The American Missionary. Volume 42, No. 10, October, 1888

The reference to Father Willey and his book is suggestive. He is one of the "old, original" abolitionists. Men who were once denounced and are now scarcely honored, for lo! to the amazement and amusement of some of us, we find that everybody was an abolitionist and always had been, that everybody learned to hate slavery on the mother's lap, and was always opposed to it! We who in those early days were treated as outcasts by "gentlemen of property and standing," and mobbed by the rabble at their bidding, are led to wonder what has become of all those who thus disagreed with us! One marked exception occurs to us. A prominent professor in a theological seminary, when the question was put to him ten years ago: "Professor, when did you become an Abolitionist?" replied, with a merry twinkle in his eye: "When it became popular." We have found few, however, who are so frank or so witty.

M.E. STRIEBY.

THE UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE OF OUR MISSIONARIES AT THE SOUTH

In a recent number of The Nineteenth Century, Sir William W. Hunter, an eminent authority, reporting the influence of the missionaries in India, says that among the people to whom they have gone they have built up the most complete confidence and implicit faith in the purity and unselfishness of their motives. He declares that he regards the missionary work of the English as an expiation for wrong-doing, and he believes that the missionary instinct forms the necessary spiritual complement of the aggressive genius of the English race. Sir William also claims that the advance of missionaries in the good opinion of non-Christian peoples is a most striking evidence of their high character and intelligence, and that no class of Englishmen has done so much to make England respected in India as the missionaries, that no class has done so much to awaken the Indian's intellect and to lessen the dangers of transition from the old state of things to the new.

After this much of condensation of that profound article by the Christian Union, we quote from the author:

"The careless onlooker may have no particular convictions on the subject, and flippant persons may ridicule religious effort in India as elsewhere. But I think that few Indian administrators have passed through high office, and had to deal with the ultimate problems of British government in that country, without feeling the value of the work done by missionaries. Such men gradually realize, as I have realized, that the missionaries do really represent the spiritual side of the new civilization, and of the new life which we are introducing into India."

Names and places being changed, it is coming to appear that the whole of this can be said of the Christian workers from the North among the colored people of the South. Besides all of their work that can be told by statistics, and besides all of that in building up character among the Negroes and awakening their intellect and their aspiration for thrift in every sense, they have exerted a profound unconscious influence upon the white people of that Southland. They, too, have built up among the whites a confidence in the purity and unselfishness of their motives. At first they were suspected as emissaries of a political party. By many even of the best people there they were held as necessarily persons of low-down condition and character to be willing to do that "low-down work." "With our views of the case, how could we believe anything else?" was the answer to the remonstrance against the current mode of treatment. Gradually this feeling has been giving way to one of growing confidence, until for several years such men as Rev. Dr. A.G. Haygood and Mr. G.W. Cable, and such papers as the Memphis Appeal, and such a State Board of Examiners as that of the Atlanta University have been publicly declaring the high intellectual quality and moral standing of these once despised teachers, while many of the most respectable citizens are privately saying the same thing, and multitudes believe it, though making no announcement of the same.

By this crucifixion of feeling through which those workers have passed, and by their self-denying endurance of hardness, they too, in no small sense, have been making expiation for the wrongs done the slaves. Their missionary instinct also forms the necessary spiritual complement of the aggressive genius of the Puritan civilization which is now taking possession where its sword had cleared the way. Their advance in the good opinion of the best people of the South is also a striking evidence of their high character and intelligence. No class of Northern people going South have done so much to make the North respected as the missionaries, and none are doing more to lessen the danger of transition from the old state of things to the new. Going, not as "carpet-baggers," but as citizens, to be identified with the moral reconstruction of the South, they translate there the real spirit of the North, and represent the spiritual side of the new life which is going into that fair portion of our own dear country. By the peculiar people to whom they especially go, and who prove to have a natural affinity for Puritan ideas and institutions, they are doing more than any others to set up, not a New England in the South, but a New South, wherein shall be rejuviant the principles of that civilization which was planted at Plymouth Rock.

