The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922

Know all men by these presents: That we, Old King Peter, and King Governor, King James, and King Long Peter, do on this fourth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, grant unto Lott Cary, acting Agent of the Colony of Liberia, in behalf of the American Colonization Society, to wit:

All that tract of Land on the north side of St. Paul's river, beginning at King James' line below the establishment called Millsburg Settlement, and we the Kings as aforesaid do bargain, sell, and grant, unto the said Lott Cary, acting in behalf of the American Colonization Society, all the aforesaid tract of land, situated and bounded as follows: by the St. Paul's river on the South, and thence running an East Northeast direction up the St. Paul's river, as far as he, the said Lott Cary, or his successor in the Agency, or Civil Authority of the Colony of Liberia, shall think proper to take up and occupy: and bounded on the West by King Jimmey's, and running thence a North direction as far as our power and influence extend. We do this day and date, grant as aforesaid for the consideration (here follow the articles to be given in payment); and will forever defend the same against all claims whatsoever.

In witness whereof we set our hands and names:

Old X King Peter,Long X King Peter,King X Governor,King X James>.

Signed in the presence of,

Elijah Johnson,Frederick James,Daniel George.June 18, 1828.

I found it necessary, in order to preserve the frame of the second floors of the Government House, to have the frame and ceiling painted, which is now doing. I have also been obliged to employ another workman to make the blinds, or else leave the house exposed the present season, as – refused to do it under the former contract. On the 13th I visited Millsburg (named after Mills and Burgess) to ascertain the prospects of that settlement; and can say with propriety, that according to the quantity of land which the settlers have put under cultivation, they will reap a good and plentiful crop. The Company's crop of rice and cassada is especially promising. The new settlers at that place have done well; having all, with two or three exceptions, built houses, so as to render their families comfortable during the season. They have also each of them a small farm, which I think after a few months will be sufficient to subsist them. But I find from a particular examination, that we shall be obliged to allow them to draw rations longer than I expected, owing to the great scarcity of country produce, the cassada being so nearly exhausted, that it is, and will be, impossible to obtain, until new crops come in, much to aid our provisions, unless by going some distance into the country. Therefore I think it indispensably necessary, in order to keep the settlers to their farming improvements, to continue their rations longer than I at first intended; as I consider the present too important a crisis to leave them to neglect their improvements, although it may add something to our present expenses.

The people at Caldwell are getting on better with their farms than with their houses. I think some of them are very slow, notwithstanding I have assisted them in building. The Gun House at Caldwell is done, and at present preparations are making for the fourth of July. I think that settlement generally, is rapidly advancing in farming, building, and I hope, in industry. Our gun carriages are done; the completion of the iron work alone prevents us from mounting them all immediately. We have four mounted, and I think we shall put them all in complete order by the end of the present week.

Captain Russel will be able to give something like a fair account of the state of our improvements, as he went with me to visit the settlements on the 13th and 14th, and seemed pleased with the project at Millsburg, Caldwell and the Half-way Farms.

Mr. Warner, who has been engaged nearly the whole of the last twelve months on business of negotiation with the native tribes to the leeward, is at present down at Tippicanoe, the place which I mentioned in my former communications, as being a very important section of country, since it would connect our Sesters and Bassa districts together. He is not, however, now engaged in business of negotiation, but only in business of trade.

Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, pp. 153-156.

In a letter to Mr. Ashmun, Mr. Cary wrote:

Things are nearly as you left them; most of the work that you directed to be done, is nearly accomplished. The plasterers are now at work on the Government House, and with what lime I am having brought down the river, and what shells I am getting, I think we shall succeed.

The Gun House in Monrovia and the Jail have been done for some weeks; the mounting of the guns will be done this week, if the weather permits.

The Houses at Half-way Farms are done; the Gun House at Caldwell would have been done at this time, had not the rain prevented, but I think it will be finished in three or four days. The public farm is doing pretty well. The Millsburg farms are doing very well. I think it would do you good to see that place at this time.

The Missionaries, although they have been sick are now, I am happy to inform you, recovered; and at present are able to attend to their business, and I regard them as entirely out of danger.

I hope we shall be able to remove all the furniture into the new house in two or three weeks.

Speaking of the celebration of the 4th of July under date of July 15th, Mr. Cary remarked to Mr. Ashmun:

The companies observed strictly the orders of the day, which I think were so arranged as to entitle the officers who drew them up to credit. Upon the whole, I am obliged to say, that I have never seen the American Independence celebrated with so much spirit and propriety since the existence of the Colony; the guns being all mounted and painted, and previously arranged for the purpose, added very much to the grand salute. Two dinners were given, one by the Independent Volunteer Company, and one by Captain Devany.

