The Journal of Negro History | Page 4

to turn in favor of the despised cause.
Negroes began to raise sums adequate to their elementary education
and the students of Lane Seminary supplemented these efforts by
establishing a colored mission school which offered more advanced
courses and lectures on scientific subjects twice a week. These students,
however, soon found themselves far in advance of public opinion.[25]
They were censured by the faculty and to find a more congenial center
for their operations they had to go to Oberlin in the Western Reserve
where a larger number of persons had become interested in the cause of
the despised and rejected of men.
During the years from 1833 to 1836 the situation in Cincinnati grew
worse because of the still larger influx of Negroes driven from the
South by intolerable conditions incident to the reaction against the race.
To solve this problem various schemes were brought forth. Augustus
Wattles tells us that he appeared in Cincinnati about this time and
induced numbers of the Negroes to go to Mercer County, Ohio, where
they took up 30,000 acres of land.[26] Others went to Indiana and
purchased large tracts on the public domain.[27] Such a method,
however, seemed rather slow to the militant proslavery leaders who had
learned not only to treat the Negroes as an evil but to denounce in the
same manner the increasing number of abolitionists by whom it was
said the Negroes were encouraged to immigrate into the State.
The spirit of the proslavery sympathizers was well exhibited in the
upheaval which soon followed. This was the riot of July 30, 1836. It
was an effort to destroy the abolition organ, _The Philanthropist_,
edited by James G. Birney, a Southerner who had brought his slaves
from Huntsville, Alabama, to Kentucky and freed them. The mob
formed in the morning, went to the office of _The Philanthropist_,
destroyed what printed matter they could find, threw the type into the
street, and broke up the press. They then proceeded to the home of the
printer, Mr. Pugh, but finding no questionable matter there, they left it
undisturbed. The homes of James G. Birney, Mr. Donaldson and Dr.
Colby were also threatened. The next homes to be attacked were those
of Church Alley, the Negro quarter, but when two guns were fired upon
the assailants they withdrew. It was reported that one man was shot but
this has never been proved. The mob hesitated some time before
attacking these houses again, several of the rioters declaring that they

did not care to endanger their lives. A second onset was made, but it
was discovered that the Negroes had deserted the quarter. On finding
the houses empty the assailants destroyed their contents.[28]
Yet undaunted by this persistent opposition the Negroes of Cincinnati
achieved so much during the years between 1835 and 1840 that they
deserved to be ranked among the most progressive people of the
world.[29] Their friends endeavored to enable them through schools,
churches and industries to embrace every opportunity to rise. These
2,255 Negroes accumulated, largely during this period, $209,000 worth
of property, exclusive of personal effects and three churches valued at
$19,000. Some of this wealth consisted of land purchased in Ohio and
Indiana. Furthermore, in 1839 certain colored men of the city organized
"The Iron Chest Company," a real estate firm, which built three brick
buildings and rented them to white men. One man, who a few years
prior to 1840 had thought it useless to accumulate wealth from which
he might be driven away, had changed his mind and purchased $6,000
worth of real estate. Another Negro, who had paid $5,000 for himself
and family, had bought a home worth $800 or $1,000. A freedman,
who was a slave until he was twenty-four years old, then had two lots
worth $10,000, paid a tax of $40 and had 320 acres of land in Mercer
County. Another, who was worth only $3,000 in 1836, had seven
houses in Cincinnati, 400 acres of land in Indiana, and another tract in
the same county. He was worth $12,000 or $15,000. A woman who
was a slave until she was thirty was then worth $2,000. She had also
come into potential possession of two houses on which a white lawyer
had given her a mortgage to secure the payment of $2,000 borrowed
from this thrifty woman. Another Negro, who was on the auction block
in 1832, had spent $2,600 purchasing himself and family and had
bought two brick houses worth $6,000 and 560 acres of land in Mercer
County, said to be worth $2,500.[30]
This unusual progress had been promoted by two forces, the
development of the steamboat as a factor in transportation and the rise
of the Negro mechanic. Negroes employed on vessels as servants to the
travelling public amassed large