The American Prejudice Against Color Part 1

The American Prejudice Against Color.

by William G. Allen.

PREFACE.

Extract of a letter from Hon. Gerrit Smith, of New York, Member of Congress, to Joseph Sturge, Esq., of Birmingham, England. (By permission of Mr. Sturge.)

_"Peterboro', New York, March 23rd_, 1853.

"I take great pleasure in introducing to you my much esteemed friend, Professor Wm. G. Allen. I know him well, and know him to be a man of great mental and moral worth. I trust, in his visit to England, he will be both useful and happy.

"Very truly, your friend and brother, "GERRIT SMITH."

"Commending Professor Allen to the friends of the colored American citizens who are denied their rights in their own country, and wis.h.i.+ng him every success in the object before him,

"I am, respectfully, "_Birmingham, 6mo., 28d._, 1853. "JOSEPH STURGE."

"_Clapham, August 25th_, 1853.

"My dear Sir:--

"Your determination to spend some time in Great Britain, and to employ yourself, as opportunities occur, in giving lectures and delivering addresses upon American topics, including the social position of the free colored population--for which your education and personal experience eminently fit you--has given me sincere pleasure. I trust you will meet with ample encouragement from the friends of Abolition throughout the United Kingdom, to whose sympathy and kindness I would earnestly recommend you, and still more your heroic and most estimable lady.

"Believe me, most truly yours, "Professor W. G. Allen "GEORGE THOMPSON."

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION

Many persons having suggested that it would greatly subserve the Anti-slavery Cause in this country, to present to the public a concise narrative of my recent narrow escape from death, at the hands of an armed mob in America, a mob armed with tar, feathers, poles, and an empty barrel spiked with s.h.i.+ngle nails, together with the reasons which induced that mob, I propose to give it. I cannot promise however, to write such a book as ought to be written to ill.u.s.trate fully the bitterness, malignity, and cruelty, of American prejudice against color, and to show its terrible power in grinding into the dust of social and political bondage, the hundreds of thousands of so-called free men and women of color of the North. This bondage is, in many of its aspects, far more dreadful than that of the _bona fide_ Southern Slavery, since its victims--many of them having emerged out of, and some of them never having been into, the darkness of personal slavery--have acquired a development of mind, heart, and character, not at all inferior to the foremost of their oppressors.

The book that ought to be written, _I_ ought not to attempt; but if no one precedes me, I shall consider myself bound by necessity, and making the attempt, lay on, with all the strength I can possibly summon, to American Caste and skin-deep Democracy.

The mob occurred on Sabbath (!) evening, January the 30th, 1853, in the village of Phillipsville, near Fulton, Oswego County, New York. The cause,--the intention, on my part, of marrying a white young lady of Fulton,--at least so the public surmised.

CHAPTER II.

PERSONALITIES.

I am a quadroon, that is, I am of one-fourth African blood, and three-fourths Anglo-Saxon. I graduated at Oneida Inst.i.tute, in Whitesboro', New York, in 1844; subsequently studied Law with Ellis Gray Loring, Esq., of Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts; and was thence called to the Professors.h.i.+p of the Greek and German languages, and of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres of New York Central College, situated in Mc. Grawville, Cortland County,--the only College in America that has ever called a colored man to a Professors.h.i.+p, and one of the very few that receive colored and white students on terms of perfect equality, if, indeed, they receive colored students at all.

In April, 1851, I was invited to Fulton, to deliver a course of Lectures. I gladly accepted the invitation, and none the less that Fulton had always maintained a high reputation for its love of impartial freedom, and that its citizens were highly respected for their professed devotion to the teachings of Christianity.

I am glad to say, that on this occasion I was well received, and at the close of my first lecture was invited to spend the evening at the house of the Rev. Lyndon King. This gentleman having long been known as a devoted abolitionist,--a fervid preacher of the doctrine, that character is above color,--and as one of the ablest advocates of the social, political, and religious rights of the colored man, I, of course, had a pleasant visit with the family; and, remaining with them several days, conceived a deep interest in one of the Elder's daughters,--Miss Mary E.