JOSEPH E. ROY.

EXPULSION OF NEGROES FROM MARION, ARKANSAS

It is not our custom to publish details of alleged outrages upon the colored people at the South. We have no wish to stir up strife by recalling memories of the past, or by giving incidents of recent aggression against the helpless. But this case in Marion is free from bloody details and is a simple illustration of the determination of the white people to maintain their sway in the South.

The simple facts in the case are, that in Crittenden County, Arkansas, of which Marion is the county town, the population is chiefly colored, the ratio being seven negroes to one white man. For several years the office of Judge of the County and Probate Court, and the Clerk and under officers of the court, were colored men. The more important county offices were held by white men. On a given day, fifty or more heavily-armed white men appeared at the county seat and drove from their offices and homes the colored officers named above, together with the colored local doctor, the lawyer, the schoolmaster of the colored school, the editor of the colored newspaper and a number of other prominent colored citizens.

The farther details of the transaction are given in a thoughtful and calm article in a recent number of The Independent by Rev. B.A. Imes, the colored minister of the church at Memphis, Tenn., under the care of this Association. We give below all of the article that relates to the facts:

THE CRITTENDEN COUNTY OUTRAGE

BY THE REV. B.A. IMES

From the bluff at Memphis we look across the river, where along the western shore stretch the forests of Crittenden County, Arkansas, and Marion, about fourteen miles from Memphis, is the county-seat. The story of the recent banishment of fifteen prominent colored office-holders, professional men and farmers has gone to the world.

The whites, well armed, took their game by surprise, bagged and shipped it without bloodshed. Now the "empire is peace" they say, although for a time terror reigned among the startled colored people.

With a Negro population six or seven times as large as the white, it is not strange that the County Court Judge, the County Clerk and his deputy should be Negroes, nor that they should aspire to other places in public life.

Unfortunately, as all witnesses agree, Judge Lewis and Clerk Ferguson were given to drinking habits, which brought them under accusation before the courts for drunkenness. It was probable that they would have been convicted; but without awaiting the tardiness of the law, a shorter process was found.

In palliation of their hasty banishment it is claimed that anonymous letters were sent to some of the leading white citizens, warning them to leave the county. These letters it is asserted—not proved—must have proceeded from Clerk Ferguson's office, although not written by himself. The object was to intimidate those who would be most efficient in convicting and deposing the unworthy officials.

Furthermore, there are two opposing factions of colored Baptists at Marion, and it is surmised that one of these factions, regarding these prominent characters as their enemies, had something to do with the letter-writing in order to bring down wrath upon them. Still another theory is, that the whites have only been awaiting their chance, and taking advantage of favorable conditions, knew when and whence the said letters would be issued. It was all arranged beforehand. At all events, the time was very short, after the delivery of the letters, until Winchester rifles and shot-guns were in the hands of some scores of white citizens, and fifteen Negro men, including Lewis and Ferguson, York Byers, a deputy sheriff and well-to-do farmer, Dr. Stith, a successful young physician, and others, were speedily sent across the river to Memphis.

Clerk Ferguson found himself surrounded by a squad of these brave men, who, with rifles presented, demanded that he sign without ceremony a resignation. He signed. Byers escaped through the swamps, made his way to the river, and came to Memphis in a sorry plight. The other victims were put upon the train with orders to go and never return. Byers was to be violently dealt with, had they caught him.

Sandy S. Odom, living on his farm about six miles from Marion, I am informed, refused to leave his home, when waited upon and ordered to go. Said he. "All I have is here—wife, child and farm—I can't go away." For a time his pluck seemed to be respected. His fault was that of being a friend of the Marion officials. He had once served at Little Rock as a legislator from his district, but, like Cincinnatus, had since resumed the plow.

According to the latest by the Memphis Appeal, Odom has decided that discretion is the better part of valor, and will be off for a safer place as soon as his business affairs can be arranged.

