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APPENDIX.
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MILITARY CONVENTION
AT WASHINGTON
JANUARY 8th,
1855, the soldiers of the war of 1812 celebrated the
anniversary of the battle of New Orleans by a Convention
at Washington, having for its object the furtherance of
the bill before Congress giving one hundred and sixty
acres of land to all the
soldiers of the last war with Great Britain. Among
those present was a colored man, named GEORGE R.
ROBERTS, a well-known resident of Baltimore, and now
over seventy years of age. He attended in quest of
a pension for services in behalf of his country.
He was a privateer, was captured and carried to Jamaica,
and, with half a dozen others, barely escaped the honors
of yard-arm promotion. The National Era
informs us that he was requested, by vote, to make a
statement of his experience. He was introduced by
Col. Baldwin, and (says the Washington
Sentinel) " made his statement in an earnest and
impressive manner, relating the incidents of his
captivity and condemnation to death by the British, of
his exchange and return home, and of his subsequent
services under the celebrated privateer commander,
Captain Thomas Boyle, of Baltimore. His
recital was received with applause."
The Washington Convention was characterized by the
presence, not only of white and black, but also of red
Americans, all participating in its proceedings, a
striking and significant fact.
[Page 384]
Gen. Coombs addressed
the old soldiers in behalf of the red men who once owned
this beautiful country, but who now had scarcely enough
of it for a graveyard. He said some of them had
fought by his side during the last war with Great
Britain with perfect self devotion, and had shared with
him captivity and suffering. He would scorn to be
the beneficiary of a Government that would take every
thing away and give nothing in return.
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THE CLAIMS OF THE
RED MEN.
The reader has
already learned, from the foregoing pages, some facts in
regard to the history of New England red men, and their
devotion to liberty. The following is a copy of a
petition sent, some years ago, by an Indian of the
Catawba tribe, to the Assembly of South Carolina: -
"I am one of
the lingering emblems of an almost extinguished race.
Our graves will soon be our habitations. I am one
of the few stalks that still remain in the field, when
the tempest of the revolution is past. I fought
against the British for your sake. The British
have disappeared, and you are free. Yet from me
the British took nothing, - nor have I gained any thing
by their defeat. I pursue the deer for my
subsistence; the deer are disappearing, and I must
starve. God ordained me for the forest, and my
habitation is the shade; but the strength of my arm
decays, and my feet fail in the chase. The hand
which fought for your liberty is now open for your
relief. In my youth, I bled in battle that you
might be independent; let not my heart in my old age
bleed for the want of your commiseration.
"The Indians are now but few
in number," (says WENDELL PHILLIPS, Esq.,
in an eloquent appeal in behalf of the red man,
published in the Massachusetts Quarterly Review,)
"separated from the domi-
[Page 385]
nant races, isolated at school and church, and found,
after the lapse of a century, and the trial of three
generations, in such a plight, that humanity weeps, and
the best statecraft is dumb and confounded. While
the humanity of the State gathers up the blind, the
dumb, the idiotic, and the insane, - while strong
friends compel attention to the slave, - let us see, for
once, the mercy of the majority toward those whose only
plea is their feebleness, their friendliness, adn their
wrongs. The first word from Indian lips that our
annals have preserved is "Welcome~' Let us
so govern, that the last farewell of the going-out of
the race may be - 'Thanks!' "
A cluster of brilliant gems adorn this tribute of
the gifted author, whose heart, tongue and pen are a
free-will offering to the oppressed of every clime or
kin; and to himself may be most truthfully applied a
quotation familiar to his own lips, when awarding honor
to some of Nature's noblemen, "The ocean of his
philanthropy knows no shore."
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PAYMENT FOR SLAVES
LOST OR KILLED IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE.
In 1816, a bill was pending in the House of
Representatives, to pay "for property lost or
destroyed in the public service." A motion was
made so to amend the bill as to grant compensation for "slaves
lost or killed in the public service, in the same
manner as other property." This motion was
rejected, only thirty-two members voting in its favor.
[Vide House Docs., No. 401, 1st Session, 21st Congress,
where the Committee state the fact, adn refer to the
National Intelligencer of Dec. 28, 1816.]
The next case was that of D. Auterive. He
had claims against the United States for wood and other
necessaries furnished the Army, and for the loss of time
and expense of nursing a slave who
[Page 386]
was wounded in the service of government at New Orleans.