King, who was then preparing to enter the College in Mc. Grawville. I accompanied Miss King to Mc. Grawville, where she remained in college, a year and a half.

Boarding in tenements quite opposite each other, we frequently met in other than college halls, and as freely conversed,--Miss K. being of full age, and legally, as well as intellectually and morally, competent to discuss the subjects in which, it is generally supposed, young men and women feel an absorbing interest.

It is of no consequence what we said; and if it were, the reader, judging in the light of the results, will perhaps as correctly imagine that, as I can possibly describe it. I pa.s.s on at once, therefore, simply stating that at the close of the year and a half, my interest in the young lady had become fully reciprocated, and we occupied a relation to each other much more significant than that of teacher and pupil.

Miss King returned to her father's house in October, 1852. I visited the family in December following. Then and there we discussed the subject of marriage more fully between ourselves; and deeming it a duty obligatory upon us, by an intelligent regard for our future happiness, to survey, before consummating an engagement even, the whole field of difficulties, embarra.s.sments, trials, insults and persecutions, which we should have to enter on account of our diversity of complexion, and to satisfy ourselves fully as to our ability to endure what we might expect to encounter; we concluded to separate unengaged, and, in due season, each to write to the other what might be the results of more mature deliberation. This may seem unromantic to the reader; nevertheless, it was prudent on our part.

After remaining in Fulton a week, I left for Boston. Several letters then pa.s.sed between us, and in January last, our engagement was fixed. I will not speak of myself, but on the part of Miss King, this was certainly a bold step. It displayed a moral heroism which no one can comprehend who has not been in America, and who does not understand the diabolical workings of prejudice against color. Whatever a man may be in his own person,--though he should have the eloquence, talents, and character of Paul and Apollos, and the Angel Gabriel combined,--though he should be as wealthy as Croesus,--and though, in personal appearance, he should be as fair as the fairest Anglo-Saxon, yet, if he have but one drop of the blood of the African flowing in his veins, no white young lady can ally herself to him in matrimony, without bringing upon her the anathemas of the community, with scarcely an exception, and rendering herself an almost total outcast, not only from the society in which she formerly moved, but from society in general.

Such is American Caste,--the most cruel under the sun. And such it is, notwithstanding the claims set up by the American people, that they are Heaven's Vicegerents, to teach to men, and to nations as well, the legitimate ideas of Christian Democracy.

To digress a moment. This Caste-spirit of America sometimes ill.u.s.trates itself in rather ridiculous ways.

A beautiful young lady--a friend of mine--attended, about two years since, one of the most aristocratic Schools of one of the most aristocratic Villages of New York. She was warmly welcomed in the highest circles, and so amiable in temper was she, as well as agreeable in mind and person, that she soon became not only a favorite, but _the_ favorite of the circle in which she moved. The _young gentlemen_ of the village were especially interested in her, and what matrimonial offer might eventually have been made her, it is not for me to say. At the close of the second term, however, she left the school and the village; and then, for the first time, the fact became known (previously known only to her own room-mate) that she was slightly of African blood.

Reader,--the consternation and horror which succeeded this "new development," are, without exaggeration, perfectly indescribable. The people drew long breaths, as though they had escaped from the fangs of a boa constrictor; the old ladies charged their daughters, that should Miss ---- be seen in that village again, by no means to permit themselves to be seen in the street with her; and many other charges were delivered by said mothers, equally absurd, and equally foolish. And yet this same young lady, according to their own previous showing, was not only one of the most beautiful in person and manners who had ever graced their circle, but was also of fine education; and in complexion as white as the whitest in the village. Truly, this, our human nature, is extremely strange and vastly inconsistent!

