, 108-9.

Migration

51

It will be seen from the above figures that the laborer is compelled to pay, in round numbers, 40 per cent for all the capital borrowed. We submit this is usury ; the capitalist charging just five times the lawful interest:

Recapitulation of a Laborer's Account

Total from all sources $HK7.8l

Total outlay 3M 20

Prollts . .

..$ 81.11

Out of this amount ($81.11), the laborer must clothe himself and family, feed the little ones, and furinsh medical attendance for the same. Hence his ina bility to accumulate property. Mr. McKiel then introduced the following resolution, which was adopted:

Whereas, the report of the committee on labor and wages shows a sad con dition of affairs amongst the colored citizens of Alabama, owing in a great part to the fact that we are landless: Therefore,

Be it resolved, That this convention memorialize the Congress of the United {States to pass the bill now pending before that honorable body, known as "A hill to incorporate the Freedmen's Homestead Company," thinking as we do that such a company would do much good by assisting many poor men to ob tain homes, thereby rendering him a free and independent citizen.*

On December 2, 1874, another convention met in Montgomery and feent a long memorial to President Grant. The convention declared :

We have, therefore, organized an emigration association to give to them authority to take steps as will best effect the early settlement of a colony of colored families in the far West, which, in case of success, may be a nucleus around which many thousands of the hard-working colored families of Ala bama may build for themselves happy homes.f

In Texas we are told this story:

Last July we held a state conference ; that is, I mean the delegates, of whom I was one. This conference was held in the city of Houston for the purpose of consulting the best steps to be taken with regard to the migration of col ored people, and also to their future elevation. I had the honor of being elected one of the commissioners on migration from the sixth Congressional district. I have been traveling over the counties of my district ever since, lecturing to my people. Since last July I have gone through the following counties, and received the following amounts from each county : Hays county, $4.40; Caldwell county, $16.50; Gruadalupe county, $8.90; Comal county, $3.20; Blanco county, $1.50; Kendall county, $2.75; Kerr county,$2.55; Wilson county, ^(i.85; (ionzales county, $14.35; DeWitt county, $2(5.95; Victoria county, $21.20; •Goliad county, $13.40, the total amounting to $122.55. In many counties I have walked from thirty to forty miles, because the people were so poor they could not help me.}

North Carolina had a movement in 1878:

We, the undersigned colored people of the second Congressional district of North Carolina, having labored hard for several years, under disadvantages over which we had no control, to elevate ourselves to a higher plane of Chris tian civilization; and, whereas, our progress has been so retarded as to nearly

* Negro Exodus from Southern States, Vol. 8, p. 140, 8rd part, t Negro Exodus from Southern States, Vol. 8, 2nd part, p, 40L t Negro Exodus from Southern States, Vol. 7, pp. 430.

52 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

nullify all our efforts, after dispassionate and calm consideration, our deliber ate conviction is, that emigration is the only way in which we can elevate ourselves to a higher plane of true citizenship. *

This was signed by 168 Negroes. South Carolina had a Charleston Colored Western Emigration Society, which endorsed the Nashville convention in 1879.

Finally all the movements culminated in a great convention at Nashville, Tenn., May 6-9, 1879. Here were gathered 139 representatives from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Many noted Negro leaders were there: a former lieutenant-governor of Louisiana, a future bishop, and United States paymaster, and such men as Gibbs of Arkansas, Pledger and R. R. Wright of Georgia, Council of Alabama, Knox of Indiana, T. W. Hen derson of Kansas, Lewis of Louisiana, Lynch of Mississippi, Loudin of Ohio, Still of Pennsylvania, Rainey of South Carolina, Burrus arid Napier of Tennessee, Cuney of Texas, and Cromwell of the District of Columbia. This, the most representative Negro convention ever as sembled in the South, said in its address:

Fifteen years have elapsed since our emancipation, and though we have made material advancement as citizens, yet we are forced to admit that ob stacles have been constantly thrown in our way to obstruct and retard our progress. Our toil is still unrequited, hardly less.under freedom than slavery, whereby we are sadly oppressed by poverty and ignorance, and consequently prevented from enjoying the blessings of liberty, while we are left to the shame and contempt of all mankind. This unfortuate state of affairs is because of the intolerant spirit exhibited on the part of the men who control the state governments of the South today. Free speech in many localities is not tolerated. The lawful exercise of the rights of citizenship is denied when majorities must be overcome. Proscription meets us on every hand ; in the school-room, in the church that sings praises to that God who made of one blood all the nations of the earth ; in places of public amusement, in the jury box, and in the local affairs of government we are practically denied the rights and privileges of freemen.

We can not expect to rise to the dignity of true manhood under the system of labor and pay as practically carried out in some portions of the South today. Wages are low at best, but when paid in scrip having no purchasing power beyond the prescribed limits of the landowner, it must appear obviously plain that our condition must ever remain the same; but with a fair adjustment between capital and labor, we as a race, by our own industry, would soon be placed beyond want and in a self-sustaining condition

Resolved, That it is the sense of this conference that the great current of migration which has for the past few mouths taken so many of our people from their homes in the South, and which is still carrying hundreds to the free and fertile "West, should be encouraged and kept in motion until those who remain are accorded every right and privilege guaranteed by the consti tution and laws.

