The Past and the Present Condition, and the Destiny, of the Colored Race:: A Discourse Delivered at the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Female Benevolent Society of Troy, N. Y., Feb. 14, 1848 — John Shaqi
The Past and the Present Condition, and the Destiny, of the Colored Race:: A Discourse Delivered at the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Female Benevolent Society of Troy, N. Y., Feb. 14, 1848Garnet, Henry Highland
History
The Past and the Present Condition, and the Destiny, of the Colored Race:: A Discourse Delivered at the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Female Benevolent Society of Troy, N. Y., Feb. 14, 1848
Garnet, Henry Highland
African Americans; United States -- Race relations
Long cradled in the mountain wind,
Thy mates, the eagle and the storm
Arise; and from thy brow unbind
The wreath that gives its starry form,
And smite the strength, that would thy strength deform.
Yet Liberty! thy dawning light,
Obscured by dungeon bars, shall cast
A splendor on the breaking night,
And tyrants flying thick and fast,
Shall tremble at thy gaze, and stand aghast.”
The next day they led Placido forth to execution, and from the mouths
of bristling musketry a shower of lead was poured upon his quivering
heart. That heart stood still,--and a truer, braver one, never beat in
the breast of a mortal man!
The Brazillian Government holds three millions of the colored race in
slavery. The United States have about the same number. The Spanish
Colonies have one million.
But it is proper to turn the other side of the picture, and I rejoice
that there is another side. Nine hundred thousand of these people are
enjoying their freedom in the British West India Isles. There are six
hundred thousand free people in the United States, while in Hayti
we have an independent population of nearly a million. Possessing a
land of unsurpassed fertility, they have but to turn their attention
manfully to Agricultural pursuits and it will shine forth the brightest
Isle that slumbers in the arms of old ocean.
In regard to the enslavement of our race, this Country presents as
mournful a picture as any other beneath the sun; but still it is
not hopelessly enshrouded in darkness. The good institutions of the
land are well adapted to the developement of the mind. So far as the
oppressed shall make their own way towards them, and shall escape the
influence of those that are evil, so far shall they succeed in throwing
off their bitter thraldom, and in wrenching the scourge from the hands
of tyranny.
Slavery has done much to ruin us, and we ourselves have done some
things which effect the same. Perhaps the evils of which I am about to
speak arise from slavery, and are the things without which the system
cannot exist. But nevertheless we must contribute largely towards their
overthrow. If it is in our power to destroy these evils, and we do not,
then much of our own blood will be found on us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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