University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XV
THE NEGRO'S PLACE IN AMERICAN LIFE

ONE of the most striking and interesting things
about the American Negro, and one which
has impressed itself upon my mind more
and more in the course of the preparation of this book,
is the extent to which the black man has intertwined
his life with that of the people of the white race
about him. While it is true that hardly any other
race of people, that has come to this country,
has remained, in certain respects, so separate and
distinct a part of the population as the Negro, it is
also true that no race, which has come to this country,
has so woven its life into the life of the people
about it. No race has shared to a greater extent in
the work and activities of the original settlers of the
country, or has been more closely related to them
in interest, in sympathy and in sentiment, than the
Negro race.

In fact, there is scarcely any enterprise, of any
moment, that has been undertaken by a member of
the white race, in which the Negro has not had
some part. In all the great pioneer work of clearing
forests, and preparing the way for civilisation,

the Negro, as I have tried to point out, has had his
part. In all the difficult and dangerous work of
exploration of the country the Negro has invariably
been the faithful companion and helper of the
white man.

Negroes seem to have accompanied nearly all the
early Spanish explorers. Indeed, it has even been
conjectured that Negroes came to America before
Columbus, carried hither by trade winds and ocean
currents, coming from the west coast of Africa.
At any rate, one of the early historians, Peter
Martyr, who was an acquaintance of Columbus,
mentions "a region in the Darian District of South
America where Balboa, the illustrious discoverer
of the Pacific Ocean, found a race of black men who
were conjectured to have come from Africa and to
have been shipwrecked on this coast."

It is said that the first ship built along the Atlantic
Coast was constructed by the slaves of Vasquez de
Ayllon, who, one hundred years before the English
landed there, attempted to found a Spanish settlement
on the site of what was later Jamestown,
Virginia. There were thirty Negroes with the
Spanish discoverer, Balboa, and they assisted him
in building the first ship that was constructed on
the Pacific Coast of America. Cortez, the Conquerer
of Mexico, had three hundred Negro slaves with him
in 1522, the year in which he was chosen Captain-general
of New Spain, as Mexico was then called,

and it is asserted that the town of Santiago del
Principe was founded by Negro slaves who had
risen in insurrection against their Spanish masters.

In the chronicles of the ill-starred Coronado expedition
of 1540, which made its way from Mexico
as far north as Kansas and Nebraska, it is mentioned
that a Negro slave of Hernando de Alarcon was the
only member of the party who would undertake to
carry a message from the Rio Grande across the
country to the Zunis in New Mexico, where Alarcon
hoped to find Coronado and open communication
with him.

I have already referred to the story of Estevan,
"little Steve," a companion of Pamfilo Narvaez, in
his exploration of Florida in 1527, who afterward
went in search of the seven fabulous cities which
were supposed to be located somewhere in the
present state of Arizona, and discovered the Zuni
Indians.[1]

Negroes accompanied De Soto on his march
through Alabama, in 1540. One of these Negroes
seems to have liked the country, for he remained and
settled among the Indians not far from Tuskegee,
and became in this way the first settler of Alabama.
Coming down to a later date, a Negro servant
accompanied William Clark, of the Lewis and Clark
Expedition, which, in 1804, explored the sources of the
Missouri River, and gained for the United States

the Oregon country. Negroes were among the first
adventurers who went to look for gold in California;
and when John C. Fremont, in 1848, made his desperate
and disastrous attempt to find a pathway
across the Rockies, he was accompanied by a Negro
servant named Saunders.

Recently in looking over the pages of the National
Geographical Magazine, I ran across an article
giving an account of Peary's trip farthest north.
Among the pictures illustrating that article I noticed
the laughing face of a black man. The picture was
the more striking because the figure of this black
man was totally encased in the snow-white fur of
a polar bear. I learned that this was the picture of
Matt Henson, the companion of Peary in his most
famous expedition to reach the pole. Just now, as
I am writing this, I learn from the newspapers that
Peary claims he has reached the North Pole and that
Matt Henson was his companion on this last and
most famous journey.

One reason why the Negro is found so closely associated
with the white man in all his labours and
adventures is that, with all his faults, the Negro
seldom betrays a specific trust. Even the individual
who does not always clearly distinguish between
his own property and that of his neighbour,
when a definite thing of value is entrusted to him,
in nine cases out of ten, will not betray that trust.
This is a trait that characterises the Negro wherever

he is found. I have heard Sir Harry EL Johnston,
the African explorer, use almost exactly the same
words, for example, in describing the characteristics
of the native African.