Mr. Cary wrote to the Secretary of the Colonization Society, July 19th, 1828:

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, forwarded by Captain Chase of Providence, also your Report and Repository, directed to Mr. Ashmun, but owing to his absence, they have fallen into my hands; and permit me to say, that these communications are read with pleasure, and that nothing affords more joy to the Colony, than to hear of the prosperity of the Colonization Society, and that you have some hopes of aid from the General Government, which makes us more desirous to enlarge our habitation and extend the borders of the Colony.

I must say, from the flattering prospects of your Society, I feel myself very much at a loss how to proceed, in the absence of Mr. Ashmun, with regard to making provisions for the reception of a large number of emigrants, which appears to be indispensably necessary. Therefore, after receiving your communication, we conceived the following to be the most safe and prudent course. First, to make arrangements to have erected at Millsburg, houses to answer as receptacles sufficient to shelter from one hundred and fifty to two hundred persons, I have therefore extended the duties of Mr. Benson so as to embrace that object. I was led to this course from the following considerations. First, from the productiveness of the Millsburg lands and the fewness of their inhabitants. I know if Mr. Ashmun were present, it would be a principal object with him to push that settlement forward with all possible speed, and that for this purpose, he would send the emigrants by the first two or three expeditions to that place. I think that those from the fresh water rivers, if carried directly after their arrival here, up to Millsburg, would suffer very little from change of climate. Second, the fertility of the land is such a temptation to the farmer, that unless he possesses laziness in its extreme degree, he cannot resist it; he must and will go to work. Thirdly, it is important to strengthen that settlement against any possible attack; and though we apprehend no hostilities from the natives, yet we would have each settlement strong enough to repel them.

I am happy to say, that the health, peace and prosperity of the Colony, I think, is still advancing, and I hope that the Board of Managers may have their wishes and expectations realized to their fullest extent, with regard to the present and future prosperity of the Colony.

Gurley, Life of Jehudi Ashmun, appendix, pp. 156-158.

Letter to the treasurer of the Massachusetts Baptist Education Society:

Sir,

Here is a mite enclosed for your society. It is part of the proceeds of a cotton field, for benevolent purposes. I helped to plough the ground, plant, hoe, pick, gin and pack the cotton with my own hands. A part of the proceeds is for the Colonization Society. My servants would shew their large white teeth, when, to encourage them to do their work well, I informed them that this cotton was designed to be a means of enlightening their brethren in Africa. Don't you think that Christians by and by, will act more like stewards with the property God has given them? I think it better to give now and then a mite, which the Lord may have bestowed upon me, to advance his cause, than to lavish it on profligate and dissipated sons. Will not God at a future day require the property he has loaned us?

We see you Northern folks seem conscious of this, by the exertions you are using to advance the Redeemer's cause. This has become a fortunate legatee, in comparison with what it was fifty years ago.

We, down here, so near the equator, think we can discover the upper limb of the millennium sun already. Will he not get clear above the horizon by 1866.

A Georgia Planter.

The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. IV, p. 181.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Master's Slave—Elijah John Fisher. By Miles Mark Fisher. The Judson Press, Philadelphia, Pa. Pp. 194.

This work is a biographical sketch of one of the most prominent Negro Baptist preachers of his time. The author, the son of the subject of the sketch, believes that too little has been said concerning the Negro Church, which is largely responsible for whatever advancement the race has made. To stimulate interest in this institution and to give it the proper place in the history of the race, this biography is given to the public.

The book contains an introduction by Dr. L. K. Williams, the popular successor of Dr. Fisher at the Olivet Baptist Church in Chicago, where the latter faithfully served many years. It contains also an appreciation by Martin B. Madden, Congressman from Illinois, who personally knew Dr. Fisher and speaks most commendably of his character and achievements in that State.

The actual sketch begins with the chapter entitled "Bound and Branded," presenting the life of Dr. Fisher during the slavery of the last decade prior to emancipation. Herein are set forth interesting facts showing the connection of the Negro with Africa and his status in the slave-holding South. The effects of the Civil War in this section appear also from page to page.

Then follows that part of his career when he as a youth undertook to secure an education by which he might be qualified for the serious duties of life. How he began as a teacher during the beginning of Negro education of the Reconstruction period, and how he finally became an exhorter and developed into a minister acceptable to the communicants of his denomination, make the story increasingly interesting. The sketch reaches its climax through a detailed account of Dr. Fisher's work at Atlanta, Nashville, and Chicago, emphasizing the last mentioned as the place of his most successful labor.