Resolved, That we recommend great care on the part of those who migrate.

* Negro Exodus from Southern States, Vol. 7, p. 281, 1st part.

Migration 53

They should leave home well prepared with certain knowledge of localities to which they intend to move ; money enough to pay their passage and enable them to begin life in their new homes with prospect of ultimate success.*

On the Northern side both Negroes and whites organized immigra tion aid societies. Some of them simply spent money furnished by others. Others were more extensive organizations. In Indianapolis, for instance:

On Wednesday evening, December 3, 1879, a meeting was held in the lecture room of the Second Baptist Church to organize a relief society to care for the colored emigrants, as we learned that some of them were on their way here from North Carolina, and that they would arrive here destitute. After the preliminary organization of the meeting, the object of the same being stated, on motion it was voted that a society be organized tonight for the purpose of helping and caring for those people when they arrive here, similar to and in co-operation with the relief society which was organized at the A. M. E. Church, November 24. t

This committee collected $296.85,

.Two similar societies worked in St. Louis:

The colored men of this city, who have been active in the organization of the above named society to assist the colored immigrants from the South in finding local habitation in the rich and growing West, have just perfected that organization, with the above named as president, secretary, treasurer and di rectors. These names include some of the leading colored men of the place and an advisory board, to be composed of some of the most public-spirited and benevolent of our citizens, and these are a guaranty to all who know them of perfect good faith, integrity and trustworthiness in the distribution of such funds as may be contributed to them for the purposes indicated.

The Colored Refugee Relief Board committee

Found 2,000 emigrants half clad, without food or means, filling the colored churches, halls and houses, and began at once an active canvass for funds, and for weeks liberal hands administered to their every want, and boxes of cloth ing and baskets of food were given without stint; but still they came upon every boat from the lower Mississippi, until the movement assumed stupen dous proportions, and the original committee felt the necessity of extending their appeal. Already the committee, through solicitations, have issued 50,000 rations and clothing and transportation for 4,004 persons.

The second society raised $3,341.42.

The result of this great movement was thus reported:

During the first year in Kansas the freedmen entered upon 20,000 acres of land and plowed and fitted for grain-growing 3,000 acres. They built 300 cabins and dugouts^ and accumulated $30,000.

In the month of February, 1880, John M. Brown, Esq., general superintend ent of the Freedmen's Relief Association, read an interesting report before the Association, from which the following extract is taken:

The great exodus of the colored people from the South began about the first of February, 1879. By the first of April 1,300 refugees had gathered around Wyandotte, Kans. Many of them were in a suffering condition. It was then

* Negro Exodus from Southern States. Vol. 8, 2nd part, pp. 244-5. f Negro Exodus from the Southern States, Vol. 7, p. 355.

54 Economic Co-operation Among: Negro Americans

that the Kansas Relief Association came into existence for the purpose of helping the most needy among the refugees from the Southern states. Up to date about 60,000 refugees have come to the state of Kansas to live. Nearly 40,000 of them were in a destitute condition when they arrived, and have been helped by our association. We have received to date $68,000 for the relief of the refugees. About 5,000 of those who have come to Kansas have gone to other states to live, leaving about 55,000 yet in Kansas. About 30,000 of that number have settled in the country, some of them on lands of their own or rented lands ; others have hired out to the farmers, leaving about 25,000 in and around the different cities and towns of Kansas.* The census shows the following Negroes in Kansas:

I860 627

1870 17,108

1880 43,107

1890 49,710

1900 62,008

Since 1880 immigration to the North has gone on steadily, but there has been no large co-operative movement.

Part 3. Types of Cooperation Section 9. The Church

The development of the Negro American has been as follows (see diagram): The Christian Church did but little to convert the slaves from their Obeah worship and primitive religion until the establish ment of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in 1701; this society and the rising Methodists and Baptists rapidly brought the body of slaves into nominal communion with the Christian Church. No sooner, however, did they appear in the Church than dis crimination began to be practiced which the free Negroes of the North refused to accept. They, therefore, withdrew into the African Metho dist and Zion Methodist Churches. The Baptists even among the slaves early had their separate churches, and these churches in the North began to federate about 1836. In 1871 the Methodist Church, South, set aside their colored members into the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, and the other Southern churches drove their mem bers into the other colored churches. The remaining Northern denom inations retained their Negro members, but organized them for the most part into separate congregations.

Practically, then, the seven-eighths of the whole Negro population is included in its own self-sustaining, self-governing church bodies.. Nearly all of the other eighth is economically autonomous to a very large degree. Consequently a study of economic co-operation among Negroes must begin with the Church group. The most compact and powerful of the Negro churches is the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Its membership has grown as follows:

•Williams, Vol. II, pp. 586-7.

)£,

" v Tnsurrect

I£A our i-pat"! o fl /*-»

01

TM ira,t i 0 M

Lonvfentions he 7*rc^s

— BariKS

HospYtal

>eci^e

t5bc.

