The Great Stain

by Noel Rae

“To this Massachusetts Fifty-fourth was set the stupendous task to convince the white race that colored troops would fight—and not only that they would fight, but that they could be made, in every sense of the word, soldiers. It is not easy to recall at this day the state of public opinion on that point—the contemptuous disbelief in the courage of an enslaved race, or rather of a race with a colored skin. Nobody pretends now that the Negro won’t fight.”

  In February, 1866, Lt. Col. Christopher Trowbridge, who had succeeded Higginson as commander of the First South Carolina Volunteers, bade his troops farewell. The first all-slave regiment in the U. S. Army, it had been formed by General Hunter, then partially disbanded, then reconstituted as the 33rd U. S. C. T.; but the soldiers still thought of themselves as the First South Carolina Volunteers. This final parade was held on Morris Island, within sight of Fort Wagner.

  “Comrades: The hour is at hand when we must separate for ever. Nothing can take from us the pride we feel when we look upon the history of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first black regiment that ever bore arms in defense of freedom on the continent of America. On the 9th day of May, 1862, at which time there were nearly four millions of your race in bondage, sanctioned by the laws of the land and protected by our flag—on that day, in the face of the floods of prejudice that well-nigh deluged every avenue to manhood and true liberty, you came forth to do battle for your country and kindred.

  “For long and weary months, without pay or even the privilege of being recognized as soldiers, you labored on, only to be disbanded and sent to your homes without even a hope of reward; and when our country, necessitated by the deadly struggle with armed traitors, finally granted you the opportunity again to come forth in defense of the nation’s life, the alacrity with which you responded to the call gave abundant evidence of your readiness to strike a manly blow for the liberty of your race. And from that little band of hopeful, trusting, and brave men who gathered at Camp Saxton, on Port Royal Island, in the fall of ’62, amidst the terrible prejudices that surrounded us, has grown an army of a hundred and forty thousand black soldiers, whose valor and heroism have won for your race a name which will live as long as the undying pages of history shall endure; and by whose efforts, united with those of the white man, armed rebellion has been conquered, the millions of bondsmen have been emancipated, and the fundamental law of the land has been so altered as to remove forever the possibility of human slavery being established within the borders of redeemed America. The flag of our fathers, restored to its rightful significance, now floats over every foot of our territory, from Maine to California, and beholds only free men!”

  Following the war, three amendments to the Constitution were passed:

  Article XIII. December, 1865. Section 1. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

  Article XIV. July, 1868. Section 1. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

  Article XV. March, 1870. Section 1. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

  Finally, here are some passages from three speeches by Frederick Douglass, which reflect the hopes, fears and disappointments that followed Emancipation and Reconstruction.

  The first was given on December 28, 1862, at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Rochester, on the eve of the promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation, “a moment for joy, thanksgiving and Praise.” Though the Proclamation did not cover the whole country, it was clear that “slavery once abolished in the rebel states, will give the death wound to slavery in the border states. When Arkansas is a free state, Missouri cannot be a slave state.” But this was “no time for the friends of freedom to fold their hands and consider their work at an end. Slavery has existed in this country too long, and has stamped its character too deeply and indelibly, to be blotted out in a day or a year, or even a generation. Law and the sword can and will in the end abolish slavery. But law and the sword cannot abolish the malignant slave-holding sentiment which has kept the slave system alive in this country during two centuries. Pride of race, prejudice against color, will raise their hateful clamor for oppression of the Negro as heretofore. The slave having ceased to be the abject slave of a single master, his enemies will endeavor to make him the slave of society at large.”

  Next, a passage from Douglass’ speech at a ceremony unveiling the Freedmen’s Monument in memory of Abraham Lincoln. The event took place in Washington, D. C., on April 14, 1876, when there was still some hope that Reconstruction would be a success:

  “Few facts could better illustrate the vast and wonderful change which has taken place in our condition as a people than the fact of our assembling here to-day for the purpose which has called us together. Harmless, beautiful, proper and praiseworthy as this demonstration is, I cannot forget that no such demonstration would have been tolerated here twenty years ago. The spirit of slavery and barbarism which, in some dark and distant parts of our country, still lingers to blight and to destroy, would have made our assembling here the signal and excuse for opening upon us all the flood-gates of wrath and violence. That we are here in peace to-day is a compliment and a credit to American civilization, and a prophecy of still greater national enlightenment and progress in the future. I refer to the past not in malice, for this is no day for malice, but simply to place more distinctly in front the gratifying and glorious change which has come both to our white fellow-citizens and to ourselves, and to congratulate all upon the contrast between now and then—between the new dispensation of freedom with its thousand blessings to both races, and the old dispensation of slavery with its ten thousand evils to both races, white and black.”

  And finally, here are parts of his speech at a rally held in Elmira, N.Y. on August 1, 1880, to celebrate the anniversary of West Indian emancipation. Reconstruction had collapsed, but Douglass did his best to find a silver lining:

  “We are sometimes asked why we American citizens annually celebrate West India emancipation when we might celebrate American emancipation. Why go abroad, say they, when we might as well stay at home? The answer is easily given. Human liberty excludes all idea of home and abroad. It is universal and spurns localization. The cause of human liberty is one the whole world over. The downfall of slavery under British power meant the downfall of slavery, ultimately, under American power, and the downfall of Negro slavery everywhere.