The Governor of Arkansas has refused to interfere, because the Circuit Court Judge at Marion has solemnly charged the grand jury as to their duty toward the writers of threatening letters, and also toward those who unlawfully drove citizens from their homes, etc. But this solemn part of the proceeding was enacted, in spite of the fact that the sheriff of Crittenden County was one of the leading spirits in the outrage upon the defenceless black men, and the judge and grand jury and all Crittendon County are far from expecting to hear of any white man being arrested.

But last Sunday, Dr. Stith, one of the exiles, went back to Marion on the morning train. He had heard that his wife was sick, and he said: "If I am a man I must go to her." He was promptly arrested by the patrol force at Marion and lodged in jail, where he is likely to remain until next January meeting of court before he can have a trial. There is nothing brought against him aside from his having been once associated with the "offensive partisans." He had at one time been an active politician, but more recently has devoted himself to his profession, and was already known as a successful physician. Like Odom, his character is not assailed: but he was educated, and influential among the people.

Two young ladies, teachers from Memphis, one of whom had taught last year at Marion, went thither soon after Dr. Stith's arrest, to make inquiry about a situation for teaching.

They were closely watched, and in an interview were warned by a reporter of the Memphis Appeal that it was not safe for them to remain in Marion. They had reason to think that they were being watched as spies in the interest of the banished; hence their stay was very brief.

When the Clerk Ferguson had vacated, a "white citizen" was at once put into that office. It is a remarkable fact that, aside from a few hints about the necessity of maintaining order and proceeding according to law, the general tone of the press here is to the effect that this occurrence, though unfortunate on account of its effect at the North, was really justifiable.

The cruel wrong inflicted upon those who have no crime laid to their charge, no personal reproach of character, is treated as though it were but little more than a joke. If the two officials were guilty of drunkenness no one doubts that they could have been legally removed from office. If the colored people at Marion are divided into factions, then the whites could the more easily combine forces against the officials in question, or any political ring which may have existed. But there was a general Negro uprising threatened, and in order to save their own lives the whites made haste to get into the field first. This is the avowed excuse. But it is certain that no one believes there was serious danger of a Negro uprising. The men arrested and banished were unarmed, and taken by surprise. If they were in any sense desperate or dangerous characters they turned cowards suddenly, making no resistance. Indeed, there is but one excuse for their bloodless surrender. They display to the world the utter groundlessness of the charge of a conspiracy. No dynamite bombs, no loaded weapons, no evidence of organized bands were discovered.

In all the history of the shot-gun policy and the unnumbered outrages committed, there are on record few, if any, cases of conspiracy against life and property on the part of the Negro. But the true animus of the Crittenden County affair, I think, is found in the current declaration which is used at Marion on the part of the brave men who drove out these exiles, viz.: "We don't want any educated niggers, and won't have 'em here, not even to teach school."

It should not be overlooked, that in this instance there is fully revealed that singular idea which so widely prevails at the South, viz.: A Negro is in his place only and always as a subordinate. It is assumed that to educate him unfits him for his mission in life, unless that education looks simply to some hand service.

With this fact before us, we can explain the dead silence of the pulpit and the press of the South as touching the first principles of justice.

The end justifies the means when "Negro rule" is to be prevented, and to protest against this bold subversion of the great principles of citizenship in the Republic, is to "wave the bloody shirt." We will admit that it is by no means desirable that a mass of illiterate people should hold sway, but we claim that the Southern white people can break the "color line" if they will, by admitting frankly the rights of the Negro, and by encouraging him to aspire to an intelligent and worthy manhood.

