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<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head>
<title>The Heroic Slave with Background and Context</title>
<link href="styles.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
</head>
<body>
<div class="chapter">
<div class="header">
<h3>Background and Contexts</h3>
</div>
<div class="section" id="toc_1">
<h4>Frederick Douglass</h4><h4>
</h4><h5 name="sup1">From <em>The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements</em> (1863), by William Wells Brown<sup><a href="#note1">1</a></sup></h5>
</div>
<p>The career of the distinguished individual whose name heads this page is more widely known than that of any other living colored man, except, perhaps, Alexandre Dumas. The narrative of his life, published in 1845, gave a new impetus to the black man’s literature. All other stories of fugitive slaves faded away before the beautifully written, highly descriptive, and thrilling memoir of Frederick Douglass. Other narratives had only brought before the public a few heart-rending scenes connected with the person described. But Mr. Douglass, in his book, brought not only his old master’s farm and its occupants before the reader, but the entire country around him, including Baltimore and its ship yard. The manner in which he obtained his education, and especially his learning to write, has been read and re-read by thousands in both hemispheres. His escape from slavery is too well understood to need a recapitulation here. He took up his residence in New Bedford, where he still continued the assiduous student—mastering the different branches of education which the accursed institution had deprived him of in early life.</p>
<p>His advent as a lecturer was a remarkable one. White men and black men had talked against slavery, but none had ever spoken like Frederick Douglass. Throughout the north the newspapers were filled with the sayings of the “eloquent fugitive.” He often travelled with others, but they were all lost sight of in the eagerness to hear Douglass. His travelling companions would sometimes get angry, and would speak first at the meetings; then they would take the last turn; but it was all the same—the fugitive’s impression was the one left upon the mind. He made more persons angry, and pleased more, than any other man. He was praised, and he was censured. He made them laugh, he made them weep, and he made them swear. His “Slaveholder’s Sermon” was always a trump card. He awakened an interest in the hearts of thousands who before were dead to the slave and his condition. Many kept away from his lectures, fearing lest they should be converted against their will. Young men and women, in those days of pro-slavery hatred, would return to their fathers’ roofs filled with admiration for the “runaway slave,” and would be rebuked by hearing the old ones grumble out, “You’d better stay at home and study your lessons, and not be running after the nigger meetings.”</p>
<p>In 1841, he was induced to accept an agency as a lecturer for the Anti-slavery Society, and at once became one of the most valuable of its advocates. He visited England in 1845. There he was kindly received, and heartily welcomed; and after going through the length and breadth of the land, and addressing public meetings out of number on behalf of his countrymen in chains, with a power of eloquence which captivated his auditors, and brought the cause which he pleaded home to their hearts, he returned home and commenced the publication of the North Star, a weekly newspaper devoted to the advocacy of the cause of freedom.</p>
<p>Mr. Douglass is tall and well made. His vast and fully-developed forehead shows at once that he is a superior man intellectually. He is polished in his language, and gentlemanly in his manners. His voice is full and sonorous. His attitude is dignified, and his gesticulation is full of noble simplicity. He is a man of lofty reason; natural, and without pretension; always master of himself; brilliant in the art of exposing and abstracting. Few persons can handle a subject, with which they are familiar, better than he. There is a kind of eloquence issuing from the depth of the soul as from a spring, rolling along its copious floods, sweeping all before it, overwhelming by its very force, carrying, upsetting, ingulfing its adversaries, and more dazzling and more thundering than the bolt which leaps from crag to crag. This is the eloquence of Frederick Douglass. One of the best mimics of the age, and possessing great dramatic powers, had he taken up the sock and buskin, instead of becoming a lecturer, he would have made as fine a Coriolanus as ever trod the stage.</p>
<p>In his splendidly conceived comparison of Mr. Douglass to S. R. Ward, written for the “Autographs for Freedom,” Professor William J. Wilson says of the former, “In his very look, his gesture, his whole manner, there is so much of genuine, earnest eloquence, that they leave no time for reflection. Now you are reminded of one rushing down some fearful steep, bidding you follow; now on some delightful stream, still beckoning you onward. In either case, no matter what your prepossessions or oppositions, you, for the moment at least, forget the justness or unjustness of his cause, and obey the summons, and loath, if at all, you return to your former post. Not always, however, is he successful in retaining you. Giddy as you may be with the descent you have made, delighted as you are with the pleasure afforded, with the Elysium to which he has wafted you, you return too often dissatisfied with his and your own impetuosity and want of firmness. You feel that you had only a dream, a pastime,—not a reality.</p>
<p>“This great power of momentary captivation consists in his eloquence of manners, his just appreciation of words. In listening to him, your whole soul is fired, every nerve strung, every passion inflated, and every faculty you possess ready to perform at a moment’s bidding. You stop not to ask why or wherefore. ’Tis a unison of mighty yet harmonious sounds that play upon your imagination; and you give yourself up, for a time, to their irresistible charm. At last, the cataract which roared around you is hushed, the tornado is passed, and you find yourself sitting upon a bank, (at whose base roll but tranquil waters,) quietly asking yourself why, amid such a display of power, no greater effect had really been produced. After all, it must be admitted there is a power in Mr. Douglass rarely to be found in any other man.”</p>
<p>As a speaker, Frederick Douglass has had more imitators than almost any other American, save, perhaps, Wendell Phillips. Unlike most great speakers, he is a superior writer also. Some of his articles, in point of ability, will rank with any thing ever written for the American press. He has taken lessons from the best of teachers, amid the homeliest realities of life; hence the perpetual freshness of his delineations, which are never over-colored, never strained, never aiming at difficult or impossible effects, but which always read like living transcripts of experience. The following, from his pen, on “What shall be done with the slaves, if emancipated?” is characteristic of his style.</p>
<div class="quote">
<p id="sup2">“What shall be done with the four million slaves, if they are emancipated? This question has been answered, and can be answered in many ways. Primarily, it is a question less for man than for God— less for human intellect than for the laws of nature to solve. It assumes that nature has erred; that the law of liberty is a mistake; that freedom, though a natural want of the human soul, can only be enjoyed at the expense of human welfare, and that men are better off in slavery than they would or could be in freedom; that slavery is the natural order of human relations, and that liberty is an experiment. What shall be done with them?<sup><a href="#note2">2.</a></sup></p>
<p>Our answer is, Do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is just to let them alone. They suffer by every interference, and succeed best by being let alone. The negro should have been let alone in Africa—let alone when the pirates and robbers offered him for sale in our Christian slave markets (more cruel and inhuman than the Mohammedan slave markets)—let alone by courts, judges, politicians, legislators, and slave-drivers—let alone altogether, and assured that they were thus to be let alone forever, and that they must now make their own way in the world, just the same as any and every other variety of the human family. As colored men, we only ask to be allowed to do with ourselves, subject only to the same great laws for the welfare of human society which apply to other men—Jews, Gentiles, Barbarian, Scythian. Let us stand upon our own legs, work with our own hands, and eat bread in the sweat of our own brows. When you, our white fellow-countrymen, have attempted to do any thing for us, it has generally been to deprive us of some right, power, or privilege, which you yourselves would die before you would submit to have taken from you. When the planters of the West Indies used to attempt to puzzle the pure-minded Wilberforce with the question, ‘How shall we get rid of slavery?’ his simple answer was, ‘Quit stealing.’ In like manner we answer those who are perpetually puzzling their brains with questions as to what shall be done with the negro, ‘Let him alone, and mind your own business.’ If you see him ploughing in the open field, levelling the forest, at work with a spade, a rake, a hoe, a pickaxe, or a bill—let him alone; he has a right to work. If you see him on his way to school, with spelling-book, geography, and arithmetic in his hands—let him alone. Don’t shut the door in his face, nor bolt your gates against him; he has a right to learn—let him alone. Don’t pass laws to degrade him. If he has a ballot in his hand, and is on his way to the ballot-box to deposit his vote for the man who, he thinks, will most justly and wisely administer the government which has the power of life and death over him, as well as others— let him ALONE; his right of choice as much deserves respect and protection as your own. If you see him on his way to church, exercising religious liberty in accordance with this or that religious persuasion—let him alone. Don’t meddle with him, nor trouble yourselves with any questions as to what shall be done with him.</p>
<p>What shall be done with the negro, if emancipated? Deal justly with him. He is a human being, capable of judging between good and evil, right and wrong, liberty and slavery, and is as much a subject of law as any other man; therefore, deal justly with him. He is, like other men, sensible of the motives of reward and punishment. Give him wages for his work, and let hunger pinch him if he don’t work. He knows the difference between fulness and famine, plenty and scarcity. ‘But will he work?’ Why should he not? He is used to it, and is not afraid of it. His hands are already hardened by toil, and he has no dreams of ever getting a living by any other means than by hard work. ‘But would you turn them all loose?’ Certainly! We are no better than our Creator. He has turned them loose, and why should not we?</p>
<p>But would you let them all stay here?— Why not? What better is <span class="it">here</span> than <span class="it">there</span>? Will they occupy more room as freemen than as slaves? Is the presence of a black freeman less agreeable than that of a black slave? Is an object of your injustice and cruelty a more ungrateful sight than one of your justice and benevolence? You have borne the one more than two hundred years—can’t you bear the other long enough to try the experiment?</p>
<div class="footnotes">
<p id="note1"><a href="#sup1">1.</a> William Wells Brown (circa 1814 — 1884) was, like Douglass, a prominent African-American author, orator and civil rights activist. Brown’s narrative of his escape from slavery competed with Douglass’. Brown is often credited with writing the first novel by an African American: <span class="it">Clotel, or, the President’s Daughter</span> was published in London, in 1853, a few short months after Douglass’ <span class="it">The Heroic Slave</span> first appeared in print.