The of case of D. Auterive was reported by the
Committee on Claims, the Chairman who made the report,
and two other members of the Committee, being
slaveholders. It states that "slaves, not being
regarded as properly, could not be paid for as such."
This case was fully considered in the House, and the
views of the Committee sustained.
The case of "Pacheco" was reported upon first by
the Committee on Claims, in 1842, just eight days after
Mr. Giddings resigned, on account of the
censure passed on him by the House. He was
Chairman of that Committee then, and they would not
allow such a report. It was subsequently reported
upon by other committees, and the last time in 1848,
when the Northern members of the Committee made a
minority report, drawn up by Mr. Giddings,
at the request of Hon. John Dickey.
From the correspondence and speeches of Hon. J. R.
Giddings, I am permitted to present the following
facts :
Referring to the Pacheco case, he says, "The
claimant, in 1835, residing in Florida, professed to own
a negro man named Lewis. This man is said to have
been very intelligent, speaking four languages, which he
read and wrote with facility. The master hired him
to an officer of the United States, to act as a guide to
the troops under the command of Major Dade,
for which he was to receive twenty-five dollars per
month. The duties were dangerous and the price was
proportioned to the danger. At the time these
troops were massacred, this slave, Lewis,
deserted to the enemy, or was captured by them. He
remained with the Indians, acting with them in their
depredations against the white people, until 1837,
when, General Jessup says, he was
captured by a detachment of troops under his command.
An Indian chief, named Jumper, sur-
[Page 387]
rendered with Lewis, claimed him as a slave,
having, as he said, captured him at the time of
Dade's defeat. General Jessup declares
that he regarded him as a dangerous man; that he was
supposed to have kept up a correspondence with the enemy
from the time he joined Major Dade until
the defeat of that officer. To insure the public
safety, he ordered him sent with the Indians, believing
that, if left in the country, he would be employed
against our troops. He was sent "West, and the
claimant now asks that we shall pay him one thousand
dollars as the value of this man's body.
With his (the slave's) extraordinary intelligence, with
a knowledge of the wrongs he and his people had suffered
at the hands of those who claimed them as property,
he must have thirsted for vengeance. He could have felt
no attachment or respect for a people at whose hands he
had received nothing but abuse and degradation.
Judge McLean, in a case brought before
the United States Supreme Court, admitted that, though
some local laws had given the character of property to
slaves, the Constitution acts upon them as persons,
and not as property.
Mr. Giddings, in the United States House
of Representatives, Dec. 28, 1848, challenged proof that
the House, the United States Supreme Court, or any
respectable Court of any free State, has decided
slaves to be property, under the Federal Constitution;
and yet, July 26, 1852, Mr. Charlton, of
Georgia, aided by Mr. Rusk, of Texas, and
Mr. Cass, of Michigan, though opposed by
Mr. Sumner, (in behalf of Mr.
Chase, who had prepared for the debate, but was at
this time absent, not expecting the business to be then
presented,) succeeded in obtaining compensation for
James C. Watson, of Georgia, for his slaves, taken
by the Creeks in the Seminole War.
This was the sequel to many years' able and
unsuccessful efforts of the friends of freedom in
Congress against the acknowledgment by that body, that
man can hold property in man.
[Page 388]
TRIBUTES OF
LAFAYETTE AND KOSCIUSKO.
Among the
Europeans who left their homes and rallied in defence of
American Independence history records no more
illustrious names than LAFAYETTE
AND KOSCIUSKO.
Not being tainted with American colophobia, they each
expressed regret that their services had been made a
partial, instead of a general, boon. Read this
extract from Lafayette's letter to Clarkson
: "I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of
America, if I could have conceived that there by I was
founding a land of slavery."
During his visit to the United States, in 1825, he made
inquiries for several colored soldiers whom he
remembered as participating with him in various
skirmishes. Lafayette was consistent. Having
bravely and disinterestedly aided in vindicating our
rights, he did not incur the reproach of hypocrisy, by
turning and trampling on the rights of others. For
the purpose of applying his principles to men of color,
he purchased a plantation in French Guiana. His
first step was to collect all the whips and other
instruments of torture and punishment, and make a
bonfire of them in presence of the assembled slaves.
He then instituted a plan of giving a portion of his
time to each slave every week, with a promise, that as
soon as any one had earned money enough to purchase an
additional day of the week, he should be entitled to it,
and when, with his increased time to work for himself,
he could purchase another day, he should have that, and
so on, until he was master of his whole time. In
the then state of Anti-Slavery science, this gradual and
sifting process was deemed necessary to form the
character of slaves, and to secure the safety of the
masters. Abolitionists would not elect this mode now.
