The Negro in The American Rebellion

Accustomed to travel with her mistress, Susan had often been to Richmond, Norfolk, White-Sulphur Springs, and other places of resort for the aristocracy of the Old Dominion. Her language was far more correct than that of most slaves in her position. Susan was as devoted to Madison as she was beautiful and accomplished.

After the arrest of her husband, and his confinement in Richmond jail, it was suspected that Susan had long been in possession of the knowledge of his whereabouts when in Canada, and knew of his being in the neighborhood; and for this crime it was resolved that she should be sold, and sent off to a Southern plantation, where all hope of escape would be at an end. Each was not aware that the other was on board “The Creole;” for Madison and Susan were taken to their respective cabins at different times. On the ninth day out, “The Creole” encountered a rough sea, and most of the slaves were sick, and therefore were not watched with that vigilance that they had been since she first sailed. This was the time for Madison and his accomplices to work, and nobly did they perform their duty. Night came on, the first watch had just been summoned, the wind blowing high, when Madison succeeded in reaching the quarter-deck, followed by eighteen others, all of whom sprang to different parts of the vessel, seizing whatever they could wield as weapons. The crew were nearly all on deck. Capt. Enson and Mr. Merritt, the first mate, were standing together, while Hewell was seated on the companion, smoking a cigar. The appearance of the slaves all at once, and the loud voice and commanding attitude of their leader, so completely surprised the whites, that —

“They spake not a word;

But, like dumb statues or breathless stones,

Stared at each other, and looked deadly pale.”

The officers were all armed; but so swift were the motions of Madison that they had nearly lost command of the vessel before they attempted to use them.

Hewell, the greater part of whose life had been spent on the plantation in the capacity of a negro-driver, and who knew that the defiant looks of these men meant something, was the first to start. Drawing his old horse-pistol from under his coat, he fired at one of the blacks, and killed him. The next moment Hewell lay dead upon the deck, for Madison had struck him with a capstan bar. The fight now became general, the white passengers, as well as all the crew, taking part. The battle was Madison’s element, and he plunged into it without any care for his own preservation or safety. He was an instrument of enthusiasm, whose value and whose place was in his inspiration. “If the fire of heaven was in my hands, I would throw it at those cowardly whites,” said he to his companions, before leaving their cabin. But in this he did not mean revenge, only the possession of his freedom and that of his fellow-slaves. Merritt and Gifford, the first and second mates of the vessel, both attacked the heroic slave at the same time. Both were stretched out upon the deck with a single blow each, but were merely wounded: they were disabled, and that was all that Madison cared for for the time being. The sailors ran up the rigging for safety, and a moment more he that had worn the fetters an hour before was master of the brig “Creole.” His commanding attitude and daring orders, now that he was free, and his perfect preparation for the grand alternative of liberty or death which stood before him, are splendid exemplifications of the true heroic. After his accomplices had covered the slaver’s deck, Madison forbade the shedding of more blood, and ordered the sailors to come down, which they did, and with his own hands dressed their wounds. A guard was placed over all except Merritt, who was retained to navigate the vessel. With a musket doubly charged, and pointed at Merritt’s breast, the slaves made him swear that he would safely take the brig into a British port. All things now secure, and the white men in chains or under guard, Madison ordered that the fetters should be severed from the limbs of those slaves who still wore them. The next morning “Capt. Washington” (for such was the name he now bore) ordered the cook to provide the best breakfast that the storeroom could furnish, intending to surprise his fellow-slaves, and especially the females, whom he had not yet seen. But little did he think that the woman for whom he had risked his liberty and life would meet him at the breakfast-table. The meeting of the hero and his beautiful and accomplished wife, the tears of joy shed, and the hurrahs that followed from the men, can better be imagined than described. Madison’s cup of joy was filled to the brim. He had not only gained his own liberty, and that of one hundred and thirty-four others, but his dear Susan was safe. Only one man, Howell, had been killed. Capt. Enson, and others who were wounded, soon recovered, and were kindly treated by Madison, and for which they proved ungrateful; for, on the second night, Capt. Enson, Mr. Gilford, and Merritt, took advantage of the absence of Madison from the deck, and attempted to retake the vessel. The slaves, exasperated at this treachery, fell upon the whites with deadly weapons. The captain and his men fled to the cabin, pursued by the blacks. Nothing but the heroism of the negro leader saved the lives of the white men on this occasion; for, as the slaves were rushing into the cabin, Madison threw himself between them and their victims, exclaiming, “Stop! no more blood. My life, that was perilled for your liberty, I will lay down for the protection of these men. They have proved themselves unworthy of life which we granted them; still let us be magnanimous.” By the kind heart and noble bearing of Madison, the vile slave-traders were again permitted to go unwhipped of justice. This act of humanity raised the uncouth son of Africa far above his Anglo-Saxon oppressors.