</p>
<p id="note2"><a href="#sup2">2.</a> Brown quotes extensively from “What Shall be Done with the Slaves if Emancipated,” published in Douglass Monthly, January 1862. Brown omits two paragraphs from the original in his quotation.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="chapter">
<div class="section" id="toc_2">
<h4>Madison Washington</h4>
<h5>From <em>The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements</em> (1863), by William Wells Brown</h5>
</div>
<p>Among the great number of fugitive slaves who arrived in Canada towards the close of the year 1840, was one whose tall figure, firm step, and piercing eye attracted at once the attention of all who beheld him. Nature had treated him as a favorite. His expressive countenance painted and reflected every emotion of his soul. There was a fascination in the gaze of his finely-cut eyes that no one could withstand. Born of African parentage, with no mixture in his blood, he was one of the handsomest of his race. His dignified, calm, and unaffected features announced at a glance that he was one endowed with genius, and created to guide his follow-men. He called himself Madison Washington, and said that his birthplace was in the “Old Dominion.” He might have seen twenty-five years; but very few slaves have any correct idea of their age. Madison was not poorly dressed, and had some money at the end of his journey, which showed that he was not from among the worst used slaves of the south. He immediately sought employment at a neighboring farm, where be remained some months. A strong, able-bodied man, and a good worker, and apparently satisfied with his situation, his employer felt that he had a servant who would stay with him long while. The farmer would occasionally raise a conversation, and try to draw from Madison some account of his former life; but in this he failed, for the fugitive was a man of few words, and kept his own secrets. His leisure hours were spent in learning to read and write, and in this he seemed to take the utmost interest. He appeared to take no interest in the sports and amusements that occupied the attention of others. Six months had not passed ere Madison began to show signs of discontent. In vain his employer tried to discover the cause.</p>
<p>“Do I not pay you enough, and treat you in a becoming manner?” asked Mr. Dickson one day when the fugitive seemed in a very desponding mood.</p>
<p>“Yes, sir,” replied Madison.</p>
<p>“Then why do you appear so much dissatisfied, of late?”</p>
<p>“Well, sir,” said the fugitive, “since you have treated me with such kindness, and seem to take so much interest in me, I will tell you the reason why I have changed, and appear to you to be dissatisfied. I was born in slavery, in the State of Virginia. From my earliest recollections I hated slavery and determined to be free. I have never yet called any man master, though I have been held by three different men who claimed me as their property. The birds in the trees and the wild beasts of the forest made me feel that I, like them, ought to be free. My feelings were all thus centred in the one idea of liberty, of which I thought by day and dreamed by night. I had scarcely reached my twentieth year when I became acquainted with the angelic being who has since become my wife. It was my intention to have escaped with her before we were married, but circumstances prevented.</p>
<p>“I took her to my bosom as my wife, and then resolved to make the attempt. But unfortunately my plans were discovered, and to save myself from being caught and sold off to the far south I escaped to the woods, where I remained during many weary months. As I could not bring my wife away, I would not come without her. Another reason for remaining was, that I hoped to got up an insurrection of the slaves, and thereby be the means of their liberation. In this, too, I failed. At last it was agreed between my wife and me that I should escape to Canada, get employment, save my money, and with it purchase her freedom. With the hope of attaining this end I came into your service. I am now satisfied that, with the wages I can command here, it will take me not less than five years to obtain by my labor the amount sufficient to purchase the liberty of my dear Susan. Five years will be too long for me to wait, for she may die or be sold away ere I can raise the money. This, sir, makes me feel low-spirited, and I have come to the rash determination to return to Virginia for my wife.”</p>
<p>The recital of the story had already brought tears to the eyes of the farmer, ere the fugitive had concluded. In vain did Mr. Dickson try to persuade Madison to give up the idea of going back into the very grasp of the tyrant, and risking the loss of his own freedom without securing that of his wife. The heroic man had made up his mind, and nothing could move him. Receiving the amount of wages due him from his employer, Madison turned his face once more towards the south. Supplied with papers purporting to have been made out in Virginia, and certifying to his being a freeman, the fugitive had no difficulty in reaching the neighborhood of his wife. But these “free papers” were only calculated to serve him where he was not known. Madison had also provided himself with files, saws, and other implements with which to cut his way out of any prison into which he might be cast. These instruments were so small as to be easily concealed in the lining of his clothing; and armed with them the fugitive felt sure he should escape again were he ever captured. On his return, Madison met, in the State of Ohio, many of those whom he had seen on his journey to Canada, and all tried to prevail upon him to give up the rash attempt. But to every one he would reply, “Liberty is worth nothing to me while my wife is a slave.” When near his former home, and unable to travel in open day without being detected, Madison betook himself to the woods during the day, and travelled by night. At last he arrived at the old farm at night, and hid away in the nearest forest. Here he remained several days, filled with hope and fear, without being able to obtain any information about his wife. One evening, during this suspense, Madison heard the singing of a company of slaves, the sound of which appeared nearer and nearer, until be became convinced that it was a gang going to a corn-shucking, and the fugitive resolved that he would join it, and see if he could get any intelligence of his wife.</p>
<p>In Virginia, as well as in most of the other corn-raising slave states, there is a custom of having what is termed “a corn-shucking,” to which slaves from the neighboring plantations, with the consent of their masters, are invited. At the conclusion of the shucking a supper is provided by the owner of the corn; together with the bad whiskey which is freely circulated on such occasions, the slaves are made to feel very happy. Four or five companies of men may be heard in different directions and at the same time approaching the place of rendezvous, slaves joining the gangs along the roads as they pass their masters’ farms. Madison came out upon the highway, and as the company came along singing, he fell into the ranks and joined in the song. Through the darkness of the night he was able to keep from being recognized by the remainder of the company,, while he learned from the general conversation the most important news of the day.</p>
<p>Although hungry and thirsty, the fugitive dared not go to the supper table for fear of recognition. However, before he left the company that night, he gained information enough to satisfy him that his wife was still with her old master, and he hoped to see her, if possible, on the following night. The sun had scarcely set the next evening, ere Madison was wending his way out of the forest and going towards the home of his loved one, if the slave can be said to have a home. Susan, the object of his affections, was indeed a woman every way worthy of his love. Madison knew well where to find the room usually occupied by his wife, and to that spot he made his way on arriving at the plantation. But in his zeal and enthusiasm, and his being too confident of success, he committed a blunder which nearly cost him his life. Fearful that if he waited until a late hour Susan would be asleep, and in awakening her she would in her fright alarm the household, Madison ventured to her room too early in the evening, before the whites in the “great house” had retired. Observed by the overseer, a sufficient number of whites were called in, and the fugitive secured ere he could escape with his wife; but the heroic slave did not yield until he with a club had laid three of his assailants upon the ground with his manly blows; and not then until weakened by loss of blood. Madison was at once taken to Richmond, and sold to a slave trader, then making up a gang of slaves for the New Orleans market.</p>
<p>The brig <span class="hi">Creole</span>, owned by Johnson & Eperson, of Richmond, and commanded by Captain Enson, lay at the Richmond dock waiting for her cargo, which usually consisted of tobacco, hemp, flax, and slaves. There were two cabins for the slaves, one for the men, the other for the women. The men were generally kept in chains while on the voyage; but the women were usually unchained, and allowed to roam at pleasure in their own cabin. On the 27th of October, 1841, the <span class="hi">Creole</span> sailed from Hampton Roads, bound for New Orleans, with her full load of freight, one hundred and thirty-five slaves, and three passengers, besides the crew. Forty of the slaves were owned by Thomas McCargo, nine belonged to Henry Hewell, and the remainder were held by Johnson & Eperson. Howell had once been all overseer for McCargo, and on this occasion was acting as his agent.</p>
<p>Among the slaves owned by Johnson & Eperson was Madison Washington. He was heavily ironed, and chained down to the floor of the cabin occupied by the men, which was in the forward hold. As it was known by Madison’s purchasers that he had once escaped and had been in Canada, they kept a watchful eye over him. The two cabins were separated, so that the men and women had no communication whatever during the passage.</p>
<p>Although rather gloomy at times, Madison on this occasion seemed very cheerful, and his owners thought that he had repented of the experience he had undergone as a runaway, and in the future would prove a more easily governed chattel. But from the first hour that he had entered the cabin of the <span class="hi">Creole</span>, Madison had been busily engaged in the selection of men who were to act parts in the great drama. He picked out each one as if by intuition. Every thing was done at night and in the dark, as far as the preparation was concerned. The miniature saws and files were faithfully used when the whites were asleep.</p>
<p>In the other cabin, among the slave women, was one whose beauty at once attracted attention. Though not tall, she yet had a majestic figure. Her well-moulded shoulders, prominent bust, black hair which hung in ringlets, mild blue eyes, finely-chiselled month, with a splendid set of teeth, a turned and well-rounded chin, skin marbled with the animation of life, and veined by blood given to her by her master, she stood as the representative of two races. With only one eighth of African, she was what is called at the south an “octoroon.” It was said that her grandfather had served his country in the revolutionary war, as well as in both houses of Congress. This was Susan, the wife of Madison. Few slaves, even among the best used house servants, had so good an opportunity to gain general information as she. 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 most slaves in her position. Susan was as devoted to Madison, as she was beautiful and accomplished.</p>
<p>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 <span class="hi">Creole</span>, for Madison and Susan were taken to their respective cabins at different times. On the ninth day out, the <span class="hi">Creole</span> 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. Captain Enson and Mr. Merritt, the first mate, were standing together, while Howell 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—</p>
<div class="quote">
<p>“They spake not a word;<br/>
But, like dumb statues, or breathless stones,<br/>
Stared at each other, and looked deadly pale.”</p>
</div>
<p>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 their weapons.</p>