They would turn slaves at once into free laborers or
leaseholders on the same estate, if possible, where they
have been as slaves. Before Lafayette's
views were fully executed, the French Revolution
occurred, which interrupted his operations and made the
slaves free at
[Page 389]
once. But mark the conduct of the ungrateful and
blood-thirsty blacks. While other slaves in the
Colony availed themselves of the first moment of freedom
to quit the plantations of their masters, Lafayette's
remained, desiring to work for their humane and generous
friend.*
KOSCIUSKO, the gallant Pole, was young when the
news reached
his ear that America was endeavoring to release her neck
from Britain's yoke. He promptly devoted himself
to the service, and displayed a heroism which won
universal respect. Washington loved and
honored him, and the soldiers idolized his bravery; but
his manly heart was saddened to learn that the colored
man was not to be a recipient of those rights which many
a sable soldier had fought to obtain. Kosciusko,
however, with the feeling that all Americans should have
been proud to exhibit, (but, sad to tell, few did so,)
endeavored to render some signal compensation to those
with whose wrongs his own had taught him to sympathise;
and, as a grateful tribute to the neglected and
forgotten colored man, he appropriated $20,000 of his
hard earnings to purchase and educate colored children.
But, by the laws of Virginia, where the bequest was to
be carried into effect, this generous object was
defeated.
On the last visit to the United States of this
illustrious donor, the will was put into the hands of
Thomas Jefferson, who was appointed Executor,
to purchase slaves and educate them, so as, in his own
words, "to make them better sons and better daughters."
Jefferson transferred the trust to
Benjamin L. Lear. In 1830, the bequest,
amounting then to $25,000, was claimed by the legal
heirs of Kosciusko. Interested parties
subsequently recommended that the fund, if recovered,
should be employed by the trustees in buying and
educating slave children, with the view of sending them
to Liberia, an object far enough at variance from the
donor's intention.
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*DAVID LEE CHILD'S Oration.
[Page 390]
This matter has been in
litigation a long while, and I have been unable to learn
the conclusion. The circumstance reminds me of the
following question, once put to a Florida planter of
twenty-five years standing: "Has any property, left by
will to any colored person, ever been honestly and
fairly administered by any white person?" Mark his
answer: "Such instances might possibly have happened,
but never to my knowledge."
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HEROIC COLORED MEN
A correspondent
of the New York Observer, writing from the West,
says "Before leaving our boat, we must not omit to
notice one of the waiters in the cabin. He is a
man of history. That tall, straight, active,
copper-colored man, with a sparkling eye and intelligent
countenance, was Col. CLAY's
servant at Buena Vista. Fearless of danger, and
faithful to his master, he attended the Colonel into the
midst of the fatal charge, saw him fall from his horse,
and, surrounded by the murderous Mexicans, at last
carried the mangled dead body from the field. The
Hon. HENRY, in gratitude for such fidelity
to his gallant son, has allowed this man to hire himself
out for five years, and to retain half the proceeds; and
at the end of that time, gives him his freedom."
"That is," says the Boston Christian Register,
"a human being perils his life to save the life or bear
off the body of another human being, and for this act,
he is to receive one-half of his own earnings,
for five years, and at the end of that time, to be made
a present of to himself!
In a letter published in
The Voice of the Fugitive, Jan. 1, 1853, HIRAM
WILSON says: "I had an
interview on yesterday morning with a colored man.
I will not at present give his name, but he was a
servant to General Taylor through the
Mexican war was with
[Page 391]
him at Palo Alto, Monterey and Buena Vista. He
held a beautiful testimonial in regard to his
gentlemanly conduct and martial character from the hand
of Col. Grayson. He had large scars
upon his person from wounds he received in the bloody
battles. What was rather remarkable, he told me he
saved the life of Gen. Taylor at Monterey.
A Mexican was aiming at the General a deadly blow, when
he sprang in between the assailant and the assailed, and
slew the Mexican, but received a deep wound from a
lance. So it would seem that a colored man gave to
the United States a President, by saving his life in a
terrific battle! I examined the scar left from the
wound he received at the time, which was as long as my
finger. He was emancipated by President
Taylor about one month before his death, but
represents that his brother-in-law was not acting an
honorable part towards him as the reason for his coming
to Canada. 'Republics are ungrateful,' so it is
said, even to their most gallant heroes. How
honorable, how creditable to the United States, that
such a man must fly to Canada for freedom!!!"
