392 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



qualities under the circumstances to which they 

 were introduced in foreign lands. Only here and 

 there a leading mind — a real man — was carried 

 into captivity. And where these did not suc- 

 cumb under the new conditions, and become 

 " the foul hyena's prey," they invariably took 

 prominent positions among their own people. In 

 the United States and the West Indies there were 

 numbers, whose descendants may be seen to this 

 day wearing the mark of superiority, who were 

 neither criminal nor servile in their antecedents. 

 These inspired the respect, confidence, and even 

 admiration, of the oppressors of their race ; and 

 for their sakes the dominant class would have 

 made large concessions to the African, but, as 

 no rule could be established to meet exceptional 

 cases, they were obliged to deal with all accord- 

 ing to the regulations established for the ma- 

 jority. 



And where, under the lead of the superior few 

 of the race as in Hayti, or under the philanthropic 

 suggestions of the benevolent among their op- 

 pressors they are assisted in the establishment 

 of a separate nationality, as in Liberia, still the 

 specific gravity of the majority has a continual 

 tendency to hamper and thwart the efforts of the 

 minority. 



There is a perpetual struggle between the 

 very few who are aiming to forward the interests 

 of the many and the pro/anum vulgus, largely in 

 the majority. 



If any cannot imagine such differences be- 

 tween negroes and negroes, perhaps their imagi- 

 nation may be stimulated if we call their atten- 

 tion to differences equally as great which grew 

 up between white men and white men in a highly- 

 civilized country. Travelers in the Southern 

 States of America, before the abolition of slavery, 

 described two classes of whites — the rich aristo- 

 cratic planters and the poor mean whites, " white 

 trash," as they were sometimes called. They 

 were described by all writers, especially by Mr. 

 Frederick Law Olmstead, as 



" loafers, squatters, dwellers in the woods, hang- 

 ers-on among the cities, amounting to several mill- 

 ions, and forming in fact a numerical majority, 

 and about as ignorant, squalid, and brutal, as could 

 well be imagined. The dislike which the planters 

 felt to the neighborhood of the poor whites, on 

 account of their thievish habits and contagious 

 idleness, induced them to buy out the poor whites 

 as fast almost as they settled near them." 



Yet these people enjoyed equal social and 

 political rights with the wealthiest or best-edu- 

 cated whites. Now suppose, by some means, 



the comparatively wealthy few had been reduced 

 to an equal pecuniary condition with the " white 

 trash," the latter retaining the numerical superi- 

 ority, and they had been required or had under- 

 taken to form an independent state on democratic 

 principles, without extraneous stimulus or re- 

 pression, what should we naturally expect to be 

 the result ? 



The cruel accidents of slavery and the slave- 

 trade drove all Africans together, and no dis- 

 crimination was made in the shambles between 

 the Foulah and the Timneh, the Mandingo and 

 the Mendi, the Ashantee and the Fantee, the 

 Eboe and the Congo — between the descendants 

 of nobles and the offspring of slaves, between 

 kings and their subjects — all were placed on the 

 same level, all of black skin and woolly hair 

 were " niggers," chattels, having no rights thai 

 their oppressors were bound to respect. And 

 when, by any course of events, these people at- 

 tempt to exercise independent government, they 

 start in the eyes of the world as Africans, with- 

 out the fact being taken into consideration that 

 they belong to tribes and families differing widely 

 in degrees of intelligence and capacity, in original 

 bent and susceptibility. 



But there is another element which seriously 

 affects the problem and prevents a fair test of 

 negro ability in Christian lands. One of the mel- 

 ancholy results of the enslavement of the African 

 by the European is the introduction on a very 

 large scale of the blood of the oppressors among 

 their victims, which, even when largely pre- 

 ponderating over or evenly balanced with the 

 negro blood, is still reckoned, by what rule of 

 fairness or on what principle of ethnology we 

 cannot understand, as negro blood. And in 

 taking into account the deficiencies of negro 

 communities, where, as they are at present con- 

 stituted in Christian lands, this element largely 

 prevails, it is never considered as having any 

 part in the production of the results deplored, 

 but rather, at times, as imposing a salutary and 

 restraining influence upon " negro barbarism." 



But, however indifferent European writers 

 may be to this subject, the doctrine of race is 

 finding its way among, and having its influence 

 upon, the intelligent colored or mixed people in 

 the United States. One of their leading editors, 

 the Rev. B. T. Tanner, D. D., in a lecture a few 

 months ago, suggested a new departure : 



" We are not negroes " (he exclaimed). " Ne- 

 gro comes from the Latin word niger, meaning 

 black ; the American colored people generally are 

 not black ; therefore, scientifically, the term is 



