The Colored Regulars in the United States Army | Page 9

the slave decreased
in numbers, and remained a savage. In Jamaica, in St. Vincent, in
British Guiana, in Barbadoes, in Trinidad and in Grenada, British
slavery was far worse than American slavery. In these colonies "the
slave was generally a barbarian, speaking an unknown tongue, and
working with men like himself, in gangs with scarcely a chance for
improvement." An economist says, had the slaves of the British
colonies been as well fed, clothed, lodged, and otherwise cared for as
were those of the United States, their number at emancipation would
have reached from seventeen to twenty millions, whereas the actual
number emancipated was only 660,000. Had the blacks of the United
States experienced the same treatment as did those of the British
colonies, 1860 would have found among us less than 150,000 colored
persons. In the United States were found ten colored persons for every
slave imported, while in the British colonies only one was found for
every three imported. Hence the claim that the American Negro is a
new race, built up on this soil, rests upon an ample supply of facts. The
American slave was born in our civilization, fed upon good American
food, housed and clothed on a civilized plan, taught the arts and
language of civilization, acquired necessarily ideas of law and liberty,

and by 1860 was well on the road toward fitness for freedom. No
lessons therefore drawn from the emancipation of British slaves in the
West Indies are of any direct value to us, inasmuch as British slavery
was not like American slavery, the British freedman was in no sense
the equal of the American freedman, and the circumstances
surrounding the emancipation of the British slave had nothing of the
inspiring and ennobling character with those connected with the
breaking of the American Negro's chains. Yet, superior as the
American Negro was as a slave, he was very far below the standard of
American citizenship as subsequent events conclusively proved. The
best form of slavery, even though it may lead toward fitness for
freedom, can never be regarded as a fit school in which to graduate
citizens of so magnificent an empire as the United States.
The slave of 1860 was perhaps, all things considered, the best slave the
world had ever seen, if we except those who served the Hebrews under
the Mosaic statutes. While there was no such thing among them as
legal marriage or legitimate childhood, yet slave "families" were
recognized even on the auction block, and after emancipation legal
family life was erected generally upon relationships which had been
formed in slavery. Bishop Gaines, himself born a slave of slave parents,
says: "The Negro had no civil rights under the codes of the Southern
States. It was often the case, it is true, that the marriage ceremony was
performed, and thousands of couples regarded it, and observed it as of
binding force, and were as true to each other as if they had been
lawfully married." * * * "The colored people generally," he says, "held
their marriage (if such unauthorized union may be called marriage)
sacred, even while they were slaves. Many instances will be recalled by
the older people of the life-long fidelity which existed between the
slave and his concubine" (Wife, T.G.S.)" ... the mother of his children.
My own father and mother lived together over sixty years. I am the
fourteenth child of that union, and I can truthfully affirm that no
marriage, however made sacred by the sanction of law, was ever more
congenial and beautiful. Thousands of like instances might be cited to
the same effect. It will always be to the credit of the colored people that
almost without exception, they adhered to their relations, illegal though
they had been, and accepted gladly the new law which put the stamp of

legitimacy upon their union and removed the brand of bastardy from
the brows of their children."
Let us now sum up the qualifications that these people possessed in
large degree, in order to determine their fitness for freedom, then so
near at hand. They had acquired the English language, and the Christian
religion, including the Christian idea of marriage, so entirely different
in spirit and form from the African marriage. They had acquired the
civilized methods of cooking their food, making and wearing clothes,
sleeping in beds, and observing Sunday. They had acquired many of
the useful arts and trades of civilization and had imbibed the tastes and
feelings, to some extent, at least, of the country in which they lived.
Becoming keen observers, shut out from books and newspapers, they
listened attentively, learned more of law and politics than was generally
supposed. They knew what the election of 1860 meant and were on
tiptoe with expectation. Although the days of insurrection had