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COLONIZATION.
The history of
the American Colonization Society, since its formation
by slaveholders, in 1817, is sufficiently familiar,
perhaps, to most of the friends of humanity. Ever
since that period, colored people all over the land have
protested against it as an apologist for slavery and
justifier of slaveholders, as the enemy of immediate
emancipation, aiming to expel from the land of their
birth the colored population, not for "any color of
crime, but for the crime of color," and preventing, as
far as possible, their elevation in the United States.
Among the resolutions expressive of the sense of the
colored people on the colonization question, the
following, submitted by Philip
[Page 392]
A. Bell, at a mass meeting in New York city, Jan.
8, 1839, is selected:
Resolved, That our
sympathies for the slave, the love we bear our native
land, our respect and veneration for the institutions
and government of our country, are so many cords which
bind us to our home, the soil of our birth, which has
been wet by the tears and fertilized by the blood of our
ancestors, and from which, while life lasts, in spite of
the oppressor's wrongs, we will never be seduced or
driven, but abide by principle, and, placing our trust
in the Lord of Hosts, we will tell the white Americans,
that their country shall be our country, we will be
governed by the same laws and worship at the same altar,
where they live we will live, where they die there will
we be buried, and our graves shall remain as monuments
of our suffering and triumph, or of our failure and
their disgrace.
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THE FUGITIVE SLAVE
LAW.
The reign of
terror which burst upon the land in 1850, by the passage
of the atrocious Fugitive Slave Law, sounded the alarm
for meetings of consultation and vigilance in every
community where its immediate victims were located, and
their action has been published broadcast to the world.
The seizure of Hamlet, Long, and Boulding, in New York,
Garnet and others, in Philadelphia, Thomas Sims and
Anthony Burns, in Boston, with each attendant chain of
associations, has created a healthy agitation, ominous,
we hope, at no distant day, of its final repeal.
The following
resolutions, submitted at a public meeting in Boston,
October 5th, 1850, by Wm. C. Nell, (and
unanimously adopted,) may be accepted as embodying the
general feeling:
Resolved, That in view of the imminent danger,
present and looked for, we caution every colored man,
woman and child, to be careful in their walks through
the highways and byways of the city by day,
[Page 393]
and doubly so if out at night, as to where they go How
they go and Who they go with; to be guarded on nigh
side, off side and all sides; as watchful as Argus
with his hundred eyes, and as executive as was
Briarcus, with as many hands; if seized by any one,
to make the air resound with the signal-word, and, as
they would rid themselves of any wild beast, be prompt
in their hour of peril.
Resolved, That any
Commissioner who would deliver up a fugitive slave to a
Southern highwayman, under this infamous and
unconstitutional law, would have delivered up Jesus
Christ to his persecutors for one-third of the price
that Judas Iscariot did.
Resolved, That in the
event of any Commissioner of Massachusetts being applied
to for remanding a fugitive, we trust he will emulate
the example of Judge Harrington, of
Vermont, and "be satisfied with nothing short of a bill
of sale from the Almighty."
Resolved, That though
we gratefully acknowledge that the mane of the British
Lion affords a nestling-place for our brethren in danger
from the claws of the American Eagle, we would,
nevertheless, counsel against their leaving the soil of
their birth, consecrated by their tears, toils and
perils, but yet to be rendered truly, the "land of the
free and the home of the brave." The ties of
consanguinity bid all remain who would lend a helping
hand to the millions now in bonds. But at all
events, if the soil of Bunker Hill, Concord and
Lexington is the last bulwark of liberty, we can no
where fill more honorable graves.
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STRIKE OF THE
AMISTAD CAPTIVES FOR LIBERTY.
On the 28th of
June, 1839, the Spanish schooner Amistad, Ramen
Ferrer, master, sailed from Havana for Porto
Principe, a place in the island of Cuba, about 100
leagues distant, having on board as passengers, Don
Pedro Montes and Jose Ruiz,
with 54 fresh African negroes, just brought from Lemboko,
as slaves. Among the slaves was one called in
Spanish, Joseph Cinquez. He was the
son of an African Prince. On the fifth night after
leaving port, Cinquez, with a few chosen men
among the fifty-four slaves, revolted, striking
[Page 394]
down the captain and cook, and took possession of the
vessel. The two sailors took the boat and went on
shore, and Montes was required, on pain of death,
to navigate the vessel to Africa. He steered
eastwardly in the day time, but put about at night, and
thus kept near the American coast, until the 26th of
August, when they were taken by Lieut. Gedney,
United States Navy, and carried into New London.