Sc h o o Is"

The Church A. M. E. Church

57

	Members	Ministers
1787. . .	42	2
1818 1822	6,778 9,888	7 15
1826 1836 1846 1856 1866	7,937 7,594 16,190 19,914 73000	17 27 67 ' 165 265
1876 1886	206,331 403,550	1,418 2,857
1888 1890	452,782 466,202	3,569 3,809
1895 1896 1900	497,327 618,854 663746	4,125 4,680 5659
1903	759,590	5,838

The property held is reported as follows:

	No. of Churches	Valuation of Property*	Annual Oonfer'n's	No. Bishops
1787 1816 1826 1836 1846	1 7 33 86 198	$ 2,500.00 15,000.00 75,000.00 125,000.00 225,000 00	2 3 4 6	'"l" 1 2 4
1856 1866	210 286	425,000.00 825,000 00	7 10	6 3
1876 1886 1888	1,833 8,394 4,009	3,164,911.00 5,34 1,889. 00 6,391,577.00	25 44 48	6 7 10
1890 1896 1900 1903	4,069 4,850 5,775 5,831	7,772,284.00 8,650,000.00 9,043,341.00 9,404,675 00	48 52 64 69	9 g 9 13

* Churches and Parsonages. The property of 1903 was divided as follows:

Total value

Total churches, 5,321 $8,620,702.51

Total parsonages, 2,527 783,973 41

Total schools, 25 638,000.00

Grand total valuation of property $10,042,675.92

The total income has been as follows:

	Pastors' support	Av'g'eper pastor
1822. . .	$ 1,000 00	$ 66 60
1826 1836	1,017.00 1 126 00	63.35 41 70
1846 1856	6.267.00 18,040.00	93.50 109.33
1866 1876- 1886	85,593.00 201,984.516 583 557 79	322.99 142.44 204 25
1888 1890 1895	601.785.00 619,547.00 682 421 00	168.61 158.49 141 ll>
1896 1S100. .	956,875.00 935,425 58	204.00 204 00
1903	986.988.9(5	168.00

Adding in traveling expenses, we have for the last four-year period

58

Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Ministerial Support Total support and traveling expenses per year $1,046,858.00, divided as follows!

Per year Quadrennium $ 26,000.00 $ 104,00. UO

Bishops

(General officers . Bishops' widows Presiding elders Ministers

12,300.00 1,200.00 176,868.00 830,490.00

49,200.00 4,800.00 707,472.00 3,5521 ,960. 00

Grand totals. $ 1,046,858.00 $ 4,187,482.00

Total amounts of money raised for all purposes other than reported above isi

Per year

Per quadrennium.

.$ 2,632,613.06 . 10,580,452.24

General Fund ("Dollar Money")

(Raised by a tax of $1.00 per member.)

1872-1876

1876-1880

1880-1884

1884-1888

1888-1892

1892-1896

1896-1900

1900-1903...

95,553.93

99,999.42

175,252.45

229,013.85 313,341.44 857,942.00 403,407.88 379,368.55

Grand total $2,053,879,52

The dollar money, or general fund, is divided as follows: Forty-six per cent to the financial secretary, Washington, D.C. Ten per cent to the secretary of Church Extension, Philadelphia, Pa. Eight per cent to the secretary of Education, Kittrell, N. C. Thirty-six per cent retained by each Annual Conference and used for local purposes. *

Home and Foreign Missionary Department

	Raised	Received from dollar money	Total expended
1864-1868... 1868-1872 1872-1880 1880-1884 1884-1888 1888-1892 1892-1896 1896-1900 1900-1903 Total	$ 5,425.155 9,817.32 12,504.22 34,811.83 19,001.09 25,675.47 66,819.27 58,876.86 80,815.66	"$ 27.91&56 54,510.51 73,227.18 187,772.45 146,050.24 145,226.71 136,805.15	$ 5,425.65 9,317.32 40,417.78 89,5322.34 92,228.27 213,447.92 212,8(59.51 204,103.07 217,620.81
$5313,246.87	$ 771,505.80	$1,084,752.67

The African Methodists had but a few posts in slave territory outside of Maryland and Delaware. William Paul Quinn, the pioneer of the West, blazed a path from Pittsburg to St. Louis, including Louisville, Ky. Good, substantial buildings were erected on slave territory at St. Louis, Louisville and New Orleans, La., in the early 50's.

In the wake of the army the banner of African Methodism was firmly planted under the leadership of Chaplains Turner and Hunter in the East and Southeast, followed by Carr and others in South Carolina, Bradwell and Gaines in Georgia, Pierce and Long in Florida, Handy and John Turner in Louisiana, Brook, Murray, Early, Page and Tyler in Kentucky and Tennessee, Carter and Jenifer in Arkansas, Rivelo and Stringer in Mississippi, Gardner

'Arnett's Budgett, 1900, pp. 142-4, 172-4.

