The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, and His AchievementsBrown, William Wells
History
The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements
Brown, William Wells
African Americans -- Biography
"The woful volume of our history, as it now lies open to the world, is
written with tears and bound with blood. As I trace it, my eyes ache
and my heart is filled with grief. No other people have suffered so
much, and none have been more innocent. If I might apostrophize that
bleeding country, I would say, O Africa, thou hast bled, freely bled,
at every pore. Thy sorrow has been mocked, and thy grief has not been
heeded. Thy children are scattered over the whole earth, and the great
nations have been enriched by them. The wild beasts of thy forests are
treated with more mercy than they. The Libyan lion and the fierce tiger
are caged, to gratify the curiosity of men, and the keeper's hands are
not laid heavily upon them. But thy children are tortured, taunted,
and hurried out of life by unprecedented cruelty. Brave men, formed
in the divinest mould, are bartered, sold, and mortgaged. Stripped of
every sacred right, they are scourged if they affirm that they belong
to God. Women, sustaining the dear relation of mothers, are yoked
with the horned cattle to till the soil, and their heart-strings are
torn to pieces by cruel separations from their children. Our sisters,
ever manifesting the purest kindness, whether in the wilderness of
their fatherland, or amid the sorrows of the middle passage, or in
crowded cities, are unprotected from the lust of tyrants. They have a
regard for virtue, and they possess a sense of honor; but there is no
respect paid to these jewels of noble character. Driven into unwilling
concubinage, their offspring are sold by their Anglo-Saxon fathers. To
them the marriage institution is but a name, for their despoilers break
down the hymeneal altar, and scatter its sacred ashes on the winds.
"Our young men are brutalized in intellect, and their manly energies
are chilled by the frosts of slavery. Sometimes they are called to
witness the agonies of the mothers who bore them, writhing under
the lash; and as if to fill to overflowing the already full cup of
demonism, they are sometimes compelled to apply the lash with their
own hands. Hell itself cannot overmatch a deed like this; and dark
damnation shudders as it sinks into its bosom, and seeks to hide itself
from the indignant eye of God."
Mr. Garnett paid a second visit to England a few months since, for
the purpose of creating an interest there in behalf of emigration to
Central Africa.
JAMES M. WHITFIELD.
There has long resided in Buffalo, New York, a barber, noted for his
scholarly attainments and gentlemanly deportment. Men of the most
polished refinement visit his saloon, and, while being shaved, take
pleasure in conversing with him; and all who know him feel that he was
intended by nature for a higher position in life. This is James M.
Whitfield. He is a native of Massachusetts, and removed west some years
since. We give a single extract from one of his poems.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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