The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers

by Various

  Article 2. The object of this society shall be to obtain permanent homes for the refugees in Canada, and to promote their moral, social, physical, intellectual, and political elevation.

  Article 11. This society shall not deed lands to any but actual settlers, who refugees from southern slavery, and who are the owners of no land.

  Article 12. All lands purchased by this society, shall be divided into twenty-five acre lots, or as near as possible, and at least one-tenth of the purchase price of which shall be paid down by actual settlers before possession is given, and the balance to be paid in equal annual instalments.

  Article 13. One-third of all money paid in for land by settlers, shall be used for educational purchases, for the benefit of said settlers’ children, and the two-thirds for the purchase of more lands for the same object, while chattel slavery exists in the United States.

  BY-LAWS.

  No person shall receive more than five acres of land from this society, at less than cost.

  Article 4. No person shall be allowed to remove any timber from said land until they have first made payment thereon.

  These are the articles of most importance, and, as will be seen, they contemplate more than fifty thousand acres continual purchases, till slavery shall cease; and other terms, as will be seen by Art. 13 of Con., and Art. 4, By-Laws, than most fugitives just from slavery can comply with, (as destitute women with families, old men, and single women,) until after partial familiarity with their adopted country. This, say many colored Canadians, begins not to benefit until a man has proven his ability to act without aid, and is fit for political equality by his own industry, that money will get for him at any time.

  Political Rights—Election Law—Oath—Currency.

  There is no legal discrimination whatever effecting colored emigrants in Canada, nor from any cause whatever are their privileges sought to be abridged. On taking proper measures, the most ample redress can be obtained. The following “abstracts of acts,” bearing equally on all, and observed fully by colored men qualified, will give an idea of the measures given them:

  “The qualifications of voters at municipal elections in townships, are freeholders and householders of the township or ward, entered on the roll for rateable real property, in their own right or that of their wives, as proprietors or tenants, and resident at the time in the township or ward.”

  “In towns, freeholders and householders for rateable real property in their own names or that of their wives, as proprietors or tenants to the amount of £5 per annum or upward, resident at the time in the ward. The property qualification of town voters may consist partly of freehold and partly of leasehold.”

  In villages it is £3 and upward, with freehold or leasehold; in cities £8.

  The laws regulating elections, and relating to electors, are not similar in the two Canadas; but colored persons are not affected by them more than others.

  “No person shall be entitled to vote at county elections, who has not vested in him, by legal title, real property in said county of the clear yearly value of forty-four shillings and five pence and one farthing, currency. Title to be in fee simple or freehold under tenure of free and common soccage, or in fief in rature, or in franc allen, or derived from the Governor and Council of the late Province of Quebec, or Act of Parliament. Qualificatiori, to be effective, requires actual and uninterrupted possession on the part of the elector, or that he should have been in receipt of the rents and profits of said property for his own use and benefit at least six months before the date of the writ of election. But the title will be good without such anterior possession, if the property shall have come by inheritance, devise, marriage or contract of marriage, and also if the deed or patent from the Crown on which he holds to claim such estate in Upper Canada, have been registered three calendar months before the date of the writ of election. In Lower Canada, possession of the property under a written promise of sale registered, if not a notarial deed, for twelve months before the election, to be sufficient title to vote. In Upper Canada, a conveyance to wife after marriage must have been registered three calendar months, or husband have been in possession of property six months before election.”

  “Only British subjects of the full age of twenty-one are allowed to vote. Electors may remove objection by producing certificate, or by taking the oath.”

  These contain no proscriptive provisions, and there are none. Colored men comply with these provisions and vote in the administration of affairs. There is no difference made whatever; and even in the slight matter of taking the census it is impossible to get at the exact number of whites or colored, as they are not designated as such. There is, it is true, petty jealousy manifested at times by individuals, which is made use of by the designing; but impartiality and strict justice characterize proceedings at law, and the bearing of the laws. The oath, as prescribed by law, is as follows:

  “I, A. B., do sincerely promise and swear, that I will bear faithful and true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, as lawful Sovereign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of this Province of Canada, dependent on and belonging to the said United Kingdom, and that I will defend her to the uttermost of my power against all traitors, conspiracies and attempts whatever which shall be made against Her Person, Crown and Dignity, and that I will do my utmost endeavor to disclose and make known to Her Majesty, Her Heirs and Successors all treasons and traitorous conspiracies and attempts which I shall know to be against Her or any of them, and all this I do swear without any equivocation, mental evasion, or secret reservation, and, renouncing all pardons and dispensations from persons whatever, to the contrary. So help me God.”

