492 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



tribes never recognized the right of intermarriage with the negro. The 

 present chief or governor of the Creeks held slaves and is part negro. 

 One official of the Creek tribe, who had sufficient negro in his family to 

 exclude his children from the public schools of the nation under its 

 laws and sent his children abroad to be educated, held slaves. 



The most familiar aspect of this subject is that which existed in 

 Louisiana. In " The Cotton Kingdom," by F. L. Olmsted, he says : 



He said — a negro with whom the author was talking in that region — in 

 answer to further inquiries, that there were many free negroes all about this 

 region. Some were very rich. He pointed out to me three plantations, within 

 twenty miles, owned by colored men. These bought black folks, he said, and 

 had servants of their own. They were very bad masters, very hard and cruel — 

 hadn't any feeling. "You might think, master, dat dey would be good to dar 

 own nation ; but dey is not. I will tell you de truth, massa ; I know I 'se got to 

 answer ; and it 's a fact, dey is very bad masters, sar. I 'd rather be a servant 

 to any man in de world, dan to a brack man. If I was sold to a brack man, 

 I 'd drown myself. I would dat — I 'd drown myself, dough I shouldn 't like to 

 do dat nudder; but I wouldn't be sold to a colored master for anyting. " 



In " A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States," by the same writer, 

 he says : 



There are also, in the vicinity, a large number of free colored planters. 

 In going down Cane Eiver, the Dalmau called at several of their plantations, to 

 take on cotton, and the captain told me that in fifteen miles of a well-settled and 

 cultivated country, on the bank of the river, beginning ten miles below Natchi- 

 toches, he did not know but one pure-blooded white man. The plantations 

 appeared no way different from the generality of those of the white Creoles; 

 and on some of them were large, handsome and comfortable houses. These free 

 colored people are all descended from the progeny of old French or Spanish 

 planters and their negro slaves. Such a progeny, born before Louisiana was 

 annexed to the United States, and the descendants of it, are entitled to freedom. 



An intelligent man, whom I met at Washington, who had been travelling 

 most of the time for two years, in the planting districts of Louisiana, having 

 business with planters, told me the free negroes of the state in general, so far as 

 he had observed, were just equal in all respects to the white Creoles. There are 

 many opulent,' intelligent and educated. The best houses and most tasteful 

 grounds that he had visited in the state belong to a nearly full-blooded negro — 

 a very dark man. He and his family are well educated, and though French is 

 their habitual tongue they speak English with freedom, and one of them with 

 much more elegance than most liberally educated whites in the south. They had 

 a private tutor in their family. 



The following paragraphs are copied from a footnote to an article 

 on " Condition of the Free Colored People in the United States " in 

 the Christian Examiner for March, 1859 : 



"A Wealthy Negro Family. — An immense estate in Louisiana, embracing 

 over four thousand acres of land, with two hundred and fifty negroes belonging 

 to the plantation was recently sold for a quarter of a million of dollars. The 

 purchaser was a free negro, who is said to be one of the wealthiest men of the 

 South." 



