the coast towns; the girl who went thither came not home again, and a
young man was lost to all that Africa held dear. In course of time she
saw every native craft despised, and instead of the fabric that her own
fingers wove her children yearned for the tinsel and the gewgaws of the
trader. She cursed this man, and she called upon all her spirits
to banish the evil. But when at last all was of no avail--when the
strongest youth or the dearest maiden had gone--she went back to her hut
and ate her heart out in the darkness. She wept for her children and
would not be comforted because they were not. Then slowly to the
untutored mind somehow came the promise: "These are they which came out
of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb.... They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any
more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb
which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them
unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes."




CHAPTER II

THE NEGRO IN THE COLONIES


The Negroes who were brought from Africa to America were brought hither
to work, and to work under compulsion; hence any study of their social
life in the colonial era must be primarily a study of their life under
the system of slavery, and of the efforts of individuals to break away
from the same.