The next morning “The Creole” landed at Nassau, New Providence, where the noble and heroic slaves were warmly greeted by the inhabitants, who at once offered protection, and extended hospitality to them.

But the noble heroism of Madison Washington and his companions found no applause from the Government, then in the hands of the slaveholders. Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, demanded of the British authorities the surrender of these men, claiming that they were murderers and pirates: the English, however, could not see the point.

Had the “Creole” revolters been white, and committed their noble act of heroism in another land, the people of the United States would have been the first to recognize their claims. The efforts of Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, and Madison Washington to strike the chains of slavery from the limbs of their enslaved race will live in, history, and will warn all tyrants to beware of the wrath of God and the strong arm of man.

Every iniquity that society allows to subsist for the benefit of the oppressor is a sword with which she herself arms the oppressed. Right is the most dangerous of weapons: woe to him who leaves it to his enemies.

CHAPTER V – GROWTH OF THE SLAVE-POWER

Introduction of the Cotton-gin. – Its effect on Slavery. – Fugitive Slave Law. – Anthony Burns. – The Dred Scott Decision. – Imprisonment for reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” – Struggles with Slavery.

The introduction of the cotton-gin into the South, by Whitney of Connecticut, had materially enhanced the value of slave property; the emancipation societies of Virginia and Maryland had ceased to petition their Legislatures for the “Gradual Emancipation” of the slaves; and the above two States had begun to make slave-raising a profitable business, when the American Antislavery Society was formed in the city of Philadelphia, in the year 1833. The agitation of the question in Congress, the mobbing of William Lloyd Garrison in Boston, the murder of the Rev. E. P. Lovejoy in Illinois, and the attempt to put down free speech throughout the country, only hastened the downfall of the institution.

In the earlier days of the Antislavery movement, not a year, sometimes hardly a month, passed that did not bear upon its record the report of mobs, almost always ferocious in spirit, and sometimes cruel and blood-stained in act. It was the first instinctive and brutal response of a proslavery people convicted of guilt and called to repentance; and it was almost universal. Wherever antislavery was preached, honestly, and effectually, there the mobocratic spirit followed it; so that, in those times, he who escaped this ordeal was, with some justice, held to be either inefficient or unfaithful. Hardly a town or city, from Alton to Portland, where much antislavery labor was bestowed, in the first fifteen years of this enterprise, that was not the scene of one of these attempts to crush all free discussion of the subject of slavery by violence or bloodshed. Hardly one of the earlier public advocates of the cause that was not made to suffer, either in person or in property, or in both, from popular violence, – the penalty of obedience to the dictates of his own conscience. Nor was this all: official countenance was often given to the mad proceedings of the mob; or, if not given, its protection was withheld from those who were the objects of popular hatred; and, as if this were not enough, legislation was invoked to the same end. It was suggested to the Legislature of one of the Southern States, that a large reward be offered for the head of a citizen of Massachusetts who was the pioneer in the modern antislavery movement. A similar reward was offered for the head of a citizen of New York. Yet so foul an insult excited neither the popular indignation nor legislative resentment in either of those States.

Great damage was done to the cause of Christianity by the position assumed on the question of slavery by the American churches, and especially those in the Southern States. Think of a religious kidnapper! a Christian slave-breeder! a slave-trader, loving his neighbor as himself, receiving the “sacraments” in some Protestant church from the hand of a Christian apostle, then the next day selling babies by the dozen, and tearing young women from the arms of their husbands to feed the lust of lecherous New Orleans! Imagine a religious man selling his own children into eternal bondage! Think of a Christian defending slavery out of the Bible, and declaring there is no higher law, but atheism is the first principle of Republican Government!