The Church 59

and Bryant in Alabama, Wilhite and Grant in Texas, Ward on the Pacific coast, Wilkerson in Kansas and the Rocky Mountains, Dove and Embry in Missouri, Jameson in Virginia, Hunter and others in North Carolina. All this will give some idea of the spirit, and the territory covered will show the scope of their endeavor.*

This department has thus planted the church throughout this coun try, besides establishing 180 missions and 12,000 members in Africa and some work in the West Indies:

2 Conferences. 9 presiding e 56 ministers.

8 preachers 346 members.

\frica		West Africa
ices.	2	presiding elders.
5 elders.	39 preachers.
rs.		West Indies
ibers.	1	presiding elder.
ida	15 preachers.
y elder		South America
•s.	8	preachers.
?rs. 350 members.
Publication	Department
1836-1848....	$	12,530.69
1848-1852		11,585.47
1854-1864		17,655.63
1864-1872		54,425.33
1872-1876		41,368.69
1876-1880		50,142.27
1880-1884 .		63,139.65
1884-1888		49,123.49
1888-1892 . ...		55,51,7.86
1892-1896		67,876.46
1896-1900		65,876.57
1900-1908		46,944.92

Total business 1836-1903 $ 536,267.03 f

In a report to the General Conference of 1900 at Columbus, O., Rev. T. W. Henderson then the manager, gave the following valuation of the property :

Recorder and Review $ 25,000.00

Building and grounds 17,500.00

Steam and power plant 1,800.00

Presses, folders, stitchers, etc . 4,2JO.OO

Type, plates and fixtures 6,000.00

Stock 011 hand, etc 6,400.00

Paper, ink, etc .- 500.00

Total $ 61,440.00

This valuation does not include the amounts due for merchandise, printing and subscriptions to the Recorder and Review, which would be $5,659.24 more. This added to the actual valuation would make the amount $67,099.24. The liabilities then were $11,263.60; assets over liabilities $55,835.64. \

The history of this department is thus given officially: The first book of Discipline was published in 1817 by Richard Allen, in ad vance of this action of General Conference, and contained the articles of re ligion, government of the church, confession of faith, ritual, etc. A Hymn Book, for the use of the church, was compiled and published. Aside from this and the publishing of the Conference Minutes, but little was accomplished

* United Negro, pp. 305-6. T Arnett's Budgett, 1900, p. 139.

I United Negro, pp. 540-41.

60 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

until the year 1841, when in the New York Conference a resolution was made that a magazine be published monthly; but for the want of proper funds oould only be published quarterly. This gave promise of some considerable success for nearly eight years.

In 1848 the General Conference elected Rev. A. R. Green general book stew ard and authorized him to purchase a newspaper called the "Mystery," edited by Martin R. Delany, and to change its name to the "Christian Herald," also to move the Book Concern from Philadelphia to Pittsburg; which he did and continued the publication of the paper until the General Conference in 1852. The name of the paper was then changed to the " Christian Recorder"

This paper was looked upon by the slaveholders of the South and pro- slavery people of the North as a very dangerous document or sheet, and was watched with a critical eye. It could not be circulated in the slave-holding states by neither our ministers nor members. Hence its circulation was pro scribed until the breaking out of the war in 1860, when through the aid of the Christian Commission it did valuable service to the freed men throughout the South. It followed the army, went into the hovels of the freedmen and also the hospitals, placed in the hands of soldiers, speaking cheer and comfort to the law-abiding and liberty-loving slave whose manacles were about to fall off.*

The Review ami Recorder are still published.

Church Extension

The Department of Church Extension of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1892 by the Annual Conference at Philadelphia. The revenue coming into this society consists principally of savings from funds that were hitherto collected and spent without definite purpose. In 1872 the General Conference adopted what is known as the Dollar Money law. It was the intention that one dollar from or for each member of the church should cover all the expenses of the general connection for missionary and educa tional work, the support of bishops, general officers, superannuated preachers, and help the Conferences to help the widows of deceased preachers, and assist ing in making up the support of pastors on poor fields.

In one year we have secured through the efforts of our resident bishop $50,»MH) of church property in South Africa alone, while word from one of our presiding elders in Liberia to the secretary of Church Extension is, " We are pushing into the interior; stand by us."

The constitution provided the revenues without extra taxation on the gen eral church, as follows :

Ten per cent of the Dollar Money ; fifty per cent of the Children's Day ; ad mission fees and annual dues to the Women's Department of Church Exten sion : special collections, gifts and bequests, etc.

We herewith submit the result of our savings for ten years, or the moneys handled by this department.

Fifty per cent of Children's Day to April 23, 1902 ..$ 29,862.32

Ten per cent of Dollar Money to April 23, 1902 89,122.58

Loans returned to the Department 14,883.92

Interest returned to the Department 3,817.90

Grand total $ 145,728.61

We have disbursed In loans to churches 97,751.71

Have donated to needy churches 12,119.79

Total . $109,871.50

•Arnett's Budgett, 1900, p. 138.

61

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62 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Educational Department*

Amount of Money for Education by A. M. E. Church

1847-1903, Union Seminary $ 20,000.00

1863-1908, Wllberforce University 440,164.77

1891-1903, Payne Seminary 44,800.00

Grand total for Wllberforce plant. . . . $ 504,964.77

1891-1903, connectlonal money $1,021,558.49

1900-1904, by endowment 48,000.00

1900-1904, by 8 per cent 40,000.00

Grand total connectlonal $1,109,558.49

Grand total for education 1,614,523.26

Some figures follow showing the total amounts raised for the church in cer tain years.

