Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman - Embracing a Correspondence of Several Years, - While President of Wilberforce Colony, London, Canada West by Austin Steward
page 125 of 270 (46%)
page 125 of 270 (46%)
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white and black man's blood mingled freely. So great had been the loss of
property; and go horrid and fearful had been the scene, that our people chose to leave, rather than remain under such untoward circumstances. They lived in constant fear of the mob which had so abused and terrified them. Families seated at the fireside started at every breath of wind, and trembled at the sound of every approaching footstep. The father left his family in fear, lest on his return from his daily labor, he should find his wife and children butchered, and his house left desolate. Meetings were held to devise plans and means for leaving the place where they had been so cruelly treated. But where should they go? And why should they be compelled to leave the State of Ohio? The fact is, that the African race there, as in all parts of this nominally free Republic, was looked down upon by the white population as being little above the brute creation; or, as belonging to some separate class of degraded beings, too deficient in intellect to provide for their own wants, and must therefore depend on the superior ability of their oppressors, to take care of them. Indeed, both the time and talents of eminent men have been wasted in unsuccessful research for the line of demarcation, between the African and the highest order of animals,--such for instance as the monkey or the ourang-outang. Some even, have advanced the absurd idea, that wicked Cain transmitted to them the "mark" which the Almighty set upon him for the murder of his brother; and that he, (who then must have survived the deluge), is the progenitor of that despised and inferior race--the negro slave of the United States of America! If it be true, that the natural inferiority of the black man, connects him so closely with the animal creation, it looks passing strange to me that he should be made responsible for the violation of laws which he has been declared too imbecile to aid in framing or of comprehending. Nor is it |
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