<p>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 these 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 <span class="hi">Creole</span>. 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 truly 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 he 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 slave made him swear that he would faithfully 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 “Captain Washington” (for such was the name he now bore) ordered the cook to provide the best breakfast that the store room 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, Hewell, had been killed. Captain Enson and others, who were wounded, soon recovered; and were kindly treated by Madison; but they nevertheless proved ungrateful; for on the second night, Captain Enson, Mr. Gifford, 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.</p>
<p>The next morning the <span class="hi">Creole</span> landed at Nassau, New Providence, where the noble and heroic slaves were warmly greeted by the inhabitants, who at once offered protection, and extended their hospitality to them. Not many months since, an American ship went ashore at Nassau, and among the first to render assistance to the crew was Madison Washington.</p>
</div>
<div class="chapter" id="toc_3">
<div class="section">
<div class="header">
<h3>The <span class="it">Creole</span> Affair</h3>
<p class="tc">From the <span class="it">New Orleans Advertiser</span></p>
<div class="abstract">
<p>This description of the the revolt on the <span class="sc">Creole</span> was reprinted in the <span class="sc">Richmond Enquirer</span>, Vol. 38, No. 68 (23 Dec. 1841), p. 4. It is representative of how the event was reported in Southern newspapers. </p>
</div>
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<p>We lay before our readers this morning the following deeply interesting document, being the protest entered at New Orleans, by the officers and crew of the <span class="it">Creole</span>. It gives a minute detail of the whole matter of the mutiny and subsequent liberation of the slaves on board that vessel. Well may the <span class="it">New Orleans Advertiser</span> ask, “What American can read it without feeling his throat swell with indignation at the atrocious conduct of Her Britannic Majesty’s Governor of all the Bahamas?—What is then the first duty of our Government? To demand peremptorily of fireat Britain redress for the wrongs thus commit^ against our citizen?, and re paration Tor the groat destruction of American property on board the <span class="it">Creole</span>"</p>
<p>The high-handed conduct of Sir Francis Colburn, will certainly be properly investigated by our Government; and we trust for the honor of our country, injustice to the high character it has for the promptness and decision with which it has enforced respect for the rights of its people and the dignity of the nation, that the responsible power will be held to a strict account in this case.</p>
<p class="center">PROTEST</p>
<p class="abstract">Of the officers and crew of the American Brig <span class="it">Creole</span>, bound from Richmond to New Orleans, whose cargo of slaves mutinied on the 7th of Nov., 1841, off the Hole in the Wall—murdered a passenger, wounded the Captain and others, and put into Nassau, N. P., where the authorities confined nineteen of the mutineers, and forcibly liberated nearly all the slaves.</p>
<p>By this public instrument of protest be it known that, on this second day of December, eighteen hundred and forty-one, before me, WILLIAM YOUNG LEWIS, notary public in and for the city of New Orleans, duly commissioned and sworn:</p>
<p>Personally came and appeared Zephaniah C. Gifford, acting-master of the American brig called the <span class="it">Creole</span>, of Richmond, who declared that she was the vessel sailed from the port of Norfolk, in the State of Virginia, on the thirtieth day of October last past, ladened with manufactured tobacco in boxes, and slaves, then under the command of Captain Robert Ensor, bound for the port of New Orleans in the Stale of Louisiana.</p>
<p>That when about 130 miles to the North North East of the Hole in the Wall, the slaves, or a part thereof on board of said vessel, rose on the officers, crew and passengers; killed one passenger, severely wounded the Captain, this appearer, and part of the crew; compelled said appearer, then first mate, to navigate said vessel to Nassau in the Island of New Providence, where she arrived, and a portion of the ringleaders of said insurrection, were confined in prison, and the remainder of said slaves liberated by the British authorities of said island; and required me, notary, to make record of the same, intending more at leisure to detail particulars:</p>
<p>And this day again appeared the said acting-master, jt together with Lucius Stevens, acting-mate; William Devereux, cook and steward, Henry Speck, John Silvy, Jacques Lacompte, Francis Foxwell, and Blair Curtiss, seamen—all of, and belonging to said vessel, who being severally sworn according to law, to declare the truth, and did depose and say:</p>
<p>That when said vessel started as aforesaid, she was tight and strong, well manned, and provided in every respect and equipped for carrying slaves;</p>
<p>That said vessel left Richmond, on the 25th day of October, 1841, with about 102 slaves on board.</p>
<p>That about 90 of said slaves were shipped onboard on the 20th of said month, of which 41 were shipped by Robert Lumpkin, about 39 by John R. Hewell, 9 by Nathaniel Mathews, and one by W. Robinson; that from that time about one or two per day were put on board by John R. Hewell, until the said 25th day of October, so as to make the number 102.</p>
<p>The Brig then proceeded to Hampton Roads and lay there one day, when about eight were put on board by Mr. W. W. Hall for Mr. Hatcher, 2 by Mr. C. H. Shield, and 23 for Mr. Johnson, making the whole in number 135 slaves.</p>
<p>The men and women slaves wore divided. The men were all placed in the forward hold of the Brig, except old Lewis and a servant of Mr. Thomas McCargo, who staid in the cabin, as assistant servant, and the women in the hold aft, except six female servants who were taken in the cabin. Between them was the cargo of the Brig, consisting of boxes of tobacco.</p>
<p>The slaves were permitted to go on deck, but the men were not allowed at night to go in the hold alt where the women were.</p>
<p>On the 30th October, the brig left the Hampton Roads for New Orleans. The slaves were all under the superintendence of William Henry Merritt, a passenger. John R. Hewell had the particular charge of the slaves of Thomas McCargo, Theophilus McCargo, being considered too young and inexperienced, and the general charge of the other slaves all being under the mister of the vessel. The slaves were all carefully watched.—They were perfectly obedient and quiet, and showed no signs of mutiny and disturbance, until Sunday, the 7th of November, about 9 P. M., in latitude 27 46, N. longitude, 75 20 W.</p>
<p>The Captain supposing that they were nearer Abaco than they were, had ordered the brig to be laid to, which was done. A good breeze was blowing at the time, and the sky was a little hazy, with trade clouds flying.</p>
<p>Mr. Gifford was on watch. He was told by Elijah Morris, one of the slaves of Thomas McCargo, that one of the men had gone aft among the women. Mr. Gifford then called Mr. Merritt, who was in the cabin, and informed him of the fact. Mr. Merritt came up and went to the main hatch, which was the entrance to the after hold, and asked two or three of the slaves which were near, if any of the men were down in that hold, and he was informed that there were. Mr. Merritt then waited until Mr. Gifford procured a match, and then Mr. Merrit went down into the hold with the lamp and lighted it. Mr. Gifford stood over the hatchway. On striking a light, Merritt found Madison Washington, a very large and strong slave of Thomas McCargo, standing at his back. Merritt said to Madison, “Is it possible that you are down here? You are the last man on board the brig, I expected to find here.” — Madison replied, “Yes, sir, it is me,” and instantly jumped to the hatchway, and got on deck, saying, “I am going up, I cannot stay here.” He did this in spite of the resistance of Gifford and Merritt, who both tried to keep him back, and laid hold of him for that purpose.</p>
<p>Madison ran forward, and Elijah Morris fired a pistol, the ball of which grazed the back part of Gifford’s head. Madison then shouted, “We have begun and must go through. Rush, boys, rush aft and we have them!” and calling to the slaves below, he said? —“Come up every damned one of you. If you don’t and lend a hand, I will kill you all and throw you overboard.”</p>
<p>Gifford now ran to the cabin and aroused the Captain and others who were asleep, and the passengers, viz: Theophilus McCargo, Jacob Miller, John R Hewell, the second mate—Lucius Stevens, the steward—William Devereux, a free colored man, and the slave Lewis, belonging to Mr. T. McCargo, acting as assistant steward. The slaves rushed aft and surrounded the cabin. Merritt hearing the report of the pistol, blew out his light, and came from the hold. In doing this, he was caught by one of the negroes, who cried out : “Kill him, God damn him, he is one of them ;” and the other slaves immediately rushed upon him. One of them attempted to strike Merritt with a handspike, but missed him, and knocked down the negro who was holding Merritt. Merritt then escaped to the cabin.</p>
<p>Hewell, at this moment, jumped out of his berth, in his drawers, seized a musket, ran to the companion way of the cabin, and after some struggling, fired. — The negroes instantly wrenched the musket from Hewell’s hands. Hewell then seized a handspike, and defended himself from the slaves who pursued him. — They thought he had another musket, and retreated a little. He advanced, and they fell upon him with clubs, handspikes, and knives. He was knocked down, and stabbed in not less than twenty places, but he rose, got away from them, and staggered back to the cabin, exclaiming, “I am dead” the negroes have killed me !”</p>
<p>It is believed that not more than four or five of the negroes had knives. Ben Blacksmith had the bowie knife he wrested from the Captain,end stabbed Hewell with it. Madison had a jack knife which appeared to have been taken from Hewell. Morris had a sheath knife which he had taken from the forecastle, and which belonged to to Henry Speck.</p>
<p>Gifford, after arousing the persons in the cabin, ran out on deck and up the main-rigging to the maintop. Merritt tried to get through the skylight of the cabin, but could not without being discovered. The negroes crowded around the skylight outside, and the door of the cabin. Merritt then hid himself in one of the berths, and three of the female house servants covered him with blankets and sat on the edge of the berth, crying and praying. Theophilus McCargo dressed himself on the alarm bring given. Hewell, after being wounded, staggered into said McCargo's state room, where he fell and expired in about half an hour. His body was thrown overboard by order of Madison, Ben Blacksmith and Elijah Morris. McCargo got his two pistols out and fired one of them at the negroes, then in the cabin, the other missed fire, and McCargo having no ammunition put his pistols away. Alter the affray, the sheath-knife of Henry Speck was found in Ehiah Morris’s possession, and that of Foxwell was found in the possession of another negro, both covered with blood to the handles.</p>
<p>Jacob Milller, William Devereux and the slave Lewis, on the alarm being given, concealed themselves in one of the state-rooms, Elijah Morris called out to all who were concealed in the cabin to come forward, or they should have instant death. Miller came out first ind said: “Here I am, do what you please.” Devereux and Lewis next came out and begged for their lives. — Madison stood at the door and ordered them to be sent to the hold. Stevens got up on the alarm being given and ran out. Saw Hewell in the affray, and waited in he cabin till Hewell died, and then secreted himself in me of the state-rooms, and when they commenced the search for Merritt, made his escape through the cabin. They fired the musket they had re-loaded, struck at him with knives and handspikes, and chased him into he rigging. He escaped to the fore-yard.</p>
<p>On the alarm being given, the Captain ran to the forecastle, called all hands to get up and fight. Henry Speck, one of the crew, was knocked down with a handspike. I he helmsman was a Frenchman. Elijah Morris, and Pompey Garrison, were going to kill hin, when Madison told them they should not kill him, because he was a Frenchman, and could not speak English—so they spared his life. Blair Curtiss, one of the crew, came aft into the cabin, and concealed himself n the state room with Stevens, and escaped with him to he fore-royal-yard.</p>