Judge Judson, of the United States Court,
was sent for, and after a short examination of the two
Spaniards, and a Creole cabin boy, without a word of
communication with the negroes, the latter were bound
over for trial as pirates, although their utter
ignorance of any European language, and the admission of
Ruiz himself, showed that they were fresh
Africans, and of course could not be slaves by the laws
of Spain. At this time, it was the united voice of
the public press and of public men, that, as a matter of
course, they would either be tried and executed here, or
delivered up to the Spaniards; and they would have been
returned to their claimants had not the eminent talents
of John Quincy Adams frustrated the
designs of the Administration.
They were released in 1841, by the United States Court,
and "they now sing of liberty on the sunny lulls of
Africa, beneath their native palms, where they hear the
lion roar, and feel themselves as free as that king of
the forest." They are living within a few miles
of the Missionary Station at Sherbron Island.
Cinquez has built a town, of which he is chief.
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FUGITIVE SLAVES AT
CHRISTIANA, PENN.
In the month of
September, 1850, a colored man, known in the
neighborhood around Christiana to be free, was seized
and carried away by men known to be professional
kidnappers, and has never been seen by his family since.
In March, 1851, in the same neigh
[Page 395]
borhood, under the roof of his employer, during the
night, another colored man was tied, gagged, and carried
away, marking the road along which he was dragged with
his own blood. No authority for this outrage was
ever shown, and he has never been heard from.
These, and many other acts of a similar kind, had so
alarmed the neighborhood, that the very name of
kidnapper was sufficient to create a panic.
In September, 1851, (as narrated by a correspondent of
the New York Tribune,) " a slaveholder, with his Bon and
nephew, from Maryland, accompanied by United States
officers of this city and Baltimore, went to Christiana
after two fugitive slaves. The blacks, having
received notice of their coming, gathered, a
considerable number of them, in the house which the
slave-catching party were expected to visit. The door
was fastened, and the blacks retired to the upper part
of the house. When the slaveholder and his company
approached, they were warned off. A parley was
held, the slaveholder declaring, as it is said and
believed, 'I will go to hl, or have my slaves.'
The door was broken in, a horn was sounded out of one of
the upper windows, and, after an interval, a company of
blacks, armed, gathered on the spot, and the negroes in
the house made a rush down and crowded the whites out.
"Here, the parley was resumed, the spokesman of the
blacks telling the white men to go away; they were
determined, he said, to die rather than go into slavery,
or allow any one of their number to be taken. He
declared, moreover, that the blacks would not fire, but
if the whites fired, they were dead men. Shortly,
first the nephew, then the slave-owner and his son,
fired revolvers, wounding a number of the blacks, but
not seriously. One man had his ear perforated by a
ball; the clothes of others were pierced and torn; but,
as the blacks said afterwards, 'the Lord shook the balls
out of their clothes.' The fire of the whites was
returned. The slave owner fell dead, and his son
very dangerously wounded. The whites then retired.
One of the United States officers summoned
[Page 396]
the posse, but in vain. Some of the neighbors,
Quakers and Anti-Slavery persons, went and took up the
wounded man and carried him to one of their homes,
where, while they told him, in Quaker phrase, that 'they
had no unity with him in his acts,' and abhorred the
wicked business in which he had been engaged, every
attention was paid him, and medical aid instantly sent
for. The effect of this treatment upon the young
man, as our informant told us, may be easily imagined.
He wept, and vowed, if he lived, to correct the
impression people had at his home about Abolitionists.
The doctor pronounced his wounds mortal.
"People soon gathered in large numbers at this scene of
blood. The excitement was intense. Opinions
and feelings conflicted, of course, but there was a
strong feeling in behalf of the blacks. While the
crowd were talking, and during the ferment, two blacks
(brick-makers) passed. One of the crowd exclaimed,
'There go two fellows who should be shot!' The
black men paused and faced the crowd, and said calmly
something to this effect, 'Here we are; shoot
us, if you choose; we are a suffering people, any how.
God made us black; we can't help that; shoot us, if you
will.' The revulsion was instantaneous and strong,
and any man who had muttered a word against the blacks
would have been knocked down on the spot."
Several men, white and colored, were arrested for
participation in the killing of Gorsuch, the
kidnapper; but, though the United States Government
expended about fifty thousand dollars in the
prosecution, they failed to convict any of the party.
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