  “The Deputy Returning Officer may administer oath of allegiance to persons who, according to provisions of any Act of Parliament, shall become, on taking such oath, entitled to the privileges of British birth in the Province.”

  “Persons knowing themselves not to be qualified, voting at elections, incur penalty of £10; and on action brought, the burden of proof shall be on the defendant. Such votes null and void.”

  “The qualification of Municipal Councilors are as follows:—Township Councilor must be a freeholder or householder of the township or ward, * * * as proprietor or tenant rated on the roll, in case of a freeholder for £100 or upward; householder for £200 or upward: Village Councilor, in case of a freeholder, for £10 or upward; a householder for £20 and upward: Town Councilor, in case of a freeholder £20 per annum; if a householder to the amount of £40 and upward. The property qualification of Town Councilors may be partly freehold and partly leasehold.”

  A tenant voter in town or city must have occupied by actual residence, as a separate tenant, a dwelling house or houses for twelve months, of the yearly value of £11 2s. 1½d. currency, and have paid a year’s rent, or that amount of money for the twelve months immediately preceding the date of election writ. A person holding only a shop or place of business, but not actually residing therein, is not entitled to vote. And a voter having changed his residence within the town during the year, does not affect his right to vote, but must vote in the ward in which he resides on the day.

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  JENNIE CARTER (SEMPER FIDELIS)

  (ca. 1830–1881)

  Born around 1830, probably in New Orleans, Jennie Carter was among the most incisive and active social commentators of her generation. Little is known about her early life, but through her journalism, often under pen names including Semper Fidelis and Ann J. Trask, readers glimpsed a mind attuned to life as an African American woman in the West. She moved frequently and participated in political activity; she married a prominent Californian, Dennis Carter. In print, she covered topics from women’s suffrage to the education of African American children to long-term strategies for racial uplift.

  The two letters published in the Elevator, both entitled “Letter from Nevada County,” September 11 and September 25, 1868 [taken
from Eric Gardner, ed., Jennie Carter: A Black Journalist of the Early West (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009)], display Carter’s sharp, unsparing critique delivered in her compelling, sensitive prose style. Here she objects forcefully to white Reconstruction-era politicians’ nostalgia for the “good old days of slavery” by offering the story of one woman’s monstrous treatment while enslaved.

  “Letter from Nevada County: Mud Hill, September 2, 1868” (1868)

  SOURCE: Jennie Carter, “Letter from Nevada County: Mud Hill, September 2, 1868,” Elevator, September 11, 1868.

  Mr. Editor:—Politicians may rant (at least some of them—the sweet sons of modern Democracy), and talk loud and strong of the good old days of slavery, when the “nigger” was in his right place, cared for by kind masters (and in those days all were kind), and regret, as I heard one of them the other day, the suffering of the colored people South since the war. I was in no mood to answer him, knowing that he, in common with other Democrats, had no use for the negro aside from servitude, and all his sympathy was the merest sham. In the company prese[n]t was a colored woman fifty years old, and she asked for the privilege of telling a story, which was readily granted.

  She said she was born in the State of Alabama,—was born free, her mother being a free woman and her father a slave. The law of that State required all free born children of color to have guardians, parents counting as nothing under that most beautiful system.

  When she was thirteen years of age, a noted divine, a slave owner and a near neighbor of her guardians, tendered her an invitation to accompany him to New Orleans. He had gained the consent of her guardian before asking her, and in glowing colors the trip was painted, and the fine things to be bought for her when once in the city. Girl-like she believed what was told her, and with trusting faith packed her box of clothes, and bade her weeping mother good-bye with tearless eyes for the journey of three months, as waiting-maid for the Rev. Mrs. B——m. I often wonder why there is no pitying angel standing by to stop one when men and devils conspire against them.