EXTRACTS

Fifty years ago there was a boy in Africa who was taken prisoner in one of the fierce wars between the tribes, and was carried away from his home to be sold as a slave. First he was sold for a horse. Then his buyer thought him a bad exchange for the horse, and compelled his master to take him back. Then he was sold for so much rum. This was called another bad bargain by the man who had bought him, and again he was returned, to be sold for tobacco with the same result. Nobody wanted the poor, miserable slave-boy, who was on the point of committing suicide when he was bought by a Portuguese trader and carried away in a slave ship. How little that wretched boy knew what the future had in store for him as he lay chained in the hold of the crowded slave-ship! But one of England's war ships that were clearing the high seas of the slavers bore down upon the Portuguese vessel, rescued the captives, and the African boy was placed under Christian influences, baptized and educated, and to-day he is Bishop Crowther, England's black Bishop in Africa.—The Gospel in all Lands.

A very obliging Indian.—Dr. C.A. White, Professor of Paleontology in the Smithsonian Institution, relates this pleasing incident. Being in the Ute country a year or so ago, in pursuit of scientific facts, he found himself on one occasion encamped some fifty miles from Uintah Agency. Being desirous of sending a letter to his wife in Washington, he entrusted it to an Indian who, he learned by signs, was on his way to the agency. He was not sure that the Indian understood what he desired him to do with the letter, but took the risk of that. His wife received the letter and was surprised at finding it postmarked Salt Lake City. The Doctor afterward learned that the Indian arrived at the agency just after the mail had gone, and knowing that it would be a month before another mail would be sent out he actually carried the letter to Salt Lake City, a distance of 225 miles, for this white man whom he had never met before, and whose name he did not know. Doubtless the Indian thought the letter of great importance, but where is the white man who would have done as much for his best friend, without the hope of reward or even thanks?—Council Fire.

SCHOOL ECHOES

In 1864 in Memphis, in a refugee school that I visited while chaplain in the army, the Bible lesson was John xv., "I am the vine and my father is the husbandman." One little fellow recited it thus: "I am the vine and my father is a married man."

What for we come to this school.—We come for to intelligent about the civilization ways, and we want to American write, we want to American home, and we want friendly each other with the white people. We are commence learning discretion and we are works our own hands. My conscience has cried because our Indian they can not do nothing with their hands and when I look back our old Indian ways I am great sorry, but when I looked future I have examined with careful attention, and I very great pleasure. Last summer I went home. I worked at harness, but I don't know some about measure length and wide, cut off I know but not perfectly, so I come back to school again, because I want to learn perfect all things about harness make without anybody help me.

ROME AND THE FREEDMEN

We present below two articles on this subject. The first is from a London paper and the second is from one of the many able papers edited by colored men. As to the facts alleged we have no definite information. When the slaves were emancipated the Roman Catholics made very decided efforts to win them. It was supposed by Protestants that the grand ceremonials, the gaudy vestments, the music, and especially the welcome which the Papal Church was said to give to all men irrespective of riches, race or color, would attract the Freedmen. But the expectation was not met; the Freedmen were not attracted, and soon the special efforts seemed to cease. But Rome never surrenders, and those efforts may now be resumed. We invite attention to the two articles.

From "THE CHRISTIAN."

Romanism is spreading among the colored people of the American Continent, and it is said that several Negroes are now in training in Rome and elsewhere to become priests. The American Roman Catholic papers say that the cause is not far to seek, the Roman Catholic Church being 'the only one on this continent offering the Negro communion on terms of equality.' If this is not true all round, it certainly is the fact that outbreaks of the so-called 'color-prejudice' have been of but rare occurrence among the Romanists, and that they are apparently reaping the result in a large accession of numbers.

From "THE NEGRO AMERICAN."

