Hagars Daughter

Hagar's Daughter
A Story of Southern Caste Prejudice
By Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins
First published in serial form, in Colored American Magazine
1902

Chapter I
In the fall of 1860 a stranger visiting the United States would have
thought that nothing short of a miracle could preserve the union of
states so proudly proclaimed by the signers of the Declaration of
Independence, and so gloriously maintained by the gallant Washington.
The nomination of Abraham Lincoln for the presidency by the
Republican party was inevitable. The proslavery Democracy was drunk
with rage at the prospect of losing control of the situation, which, up to
that time, had needed scarcely an effort to bind in riveted chains
impenetrable alike to the power of man or the frowns of the Godhead;
they had inaugurated a system of mob-law and terrorism against all
sympathizers with the despised party. The columns of partisan
newspapers teemed each day in the year with descriptions of
disgraceful scenes enacted North and South by pro-slavery men, due
more to the long-accustomed subserviency of Northern people to the
slaveholders than to a real, personal hatred of the Negro.
The free negroes North and South, and those slaves with the hearts of
freemen who had boldly taken the liberty denied by man, felt the

general spirit of unrest and uncertainty which was spreading over the
country to such an alarming extent. The subdued tone of the liberal
portion of the press, the humiliating offers of compromise from
Northern political leaders, and the numerous cases of surrendering
fugitive slaves to their former masters, sent a thrill of mortal fear into
the very heart of many a household where peace and comfort had
reigned for many years. The fugitive slave had perhaps won the heart of
some Northern free woman; they had married, prospered, and were
happy. Now came the haunting dread of a stealthy tread, an ominous
knock, a muffled cry at midnight, and the sunlight of the new day
would smile upon a broken-hearted woman with baby hands clinging to
her skirts, and children's voices asking in vain for their father lost to
them forever. The Negro felt that there was no safety for him beneath
the Stars and Stripes, and, so feeling, sacrificed his home and personal
effects and fled to Canada.
The Southerners were in earnest, and would listen to no proposals in
favor of their continuance in the Union under existing conditions;
namely, Lincoln and the Republican party. The vast wealth of the
South made them feel that they were independent of the world. Cotton
was not merely king; it was God. Moral considerations were nothing.
Drunk with power and dazzled with prosperity, monopolizing cotton
and raising it to the influence of a veritable fetich, the authors of the
Rebellion did not admit a doubt of the success of their attack on the
Federal government. They dreamed of perpetuating slavery, though all
history shows the decline of the system as industry, commerce, and
knowledge advance. The slaveholders proposed nothing less than to
reverse the currents of humanity, and to make barbarism flourish in the
bosom of civilization.
The South argued that the principle of right would have no influence
over starving operatives; and England and France, as well as the
Eastern States of the Union, would stand aghast, and yield to the master
stroke which should deprive them of the material of their labor.
Millions of the laboring class were dependent upon it in all the great
centers of civilization; it was only necessary to wave this sceptre over
the nations and all of them would acknowledge the power which

wielded it. But, alas! the supreme error of this anticipation was in
omitting from the calculation the power of principle. Right still had
authority in the councils of nations. Factories might be closed, men and
woman out of employment, but truth and justice still commanded
respect among men. The proslavery men in the North encouraged the
rebels before the breaking out of the war. They promised the South that
civil war should reign in every free state in case of an uprising of the
Southern oligarchy, and that men should not be permitted to go South
to put down their brothers in rebellion.
Weak as were the Southern people in point of numbers and political
power, compared with those of the North, yet they easily persuaded
themselves that they could successfully cope in arms with a Northern
foe, whom they affected to despise for his cowardly and mercenary
disposition. They indulged the belief, in proud confidence, that their
great political prestige would continue to serve them among party
associates at the North, and that the counsels of the adversary would be
distracted and his power weakened by the effects of dissension.
When the Republican banner bearing the names of Abraham