  Six long months passed, and yet the fond mother heard not from her child.—When nearly a year had passed, home came the Rev. B——m, accompanied by his wife, but not the servant. He sent for the mother, and with a full heart told her of the happy death of her daughter—gave her her dying message, appointed a time to preach to the servants, and then with language most pathetic he told the story of the girl’s conversion, sickness and triumphant death, delivering her last request to all to meet her in heaven,—and one united “I will” went up with wailing to be recorded above.

  Three years went by, the mother’s grief growing less as time rolled on. During the time of Mr. B.’s absence the guardian visited New Orleans, and on his return the mother asked if he had seen her child, and he replied, “No, I did not look for her.” But now he had a daughter grown, and some insult was offered her by this Rev. B——m. Forthwith he started to New Orleans, and soon as possible returned with a pitiable object of humanity.

  It was twilight when he arrived in F——ville. He sent a servant for the girl’s mother, one for the minister, and one for those she had associated with. The beatings about the head which the girl had received, and the hardships she had endured, had destroyed her memory of former days and faces. She did not know her guardian who had brought her home—did not know her mother; but the minister who had sold her and reported her death knew her, and the sight appalled him; he fainted, and then his wife informed them how she had begged him not to sell the girl, thus convicting her husband.

  The scene baffled description, and it was a long time before that girl’s memory was restored to her, and what she suffered made a life impression upon her mind.—She, as a woman of fifty years, with this experience ever present, wished to impress it upon the minds of all. The sympathy the Democrats feel for the colored people at the South was the same her old guardian felt for her. He knew she was sold a slave, yet did not make any attempt for her freedom until he had hatred to gratify; and it was the hatred to the Radicals that made the Democrats so tender-hearted, so ready to weep over the poor negro.

  —SEMPER FIDELIS

  “Letter from Nevada County: Mud Hill, September 12, 1868” (1868)

  SOURCE: Jennie Carter, “Letter from Nevada County: Mud Hill, September 12, 1868,” Elevator, September 25, 1868.

  Mr. Editor:—There is in the present political campaign less bitterness than heretofore at the North, while at the South it is increased ten-fold. A Democrat said the other day, that the feeling exhibited South was “caused by negroes seeking equality, and the people would not endure it and the despotism it brought them.” They can’t stand despotism. I think they ought to, for they have dealt largely in that material. Until the rebellion, who dared to express an opinion adverse to human bondage south of Mason and Dixon’s line? Who dared read the first clause of the Constitution—“All men are born free and equal”—and give it a literal interpretation? And who dared preach the whole gospel—that master and servant were equal? Who dared to be seen reading the New York Tribune. All must put a lock on their lips, or suffer imprisonment and death. I know what I write, having spent a great portion of my life there; and often have I been told if I were a man I would be hung: and for what? Why, for saying slavery was wrong.

  I recollect one time, in B—— county, Kentucky, I sat up all night with a poor slave mother, who lay in spasms, caused by the selling to a negro trader of her little boy, not three years of age. When in the morning her master came to her cabin to see how she was, I began to plead with him in humanity’s name; and when that would not move him, I told him God was just, and would not suffer such things forever. He told me I had said enough to hang me.

  They had better not talk of despotism and military rule now. I am sure they have more liberty than they ever allowed others. They can all speak their minds fully—even curse the Government that ought to have hung them; and now that we have the blood-bought right to speak of Christianity, humanity, morality and justice, and they cannot muzzle us, they cry “negro equality!”

  We do not desire equality with them. I hope none of us are so low and so lost to all that is noble as to wish to change places with those slave owners (all Democrats), who before the war raised men and women for the market—selling their own flesh and blood, separating husband and wife, parent and child. No, we never expect to be bad enough to be their equals. As regards color, the slave-holders did all they could to produce equality. I know many of them whose daughters in the big house were not as light as their daughters in the cabin. And when I hear the Democrats say, “Want your daughter to marry a nigger?” I tell them many of your daughters have married negroes, and many more would have done it, but you choose to sell them to white men to become victims of their lust. Shame! I say. I am tired of listening to their falsehoods, and thankful that the Chinese can rest. Last year it was Chinese and Negro; this year not one word about the “moon-eyed celestials”; and next year they will be patting you on the shoulder, saying, “Come friend, give us your vote.” Then should every one have the courage to say, “Depart, I never knew you, ye workers of iniquity.”