<p>The Captain fought with his bowie knife alongside of Hewell. The Captain was engaged in the fight from eight to ten minutes, until the negroes got him down in the starboard scuppers. He then made his escape to the main top, being stabbed in several places, and much bruised with blows from sticks of wood found abound the brig. After the Captain got into the maintop, he fainted from the loss of blood, and Gifford fastened him with the rigging to prevent him from falling, as the vessel was then rolling heavily.</p>
<p>The Captain’s wife, her child and niece, then came out, and begged for their lives, and Ben Blacksmith sent them to the hold. Ben then called out for Merritt, and exclaimed, that all who had secreted him should be killed. The two female servants then left the berth where Merritt was concealed, and were sent down to the hold by Ben. Lin and Lewis, negroes belonging to Thomas McCargo, then ran to Theophilus McCargo, who asked Jim if the others were going to kill him? Jim and Lewis exclaimed that “master HE should not be killed,” and clung around him begging Morris and Ben, who were then close with their knives in their hands not to kill him. They consented and ordered him to be taken down to the hold. Jim mid Lewis went voluntarily with Theophilus McCargo to the hold.</p>
<p>After a great deal of search, Merritt was found, and Ben Blacksmith and Elijah Morris dragged him from his berth. They and several others surrounded him with knives, half-handspikes, muskets and pistols, raised their weapons to kill him, and made room for him to fill.</p>
<p>On his representing that he had been the mate of a vessel, that he was the only person who could navigate for them, and on Mary, a woman servant belonging to McCargo, urging said Madison Washington to interfere. Madison ordered them to stop and allow Merrill to have a conversation with him. This took place in a stale room.</p>
<p>Madison said he wanted to go to Liberia. Merritt represented that they had no water and provisions for that voyage. Ben Blacksmith, D. Ruffin and several of the slaves then said, that they wanted to go to the British islands. They did not want to go any where else but where Mr. Lumpkin’s negroes went last year, alluding to the shipwreck of the schooner Hermosa on Abaco, and the taking of the slaves on board that vessel, by the English wreckers, to Nassau, in the island of New Providence.</p>
<p>Merritt then got his chart and explained to them the route, and read to them the coast pilot, and they agreed that if he would navigate them, they would save his life—otherwise, death would be his portion. Pompey Garrison had been to New Orleans and knew the route. D. Rutfin and George Portlock knew the letters of the compass. They then set Merritt free, and demanded the time of night, which was half past 1 o’clock, A. M., by Merritt’s watch. The vessel was then put in Merritt’s charge.</p>
<p>The nineteen slaves confined at Nassau are the only slaves who took any part in the affray. All the women appeared perfectly ignorant of the plan, and from their conduct could not have known any thing of it. They were crying and praying during the fight. None of the male slaves apparently under 20 years took any part in the affray.</p>
<p>The only negroes belonging to E. Lockett, who were in the fight, so far as can be ascertained, are Ruffin, Ben Blacksmith, Addison Tyler and T. Smallwood. The only negroes belonging to F. McCargo, who were in the fight so far as can be remembered, are Elijah Morris, George Portlock, Willy Glover, Madison Washington, and Pompey Garrison. The only negroes belonging to Sherman Johnson who were” in the fight were America Woodis, George Benton, Adam Carney and Reuben Knight. The only slave belonging to J. & A. Hagan who was in the fight, was Jordan Philips. All the slaves above named are among the nineteen now confined at Nassau. There were no others engaged in this mutiny. There were four who took the most active part in the fight, viz: Ben Blacksmith, Madison Washington, Elijah Morris and D. Ruffin. Some of the negroes refused to join in the affray, when they were threatened by Washington that they would be killed if did not join in it.</p>
<p>At the beginning of the affray, Andrew Jackson, one of the slaves belonging to Thomas McCargo, jumped into the forerigging and called to Francis Powell, one of the crew, to know where he should go to save his life, saying that he was fearful they would kill him—Powell told him to go to the foretop. He said he was afraid he would fall off, and climbed to the top and remained there during the fight.</p>
<p>There were five sailors belonging to said vessel. Two were wounded, H. Speck and B. Curtis. They were kept in the cabin. Two of the others, Francis Foxwell and John Silvey, escaped to the maintop, and the remaining sailor, Francis Lecomte, remained at the wheel during the whole of the affray. The wounds of the sailors were dressed by the negroes, and the sailors were left to do as they pleased. During the affray, two of the negroes were severely wounded by handspikes.</p>
<p>Elijah Morris when asked after the fight, if they in tended to kill the sailors, said:—“No. I expect we shall rise again among ourselves, but the white people shall not be hurt.”</p>
<p>About 5 o’clock, A. M. one of the negroes informed Merritt that Gifford was in the rigging; Madison ordered him to come down. Ben Blacksmith put a musket to his breast, and Madison threatened to kill him, if he would not take them to a British Island. He promised to do so. Elijah Morris and Madison ordered Stevens to come down, and released him on his making the same promise Gifford made. The Captain was then brought down by them, and he and Stevens put into the forehold and the wounds of the captain dressed.</p>
<p>Madison, Ben, Morris, Ruffin, assumed the whole control of the brig, and all on board. About day-break, by order of Merritt and Gifford, they made sail for Abaco. Ruffin was all the time either at the compass or watching Merrit. Ben, Madison and Morris, would watch the compass by turns.</p>
<p>Ruffin, when he saw Merrit mark on the slate the altitude which he was taking, compelled him to run out the words in writing, and make only figures and marks on the slate, for fear that Gifford and Merrit might communicate secretly by that means. Gifford spoke to Merrit about the reckoning, when Morris told them, if they talked any more to each other, one or both would be thrown overboard. Morris, Madison, Ruffin and Ben kept their knives out all the time. A number of the others of the 19 who were in the affray, had knives, but none of the other negroes had knives or took any part with the mutineers. The other negroes all remained at their regular stations, where they had been placed at the beginning of the voyage except that the male slaves were not in the forehold, the captain and his family and the scond mate being confined there. None but the 19 went into the cabin. they ate in the cabin, and the others ate on deck as they had done the whole voyage. The 19 were frequently closely engaged in secret conversation, but the others took no part in it, and appeared not to share in their confidence. The others were quiet and did not associate with the mutineers. The only words that passed between the others and the 19, were when the others asked them for water or grub, or something of th ekind. The others were kept under as much as the whites were. The 19 drank liquor in the cabin and invited the whites to join them, but not the other negroes. Madison gave orders that the cooking for all but the 19 should be as it was before, and appointed the same cook for them.</p>
<p>The nineteen said that all they had done was for their freedom. The others said nothing about it.—They were much afraid of the nineteen. They remained forward of the mainmast. the nineteen took possession of the after part of the brig, and stayed there the whole time or were on watch. Some of the nineteen were hugging the female servants in the cabin, and one of them said he had picked out one of them for his wife, but none of the other of the nineteen meddled at all with the women slaves.</p>
<p>The only knives found after the affray, were two sheath knives belonging to the sailors. The captain’s bowie knife and the jack knife. None of the other negroes had any other knives. Madison sometimes had the bowie knife, and sometimes Ben had it. No other negro was seen with that knife. On Monday afternoon Madison got the pistol from one of the nineteen, and said he did not wish them to have any arms when they reached Nassau. The nineteen paraded the deck armed, while the other negroes behaved precisely as they had done before the mutiny.</p>
<p>About 10 o’clock, P. M. on the 8th day of November, 1841, they made the light of Abaco. Ben had the gun. About 10 o’clock P. M. he fired at Stevens who came on deck as already stated. Merritt and Gifford alternatively kept watch. Ben, Madison, Ruffin and Morris kept watch by turns, the whole time up to their arrival at Nassau, with the knives drawn. So close was the watch, that it was impossible to rescue the brig. Neither passengers, officers, or sailors were allowed to communicate with each other. The sailors performed their usual duties</p>
<p>The pilot who came on board as the brig approached Nassau, and all his men in the pilot boat were negroes. the pilot was acting under the legal authority of the island. He and his men, on coming on board, mingled with the slaves and told them they were freemen, that they should go on shore and never be carried away from there. One of the pilot’s men told one of the female slaves, that he should claim her for his wife.</p>
<p>The regular quarantine officer came alongside, and Gifford went on shore in his boat. He conducted Gifford to the American consul, who accompanied him to the governor of New Providence and all the other Bahama Islands. Gifford then related to the governor all the facts relating to the voyage from Richmond to that port. The American consul, in behalf of said vessel and all interested, requested of the governor that he should send a guard on protect the vessel and cargo, and keep the slaves on board till such time as they could know what they could do. The governor did so, and sent a guard of twenty-four negro soldiers with loaded muskets and bayonets, in British uniform, commanded by a white officer, who took possession of the vessel and all the slaves.</p>
<p>From Tuesday the 10th, till Friday, the 12th day of Nov. they tied Ben Blacksmith, Addison, Ruffin and Morris, put them in the long boat, placed a sentry over them, and fed them there. They mingled with the negroes and told the women they were free, and persuaded them to remain in the Island.</p>
<p>Capt. Fitzgerald, commanding the company told many of the slaves owned by Thomas McCargo, in presence of many other of the slaves, how foolish they were, that they had not, when they rose, killed all the whites on board and run the vessel ashore, and then they would have been free, and there would have been no more trouble about it. This was on Wednesday.</p>
<p> Every day, the officers and soldiers were changed at 9 o’clock, A. M. There are 500 regular soldiers on the island, divided into four equal companies, commanded by four officers called captains. There was a regular sentry stationed every night, and they placed all the men slaves except the four which were tied, and placed a guard over the hatchway. They put them in the hold at sun set to let them out at sun rise.</p>
<p>There were apparently from twelve to thirteen thousand negroes in the town of Nassau and vicinity, and about three or four thousand whites.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, the 10th of November, about 9 o’clock, A. M. three civil magistrates of the island came on board and commenced examining all the white persons. They completed the examination on the Friday following, when the attorney general came on board with three magistrates, and the depositions were signed. The American consul was present the first two days. The magistrates were accompanied bu a clerk. The attorney general on Friday placed the 19 mutineers in the custody of the captain and his guard, and ordered them upon the quarter deck.</p>
<p>There were about fifty boats lying round the brig all filled with men from the shore armed with clubs, and subject to the order of the attorney general, and awaiting a signal from one of the civil magistrates; a sloop was towed from the shore by some of our boats and anchored near the brig—this sloop was also filled with men armed with clubs; all the men in the boats were negroes. The fleet of boats was under the immediate command of the pilot who piloted the brig into the harbor. The pilot partly before the signal was given by one of the magistrates, said, that he wished they would get through the business; that they had their time and he wanted his.</p>