The receipts of the church in 1876 were as follows:

Amount of contingent money raised $ 2,976.85

Amount raised for the support of pastors 201,984.06

Amount raised for the support of presiding elders 23,896.66

Amount of Dollar Money for general purposes, etc 28,009.97

Amount raised to support Sunday Schools for the year 1876 . 17,415.33

Amount raised for the missionary society 3,782.72

Amount raised in one year for building churches 169,558.60

Total amount raised for all purposes $ 447,624.19

The receipts of four departments of the church, 1880-1884, were:

Financial department $ 179,854.30

Publication department 63,139.60

Missionary department 34,500.00

Sunday school department 2,341.61

Total $ 279,885.56

The total income of the church in this same period, 1880-1884, was :

General departments $ 279,885.56

Support of pastors 1,611,189.01

Presiding elders' support 177,275.26

All other purposes 1,718,129.89

Grand total $3,786,429.72

The total income for the one year, 1884, was:

Contingent money $ 4,634.09

Presiding eldership 50,580.22

Pastors' support 393,789.23

Church extension 144,669.91

Missionary 5,358.04

Bishops' traveling expenses ] ,002.51

Pastors' traveling expenses 16,899.78

Presiding elders' traveling expenses 6,059.09

Educational money 3,139.48

Haytian mission 942.90

Charity 7,228.40

Incidental expenses of the trustees 180,446.25

Church debts 33,962.93

Delegate money 2,159.01

Dollar Money 49,400.00

Sunday school money 27,400.00

Total $ 814,647.79

The income for 1900 is thus reckoned up by the church statistician

For the year $1,777,948.20

End month 148,162.35

End day 4,938.74

End hour 289.18

End minute 48.18

End second 80

• For details see Schools infra.

The Church

63

Financial Support of Ministry, 1900

Presiding elders support, per annum $ 145,735.37

Ministers' support, per annum.

Traveling expenses, per annum

Bishops' support, per annum

General officers support, per annum

Grand total for ministerial support for one year.

835,796.21 29,594.00-$1,(>11,125.58 26,000.00 5,400.00— 31,400.00

$1,042,525.58

The next largest Negro church is that of the

Baptists

The growth in numbers of this sect is not accurately known. They are primarily small disassociated groups of worshippers whose economic activities were small, except in large cities, until the individual groups united into associations. The first of these associations was formed in Ohio in 1836, followed by another in Illinois in 1838. The growth of these associated Baptists has been as follows:

Negro Baptist

	Members	Ministers	Churches
1850 .. 1885	150,000 1,071,902	4,690	9,097
1891 1894 1901 1902	1,399,198 1,604,310 1,975,538 2,038,427	8,637 10,119 14,861 16,080	11,987 13,138 15,654 16,440
1905	2,110,269		16,996

Value of Property

1894

1901

1W2. . . 1905...

.$ 11,271,651

11,605,891

. 12,196,130

. 14,376,372

Total Income 1891

Contributions for salaries and expenses $ 688,856.14

Contributions for missions 38,051.04

Contributions for education 14,958.07

Contributions for miscellaneous 79,260.46

Total contributions reported $ 821,125.71

1901

Total raised 1,816,442.72

1902

Church expenses 3,090,190.71

Sunday school expenses 107,054.00

State missions 9,954.00

Foreign missions 8,725.00

Home missions and publications 81,658.40

Education 127,941.00

Total $3,425,523.11

The most remarkable department of the Baptist Church is the

National Baptist Publication Board

This organization is so unique that a careful history is necessary. The proposition to establish a publishing house was adopted at the Savannah Convention in 1893.

In 1894 at Montgomery, Ala., the question was again discussed, but many obstacles were found in the way. Rev. R. H. Boyd of San Antonio, Texas,

64 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

offered a set of resolutions, setting forth that this publishing committee, board, or concern should proceed at once to the publication of Sunday School litera ture, consisting of the International Lessons in either newspaper, magazine or pamphlet form for the benefit of their own schools, which was adopted.

On the 15th of December, 1896, Rev. R. H. Boyd, secretary and manager, opened his office in Nashville, Tenn., and secured copies of the electrotype plates from the Sunday Schools of the Southern Baptist Convention and em ployed the Brandon- Printing Company, the University Printing Press of Nashville, Term., to publish for him ten thousand copies of the Advanced Quarterly, ten thousand Intermediate Quarterlies, ten thousand Primary Quarterlies and two thousand copies of the Teachers' Monthly, thus launching the long-talked of Negro Publishing Concern. At the next meeting of the National Baptist Convention in Boston, Mass., Secretary Boyd reported having sent out during the year 700,000 copies of the periodicals, together with song books, Bibles and other religious literature. *

The Publishing Board is an incorporated publishing institution, incorpora ted in 1898, under the special provision granted by the legislature of Tennessee, with headquarters at Nashville, domiciled in the Publishing House, 523 Second avenue, North, or on the corner of Second avenue and Locust street. This Publishing Board owns or holds in trust for the National Baptist Convention three lots with four brick buildings thereon. Besides this it rents or leases two other brick buildings. These make up the domicile of the Publishing Board, and is known as the National Baptist Publishing House.