Some years ago I was travelling through Central
Alabama, and I chanced to stop at a crossroads
country store. While I was talking with the storekeeper
a coloured man, who lived some distance away,
chanced to pass by. It happened that the merchant
had a considerable sum of money which he wanted to
send to some of his friends some miles distant. He
called the coloured man into the store and put the
money into his hands with the request that he deliver
it to his friend as he passed by the house on his road
home. My attention was attracted by this transaction,
and I asked the white merchant how it was
that he was willing to entrust so large a sum of money
to this particular coloured man. My question
brought out the fact that the merchant did not even
know the name of the man to whom he had entrusted
this money. He was familiar with his face, knew that
he had lived in the neighbourhood for a number
of years, and felt quite secure in putting the money
in his hands to carry to its destination.

In explanation the merchant told me that, in all
his experience in dealing with coloured people in
that neighbourhood, he had never been deceived when
he asked one of them to perform some specific act
which involved direct, personal responsibility. He

went on to say that while the man to whom he had
given this money, if the opportunity offered itself,
might yield to the temptation of pilfering, he still
felt perfectly sure that the money he had entrusted
to him would be delivered in exactly the shape in
which it had been turned over.

It is a common thing in the South for the heads
of the household to leave home and be away for
weeks and even months, without a single thing of
value in the house being left under lock and key.
In such cases Southern white people are willing to
entrust, apparently, all their property to the care
of Negro servants. In spite of this fact, I have
rarely heard of a case of this kind in which the
Negro servants have proved dishonest. I very
seldom go into any Southern city that some banker,
or retail or wholesale merchant does not introduce
me to some individual Negro, to whom he has
entrusted all that is valuable in connection with his
banking or mercantile business.

I have already referred to the part that the Negro
took in the wars which were fought to establish,
defend and maintain the United States. One of
the soldiers of the Revolutionary War who afterward
distinguished himself in a remarkable way
was Reverend Lemuel Haynes, and as I have not
mentioned him elsewhere, I will do so here. Lemuel
Haynes was born in West Hartford, Connecticut,
in 1753. In 1775 he joined the Colonial Army

as a Minute-man, at Roxbury, Massachusetts,
having volunteered for the Ticonderoga Expedition.
At the close of the War he settled in Granville, New
York, where he worked on a farm, meanwhile
studying for the ministry. By some means or other
he succeeded in securing an exceptionally good
education. In 1785 he succeeded in securing a
position as a minister to a white congregation in
Torrington, Connecticut. As there was objection
from some members of the congregation on account
of his colour, he removed to Rutland, Vermont,
where he served as a minister from 1787 to 1817.
In 1818 he went to Manchester, New Hampshire.
It was while there that he made himself famous
by opposing the execution of the Boone brothers,
who had been condemned to death for murdering an
insane man. He visited the brothers in the prison,
and having listened to their story became convinced
of their innocence, whereupon he took up their
defence in the face of violent opposition. In spite
of his efforts they were convicted, but a few days
before their execution the man they were supposed
to have killed, Louis Calvin, returned alive to his
home. At that time people generally believed it
was the coloured minister's prayers that brought
him back.

In 1822 Mr. Haynes returned to his former home,
at Granville, where he continued to preach until his
death. He is most widely known for his "sermon

against universalism," which he preached in opposition
to Hosea Ballou. This sermon, which was
preached impromptu and without notes, created
a great impression. It was afterward published
and circulated widely all over the United States
and in some parts of Europe. Lemuel Haynes died
in Granville, in 1832. He was, so far as I know,
the first coloured Congregational minister.

During the Civil War there were several Negro
officers appointed to take charge of the Negro troops,
and immediately after the War several Negroes were
admitted to West Point. Three of these have
graduated. The only one of these now in the service
is First Lieutenant Charles Young, who was
Major of the Ninth Ohio Battalion United States
Volunteers in the Spanish-American War.

Negro soldiers took a more prominent part in
the Spanish-American War than in any previous
war of the United States. In the first battle in
Cuba the Tenth Cavalry played an important part
in coming to the support, at a critical moment, of the
Rough Riders under Colonel Theodore Roosevelt,
at the Battle of Las Guasimas.

The Twenty-Fifth Infantry took a prominent
part in the Battle of El Caney. It is claimed by
Lieutenant-colonel A. D. Daggett that the Twenty-fifth
Regiment caused the surrender of the stone
fort at El Caney, which was the key to all the other
positions in that battle for the possession of San

Juan. Eight men of this regiment were given
certificates of gallantry for their part in the battle
of San Juan Hill. The other Negro regiments which
took part in these battles was the Ninth Cavalry
and the Twenty-fourth Infantry, both of whom
did heroic service in the famous battle for the crest
of San Juan hill.