<p>The attorney general here stepped on the quarter deck, and addressing himself to all the persons except the nineteen who were in custody, said, “my friends, you have been detained a short time on board the Creole for the purpose of ascertaining the individuals who were concerned in this mutiny and murder. They have been identified and will be detained, and the rest of you are free and at liberty to go on shore and wherever you please.” Then addressing the prisoners he said: “Men there are nineteen of you who have been identified as having been engaged in the murder of Mr. Howell and in an attempt to kill the captain and others. You will be detained and lodged in prison for a time, in order that we may communicate with the English government and ascertain whether your trial shall take place here or elsewhere.” At this time Mr. Gifford the mate of the vessel, then in command, the captain being on shore, under the care of a physician addressed the attorney general in the presence of the magistrates, protested against the boats being permitted to come alongside the vessel, or that the negroes other than the mutineers should be put on shore. The attorney general replied that Mr. Gifford had better make no objection, but let them go quietly on shore, for if he did, there might be bloodshed. At this moment one of the magistrates ordered Mr. Merritt, Mr. McCargo, and the other passengers to look to their money and effects as he apprehended that the cabin of the Creole would be sacked and robbed.</p>
<p>The attorney general, with one of the magistrates, stepped into his boat and withdrew into the stream, a short distance from the brig when they stopped. A magistrate on the deck of the Creole gave the signal for the boats to approach instantly. With a hurrah and a should, a fleet of boats came alongside of the brig and the magistrates directed the men to remain on board of their own boats, and commanded the slaves to leave the brig and go on board the boats.—They obeyed his orders, and passing from the Creole into the boats, were assisted, many of them, by this magistrate. During this proceeding, the soldiers and officers were on the quarter deck of the Creole, armed with loaded muskets and bayonets fixed and the attorney general with one of the magistrates in his boat, lay at a convenient distance, looking on. After the negroes had embarked in the boats, the attorney general and the magistrate pushed out their boat, and mingled with the fleet, congratulating the slaves on their escape, and shaking hands with them. Three cheers were given and the boats went to the shore where thousands were waiting to receive them.</p>
<p>When this proceeding was over and all the slaves except the 19 landed, a barge was sent from the barracks to the Creole, to take on shire the 19 prisoners and the guard which had been left over them. They were taken on shire to the barracks, and the 19 carried thence to prison. One of them died the day after he had been put in prison in consequence of wounds received in the affray.</p>
<p>During the investigation carried on by the magistrates on board the Creole, and on the evening of the same day on which the slaves and prisoners were landed, the mutineers were arraigned and identified by the witnesses.</p>
<p>Many of the negroes who were emancipated expressed a desire to go to New Prelans on the Creole, but were deterred from it, by means of threats which were made to sink the vessel, if she attempted to carry them away. Three women, one girl and a boy concealed themselves on board the Creole, and were brought to New Orleans. Many of the male and nearly all the female slaves would have remained on board and come to New Orleans, had it not been for the command of the magistrates and interference as before stated.</p>
<p>On Monday following these events, being the 15th day of November, the attorney general wrote a letter to Captain Ensor informing him that the <span class="it">passengers</span>of the Creole, as he called the slaves, had applied to him for assistance in obtaining their baggage which was still on board the brig, and that he should assist them in getting it on shore. To this letter, Gifford, the officer in command of the vessel, replied that there was no baggage on board belonging to the slaves that he was aware of, as he considered them cargo and the property of their owners, and that if they had left any thing on board the brig it was the property also of their masters; and besides he could not land any thing without a permit from the custom house, and an order from the American consul. the attorney general immediately got a permit from the custom house, but no order from the American consul, and put an officer of the customs on board the brig, and demanded the delivery of the baggage of the slaves aforesaid to be landed in the brig’s board. The master of the Creole, not feeling himself at liberty to refuse, permitted the officer with his men to come on board and take such baggage and property as they chose to consider as belonging to the slaves. They went into the hold of the vessel, and other articles, as also one bale of blankets, belonging to Mr. Lockett, which had not been opened. These things were put on board of the boat of the officer of the customs, and carried on shore.</p>
<p>The correspondence which took place between the attorney general and master of the brig is in possession of the American consul at Nassau.</p>
<p>On the next day, Tuesday, Captain Ensor proposed to sell a portion of provisions, in order to pay his expenses while lying at Nassau, having more than enough for the remainder of the voyage to New Orleans. The collector of the customs refused to allow the provisions consisting of several barrels of meat and navy bread to be entered unless the slaves which had been emancipated should likewise be entered <spand class="it">as passengers</spand>. The master of the brig refused to acceed to this condition.</p>
<p>The next day after the landing of the slaves, the officers of the government of New Providence caused to be advertised a vessel for Jamaica to take out passengers to that Island (passage paid). A number of the slaves of the Creole entered their names. It was generally said by persons, white and black, that the object in putting up their vessel was to carry away the slaves of the Creole. The captain was so informed by the American consul and Mr. Stark the agent for the Boston insurance companies.</p>
<p>About two or three hours after the brig reached Nassau, Captain Woodised of the bark Louisa, with the American consul came on board, and it was agreed that Captain Woodside with as many of his crew as could be spared, and the second mate and four sailors of the brig Congress should come on board with arms and with the officers and crew of the Creole, rescue the brig from the British officer then in command and conduct her to Indian Key, where there was a United States vessel of war. The Louisa and the Congress were American vessels, and the arrangement was made under the control of the American consul. The captain was to come on board with part of the crew of the Louisa and the Congress, so soon as the Creole should be ready to leave Nassau. Frequent interviews were had ever day with Captain Woodside, the consul and the officers of the Congress, and the whole plan was arranged. Accordingly, on the morning of the 12th of November, Captain Woodside with his men in a boat rowed to the Creole. Muskets and cutlasses were obtained from the brig Congress. Every effort had been made in concert with the consul, to purchase arms of the dealers at Nassau, but they all refused to sell. the arms were wrapped in the American flag and concealed in the bottom of the boat, as said boat approached the Creole. A negro in a boat, who had watched the loading of the boat, followed her, and gave the alarm to the British officer in command on the Creole. As the boat came up to the Creole, the officer called to them "Keep off, or I will fire into you.” His company of twenty-four men were then all standing on deck and drawn up in line fronting Captain Woodside’s boat and were ready with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets for engagement. Capt. Woodside was forced to withdraw, and the plan was prevented from being executed the said British officer remaining in command of the Creole</p>
<p>The officers and crew of the Louisa and the Congress and the American consul were warmly intrested in the plan, and every thing possible was done for its success.</p>
<p>Indian Key is about four hundred miles from Nassau.</p>
<p>The nineteen negroes had thrown overboard and burnt all their weapons before they arrived at Nassau, and the aid thus offered of American sailors and arms was amply sufficient for the arrangement and supply of the Creole on her voyage. If there had been no interference on the part of the legal authorities of Nassau, the slaves might all have been safely brought to New Orleans. It was that interference which prevented aid from being rendered in Nassau, and caused the loss of the slaves to their owners.</p>
<p>On the same day, on which the slaves were liberated, and before the attorney general and the magistrates came on board, the American consul and the captain had another interview with the Governor. The consul stated that they wanted time to write to Pedian Key on the Florida shore, to get a vessel of war of the United States to come and protect the brig and cargo on her voyage, and a guard was wanted to protect the said brig and cargo in the mean tune. The Governor refused to grant one for that purpose. The Consul then proposed to get the crews of the American vessels then in the port of Nassau, and place them on the brig to carry her to New Orleans, and asked the Governor to station a guard on board, till the American sailors could be collected, but he refused.</p>
<p>A proposition was then finally made to the governor, that the American seamen then in port and in American vessels should go on board the Creole and be furnished with arms by the governor to defend the vessel and her cargo, (except the 19 slaves who were to be left behind) on her way to New Orleans. This also the governor refused.</p>
<p>On the 15th, the consul on behalf of the master of the brig Creole and all interested, proposed to the governor to permit the 19 mutineers to be sent to the United States on board the Creole for trial, and this too was refused. </p>
<p>Two half boxes of tobacco marked [L. Barks] were broken up and destroyed by the negroes, and about 6 or 7 barrels lying on the deck of the brig were thrown overboard to make room for them to walk the deck, the contents of which barrel they do not know.</p>
<p>On the 19th of November, the said brig sailed from Nassau, bound for the port of New Orleans, leaving Captain Ensor at said port, unable to proceed on the voyage in consequence of the severity of his wounds—and nothing material occurred, during the passage aforesaid, until the last day of December, 11 o’clock, P. M. when they made the South West Pass bearing north by west, distant about twelve miles. At 7 o’clock, A. M. took a pilot on board, and crossed the bar of the said Pass, in tow of the steamboat Shark, discharged the pilot, and proceeded up the river for the port of New Orleans, where they arrived on the 2nd day of the said month, when the necessary surveys were called and they commenced discharging cargo.</p>
<p>And thereupon the said appearers, and especially the said acting master, did protest, and with their notary at their request, do most solemnly and publicly protest against the winds and the waves and the dangers of the sea generally, but more especially against the insurrection of the 19 slaves herin particularly named, and the illegal action of the British authorities at Nassau, in regard to the remainder of the slaves on board said vessel, as the cause of all the loss and damage in the premises, and that no fault, negligence or mismanagement, is or ought to be ascribed to the said appearers, or any part of the brig’s company.</p>
<p>Done and protested at New Orleans, this 7th day of December, 1841, the protesters herewith signing their respective names with said notary.</p>
<p class="cite">{signed}<br/>
Zephaniah C. Gifford,<br/>
Henry Speck,<br/>
Blain Curtiss,<br/>
John Silvey<br/>
Francis Foxwell.</p>
<p>Mr. Merritt and Mr. Theoph. Mc Cargo have certified the original of this protest to the truth of the above.</p>
</div></div>
<div class="chapter" id="toc_4">
<div class="section">
<h4>"West India Emancipation"</h4><h4>
</h4><h5>From: Douglass, Frederick. <em>Two Speeches, by Frederick Douglass, one on West India Emancipation, Delivered at Canadaigua, Aug 4th, and the other on the Dredd Scott Decision...</em>. Rochester, N.Y.: C. P. Dewey, 1857. Pp. 8-20.</h5>