All the work of the Publishing Board is operated under the supervision of a general secretary, assisted by a local Board of management, consisting of nine members. These nine members hold monthly meetings, the second Tuesday in each month. In these meetings they hear and pass upon the reports, rec ommendations, etc., of the general secretary, and up to this time make quar terly reports to the Executive Committee of the Home Mission Board located at Little Rock, Ark. In this way the Home Mission Board has been a kind of clearing house through which this local committee of management, better known and styled as Board of Directors of the National Baptist Publishing Board, could clear itself and make its reports. •The clerical work of the Publishing Board is operated in three divisions:

First — The Corresponding Department. This part of the clerical work con sists of the work of reading and answering all letters, sending out general in formation to Sunday schools, churches and missionaries. In order to do this work with any degree of success, it requires the greater part of the time of the general secretary, his chief clerk and a corps of six stenographers. A great deal of this correspondence arises from the fact that the Baptists throughout the country have learned to make the National Baptist Publishing Board a bureau of information ; hence they ask and expect answers to great and grave questions and issues that arise among our denomination from time to time.

Second— The Bookkeeping and Counting Department. This department consists of a bookkeeper and from four to live assistants, according to the accumulation of work. In this department an accurate account must be kept, first, of the invoices of all material purchased, the time of the clerks and em ployees who earn salaries here, receipts and disbursements of all moneys coining into the institution for job work done for others, receipts from sales, donations, gifts and bequests and other receipts or disbursements.

Third— Shipping and Mailing Department. This department includes the

* United Negro, p. 528.

The Church 65

shipping by freight or express and by mail. This labor is performed under the supervision of a chief mailing and shipping clerk with a corps of from twelve to fifteen assistant clerks.

The Editorial Department

The editorial department consists of one editorial secretary and his stenog rapher, five associate editors and thirty-six contributors. The editorial secre tary has the general oversight of all matter which goes to»make up the various periodicals that are published by the institution, lays out the work to be per formed by his associate editors, names the subjects upon which the thirty-six contributors are to prepare special articles.

The Printing or Manufacturing: Department of the Publishing: Board

The National Baptist Publishing Board is a threefold institution. It is a publishing, printing and missionary institution; and, therefore, acts in a threefold capacity. We consider that the first and greatest work of the Na tional Baptist Publishing Board is its missionary, Sunday school and col- porterage work. All other labors or efforts put forth by the Board are simply the means to the end of doing missionary work.

The Printing or Manufacturing Department is divided into three divisions, and is operated under the supervision of one general foreman assisted by three under foremen.

The first is known as the Composing Department. In this department all type is set, proof is read, pages are made up, stereotyping, and engraving is done ; also all imposing or making up forms ready for the press room are completed here.

2. The Press Department. We have seven machines in this department; some of these cost us in the neighborhood of $4,000 to $5,000.

3. The Bindery Department. Negro bookbinders were a nonentity nine years ago when the Publishing Board began its operations in binding books. We made inquiries from Maine to California, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, but failed to find one all-round Negro bookbinder. The white bookbinding establishments persistently refused to take Negro boys as bookbinding ap prentices, and our schools of technology have failed to produce any. Hence there was nothing left for us to do but to undertake the tedious and expensive task of manufacturing bookbinders before we could manufacture books by Negro artisans.

After ten years of patient, arduous and expensive toil, we boast of being prepared to turn out of our bookbindery, with our bookbinding machinery and bookbinding Negro artisans, well bound books that will take a place of merit among the work of the best book publishers of the country. This de partment turns out all grades of work from a common, wire-stitched, paper covered pamphlet to a fine machine-sewed, morocco covered, gilt edged, gold embossed volume of any size— from a vest pocket book to a fifteen hundred page folio book.

In giving these three divisions of the manufacturing department, it is nec essary here to say that besides the above named skilled laborers, the Publish ing Board is required to operate both a steam and electric plant, and must, therefore, keep on hand a corps of firemen, engineers, machinists and elec tricians.

This institution has been able in the last ten years to husband and organize all these skilled laborers, composed exclusively of Negro artisans, into a har monious, well drilled working force.

66

Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

The Publishing Department of the National Baptist Publishing Board

This institution is not only a manufacturing and printing plant, but is also a publishing institution. It publishes millions of periodicals, tracts, pamph lets, booklets and books from the pens of the ablest and best and most noted Negro Baptist authors and editors the country has produced. It is scattering them broadcast throughout the length and breadth of the American continent, in the islands, and across the great waters, in the dark continent of Africa, Asia and Europe.

We are supplying more than 15,000 Negro Baptist Sunday schools with their literature, and nearly, if not quite, a million of young and old Negro Baptists are reading from the pens and press of Negro Baptists.