Yet this was the stand taken, and maintained, by the churches in the slave States down to the day that Lee surrendered to Grant.

One of the bitterest fruits of slavery in our land is the cruel spirit of caste, which makes the complexion even of the free negro a badge of social inferiority, exposing him to insult in the steamboat and the railcar, and in all places of public resort, not even excepting the church; banishing him from remunerative occupations; expelling him from the legislative hall, the magistrate’s bench, and the jury-box; and crushing his noblest aspirations under a weight of prejudice and proscription which he struggles in vain to throw off. Against this unchristian and hateful spirit, every lover of liberty should enter his solemn protest. This hateful prejudice caused the breaking up of the school of Miss Prudence Crandall, in the State of Connecticut, in the early days of the antislavery agitation.

Next came the burning of Pennsylvania Hall, one of the most beautiful edifices in the City of Brotherly Love, simply because colored persons were permitted to occupy seats by the side of whites.

The enactment by Congress of the Fugitive Slave Law caused the friends of freedom, both at home and abroad, to feel that the General Government was fast becoming the bulwark of slavery. The rendition of Thomas Sims, and still later that of Anthony Burns, was, indeed, humiliating in the extreme to the people of the Northern States.

On that occasion, the sons of free, enlightened, and Christian Massachusetts, descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, bowed submissively to the behests of a tyranny more cruel than Austrian despotism; yielded up their dignity and self-respect; became the allies of slave-catchers, the associates and companions of bloodhounds. At the bidding of slaveholders and serviles, they seized the image of God, bound their fellow-man with chains, and consigned him to torture and premature death under the lash of a piratical overseer. God’s law and man’s rights were trampled upon; the self-respect, the constitutional privileges, of the free States, were ignominiously surrendered. A people who resisted a paltry tax upon tea, at the cannon’s mouth, basely submitted to an imposition tenfold greater, in favor of brutalizing their fellow-men. Soil which had been moistened with the blood of American patriots was polluted by the footsteps of slave-catchers and their allies.

The Boston Court House in chains, two hundred rowdies and thieves sworn in as special policemen, respectable citizens shoved off the side-walks by these slave-catchers; all for the purpose of satisfying “our brethren of the South.” But this act did not appease the feelings, or satisfy the demands, of the slave-holders, while it still further inflamed the fire of abolitionism.

The “Dred Scott Decision” added fresh combustibles to the smouldering heap. Dred Scott, a slave, taken by his master into free Illinois, and then beyond the line of 36° 30’, and then back into Missouri, sued for and obtained his freedom on the ground, that, having been taken where by the Constitution slavery was illegal, his master had lost all claim. But the Supreme Court, on appeal, reversed the judgment; and Dred Scott, with his wife and children, was taken back into slavery. By this decision in the highest court of American law, it was affirmed that no free negro could claim to be a citizen of the United States, but was only under the jurisdiction of the separate State in which he resided; that the prohibition of slavery in any Territory of the Union was unconstitutional; and that the slave-owner might go where he pleased with his property, throughout the United States, and retain his right.

This decision created much discussion, both in America and in Europe, and materially injured the otherwise good name of our country abroad.

The Constitution, thus interpreted by Judge Taney, became the emblem of the tyrants and the winding sheet of liberty, and gave a boldness to the people of the South, which soon showed itself, while good men at the North felt ashamed of the Government under which they lived.

The slave-holders in the cotton, sugar, and rice growing States began to urge the re-opening of the African slave-trade, and the driving out from the Southern States of all free colored persons.

In the Southern Rights’ Convention, which assembled at Baltimore, June 8, 1800, a resolution was adopted, calling on the Legislature to pass a law driving the free colored people out of the State. Nearly every speaker took the ground that the free colored people must be driven out to make the slave’s obedience more secure. Judge Mason, in his speech, said, “It is the thrifty and well-to-do free negroes, that are seen by our slaves, that make them dissatisfied.” A similar appeal was made to the Legislature of Tennessee. Judge Catron, of the Supreme Court of the United States, in a long and able letter to “The Nashville Union,” opposed the driving out of the colored people. He said they were among the best mechanics, the best artisans, and the most industrious laborers in the State, and that to drive them out would be an injury to the State itself. This is certainly good evidence in their behalf.