What impresses me still more, however, is the part
which these black soldiers played after the battle was
over, when they were called to remain and nurse
the sick and wounded in the malarial-haunted camp
at Siboney, at a time when the yellow fever had
broken out in the army.

To engage in this service required another and
a higher kind of courage, and I can perhaps give no
better idea of the way in which this service was performed
by these black soldiers than to repeat here
the account given by Stephen Bonsai in his story
of the fight for the possession of Santiago. He says:

I have described the manner in which the Negro
has adapted his own life to that of the people around
him, uniting his interests and his sympathies with
those of the dominant white race. Perhaps I should
say a word here of the way in which he has managed
to keep his life separate and to prevent friction in
his dealings with the other portions of the community.
Few white people, I dare say, realise what the Negro
has to do, to what extent he has been compelled to
go out of his way, to avoid causing trouble and prevent
friction.

For example, in one large city I know of a business
place in which there is a cigar stand, a bootblacking

stand, a place for cleaning hats and a barber shop,
all in one large room. Any Negro can, without
question, have his hat cleaned, his boots blacked,
or buy a cigar in this place, but he cannot take a
seat in the barber's chair. The minute he should
do this he would be asked to go somewhere else.

The Negro must, at all hazard and in all times
and places, avoid crossing the colour line. It is
a little difficult, however, sometimes to determine
upon what principle this line is drawn. For instance,
customs differ in different parts of the same town,
as well as in different parts of the country at
large. In one part of a town a Negro may be able
to get a meal at a public lunch counter, but in
another part of the same town he cannot do so. Conditions
differ widely in the different states. In Virginia
a Negro is expected to ride in a separate
railway coach, in West Virginia he can ride in the
same coach with the white people. In one Southern
city Negroes can enter the depot, as they usually do,
by the main entrance; in another Southern city there
is a separate entrance for coloured people. While
in one Southern city the Negro is allowed to take
his seat in the main waiting-room he will be compelled
at another depot, in the same city, to go into
a separate waiting-room. In some cities Negroes
are allowed to go without question into the theatre;
in other cities he either cannot enter the theatre at all,
or he has a separate place assigned to him.

In all these different situations, somehow or
other, the Negro manages to comport himself so
as to rarely excite comment or cause trouble.

He often hears the opinion expressed that the
Negro should keep his place or that he is "all right
in his place." People who make use of these expressions
seldom understand how difficult it is, considering
the different customs in different parts of the
country, to find out just what his place is. I might
give further illustrations of this fact. In the
Southern states the Negro is rarely allowed to enter
a public library. In certain parts of the United States
the Negro is allowed to enter the public high school,
but he is forbidden to enter the grammar school,
where white children are taught. In one city the
Negro may sit anywhere he pleases in the street car;
in another city, perhaps not more than twenty miles
away, he is assigned to special and separate seats.
In one part of the country the Negro may vote freely,
in another part of the country, perhaps across the
border of another state, he is not expected to vote
at all.

As illustrating the ability of the Negro to avoid
the rocks and shoals, which he is likely to meet in
travelling about the country, and still manage to get
what he wants, I recall an experience of a coloured
man with whom I was travelling through South
Carolina some time ago. This man was very
anxious to reach the railway train and had only a

few minutes in which to do so. He hailed, naturally
enough, the first hackman he saw, who happened
to be a white man. The white man told him that
it was not his custom to carry Negroes in his carriage.
The coloured man, not in the least disturbed,
at once replied: "That's ail right, we will fix that;
you get in the carriage and I'll take the front seat
and drive you." This was done, and in a few minutes
they reached the depot in time to catch the train.
The coloured man handed the white man twenty-five
cents and departed. Both were satisfied and
the colour line was preserved.

The facts I have detailed serve to illustrate some of
the difficulties that the coloured man has in the North,
as well as in the South, with the present unsettled
conditions as to his position in the community. The
Negro suffers some other disadvantages living in the
midst of a people from whom he is so different, with
whom he is so intimately associated, and from whom
he is, at the same time, so distinctly separate.

In living in the midst of seventy millions of the
most highly civilised people of the world, the Negro
has the opportunity to learn much that he could not
learn in a community where the people were less
enlightened and less progressive. On the other
hand, it is a disadvantage to him that his progress
is constantly compared to the progress of a people
who have the advantage of many centuries of civilisation,
while the Negro has only a little more than

forty years been a free man. If the American Negro,
with his present degree of advancement, were living
in the midst of a civilisation such as exists to-day
in Asia or in the south of Europe, the gap between
him and the people by whom he is surrounded
would not then be so wide, and he would receive
credit for the progress that he has already made.

