A Century of Negro Migration | Page 7

not only practiced
in the southern part along the Mississippi and Ohio but as far north in
Illinois as Sangamon County, were found servants known as "yellow
boys" and "colored girls."--See the Laws of Illinois.]


CHAPTER II
A TRANSPLANTATION TO THE NORTH
Just after the settlement of the question of holding the western posts by
the British and the adjustment of the trouble arising from their capture
of slaves during our second war with England, there started a
movement of the blacks to this frontier territory. But, as there were few
towns or cities in the Northwest during the first decades of the new
republic, the flight of the Negro into that territory was like that of a
fugitive taking his chances in the wilderness. Having lost their
pioneering spirit in passing through the ordeal of slavery, not many of
the bondmen took flight in that direction and few free Negroes ventured
to seek their fortunes in those wilds during the period of the frontier
conditions, especially when the country had not then undergone a
thorough reaction against the Negro.
The migration of the Negroes, however, received an impetus early in
the nineteenth century. This came from the Quakers, who by the middle
of the eighteenth century had taken the position that all members of

their sect should free their slaves.[1] The Quakers of North Carolina
and Virginia had as early as 1740 taken up the serious question of
humanely treating their Negroes. The North Carolina Quakers advised
Friends to emancipate their slaves, later prohibited traffic in them,
forbade their members from even hiring the blacks out in 1780 and by
1818 had exterminated the institution among their communicants.[2]
After healing themselves of the sin, they had before the close of the
eighteenth century militantly addressed themselves to the task of
abolishing slavery and the slave trade throughout the world. Differing
in their scheme from that of most anti-slavery leaders, they were
advocating the establishment of the freedmen in society as good
citizens and to that end had provided for the religious and mental
instruction of their slaves prior to emancipating them.[3]
Despite the fact that the Quakers were not free to extend their
operations throughout the colonies, they did much to enable the
Negroes to reach free soil. As the Quakers believed in the freedom of
the will, human brotherhood, and equality before God, they did not,
like the Puritans, find difficulties in solving the problem of elevating
the Negroes. Whereas certain Puritans were afraid that conversion
might lead to the destruction of caste and the incorporation of
undesirable persons into the "Body Politick," the Quakers proceeded on
the principle that all men are brethren and, being equal before God,
should be considered equal before the law. On account of unduly
emphasizing the relation of man to God, the Puritans "atrophied their
social humanitarian instinct" and developed into a race of
self-conscious saints. Believing in human nature and laying stress upon
the relation between man and man, the Quakers became the friends of
all humanity.[4]
In 1693 George Keith, a leading Quaker of his day, came forward as a
promoter of the religious training of the slaves as a preparation for
emancipation. William Penn advocated the emancipation of slaves, that
they might have every opportunity for improvement. In 1695 the
Quakers while protesting against the slave trade denounced also the
policy of neglecting their moral and spiritual welfare.[5] The growing
interest of this sect in the Negroes was shown later by the development

in 1713 of a definite scheme for freeing and returning them to Africa
after having been educated and trained to serve as missionaries on that
continent.
When the manumission of the slaves was checked by the reaction
against that class and it became more of a problem to establish them in
a hostile environment, certain Quakers of North Carolina and Virginia
adopted the scheme of settling them in Northern States.[6] At first, they
sent such freedmen to Pennsylvania. But for various reasons this did
not prove to be the best asylum. In the first place, Pennsylvania
bordered on the slave States, Maryland and Virginia, from which
agents came to kidnap free Negroes. Furthermore, too many Negroes
were already rushing to that commonwealth as the Negroes' heaven and
there was the chance that the Negroes might be settled elsewhere in the
North, where they might have better economic opportunities.[7] A
committee of forty was accordingly appointed by North Carolina
Quakers in 1822 to examine the laws of other free States with a view to
determining what section would be most suitable for colonizing these
blacks. This committee recommended in its report that the blacks be
colonized in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
The yearly meeting, therefore, ordered the removal of such Negroes as
fast as they were willing