Confessedly, as a cla.s.s, the quadroon women of New Orleans are the most beautiful in America. Their personal attractions are not only irresistible, but they have, in general, the best blood of America in their veins. They are mostly white in complexion, and are, many of them, highly educated and accomplished; and yet, by the law of Louisiana, no man may marry a quadroon woman, unless he can prove that he, too, has African blood in his veins. A law involving a greater outrage on propriety, a more blasphemous trifling with the heart's affections, and evincing a more contemptible tyranny, those who will look at the matter from the beginning to the end, will agree with me, could not possibly have been enacted.

Colonel Fuller, of the "_New York Mirror_," writing from New Orleans, gives some melancholy descriptions--and some amusing ones too--of the operations of this most barbarous law.

One I especially remember. A planter, it seems, had fallen deeply in love with a charming quadroon girl. He desired to marry her; but the law forbade. What was he to do? To tarnish her honour was out of the question; he had too much himself to seek to tarnish hers. Here was a dilemma. But he was not to be foiled. What true heart will be, if there be any virtue in expedients?

"----In love, His thoughts came down like a rus.h.i.+ng stream."

At last he got it. A capital thought, which could have crept out of no one's brain, save that of a most desperate lover. He hit upon the expedient of extracting a little African blood from the veins of one of his slaves, and injecting it into his own. The deed done, the letter of the law was answered. He made proposals, was accepted, and they were married,--he being willing to risk his caste in obedience to a love higher and holier than any conventionalism which men have ever contrived to establish.

O, Cupid, thou art a singular G.o.d! and a most amazing philosopher! Thou goest shooting about with thy electrically charged arrows, bringing to one common level human hearts, however diverse in clime, caste, or color.

Let not the reader suppose, however, that the white people of America are in the habit of exercising such honor towards the people of color, as is here ascribed to this planter. Far from it. The laws of the Southern States, on the one hand, (I allude not now to any particular law of Louisiana, but to the laws of the Slave States in general), have deliberately, and in cold blood, withheld their protection from every woman within their borders, in whose veins may flow but half a drop of African blood; while the prejudice against color of the Northern States, on the other hand, is so cruel and contemptuous of the rights and feelings of colored people, that no white man would lose his caste in debauching the best educated, most accomplished, virtuous and wealthy colored woman in the community, but would be mobbed from Maine to Delaware, should he with that same woman attempt honorable marriage.

Henry Ward Beecher, (brother of Mrs. Stowe) in reference to prejudice against color, has truly said of the Northern people--and the truth in this case in startling and melancholy--that, "with them it is less sinful to break the whole decalogue towards the colored people, than to keep a single commandment in their favour."

But to return to the narrative. Miss King, previously to the consummation of our engagement, consulted her father, who at once gave his consent. Her sister not only consented, but, thanks to her kind heart, warmly approved the match. Her brothers, of whom there were many, were bitterly opposed. Mrs. King--a step-mother only--was not only also bitterly opposed, but inveterately so. Bright fancies and love-bewildering conceptions were what, in her estimation, we ought not to be allowed to indulge.

In pa.s.sing, it is proper to say, that this lady, though not lacking a certain benevolence,--especially that sort which can pity the fugitive, give him food and raiment, or permit him at her table even,--is, nevertheless, extremely aristocratic of heart and patronizing of temper.

This statement is made upon quite a familiar acquaintance with Mrs.

King, and out of no asperity of feeling. I cherish none, but only pity for those who nurture a prejudice, which, while it convicts them of the most ridiculous vanity, at the same time shrivels their own hearts and narrows their own souls.

Mrs. King was at first mild in her opposition, but finally resorted to such violence of speech and act, as to indicate a state of feeling really deplorable, and a spirit diametrically opposed to all the teachings of the Christian religion--a religion which she loudly professed, and which a.s.sures us that "G.o.d is no respecter of persons."

I judge not mortal man or woman, but leave Mrs. King, and all those who thought it no harm because of my complexion, to abuse the most sacred feelings of my heart, to their conscience and their G.o.d.