<p>. . . Friends and fellow-citizens: We have met here to-day to celebrate with all fitting demonstrations of joy and gladness, this the twenty-third anniversary of the inauguration of freedom as the ruling law of the British West Indies. The day and the deed are both greatly distinguished. They are as a city set upon a hill, All civilized men at least, have looked with wonder and admiration upon the great deed of justice and humanity which has made the first of August illustrious among all the days of the year. But to no people on the globe, leaving out the emancipated men and women of the West Indies themselves, does this day address itself with so much force and significance, as to the people of the United States. It has made the name of England known and loved in every Slave Cabin, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, and has spread alarm, hatred, and dread in all the accursed slave markets of our boasted Republic from Baltimore to New Orleans.</p>
<p>Slavery in America, and slavery everywhere, never received a more stunning and killing condemnation.</p>
<p>The event we celebrate is the finding and the restoration to the broken ranks of human brotherhood, eight hundred thousand lost members of the human family. It is the resurrection of a mighty multitude, from the grave of moral, mental, social, and spiritual death, where ages of slavery and oppression, and lust and pride and cruelty, had bound them. Here they were instantly clothed with all the rights, responsibilities, powers, and duties, of free men and women.</p>
<p>Up to the morning of the first of August, 1834, these people were slaves, numbered with the beasts of the field, marked, branded, priced, valued, and ranged as articles of property. The gates of human brotherhood were bolted and barred against them. They were outside of both law and gospel. The love taught in the Bible, and the justice recorded in the Statute Book, did not embrace them: they were outside. Their fellow men had written their names with horses, sheep, and swine, and with horned cattle. They were not governed by the law, but the lash, they were not paid for their work, but whipped on to toil as the American slave now is. Their degradation was complete. They were slaves; and when I have said that, I have said all. The essence of wickedness, the intensified sum of all iniquity, the realization of the idea of a burning hell upon the earth, in which every passion is an unchained devil, let loose to deal out ten thousand pains, and horrors start up to view at the very mention of slavery!—It comprehends all that is foul, shocking, and dreadful. Human nature shudders, and turns pale at its presence, and flies from it as from a den of lions, a nest of scorpions, or an army of rattlesnakes. The very soul sickens, and the mind revolts at the thought of slavery, and the true man welcomes instant death in preference to being reduced to its degradation and ruin.</p>
<p>Yet such was the condition of our brothers and sisters in the British West Indies, up to the morning of the first of August, 1834. The wicked love of dominion by man over man, had made strong their fetters and multiplied their chains. But on the memorable morning which we are met to celebrate, one bolt from the moral sky of Britain left these bloodstained irons all scattered and broken throughout the West Indies, and the limbs they had bruised, out-stretched in praise and thanksgiving to God for deliverance. No man of any sensibility can read the account of that great transaction without emotions too great for utterance. There was something Godlike in this decree of the British nation. It was the spirit of the Son of God commanding the devil of slavery to go out of the British West Indies.</p>
<p>It said tyrant slave-driver, fling away your blood-stained whip, and bury out of sight your broken fetters and chains. Your accursed occupation is gone. It said to the slave, with wounds, bruises, and scars yet fresh upon him, you are emancipated—set free—enfranchised—no longer slaves, but British subjects, and henceforth equal before the British law!</p>
<p>Such, my friends, was the change—the revolution—the wondrous transformation which took place in the condition of the colored people in the British West Indies, twenty-three years ago. With the history of the causes, which led to this great consummation, you are perhaps already sufficiently acquainted. I do not intend in my present remarks to enter into the tedious details of this history, although it might prove quite instructive to some in this assembly. It might prove especially interesting to point out various steps in the progress of the British Anti- Slavery movement, and to dwell upon some of the more striking analogies between that and our movement in this country. The materials at this point are ample, did the limits of the hour permit me to bring them forward.</p>
<p>One remark in this connection I will make. The abolition movement in America, like many other institutions of this country, was largely derived from England. The defenders of American slavery often excuse their villainy on the ground that they inherited the system from England. Abolitionism may be traced to the same source, yet I don’t see that it is any more popular on that account. Mr. Garrison applied British abolitionism to American slavery. He did that and nothing more. He found its principles here plainly stated and defined; its truths glowingly enunciated, and the whole subject illustrated, and elaborated in a masterly manner. The sin—the crime—the curse of slavery, were all demonstrated in the light of reason, religion, and morality, and by a startling array of facts. We owe Mr. Garrison our grateful homage in that he was among the first of his countrymen who zealously applied the British argument for abolition, against American slavery. Even the doctrine of immediate emancipation as against gradualism, is of English, not American origin. It was expounded and enforced by Elizabeth Herrick, and adopted by all the earnest abolitionists in England. It came upon the British nation like Uncle Tom’s Cabin upon our land after the passing of the fugitive slave law, and it is remarkable that the highest services rendered the anti-slavery cause in both countries, were rendered by women. Elizabeth Herrick, who wrote only a pamphlet, will be remembered as long as the West India Emancipation is remembered, and the name of Harriet Beecher Stowe can never die while the love of freedom lives in the world.</p>
<p>But, my friends, it is not with these analogies and minute references that I mean in my present talk, to deal.</p>
<p>I wish you to look at West India Emancipation as one complete transaction of vast and sublime significance, surpassing all power of exaggeration. We hear and read much of the achievements of this nineteenth century, and much can be said, and truthfully said of them. The world has literally shot forward with the speed of steam and lightning. It has probably made more progress during the last fifty years, than in any five hundred years to which we can refer in the history of the race. Knowledge has been greatly increased, and its blessing widely diffused. Locomotion has been marvelously improved, so that the very ends of the earth are being rapidly brought together. Time to the traveler has been annihilated.</p>
<p>Deep down beneath the stormy surface of the wide, wide waste of waters, a pathway has been formed for human thought. Machinery of almost every conceivable description, and for almost every conceivable purpose, has been invented and applied; ten thousand discoveries and combinations have been made during these last fifty years, till the world has ceased to ask in astonishment “what next?” for there seems scarcely any margin left for a next. We have made hands of iron and brass, and copper and wood, and though we have not been able to endow them with life and soul, yet we have found the means of endowing them with intelligent motion, and of making them do our work, and to do it more easily, quickly and more abundantly than the hands in their palmiest days were able to perform it. I am not here to disparage or underrate this physical and intellectual progress of the race. I thank my God for every advance which is made in this direction.</p>
<p>I fully appreciate the beautiful sentiment which you farmers, now before me, so highly regard, “that he who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before,” is a benefactor. I recognize and honor, as you do, all such benefactors. There is not the slightest danger that those who contribute directly to the world’s wealth and ease will ever be forgotten by the world. The world loves its own. A hungry man will not forget the hand that feeds him, though he may forget that Providence which caused the bread to grow. Arkwright, Watt, Fulton, Franklin, Morse, and Daguerre, are names which will not fade from the memories of men. They are grand civilizers, but civilizers after their kind—and great as are their achievements, they sink to nothingness when compared with that great achievement which has given us the first day of August as a sacred day. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” We are to view this grand event in the light of this sublime enquiry.</p>
<p>“Men do not live by bread alone,” said the great Redeemer. What is true of individual men, is also true of societies, and nations of men. Nations are not held in their spheres, and perpetuated in health by cunning machinery. Railroads, steamships, electric wires, tons of gold and silver, and precious stones cannot save them. A nation may perish in the midst of them all, or in the absence of them all. The true life principle is not in them.</p>
<p>Egypt died in the sight of all her imposing wealth and her everlasting Pyramids. The polished stone is there, but Egypt is gone. Greece has vanished, her life disappeared as it were, in a trance of artistic beauty and architectural splendor. Great Babylon, the mother of harlots and the abominations of the earth, fell in the midst of barbaric wealth and glory. The lesson taught by the history of nations is that the preservation or destruction of communities does not depend upon external prosperity. Men do not live by bread alone, so with nations. They are not saved by art, but by honesty. Not by the gilded splendors of wealth, but by the hidden treasure of manly virtue. Not by the multitudinous gratification of the flesh, but by the celestial guidance of the spirit.</p>
<p>It is in this view that West India Emancipation becomes the most interesting and sublime event of the nineteenth century. It was the triumph of a great moral principle, a decisive victory, after a severe and protracted struggle, of freedom over slavery; of justice and mercy against a grim and bloody system of devilish brutality. It was an acknowledgment by a great nation of the sacredness of humanity, as against the claims of power and cupidity.</p>
<p>As such, it stands out as a large and glorious contribution to the moral and spiritual growth of mankind, and just such a contribution as the world needed, and needs now to have repeated a thousand times over, in our own land especially. Look at New York city; beautiful without to be sure. She has great churches, great hotels, great wealth, great commerce, but you all know that she is the victim of a dreadful disease, and that her best friends regard her as a cage of unclear birds in danger at any moment of being swallowed up by a social earthquake. Look at Philadelphia, Baltimore, Louisville, New Orleans. Look where you will, and you will see that while all without is covered and studded with the evidences of prosperity, there is yet no real sense of that stability which conscious rectitude imparts. All the great acts of the nation of late have looked away from the right path. Our very Temple of Justice has inverted and outraged all the principles of justice which it was professedly established to maintain. The government at Washing is mostly exercised in schemes by which it can cheat one section of the country for the benefit of another, and yet, seem honest to all. Where will this will wend, Heaven only knows.</p>
<p>But I was calling attention to this great example of British justice not in anger, but in sorrow. Great Britain bowing down, confessing and forsaking her sins—her sins against the weak and despised—is a spectacle which nations present but seldom. And the world owes Britain more for this example of humility and honest repentance than for all her other contributions to the world’s progress.</p>
<p>I know, and you know, it is easy enough for a nation to assume the outward and hollow seemings of humility and repentance. The world is full of such tongue-wise demonstrations. Our own country can show a long list of them. We have thanksgivings and fasts, and are unrivalled in the department of religious observances. On our fast days and fourth of Julys, we seem unto men to fast, but the sequel shows that our confessions and prayers have only come from men whose hearts are crammed with arrogancy, pride and hate.</p>
