The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921Various
History
The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921
Various
African Americans -- Periodicals
_Thirdly_, Teach your children useful trades, or to labor with
their hands in cultivating the earth. These employments are
favorable to health and virtue. In the choice of masters, who are
to instruct them in the above branches of business, prefer those
who will work with them; by this means they will acquire habits
of industry, and be better preserved from vice, than if they
worked alone, or under the eye of persons less interested in
their welfare. In forming contracts, for yourselves or children,
with masters, it may be useful to consult such persons as are
capable of giving you the best advice, who are known to be your
friends, in order to prevent advantages being taken of your
ignorance of the laws and customs of our country.
_Fourthly_, Be diligent in your respective callings, and faithful
in all the relations you bear in society, whether as husbands,
wives, fathers, children or hired servants. Be just in all your
dealings. Be simple in your dress and furniture, and frugal in
your family expenses. Thus you will act like Christians as well
as freemen, and, by these means, you will provide for the
distress and wants of sickness and old age.
_Fifthly_, Refrain from the use of spirituous liquors. The
experience of many thousands of the citizens of the United States
has proved, that these liquors are not necessary to lessen the
fatigue of labor, nor to obviate the extremes of heat or cold;
much less are they necessary to add to the innocent pleasures of
society.
_Sixthly_, Avoid frolicking, and amusements which lead to expense
and idleness; they beget habits of dissipation and vice, and thus
expose you to deserved reproach amongst your white neighbors.
_Seventhly_, We wish to impress upon your minds the normal and
religious necessity of having your marriages legally performed;
also to have exact registers preserved of all the births and
deaths which occur in your respective families.
_Eighthly_, Endeavour to lay up as much as possible of your
earnings for the benefit of your children, in case you should die
before they are able to maintain themselves--your money will be
safest and most beneficial when laid out in lots, houses or small
farms.
_Ninthly_, We recommend to you, at all times and upon all
occasions, to behave yourselves to all persons in a civil and
respectful manner, by which you may prevent contention and remove
every just occasion of complaint. We beseech you to reflect, it
is by your good conduct alone, that you can refute the objections
which have been made against you as rational and moral creatures,
and remove many of the difficulties, which have occurred in the
general emancipation of such of your brethren as are yet in
bondage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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