To give some idea of the circulation of our religious literature we present the following figures of our Sunday school periodicals:

NAMES OF PERIODICALS	Number circulated this year	Last year	Increase over last year
Teacher (monthly) Senior Quarterly Advanced Quarterly Intermediate Quarterly Primary Quarterly Lesson Leaflets, etc Lesson Cards ( weekly ) Bible Picture Lesson Weekly Baptist Sunday School Catechisms . . Child Bible Question Books National Baptist Kasy Lesson Primers	200,500 45,000 800,000 500,000 600,000 900,000 3,852,200 1)6,85(5 75,000 150,JHX) 286 300	182,200 795,666 430,800 56-1,724 896,000 3,439,800 86,424 60,000 185,000 250 000	18,300 '"MOO" 69,200 35,276 4,000 312,400 10,432 15,000 15,900 36 300
National Baptist Concert Quarterly	1,500,000	1,100,000	400,000
Total ;	9,006,815	7,938,948	1,066,867

The Book and Tract Department

Besides the circulation of these 9,000,000 copies of Sunday school periodicals annually among the 15,000 Negro Baptist Sunday schools, we send out 170,617 re ligious circulars, 178,559 religious tracts and booklets, the $3,766.42 worth of books and Bibles distributed free of charge by missionaries, the $5,937.88 worth of books and Bibles distributed by us, through the sixty -six field men that this institu tion is employing. Take a glance at the dividends arising from the sale of thousands of song books, Bibles and other standard religious books that are being sold and distributed by the thousands throughout the length and breadth of this country, and some faint idea can be had of the magnitude of the work that is being performed by this National Baptist Publishing Board, starting ten years ago from nothing— nothing but faith in God and the justice of its cause, going forth as a great giant strengthened with new wine to battle against the opposition that is hurled against the Bible, the Christian religion aud the true Baptist doctrine.

Letters received and answered during the first ten years:

Year

1897. 1898. 1899. 1900. 1901. 1902. 1903 1904. 1905. 1906.

Letters

J 3,570

43,160

64,816

99,886

116,504

139,912

119,914

177,134

204,864

11»6,258

Total.

The Church

67

Money collected and expended for the National Baptist Publishing Board in the last ten years and reported to the Convention :

YEAR	Business Department	For Missions	Total
1897... 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903	$ 4,864.29 16,869.23 27,330.97 40,388.96 51,426.67 58,666.36 67 945.46	$ 1,000.00 2,557.41 4,352.25 8,920.41 10,997.17 15,741.26 19 824 49	$ 5,864.29 19,426.64 31,683.22 49,309.37 62,423.84 74,407.62 87 769 95
1904 1905	80,319.68 87,196 04	27,520.43 as 227 76	107,840.11 12053380
1906	102,490.68	49,621.90	152,112.58
Total .	$ 537,498.34	$ 173,873.08	$ 711,871.42

Receipts and Disbursements

September 1, 1905, to August 31, 1906.

Receipts by Months September 1, 1905, balance on hand

September, 1905 ...$

October, 1905

November, 1905

December, 1905

January, 1906

February, 1906

March, 1906

April, 1906

May, 1906

June, 1906. . .

July, 1906

August, 1906

Grand total from Business Department ......................

Brought forward from Missionary report on page 14 ...............

Grand total from receipts and balance on hand ............

Disbursements

1. For salary, wages, printing material and other incidental

expenses in this department from September 1, 1905, to August 31, 1906 ................................................. $

2. For merchandise, special material, freight and other in

cidental expenses of this department from September 1, 1905, to August 31, 1906 ......................................

3. Stamps, postage, telegrams, telephone and other incidental

expenses from September 1, 1905, to August 31, 1906 .........

4. For editorial work, advertising, traveling and other inci

dental expenses of this department from September 1, 1905, to August 31, 1906 .........................................

5. On real estate notes, rents, legal advice, interest and other

incidental expenses of this department from September 1, 1905, to August 31, 1906 .........................................

6. Machinery, repairs, insurance and other incidentals from

September 1, 1905, to August 31, 1906 ...........................

7. Coal, fuel, electricity, gas, ice, horse feed, water tax and

other incidentals from September 1, 1905, to August 31, 1906. To balance on hand .................................................

$ 3,492 81

Total

Brought forward from Missionary disbursements Grand total. . .

11,488 87 6,752 84 3,137 69—

8,110 61 9,250 74 3,121 46—

16,217 66

8,367 27 4,148 08—

21,379 50

20,482 81

28,733 01

7,873 29

2,829 27— 28,402 55

$ 102,490 68 49,621 90

$ 152,112 58

54,666 55

23,445 33 6,530 98

2,227 14

6,140 69 2,860 44

2,960 29 8,650 26

$ 102,45*0 68 49,621 90

$ 152,112 58

68

Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

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			: — ^
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1	S	1	1	: -	2	s			j		i
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	JS •	r^ '	ifi • »- •		^			QQ		G o '
NAMES OF PERIODIC,	- tc S cS B a Ji: c 11 If	Lesson Leaflet, a 2-pi folio, weekly	Child's Gem, 4-pa weekly Picture Lesson Cards? page, weekly. .	Senior Quarterly, pages Advanced Quarterly pages	Intermediate Quarte 82 pages	Primary Quarterly, pages	Concert Quarterly, pages	•Bible Lesson Picture	o OH 1 1 B	Child's Bible Questio Baptist Sunday Sen Catechism	i