The historian will find this work valuable in that it illuminates one of the most interesting periods of Negro church history. It is not only a sketch of one distinguished churchman but a narrative presenting an important chapter of the story of the Baptists by relating the many incidents connected with the leading churchmen and ecclesiastical organizations interested in the uplift of the Negro since the Civil War. This narrative, moreover, shows how the Negro minister, in keeping with the exigencies of the time, often had to be drawn into politics in self defense and that in the case of unselfish service like that of Dr. Fisher, he may come out of the controversy untarnished.

History of the United States. Vol. V. By Edward Channing. The Macmillan Company, New York City. Pp. 615.

This is the most recent volume of Professor Channing's eight volume History of the United States from the very beginning of our history to the present time. This particular volume covers the years from 1815 to 1848 and is entitled "The Period of Transition." It is written in keeping with the standard of thoroughness characteristic of the author and is made further informing by the use of ten valuable maps illustrating important facts in American History.

In this volume the author engages the attention of the reader with an account of the wonderful century in which he writes. He then discusses the westward movement of the population, urban migration, the rise of labor unions, giving more attention to economic matters than his predecessors have been accustomed to do in the treatment of this period. A study of the documentary history of the United States has convinced the author that these important factors in the making of this country have been neglected. His treatment, therefore, is a change in the point of view in American historical writing.

This volume does not show the usual interest in slavery and abolition. Only one chapter of this large work is devoted primarily to the plantation life and abolitionism. The author discusses the lot of the slave, accounting for his tendency to escape from bondage, the traffic in human flesh, the free people of color, the colonization movement in the South, and abolition in the North. This chapter culminates in a discussion of the efforts of William Lloyd Garrison, the agitating editor of the Liberator, of Wendell Phillips, the abolition orator, of Prudence Crandall, the sacrificing worker, and of Elijah Lovejoy, the martyr in the cause. Prof. Channing does not go into details as to the achievements of the abolitionists. His account is merely sufficient to connect this movement with other forces at work in the country at that time.

Most of this volume is devoted to changes in religion, education, literature, and politics, effected by such outstanding figures as James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster. The book shows an extensive treatment of the territorial expansion of that time, especially the efforts to secure Texas, California and Oregon, and the war with Mexico. On the whole, this book has a decided economic and social trend. It is an effort to account for the significant upheavals in our history through connection with important industrial and economic events which have materially influenced the history of the United States during the last century. The book emphasizes the fact that current history can not be easily written, that one must be far removed from situations in the past in order to weigh the influences having a bearing thereon to determine exactly how the country has become what it is today.

Recent History of the United States. By Frederick L. Paxson. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. Pp. 588.

This book beginning with the inauguration of Hayes shows how he reestablished home rule in the South, thus clearing the way for a realization of education and economic reconstruction of both South and North. The author then treats the civil and border strife as expressed in the Mexican Revolution of 1876, Indian wars, social unrest, national labor unions, and the War with Spain. Then follows the treatment of post-bellum ideals as expressed by literary periodicals and new writers showing a revolution in literature, and especially in historical writing.

In his treatment of silver, greenbacks, railroad and mine booms, and the like, he shows that the country had reached a new stage in its development when a transition both economic and political was apparent. This is made evident by his discussion of election frauds, Republican factions, office holders in politics, the abuse of patronage and the necessity for civil service reform. Next the author takes up the era of prosperity, the disappearance of the frontier, the land grants to railroads, the development of the telephone, telegraph, typewriter, electrical appliances, and the like, in their bearing on the industrial reconstruction of the whole country.

The author then discusses events more in detail, directing his attention to the tariff revision of the eighties, the "Mugwump Campaign" of 1884, the Wild West, labor ideals, protection, populism, the revival of the Democratic party through the leadership of Cleveland, industrial unrest, political schism, the Spanish-American War, business in politics, the career of Theodore Roosevelt, government control, insurgency, the rise of Woodrow Wilson, watchful waiting, neutrality and preparedness, the United States in the World War, and the League of Nations. Some attention is also given to the reconstruction and the election of 1920.

While the work is a valuable treatise from the point of view of a man who is trying to write the history of a particular race, it does not come up to the standard of history of the United States in all of its national and racial ramifications. So far as the Negro is concerned, it merely refers to his undoing as a political factor in the Reconstruction, the efforts for his education by northern sympathizers, the rise of Booker T. Washington, the elimination of the Negro as a factor in the South, the efforts to pass a force bill protecting the Negro in the exercise of the right of suffrage, and the continued control of the South of the Democratic party. A foreigner who reads this work might wonder whether the Negroes by this political upheaval have been exterminated or have emigrated from the country. Any student of the history of the whole Southland knows that it is centered largely around the Negro and any historian failing to take this into account cannot be recognized as an authority.