The State of Arkansas passed a law driving the free colored people out of the State, and they were driven out three years ago. The Democratic press howled upon the heels of the free blacks until they had all been expatriated; but, after they had been driven out, “The Little Rock Gazette” – a Democratic paper – made a candid acknowledgment with regard to the character of the free colored people. It said, “Most of the exiled free negroes are industrious and respectable. One of them, Henry King, we have known from our boyhood, and take the greatest pleasure in testifying to his good character. The community in which he casts his lot will be blessed with that noblest work of God, an honest man.”

Yet these free colored people were driven out of the State, and those who were unable to go, as many of the women and children were, were reduced to slavery.

“The New Orleans True Delta” opposed the passage of a similar law by the State of Louisiana. Among other things, it said, “There are a large free colored population here, correct in their general deportment, honorable in their intercourse with society, and free from reproach so far as the laws are concerned; not surpassed in the inoffensiveness of their lives by any equal number of-persons in any place, North or South.”

And yet these free colored persons were not permitted by law to school their children, or to read books that treated against the institution of slavery. The Rev. Samuel Green, a colored Methodist preacher, was convicted and sent to the Maryland penitentiary, in 1858, for the offence of being found reading “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

The growth of the “Free-Soil” party, which had taken the place of the “Liberty” party; and then the rapid increase of the “Republican” party; the struggle in Kansas; the “Oberlin Rescue Trials;” and, lastly, the “John Brown Raid,” carried the discussion of slavery to its highest point.

All efforts, in Congress, in the proslavery political conventions, and in the churches, only added fuel to the flame that was fast making inroads upon the vitals of the monster.

CHAPTER VI. – THE JOHN BROWN RAID

John Brown. – His Religious Zeal. – His Hatred to Slavery. – Organization of his Army. – Attack on Harper’s Ferry. – His Execution. – John Brown’s Companions, Green and Copeland. – The Executions.

The year 1859 will long be memorable for the bold attempt of John Brown and his companions to burst the bolted door of the Southern house of bondage, and lead out the captives by a more effectual way than they had yet known: an attempt in which, it is true, the little band of heroes dashed themselves to bloody death, but, at the same time, shook the prison-walls from summit to foundation, and shot wild alarm into every tyrant-heart in all the slave-land. What were the plans and purposes of the noble old man is not precisely known, and perhaps will never be; but, whatever they were, there is reason to believe they had been long maturing, – brooded over silently and secretly, with much earnest thought, and under a solemn sense of religious duty. As early as the fall of 1857, he began to organize his band, chiefly from among the companions of his warfare against the “Border Ruffians” in Kansas. Nine or ten of these spent the winter of 1857-8 in Iowa, where a Col. Forbes was to have given them military instruction; but he, having-fallen out with Brown, did not join them, and Aaron D. Stevens, one of the company, took his place.

About the middle of April, 1858, they left Iowa, and went to Chatham, Canada, where, on the 8th of May, was held a convention, called by a written circular, which was sent to such persons only as could be trusted. The convention was composed mostly of colored men, a few of whom were from the States, but the greater part residents in Canada, with no white men but the organized band already mentioned. A “Provisional Constitution,” which Brown had previously prepared, was adopted; and the members of the convention took an oath to support it. Its manifest purpose was to insure a perfect organization of all who should join the expedition, whether free men or insurgent slaves, and to hold them under such strict control as to restrain them from every act of wanton or vindictive violence, all waste or needless destruction of life or property, all indignity or unnecessary severity to prisoners, and all immoral practices; in short, to keep the meditated movement free from every possibly avoidable evil ordinarily incident to the armed uprising of a long-oppressed and degraded people.

And let no one who glories in the revolutionary struggles of our fathers for their freedom deny the right of the American bondsman to imitate their high example. And those who rejoice in the deeds of a Wallace or a Tell, a Washington or a Warren; who cherish with unbounded gratitude the name of Lafayette for volunteering his aid in behalf of an oppressed people in a desperate crisis, and at the darkest hour of their fate, – cannot refuse equal merit to this strong, free, heroic man, who freely consecrated all his powers, and the labors of his whole life, to the help of the most needy, friendless, and unfortunate of mankind.