In speaking of the progress of the Negro in
America, I want to refer to a letter, published in
Virginia in 1801, and addressed to a member of the
General Assembly of Virginia. This letter, which
in many respects is a remarkable document, is supposed
to have been written by the Honourable Judge
Tucker, and was occasioned by a slave conspiracy
which greatly disturbed the people of Virginia about
that time. This letter is, in part, as follows:

I have quoted this letter at some length because
it seems to me to describe, in a very remarkable way,
the process and the method by which the Negro
masses have advanced slowly but steadily before
emancipation, more rapidly but not less steadily since.

The story of the American Negro has been one of

progress from the first. While there have been
times when it seemed the race was going backward,
this backward movement has been temporal, local
or merely apparent. On the whole, the Negro has
been and is moving forward everywhere and in
every direction.

In speaking of his experiences in the South Mr.
Ray Stannard Baker, whose articles on Southern
conditions are in many respects the best and most
informing that have been written since Olmsted's
famous "Journey through the Seaboard Slave
States," said that before he came into the South he
had been told that in many sections of the country
the Negro was relapsing into barbarism. He, of
course, was very anxious to find these places and see
for himself to what extent the Negro had actually
gone backward. Before leaving New York he was
told that he would find the best example of this
condition in the lowlands and rice-fields of South
Carolina and Georgia. He visited this section of
South Carolina and Georgia, but he did not find any
traces of the barbarism that he expected to see.
He did find, however, that coloured people in that
part of the country were, on the whole, making
progress. This progress was slow, but it was in a
direction away from and not toward barbarism.

In South Carolina he was told that while the people
in that part of the country had not gone back into
barbarism, if he would go to the sugar cane regions

of Louisiana he would find the conditions among
the Negroes as bad as in any other part of the
United States. He went to Louisiana, and again he
found not barbarism but progress. There he was
told that he would find what he was looking for
in the Yazoo Delta of the Mississippi. In Mississippi
he was told that if he went into Arkansas he
would not be disappointed; he went to Arkansas,
but there, also, he found the coloured people engaged
in buying land, building churches and schools, and
trying to improve themselves. After that he came
to the conclusion that the Negro was not relapsing
into barbarism.

The Negro is making progress at the present time
as he made progress in slavery times. There is,
however, this difference: In slavery the progress of
the Negro was a menace to the white man. The
security of the white master depended upon the
ignorance of the black slave. In freedom the
security and happiness of each race depends, to a
very large extent, on the education and the progress
of the other. The problem of slavery was to keep
the Negro down; the problem of freedom is to raise
him up.

The story of the Negro, in the last analysis, is
simply the story of the man who is farthest down;
as he raises himself he raises every other man who
is above him.

In concluding this narrative I ought to say, perhaps,

that if, in what I have written, I seem to have emphasised
the successes of the Negro rather than his
failures, and to have said more about his achievements
than about his hardships, it is because I
am convinced that these things are more interesting
and more important. To me the history of the
Negro people in America seems like the story of a
great adventure, in which, for my own part, I am
glad to have had a share. So far from being a misfortune
it seems to me that it is a rare privilege to
have part in the struggles, the plans, and the ambitions
of ten millions of people who are making their
way from slavery to freedom.

At the present time the Negro race is, so to speak,
engaged in hewing its path through the wilderness.
In spite of its difficulties there is a novelty and a zest
as well as an inspiration in this task that few who
have not shared it can appreciate. In America the
Negro race, for the first time, is face to face with the
problem of learning to till the land intelligently; of
planning and building permanent and beautiful
homes; of erecting schoolhouses and extending school
terms; of experimenting with methods of instruction
and adapting them to the needs of the Negro
people; of organising churches, building houses
of worship, and preparing ministers. In short,
the Negro in America to-day is face to face with
all the fundamental problems of modern civilisation,
and for each of these problems he has, to some extent,

to find a solution of his own. The fact that in his
case this is peculiarly difficult only serves to make
the problem peculiarly interesting.

We have hard problems, it is true, but instead of
despairing in the face of the difficulties we should,
as a race, thank God that we have a problem. As
an individual I would rather belong to a race that has
a great and difficult task to perform, than be a part
of a race whose pathway is strewn with flowers. It
is only by meeting and manfully facing hard, stubborn
and difficult problems that races, like individuals,
are, in the highest degree, made strong.