The Backbone of Africa. A Record of Travel during the Great War, with some Suggestions for Administrative Reform. By Sir Alfred Sharps, K. C. M. G., C. B., formerly Governor of Nyasaland. London, H. F. & G. Witherby, 1921. Pp. 232.

This is the reaction of a public functionary to the scenes of colonial life as they appeared to him from a different angle in a survey of the whole continent and under the circumstances of a political upheaval. He had in mind here the regions of Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Tanganyika, Ruanda, the Congo, and the Upper Nile. The book is illustrated, well written and suggestive throughout. It contains four valuable maps and has an index largely of names.

Writing from the point of view of the exploiter of Africa, the author considers such questions as the disposition of the German Colonies coming into the possession of England at the close of the Great War, the question of restitution, the partition of Africa, the suggested union of the Protectorates in Eastern Africa under a Governor General, the partition of German East Africa, the redelimitation of boundaries, problems of railway construction and a united East African Colony. He discusses also the Home Government, native taxation, local representation, land along with land laws, native rights, their education, the labor problem, migration, industrial questions, and missions.

Treating the colonial policy in dealing with the natives, the author shows some sympathy. He does not believe that the tax on natives has been wisely imposed and, therefore, asks for a uniform and more equitable system. To effect such a reform, however, he believes that the local government with increased authority in its own affairs should exercise such power rather than have such a policy determined by the Home Government through its appointive executive and legislators who act for the colonies though not of them. The question of native ownership of spare land, he believes, should be carefully considered, inasmuch as there has never been any real title to the possession of definite blocks of freehold lands in Native Africa. Native education also should be taken in hand and there should be adopted a suitable scheme, applicable to all the Protectorates.

"In the first place in one shape or another," says the author, "we introduce a direct but immoderate impost such as a hut-tax or a more general poll-tax, the money for which has to be earned. Next, we endeavor to create new wants: clothes, ornaments, manufactured goods and luxuries of all kinds. All this represents a gradual process of regeneration, as the native is by nature very conservative and, therefore, slow to adopt new tastes or acquire ambitions. But we endeavor to raise his ideals and to inculcate the view we ourselves hold: that man should not be satisfied with mere existence, like beasts in the field, but should adopt civilisation and everything that, in the main, we consider to be essential to civilised life. We ask him, therefore, to produce something—other than for his own immediate wants—whether it be by labour done for an employer, or on his own account."

NOTES

The next annual meeting of the Association will be held in Louisville, Kentucky, on Thursday and Friday, the 23d and 24th of November. The day sessions will be held at the Branch Library on West Chestnut Street and the evening sessions at the Quinn Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church on the same street. The management is endeavoring to make this a national meeting effective in arousing universal interest in the study of Negro life and history.

During the academic year 1922-1923 Mr. A. A. Taylor, formerly Instructor in Economics at the West Virginia Collegiate Institute, will devote a part of his time to research in the field of Negro Reconstruction History as an investigator of the Association. The remaining portion of his time will be devoted to the completion of some graduate studies at Harvard University.

Mr. Taylor is a product of the Washington Public Schools and of the University of Michigan. He is the author of two articles recently published in The Journal of Negro History, namely, "Making West Virginia a Free State" and "Negro Congressmen a Generation After." It is expected that Mr. Taylor may find it possible to devote his future to investigation under the auspices of the Association.

Mr. Hosea B. Campbell, who during his four years at Grinnell College held a Julius Rosenwald scholarship, has been awarded a fellowship of $500 by the Association to prosecute at Harvard graduate studies in Negro American and African History.

An authorized translation into English of René Maran's Batouala has been published and is being sold throughout the United States. It is expected that in this form the work will more thoroughly inform the American public as to the African situation and as to the ability of this man of Negro blood to treat it.

Les Noirs de l'Afrique, an historical essay on the people of Africa, their customs and art, by Mr. Delafosse, appeared in Paris in 1921.

1

Muzzey, History of the United States, p. 304.

2

Ingle, Southern Sidelights, p. 18.

3

Ibid., p. 18.

4

Dodd, Cotton Kingdom, p. 71.

5

Ibid., p. 72.

6

Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. I, p. 361.

7

Ingle, Southern Sidelights, p. 45.

8

Ibid., p. 40.

9

DeBow, Industrial History of the United States, Vol. II, p. 303.

10

Adams, Three Months in the South, p. 82.

11

Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. I, 317.

12

Hart, Slavery and Abolition, p. 100.

13

Dodd, Cotton Kingdom, p. 75.

14

Hart, Slavery and Abolition, p. 100.