<p>We have bowed down our heads as a bulrush, and have spread sack-cloth and ashes under us, and like the stiff-necked Jews, whose bad practices we imitate more closely than we do their religion, we have exacted all our labors.</p>
<p>I am not here to make invidious and insulting comparisons; but all must allow, that the example of England, in respect to the great act before us, differs widely from our manifestations of sorrow for great national sin. Here we have, indeed, a chosen fast of the Living God, and acceptable day unto the Lord, a day in which the bands of wickedness were loosed; the heavy burdens undone; the oppressed let go free; every yoke broken; the poor that were cast out of the house brought in; and men no longer hiding themselves from their own flesh.</p>
<p>It has been said that corporations have no souls, that with nations might is the standard of right, and that self interest governs the world.</p>
<p>The abolition of slavery in the West Indies is a shining evidence of the reverse of all this profanity. Nobler ideas and principles of action are here brought to view. The vital, animating, and all-controlling power of the British Abolition movement was religion. It’s philosophy was not educated and enlightened selfishness, (such as some are relying upon now to do away with slavery in this country,) but the pure, single eyed spirit of benevolence. It was not impelled or guided by the fine-spun reasonings of political expediency, but by the unmistakable and imperative demands of principle. It was not commerce but conscience; not considerations of climate and productions of the earth, but the heavenly teachings of Christianity, which every where teaches that God is our Father, and man, however degraded, is our brother.</p>
<p>The men who were most distinguished in carrying forward the movement, from the great Wilberforce downward, were eminent for genuine piety. They worked for the slave as if they had been working for the Son of God. They believed that righteousness exalteth a nation and that sin is a reproach to any people. Hence they united religion with patriotism, and pressed home the claims of both upon the national heart with the tremendous energy of truth and love, till all England cried out with one accord, through Exeter Hall, through the press, through the pulpit, through parliament, and through the very throne itself, <span class="it">slavery must and shall be destroyed</span>.</p>
<p>Herein is the true significance of West India Emancipation. It stands out before all the world as a might, moral and spiritual triumph. It is a product of the soul, not of the body. It is a contribution to common honesty without which nations as well as individuals sink to ruin. It is one of those words of life that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, bu which nations are established, and kept alive and in moral health.</p>
<p>Now, my friends, how as this great act of freedom and benevolence been received in the United States. How has our American Christian Church and our American Democratic Government received this glorious new birth of National Righteousness.</p>
<p>From our professions as a nation, it might have been expected that a shout of joy and gladness would have shook the hollow sky, that loud hallelujahs would have rolled up to heaven from all our borders, saying, “Glory to God, in the highest, on earth peace and good will toward man. Let the earth be glad.” “The Lord God omnipotent reigneth.”</p>
<p>Alas, no such responsive note of rejoicing has reached my ear, except from a part of the colored people and their few white friends. As a nation, we are deaf, dumb, and blind to the moral beauty and transcendent sublimity of West India Emancipation. We have passed it by with averted eyes, regarding it rather as a reflection to be resented than as an example to be imitated. First, we looked for means of impeaching England’s motives for abolishing Slavery, and not being able to find any such, we have made ourselves hoarse in denouncing emancipation as a failure.</p>
<p>We have not viewed the great fact in the light of a liberal philosophy, but have applied to it rules of judgment which were not intended to reveal its true character and make known its actual worth. We have taken a microscope to view the stars, and a fish line to measure the ocean’s depths.</p>
<p>We have approached it as though it were a railroad, a canal, a steamship, or a newly invented mowing machine, and out of the fullness of our dollar-loving hearts, we have asked with owl-like wisdom, Will it pay? Will it increase the growth of sugar? Will it cheapen tobacco? Will it increase the imports and exports of the Islands? Will it enrich or ruin the planters? How will it effect Jamaica spirits? Can the West Indies be successfully cultivated by free labor? These and sundry other questions, springing out of the gross materialism of our age and nation, have been characteristically put respecting West India Emancipation. All our tests of the grand measure have been such as we might look for from slave- holders themselves. They all proceed from the slave-holders’ side, and never from the side, of the emancipated slaves.</p>
<p>The effect of freedom upon the emancipated people of the West Indies passes for nothing. It is nothing that the plundered slave is now a freeman; it is nothing with our sagacious, economical philosophers, that the family now takes the place of concubinage; it is nothing that marriage is now respected where before it was a mockery; it is nothing that moral purity has now a chance to spring up, where before pollution was only possible; it is nothing that education is now spreading among the emancipated men and women, bearing its precious fruits, where only ignorance, darkness, superstition and idolatry prevailed before; it is nothing that the whipping post has given way to the schoolhouse; it is nothing that the church stands now where the slave prison stood before; all these are nothing, I say, in the eyes of our slavery-cursed country.</p>
<p>But the first and last question, and the only question which we Americans have to press in the premises, is the great American question (viz.) will it pay?</p>
<p>Sir, if such a people as ours had heard the beloved disciple of the Lord, exclaiming in the rapture of the apocalyptic vision, “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people;” they, instead of answering, Amen Glory to God in the Highest, would have responded,—But brother John, will it pay? Can money be made out of it? Will it make the rich richer, and the strong stronger? How will it affect property? In the eyes of such people, there is no God but wealth; no right and wrong but profit and loss.</p>
<p>Sir, our national morality and religion have reached a depth of baseness than which there is no lower deep. They both allow that if men can make money by stealing men and women, and by working them up into sugar, rice, and tobacco, they may innocently continue the practice, and that he who condemns it is an unworthy citizen, and a disturber of the church. Money is the measure of morality, and the success or failure of slavery, as a money-making system, determines with many whether the thing is virtuous, or villainous, and whether it should be maintained or abolished. They are for Slavery where climate and soil are said to be for it, and are really not opposed to it anywhere, though as a nation we have made a show of opposition to it where the system does not exist. With our geographical ethics, and climatic religion, we have naturally sided with the slave-holders and women-whippers of the West Indies, in denouncing the abolition of slavery in the West Indies a failure.</p>
<p>Sir: As to what has been the effect of West India freedom upon the material condition of the people of those Islands, I am happy that there is one on this platform, who can speak with the authority of positive knowledge. Henry Highland Garnet has lived and labored among those emancipated people. He has enjoyed ample opportunity for forming an intelligent judgment in respect to all that pertains to the subject. I therefore most willingly leave this branch of the subject to him.</p>
<p>One remark, however, I will venture to make—and that is this: I take it that both the friends and the enemies of the emancipated have been too impatient for results. They seem to forget that although a nation can be born in a day, it can mature only in centuries—that though the fetters on the limbs can be broken in an instant, the fetters on the soul can wear off only in the ages.</p>
<p>Degradation, mental, moral, and physical, ground into the very bones of a people by ages of unremitting bondage, will not depart from that people in the course even of many generations.</p>
<p>West India freedom, though more than twenty-one years old, is yet but an infant. And to predicate its future on its present weakness, awkwardness, and improvidence now, is about as wise as to apply the same rule to your little toothless children. It has taken at least a thousand years to bring some of the leading nations of the earth from the point where the Negroes of the West Indies started twenty-three years ago, to their present position. Let considerations like these be duly weighed, and black man though I am, I do not fear the world’s judgment.</p>
<p>Now, sir, I like these annual celebrations. I like them because they call us to the contemplation of great interests, and afford an opportunity of presenting salutary truths before the American people. They bring our people together, and enable us to see and commune with each other to mutual profit. If these occasions are conducted wisely, decorously, and orderly, they increase our respectability in the eyes of the world, and silence the slanders of prejudice. If they are otherwise conducted they cover us with shame and confusion. But, sir, these celebrations have been objected to by our slaveholding democracy; they do not think it in good taste. Slaveholders are models of taste. With them, propriety is everything; honesty, nothing. For a long time they have taught our Congress, and Senate, and Pulpits, what subjects should be discussed, and what objects should command our attention. Senator Sumner fails to observe the proscribed rules and he falls upon the Senate floor, stunned and bleeding beneath the ruffian blows of one of our southern models of propriety. By such as these, and by their timid followers, this is called a British celebration.</p>
<p>From the inmost core of my soul I pity the mean spirits, who can see in these celebrations nothing but British feeling. The man who limits his admiration of good actions to the country in which he happens to be born, (if he ever was born,) or to the nation or community of which he forms a small part, is a most pitiable object. With him to be one of a nation is more than to be one of the human family. He don’t live in the world, but he lives in the United States. Into his little soul the thought of God as our common Father, and of man our common Brother has never entered. To such a soul as that, this celebration cannot but be exceedingly distasteful.</p>
<p>But sarcasm aside, I hold it to be eminently fit that we keep up those celebrations from year to year, at least until we shall have an American celebration to take its place. That the event we thus commemorate transpired in another country, and was wrought out by the labors and sacrifices of the people of another nation, forms no valid objection to its grateful, warm, hearty, and enthusiastic celebration by us. In a very high sense, we may claim that great deed as our own. It belongs not exclusively to England and the English people, but to the lovers of Liberty and of mankind the world over. It is one of those glorious emanations of Christianity, which, like the sun in the Heavens, takes no cognizance of national lines or geographical boundaries, but pours its golden floods of living light upon all. In the great Drama of Emancipation, England was the theatre, but universal and everywhere applying principles of Righteousness, Liberty, and Justice were the actors. The great Ruler of the Universe, the God and Father of all men, to whom be honor, glory, and praise for evermore, roused the British conscience by his truth, moved the British heart, and West India Emancipation was the result. But if only Englishmen may properly celebrate this great concession to justice and liberty, then, sir, we may claim to be Englishmen, Englishmen in the love of Justice and Liberty, Englishmen in magnanimous efforts to protect the weak against the strong, and the slave against the slaveholder. Surely in this sense, it ought to be no disgrace to be an Englishman, even on the soil of the freest people on the globe.</p>
