Walkers Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life | Page 6

to heaven and to earth, and particularly to the American
people themselves who cease not to declare that our condition is not
hard, and that we are comparatively satisfied to rest in wretchedness
and misery, under them and their children. Not, indeed, to show me a
colored President, a Governor, a Legislator, a Senator, a Mayor, or an
Attorney at the Bar.--But to show me a man of color, who holds the

low office of a Constable, or one who sits in a Juror Box, even on a
case of one of his wretched brethren, throughout this great
Republic!!--But let us pass Joseph the son of Israel a little further in
review, as he existed with that heathen nation.
"And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Zaphnathpaaneah; and he gave him
to wife Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On. And Joseph
went out over all the land of Egypt."[4]
Compare the above, with the American institutions. Do they not
institute laws to prohibit us from marrying among the whites? I would
wish, candidly, however, before the Lord, to be understood, that I
would not give a pinch of snuff to be married to any white person I ever
saw in all the days of my life. And I do say it, that the black man, or
man of color, who will leave his own color (provided he can get one
who is good for any thing) and marry a white woman, to be a double
slave to her just because she is white, ought to be treated by her as he
surely will be, viz; as a NIGER!!! It is not indeed what I care about
intermarriages with the whites, which induced me to pass this subject in
review; for the Lord knows, that there is a day coming when they will
be glad enough to get into the company of the blacks, notwithstanding,
we are, in this generation, levelled by them almost on a level with the
brute creation; and some of us they treat even worse than they do the
brutes that perish. I only made this extract to show how much lower we
are held, and how much more cruel we are treated by the Americans,
than were the children of Jacob, by the Egyptians. We will notice the
sufferings of Israel some further, under heathen Pharaoh, compared
with ours under the enlightened christians of America.
"And Pharaoh spake unto Joseph, saying, thy father and thy brethren
are come unto thee:"
"The land of Egypt is before thee: in the best of the land make thy
father and brethren to dwell; in the land of Goshen let them dwell; and
if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them
rulers over my cattle."[5]
I ask those people who treat us so well, Oh! I ask them, where is the

most barren spot of land which they have given unto us? Israel had the
most fertile land in all Egypt. Need I mention the very notorious fact,
that I have known a poor man of color, who labored night and day, to
acquire a little money, and having acquired it, he vested it in a small
piece of land, and got him a house erected thereon, and having paid for
the whole, he moved his family into it, where he was suffered to remain
but nine months, when he was cheated out of his property by a white
man, and driven out of door!--And is not this the case generally? Can a
man of color buy a piece of land and keep it peaceably? Will not some
white man try to get it from him even if it is in a _mud hole_? I need
not comment any farther on a subject, which all, both black and white,
will readily admit. But I must, really, observe that in this very city,
when a man of color dies, if he owned any real estate it must generally
fall into the hands of some white person. The wife and children of the
deceased may weep and lament if they please, but the estate will be
kept snug enough by its white possessors.
But to prove farther that the condition of the Israelites was better under
the Egyptians than ours is under the whites. I call upon the professing
christians, I call upon the philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant
himself, to show me a page of history, either sacred or profane, on
which a verse can be found, which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped
the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel by telling them that
they were not of the human family. Can the whites deny this charge?
Have they not, after having reduced us to the deplorable condition of
slaves under their feet, held us up