CHAP. XXV.] PROGRESS OF NEGROES, 71 



to the South and West, and the frequent sales of the estates of 

 insolvents, tempts planters to buy more land than they can man 

 age themselves, which they must therefore give in charge to over 

 seers. Accordingly, much of the property in Alabama belongs to 

 rich Carolinians, and some wealthy slave-owners of Alabama have 

 estates in Mississippi. With a view of checking the increase of 

 these &quot;pluralities,&quot; a tax has recently been imposed on absentees. 

 In Alabama, as in Georgia, I found that the colored people were 

 more intelligent in the upper country, and I listened with satis 

 faction to complaints of their setting themselves up, and being- 

 less content than formerly with their lot. That men of color can 

 sometimes make large fortunes in trade, was proved to me by a 

 fact which came accidentally to my knowledge. One of them, 

 by standing security for a white man, had lately lost no less than 

 17,000 dollars, or 3400 guineas; yet he was still prospering, 

 and kept a store, and, being a free man would willingly have 

 sent his son to the college of Tuscaloosa, had he not been prevent 

 ed by the prejudices of a white aristocracy, ostentatiously boast 

 ful of its love of equality. In consequence of similar impediments, 

 many thriving artisans of the colored race remain uneducated, 

 and are obliged to have white men to write for them and collect 

 their debts ; and I found that many cabinet-makers, carpenters, 

 builders, and other mechanics, earning high wages, who, in New 

 England, would send their sons to college, do not contribute here 

 even to the maintenance of common schools, their children riot 

 being permitted by law to learn to read and write. I can not 

 believe, however, that this state of things can endure many years, 

 for I found that an excellent Sabbath school had been established 

 by the Presbyterians in Tuscaloosa, for the children of negroes. 

 There are two colored men in this town, who, having a dash of 

 Indian as well as negro blood in their veins, have become the 

 owners of slaves. 



Frequent mention was made during our stay in Alabama, of a 

 negro named Ellis, a blacksmith, who had taught himself Greek 

 and Latin. He is now acquiring Hebrew, and I was sorry to 

 hear that the Presbyterians contemplate sending him as a mis 

 sionary to Liberia. If it were an object in the south to elevate 