<p>But, Mr. Chairman, we celebrate this day on the broad platform of Philanthropy—whose country is the world, and whose countrymen are all mankind. On this platform we are neither Jews nor Greeks, strangers nor foreigners, but fellow citizens of the household of faith. We are the brothers and friends of Clarkson, Wilberforce, Granville, Sharpe, Richard Baxter, John Wesley, Thomas Day, Bishop Portius, and George Fox, and the glorious company of those who first wrought to turn the moral sense of mankind in active opposition to slavery. They labored for freedom not as Englishmen, but as men, and as brothers to men—the world over—and it is meet and right to commemorate and imitate their noble example. So much for the Anti-British objection.</p>
<p>I will now notice a special objection. It is said that we, the colored people, should do something ourselves worthy of celebration, and not be everlastingly celebrating the deeds of a race by which we are despised.</p>
<p>This objection, strange as it may seem, comes from no enemy of our people, but from a friend. He is himself a colored man, a high spirited and patriotic man, eminent for learning and ability, and to my mind, he has few equals, and no superior among us. I thank Dr. J. M’Cune Smith for this objection, since in the answer I may make to it, I shall be able to give a few of my thoughts on the relation subsisting between the white and colored people of this country, a subject which it well becomes us to consider whenever and wherever we congregate.</p><p>
</p><p>In so far as this objection to our celebrating the first of August has a tendency to awaken in us a higher ambition than has hitherto distinguished us, and to raise our aims and activities above the dull level of our present physical wants, and so far as it shall tend to stimulate us to the execution of great deeds of heroism worthy to be held in admiration and perpetual remembrance, for one, sir, I say amen to the whole of it. I am free to say, that nothing is more humiliating than the insignificant part we, the colored people, are taking in the great contest now going on with the powers of oppression in this land. I can stand the insults, assaults, misrepresentations, and slanders of the known haters of my race, and brave them all. Hook for such opposition. It is a natural incident of the war, and I trust I am to a certain degree prepared for it; but the stolid contentment, the listless indifference, the moral death which reigns over many of our people, we who should be all on fire, beats down my little flame of enthusiasm and leaves me to labor, half robbed of my natural force. This indifference, in us, is outrageous. It is giving aid and comfort to the men who are warring against our very manhood. The highest satisfaction of our oppressors, is to see the Negro degraded, divested of public spirit, insensible to patriotism, and to all concern for the freedom, elevation, and respectability of the race.</p>
<p>Senator Toombs with a show of truth, lyingly said in Boston a year or two ago in defence of the slavery of the black race, they are mentally and morally inferior, and that if the whole colored population were swept from this country, there would be nothing in twenty years to tell that such a people had ever existed. He exulted over our assumed ignorance and over our destitution of valuable achievements. Of course the slaveholder uttered a falsehood, but to many it seemed to be a truth, and vast numbers of the American people receive it as a truth to-day, and shape their action accordingly.</p>
<p>The general sentiment of mankind is that a man who will not fight for himself, when he has the means of doing so, is not worth being fought for by others, and this sentiment is just. For a man who does not value freedom for himself will never value it for others, or put himself to any inconvenience to gain it for others. Such a man, the world says, may lie down until he has sense enough to stand up. It is useless and cruel to put a man on his legs, if the next moment his head is to be brought against a curb-stone.</p>
<p>A man of that type will never lay the world under any obligation to him, but will be a moral pauper, a drag on the wheels of society, and if he too be identified with a peculiar variety of the race he will entail disgrace upon his race as well as upon himself. The world in which we live is very accommodating to all sorts of people. It will cooperate with them in any measure which they propose; it will help those who earnestly help themselves, and will hinder those who hinder themselves. It is very polite, and never offers its services unasked. Its favors to individuals are measured by an unerring principle in this—viz., respect those who respect themselves, and despise those who despise themselves. It is not within the power of unaided human nature to persevere in pitying a people who are insensible to their own wrongs and indifferent to the attainment of their own rights. The poet was as true to common sense as to poetry when he said,
</p><div class="quote">
<p>“Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.”</p>
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<p>When O’Connell, with all Ireland at his back, was supposed to be contending for the just rights and liberties of Ireland, the sympathies of mankind were with him, and even his enemies were compelled to respect his patriotism. Kossuth, fighting for Hungary with his pen long after she had fallen by the sword, commanded the sympathy and support of the liberal world till his own hopes died out. The Turks, while they fought bravely for themselves and scourged and drove back the invading legions of Russia, shared the admiration of mankind. They were standing up for their own rights against an arrogant and powerful enemy; but as soon as they let out their fighting to the Allies, admiration gave way to contempt. These are not the maxims and teachings of a cold-hearted world. Christianity itself teaches that man shall provide for his own house. This covers the whole ground of nations as well as individuals. Nations no more than individuals can innocently be improvident. They should provide for all wants—mental, moral and religious—and against all evils to which they are liable as nations. In the great struggle now progressing for the freedom and elevation of our people, we should be found at work with all our might, resolved that no man or set of men shall be more abundant in labors, according to the measure of our ability, than ourselves.</p>
<p>I know, my friends, that in some quarters the efforts of colored people meet with very little encouragement. We may fight, but we must fight like the Sepoys of India, under white officers. This class of Abolitionists don’t like colored celebrations, they don’t like colored conventions, they don’t like colored antislavery fairs for the support of colored newspapers. They don’t like any demonstrations whatever in which colored men take a leading part. They talk of the proud Anglo-Saxon blood as flippantly as those who profess to believe in the natural inferiority of races. Your humble speaker has been branded as an ingrate, because he has ventured to stand up on his own and to plead our common cause as a colored man, rather than as a Garrisonian. I hold it to be no part of gratitude to allow our white friends to do all the work, while we merely hold their coats. Opposition of the sort now referred to is partisan position, and we need not mind it. The white people at large will not largely be influenced by it. They will see and appreciate all honest efforts on our part to improve our condition as a people.</p>
<p>Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.</p>
<p>This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.</p>
<p>Hence, my friends, every mother who, like Margaret Garner, plunges a knife into the bosom of her infant to save it from the hell of our Christian slavery, should be held and honored as a benefactress. Every fugitive from slavery who, like the noble William Thomas at Wilkes Barre, prefers to perish in a river made red by his own blood to submission to the hell hounds who were hunting and shooting him should be esteemed as a glorious martyr, worthy to be held in grateful memory by our people. The fugitive Horace, at Mechanicsburgh, Ohio, the other day, who taught the slave catchers from Kentucky that it was safer to arrest white men than to arrest him, did a most excellent service to our cause. Parker and his noble band of fifteen at Christiana, who defended themselves from the kidnappers with prayers and pistols, are entitled to the honor of making the first successful resistance to the Fugitive Slave Bill. But for that resistance, and the rescue of Jerry and Shadrack, the man hunters would have hunted our hills and valleys here with the same freedom with which they now hunt their own dismal swamps.</p>
<p>There was an important lesson in the conduct of that noble Krooman in New York the other day, who, supposing that the American Christians were about to enslave him, betook himself to the masthead and with knife in hand said he would cut his throat before he would be made a slave. Joseph Cinque, on the deck of the Amistad, did that which should make his name dear to us. He bore nature’s burning protest against slavery. Madison Washington who struck down his oppressor on the deck of the Creole, is more worthy to be remembered than the colored man who shot Pitcairn at Bunker Hill.</p>
<p>My friends, you will observe that I have taken a wide range, and you think it is about time that I should answer the special objection to this celebration. I think so too. This, then, is the truth concerning the inauguration of freedom in the British West Indies. Abolition was the act of the British government. The motive which led the government to act no doubt was mainly a philanthropic one, entitled to our highest admiration and gratitude. The national religion, the justice and humanity cried out in thunderous indignation against the foul abomination, and the government yielded to the storm. Nevertheless a share of the credit of the result falls justly to the slaves themselves. “Though slaves, they were rebellious slaves.” They bore themselves well. They did not hug their chains, but according to their opportunities, swelled the general protest against oppression. What Wilberforce was endeavoring to win from the British senate by his magic eloquence the slaves themselves were endeavoring to gain by outbreaks and violence. The combined action of one and the other wrought out the final result. While one showed that slavery was wrong, the other showed that it was dangerous as well as wrong. Mr. Wilberforce, peace man though he was, and a model of piety, availed himself of this element to strengthen his case before the British Parliament, and warned the British government of the danger of continuing slavery in the West Indies. There is no doubt that the fear of the consequences, acting with a sense of the moral evil of slavery, led to its abolition. The spirit of freedom was abroad in the Islands. Insurrection for freedom kept the planters in a constant state of alarm and trepidation. A standing army was necessary to keep the slaves in their chains. This state of facts could not be without weight in deciding the question of freedom in these countries.</p>
<p>I am aware that the rebellious disposition of the slaves was said to arise out of the discussion which the Abolitionists were carrying on at home, and it is not necessary to refute this alleged explanation. All that I contend for is this: that the slaves of the West Indies did fight for their freedom, and that the fact of their discontent was known in England, and that it assisted in bringing about that state of public opinion which finally resulted in their emancipation. And if this be true, the objection is answered.</p>
<p>Again, I am aware that the insurrectionary movements of the slaves were held by many to be prejudicial to their cause. This is said now of such movements at the South. The answer is that abolition followed close on the heels of insurrection in the West Indies, and Virginia was never nearer emancipation than when General Turner kindled the fires of insurrection at Southampton.</p>
<p>Sir, I have now more than filled up the measure of my time. I thank you for the patient attention given to what I have had to say. I have aimed, as I said at the beginning, to express a few thoughts having some relation to the great interest of freedom both in this country and in the British West Indies, and I have said all that I mean to say, and the time will not permit me to say more.</p>
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