Few persons are aware of the rapid spread of Catholicism among the colored people of this country. From the American Catholic Tribune, the organ of the colored Catholics of America, we obtain facts that are truly startling. Young colored men are now in Rome and in the Catholic schools and colleges of the United States, preparing for work among their people in America, and Africa as well, while to-day missionaries are everywhere busy, sowing the seeds of Catholic belief and worship. These teachings are eagerly accepted by the colored people. The cause of this success among them is not far to seek. The Catholic Church, of all which are ruled by whites on this continent, is the only one offering the Negro communion on terms of equality. While the Southern Protestants are setting up separate synods, councils, presbyteries and conferences for the Negro, and the Y.M.C.A., with the same narrow spirit, is refusing colored men seats in its councils, while Northern Protestants are either neutral in this matter of caste or only half-hearted in crying down upon the sin of it; the Catholics alone have accepted in a full and liberal sense the command, "preach my gospel to every creature," and have extended fellowship to all, regardless of race, color or condition. It matters not what their motive is. The fact stands boldly out. True, instances are occurring of outbreaks of color-prejudice among the Catholics, but the policy of the church is openly and boldly against discrimination of whatever sort among its members. The fear of "social equality," that shadow of a something that never did, and never can, exist, that bug-bear of illiberal minds and narrow culture, does not stand guard at the doors of this church to drive away the colored worshipper or compel him to sit at the second table at the Lord's feast. Is it to be wondered at, then, that the colored people are flocking to the Catholic fold? This they will continue to do, so long as the spirit of caste dictates the policy, and governs the action, of the white Protestants of the United States.

THE SOUTH

VACATION ECHOES

REV. G.S. ROLLINS

I wish some of our home friends who complain of dull, unprofitable prayer-meetings could step into one of the kind we have in our colored churches. One soon loses sight of mispronunciation and wretched grammar in listening to the sensible, meaty, forceful ideas which many of these negroes can express. You cannot go to a prayer-meeting without bringing something away.

One good old mother in Israel said to me lately, in regard to the weekly prayer-meeting: "I begins in de mawnin' to lay my plans fur dat meetin', an I don stop ter eat so's to get my work along froo de day. And I tinks and prays a heap about dat meetin' all day, I does."

How many of you at home do as much for your prayer-meeting as this poor old colored woman? No dull summer prayer-meetings when church members go prepared like this. I have said that these people have ideas and can express them. At my last prayer-meeting before departing for my vacation, one good brother prayed that the "Lord would bless the pastor in his absence and continue to fill him up with new things, so he can give them out to us." The pastor is filling up as fast as possible.

One of the questions most often asked is, "Are the colored people improving?" One has to say, "Of course they are." But are they progressing rapidly? Yes and no. Yes, considering their antecedents and present advantages. No, if one were to measure their rate of progress by our impatience. The surest progress is not the swiftest. Slow and sure is the rule by which we work. Statistics but feebly tell the story of the improvement of the Freedmen since the war. They can best testify concerning the advance who have been in the field since the beginning of the work.

But even if it is slow, it pays well. There came into my church one Sunday not long ago a poor old lady who was a comparative stranger in the city. During the sermon she sat with mouth, eyes and ears open. After the service she came to me and said, "I tank de Lord He bro't me year. I done been gwine ter church dese fifty years, an I nebber heard de tex 'splained befo." This old lady has since united with our church, and when she is not there I know something serious is the matter at her home. It is worth a year's preaching to have the privilege of enlightening one benighted soul like this.

I called recently on an old gentleman who had become generally disgusted with "dese yere churches roun year." I found him poring over a big, well-worn Bible, the perspiration pouring down his shiny face, and with a big pair of spectacles resting on the tip of his nose. With an air of superior wisdom he surveyed me over the top of the spectacles, and then solemnly stated to the few who gathered around as I sat down on an old soap box, "Dat a preacher? I kin tell a preacher the fus question I ask him." Then taking off the spectacles and slowly closing the big Bible, he went on: "Now I'se gwine to put you all a question" (looking at the others) "an den I'se gwine ter ask de preacher, an I can tell whedder he'm a good one or not." "Now," said he, "when we gits cold and wicked follerin' our own ways, how does de Lord brung us back again to our senses?" This question was put with various modifications to each in turn until it came to me. "Now, what does you say?" he said to me. I replied that my experience said "Trouble." "Yah! Yah! dat's it, Trouble. You's answered it, shore; dese yere ignorant niggers, dey don't know nuffin. Ise gwine up to hear you preach next Sunday." And sure enough, there he was the next Sunday and his wife with him. This is about the way we gather them in, one by one.