The Church 69

Home Mission Department, 1906

Number of missionaries, colporters, Sunday school and Bible

workers working in co-operation with our Board during year 66

Number of churches helped to organize 39

New Sunday schools organized 63

Missionary societies formed or organized 157

Number of Conventions, Associations and other State and Dis trict meetings attended 780

Missionary and Bible Conferences held 990

Letters and postal cards written 17,617

Number of religious tracts, pamphlets and booklets distributed. . 178,559

Miles traveled to perform this labor 277,084

Money collected and -applied to missionary wrork in communities

where collected $ 14,998 19

Value of tracts, pamphlets and booklets distributed 1,632 89

Value of Bibles and books that were donated by missionaries to

needy individuals and communities 1,380 88

Money collected by missionaries and colporters and applied to

their salaries 6,844 61

Money donated by Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist

Convention on salaries of missionaries 8,603 83

Value of Bibles and books donated by the Publishing Board and

applied to missionary operations 3,766 42

Money collected by missionaries and applied to their traveling

expenses 5,937 58

Value of Bibles, books, booklets, etc., sent to missionaries and

colporters to be sold and applied to their salaries 4,200 00

Salaries of general female missionaries working under the Wo man's Auxiliary Board in co-operation with our Board and the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention 600 00

Cash supplement on missionaries' salaries 457 50

Salary of Field Secretary 1,200 00

Foreign Mission Department

The Baptists were the first Negro missionaries :

From Georgia, where he preached the gospel in 1777, during the Revolution, George Lisle, a Negro Baptist, went to Jamaica in 1783. He preached the gos pel to his own race of people at the race course and in his own hired house or room. He gathered a church of four and supported himself by his own labor. He spread the gospel among bond and free on neighboring plantations and to distant parts of the island, personally and by his own converts, so that in about seven years he had baptized 500 believers.

Rev. Lot Carey, who was a ,slave in Richmond, Va., purchased his freedom in 1813, raised $700 for missions in Africa, and was the first missionary from America to Africa. From the days of Lisle and Carey the Negro Baptists of America have been prosecuting missionary work in the West India Islands and in Africa. They have four general organizations of their own through which they are doing missionary work in this and in other lands, besides many Negro churches contribute to both Home and Foreign Missions through the missionary organizations of their white Baptist brethren.*

The figures of Negro Baptist mission work for 1907 were:

Summary by Months

September October	$ 1,853 50 634 10
November December	8,014 77 553 37
January February March	634 74 1,589 78 436 79
April . . May	4,197 69 1,671 73
June	736 26
julv	1,151 33
August	2,273 60
Total	$ 18,727 96

De Baptiste, 1896.

70

Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans

Baptist Property

South Africa

One hundred acres of land, Grand Cape Mound $ 60000

Home for Dr. Bouey , worth 300 00

Other buildings reported by him. 600 00

Chapel organ 75 00

Lot, foundation and church furnishings in Cape Town 1,325 00

Middledrift church building 500 00

Mission home for Rev. Buchanan 300 00

School houses reported by him : . 600 00

Two bells 50 00

Queenstowii school house, worth 2,000 00

One organ 4000

One bell 2500

Two typewriters '. 65 00

Desks, carpenter tools and books 150 00

Boksburg, Transvaal, church building .' 500 00

Central Africa

Ninety-three acres of land valued at 300 00

Substantial brick church house 1,200 00

Two four-room houses for missionaries 1,200 00

Organ 40 00

Holdings under Dr. Majola Agbebi reach quite 3,000 00

South America

Georgetown— Bethel Baptist Church 1,800 00

Georgetown— Nazareth Baptist Church, in course of erection, on which we

have paid about 200 00

Organs and bells worth 150 00

West Indies

Mission House in St. John's, Barbados 150 00

We give here only what is in the name of the Board.

Liabilities

To Edwards Bros., Liverpool, England 600 00

To Mayer & Tinsley, Kentucky 62 20

To Hay ti Fund 145 35

Messrs. E. 8. Darrell & Co., New York, for shipping goods to missionaries. . 11 47 African Lakes Corporation, Glasgow, Scotland, to draft drawn by L. N.

Cheeh 1,800 00

Total

$ 2,619 02

The cash account of a single Baptist church is of interest:

The Mt. Olive Baptist, Nashville, Tenn., 1902

Members contributing specified sums during the year:

$4 50

3 50

3 06

3 00

2 75

2 50

2 25

2 10

2 00

1 HO

1 75. . .

. 1 . 1 . 1 .106 . 16 . 28 . 19 . 1 . 32 . 2 . 31

{ 4 50

8 50

3 06

318 00

44 00

70 00

42 75

2 10 64 00

3 60 54 25

$1 56

50

35

30

25

15

10

1 05

1 00

Under $1.00.

Total .