  “The abolitionists of this country have been charged with bringing on the war between the North and South, and in one sense this is true. Had there been no anti-slavery agitation at the North, there would have been no active anti-slavery agitation anywhere to resist the demands of the slave power at the South, and where there is no resistance there can be no war. Slavery would then have been nationalized, and the whole country would then have been subjected to its power. Resistance to slavery, and the extension of slavery, invited and provoked secession and war.”

  But now, “How stands the case with the recently emancipated millions of colored people in our own country? What is their condition today? By law, by the constitution of the United States, slavery has no existence in our country. The legal form has been abolished. By the law and the constitution, the Negro is a man and a citizen, and has all the rights and liberties guaranteed to any other variety of the human family residing in the United States. He has a country, a flag, and a government, and may legally claim full and comp
lete protection under the laws. This is our legal and theoretical condition. This is our condition on paper and parchment.

  “It is a great thing to have the supreme law of the land on the side of justice and liberty. It is the line up to which the nation is destined to march—the law to which the nation’s life must ultimately conform. It is a great principle, up to which we may educate the people, and to this extent its value exceeds all speech.

  “But to-day, in most of the Southern States, the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments are virtually nullified. The rights which they were intended to guarantee are denied and held in contempt. The citizenship granted in the fourteenth amendment is practically a mockery, and the right to vote, provided for in the fifteenth amendment, is literally stamped out in face of government. The old master class is to-day triumphant, and the newly enfranchised class in a condition but little above that in which they were found before the rebellion.

  “Do you ask me how, after all that has been done, this state of things has been made possible? I will tell you. Our reconstruction measures were radically defective. They left the former slave completely in the power of the old master, the loyal citizen in the hands of the disloyal rebel against the government. Wise, grand, and comprehensive in scope and design as were the reconstruction measures, high and honorable as were the intentions of the statesmen by whom they were framed and adopted, time and experience, which try all things, have demonstrated that they did not successfully meet the case.

  “History does not furnish an example of emancipation under conditions less friendly to the emancipated class than this American example. The very manner of their emancipation invited to the heads of the freedmen the bitterest hostility of race and class. They were hated because they had been slaves, hated because they were now free, and hated because of those who had freed them. Nothing was to be expected other than what has happened, and he is a poor student of the human heart who does not see that the old master class would naturally employ every power and means in their reach to make the great measure of emancipation unsuccessful and utterly odious. It was born in the tempest and whirlwind of war, and has lived in a storm of violence and blood. When the Hebrews were emancipated, they were told to take spoil from the Egyptians. When the serfs of Russia were emancipated, they were given three acres of ground upon which they could live and make a living. But not so when our slaves were emancipated. They were sent away empty-handed, without money, without friends, and without a foot of land to stand upon. The wonder is, not that the colored people of the South have done so little in the way of acquiring a comfortable living, but that they live at all.

  “Taking all the circumstances into consideration, the colored people have no reason to despair. We still live, and while there is life there is hope. The fact that we have endured wrongs and hardships which would have destroyed any other race, and have increased in numbers and public consideration, ought to strengthen our faith in ourselves and our future. Let us then, wherever we are, whether at the North or at the South, resolutely struggle on in the belief that there is a better day coming, and that we by patience, industry, uprightness, and economy may hasten that better day.

  “Greatness does not come to any people on flowery beds of ease. We must fight to win the prize.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to my agent, Bill Hanna; to my editor, Adam O’Brien; and to my wife, Linda, for her great help with the index and illustrations, and to my son, Alexander.

  NOTES

  CHAPTER I: For Ibn Battuta and other travelers see The Travels of Ibn Battuta, translated by the Rev. Samuel Lee, The Oriental Translation Committee, London, 1829; also, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History, translated by J. F. P. Hopkins, edited and annotated by N. Levtzion, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U. K., 1981; for the Portuguese see The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, written by Gomes Eannes de Azurara; now first done into English by Charles Raymond Beazley and Edgar Prestage, The Hakluyt Society, London, 1886; for Cadamosto and Barros see The Voyages of Cadamosto, and other Documents on Western Africa in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century, translated and edited by G. R. Crone, The Hakluyt Society, London, 1937; for Columbus and the Spanish see The Letter of Columbus to Luis de Sant Angel, 1493, edited by Albert B. Hart and Edward Channing, American History Leaflets No. 1, Parker P. Simmons, Cambridge, 1913; also, The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account by Bartolomeo de las Casas, The Seabury Press, New York, 1974; for Sir John Hawkins see Voyages and Travels Mainly During the 16th and 17th Centuries, edited by Charles Raymond Beazley, reissued by Cooper Square Publishers, New York, 1964.