The picture of the Good Samaritan will live to all future ages, as the model of human excellence, for helping one whom he chanced to find in need.

John Brown did more: he went to seek those who were lost that he might save them.

On Sunday night, Oct. 16, John Brown, with twenty followers (five of them colored), entered the town of Harper’s Ferry, in the State of Virginia; captured the place, making the United-States Armory his headquarters; sent his men in various directions in search of slaves with which to increase his force.

The whole thing, though premature in its commencement, struck a blow that rang on the fetters of the enslaved in every Southern State, and caused the oppressor to tremble for his own safety, as well as for that of the accursed institution.

John Brown’s trial, heroism, and execution, an excellent history of which has been given to the public by Mr. James Redpath, saves me from making any lengthened statement here. His life and acts are matters of history, which will live with the language in which it is written. But little can be said of his companions in the raid on slavery. They were nearly all young men, unknown to fame, enthusiastic admirers of the old Puritan, entering heartily into all of his plans, obeying his orders, and dying bravely, with no reproach against their leader.

Of the five colored men, two only were captured alive, – Shields Green and John A. Copeland. The former was a native of South Carolina, having been born in the city of Charleston in the year 1832. Escaping to the North in 1857, he resided in Rochester, N.Y., until attracted by the unadorned eloquence and native magnetism of the hero of Harper’s Ferry. The latter was from North Carolina, and was a mulatto of superior abilities, and a genuine lover of liberty and justice. The following letter, written a short time before his execution, needs no explanation: —

“Charlestown, Va., Dec. 10, 1859.

“My dear Brother, – I now take my pen to write you a few lines to let you know how I am, and in answer to your kind letter of the 5th inst. Dear brother, I am, it is true, so situated at present as scarcely to know how to commence writing: not that my mind is filled with fear, or that it has become shattered in view of my near approach to death; not that I am terrified by the gallows which I see staring me in the face, and upon which I am so soon to stand and suffer death for doing what George Washington, the so-called father of this great but slavery-cursed country, was made a hero for doing while he lived, and when dead his name was immortalized, and his great and noble deeds in behalf of freedom taught by parents to their children. And now, brother, for having lent my aid to a general no less brave, and engaged in a cause no less honorable and glorious, I am to suffer death. Washington entered the field to fight for the freedom of the American people, – not for the white man alone, but for both black and white. Nor were they white men alone who fought for the freedom of this country. The blood of black men flowed as freely as that of white men. Yes, the very first blood that was spilt was that of a negro. It was the blood of that heroic man (though black he was), Crispus Attucks. And some of the very last blood shed was that of black men. To the truth of this, history, though prejudiced, is compelled to attest. It is true that black men did an equal share of the fighting for American independence; and they were assured by the whites that they should share equal benefits for so doing. But, after having performed their part honorably, they were by the whites most treacherously deceived, – they refusing to fulfil their part of the contract. But this you know as well as I do; and I will therefore say no more in reference to the claims which we, as colored men, have on the American people…

“It was a sense of the wrongs which we have suffered that prompted the noble but unfortunate Capt. Brown and his associates to attempt to give freedom to a small number, at least, of those who are now held by cruel and unjust laws, and by no less cruel and unjust men. To this freedom they were entitled by every known principle of justice and humanity; and, for the enjoyment of it, God created them. And now, dear brother, could I die in a more noble cause? Could I, brother, die in a manner and for a cause which would induce true and honest men more to honor me, and the angels more readily to receive me to their happy home of everlasting joy above? I imagine that I hear you, and all of you, mother, father, sisters and brothers, say, ‘No, there is not a cause for which we, with less sorrow, could see you die!’”

“Your affectionate brother,

“John A. Copeland.”

“The Baltimore Sun” says, “A few moments before leaving the jail, Copeland said, ‘If I am dying for freedom, I could not die for a better cause. I had rather die than be a slave!’ A military officer in charge on the day of the execution says, ‘I had a position near the gallows, and carefully observed all. I can truly say I never witnessed more firm and unwavering: fortitude, more perfect composure, or more beautiful propriety, than were manifested by young Copeland to the very last.’”