  CHAPTER 2: For Captain Phillips see Journal of his Voyage from England to Cape Monseradoe in Africa, in Awnsham Churchill’s A Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol 6, London, 1732; for Silas Told see An Account of the Life and Dealings of God with Silas Told, printed by R.W.Cowdroy, London, 1805; for John Newton see Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade, J. Buckland, London, 1788; for John Barbot see Description of the Coasts of Nigritia, in Awnsham Churchill’s A Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol 5, London, 1732; for David van Nyendael see A Description of the Kingdom of Benin in A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea by William Bosman, London, 1705; for Alexander Falconbridge see An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa, J. Phillips, London, 1788; for Olaudah Equiano see The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, edited by Vincent Carretta, Penguin Books, New York, 1995; for Francis Moore see Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa in Awnsham Churchill’s A New Collection of Voyages, Discoveries and Travels, Vol. 6, London, 1767; for William Snelgrave see A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea, and the Slave Trade, Frank Cass, London, 1971.

  CHAPTER 3. For the anonymous friend of Charles Ball see Fifty Years in Chains by Charles Ball, Dover Publications, New York, 1970; for Job Ben Solomon see Some Memoirs of the Life of Job, the Son of Solomon, the High Priest of Boonda in Africa, by Thomas Bluett, Richard Ford, London, 1784; also see Francis Moore, above; for Louis Asa-Asa see Narrative of Louis Asa-Asa, A Captured African in Six Women’s Slave Narratives, edited by William L. Andrews, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1988; for the story of Nealee see Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa by Mungo Park, Wordsworth Classics, Hertfordshire, U.K., 2002; for Olaudah Equiano, see above.

  CHAPTER 4. For Captain Phillips see above; for Philip Drake see Revelations of a Slave Smuggler Metro Books, New York, 1972; for Alexander Falconbridge see above; for William Snelgrave see above; for Olaudah Equiano see above.

  CHAPTER 5. For Massachusetts court cases see Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro edited by Helen T. Catterall, Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C., 1926; for advertisements see Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade to America, edited by Elizabeth Donnan, Carnegie Institution, Washington, D.C., 1931; for Mr. Maverick’s Negro woman see An Account of Two Voyages to New-England, by John Josselyn, University Press of New England, Hanover and London, 1988; for Cotton Mather see Diary of Cotton Mather, 1681-1724, Frederick Ungar Publishing, New York, 1957; for Tituba see More Wonders of the Invisible World by Robert Calef, printed by Nathaniel Hillar, London, 1700; also Transcripts of Tituba’s Confessions, Appendix C, in Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem, by Elaine G. Breslaw, New York University Press, New York and London, 1996; The Selling of Joseph by Samuel Sewall was printed by Bartholomew Green and John Allen, Boston, 1700; The Negro Christianized by Cotton Mather was printed by Bartholomew Green, Boston, 1706; Phillis Wheatley’s Complete Writings, edited by Vincent Carretta, was published by Penguin Classics, New York, 2001; A Journal of the Proceedings etc, by Daniel Horsmanden was printed by James Parker, New York, 1744; for Governor Hunter’s report on the 1712 conspiracy see Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York, 5:341-42, Weed, Parsons & Co, Albany, 1855; for Benjamin Franklin see The First American by H. W. Brands, Doubleday, NewYork, 20
00; also Franklin’s Autobiography and Other Writings, Oxford University Press, New York. 2009; for Benjamin Lay see Memoirs of the Lives of Benjamin Lay and Ralph Sandiford by Robert Vaux, Solomon W. Conrad, Philadelphia, 1815; for Anthony Benezet see The Complete Antislavery Writings of Anthony Benezet 1754-1783, edited by David L. Crosby, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 2014; for Charity Dallen see The Old Dominion in the Seventeenth Century edited by Warren M. Billings, University of North Carolina Press, Charlotte, 2007; for Carib slaves see Judicial Cases, etc., above; for laws on slavery see A Documentary History of Slavery in North America edited by Willie Lee Rose, Oxford University Press, New York, 1976; for Mary Williamson see The Old Dominion, etc, above; for William Byrd see Documents Illustrative, etc., above; for William Strickland see Journal of a Tour in the United States of America 1794-1795, New York Historical Society, New York, 1971; for Landon Carter see The Diary of Colonel Landon Carter of Sabine Hall 1752-1778, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1965; for runaway advertisements see A Documentary History of Slavery above; also American Negro Slavery, A Documentatry History edited by Michael Mullin, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, 1976; for William Gooch, same source; for Oglethorpe’s letter and Stono account see A Documentary History of Slavery in North America above; for story in Boston Weekly Newsletter see American Negro Slave Revolts by Herbert Aptheker, Columbia University Press, New York, 1943; for the Clare galley, John Major and Guinea-man see Black Majority by Peter H. Wood, W. W. Norton, New York, 1974; for Le Jau see The Carolina Chronicle of Dr. Francis Le Jau edited by Frank J. Klingberg, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1956; for Charles Wesley see The Journal of Charles Wesley, Baker Books House, Grand Rapids, 1980; for Olaudah Equiano see above; for South Carolina laws see The Statutes at large of South Carolina edited by Thomas Cooper and J. McCord, Columbia, 1840; for Oglethorpe and petitioners see General Oglethorpe’s Georgia edited by Mills Lane, Beehive Press, Savannah, 1975.