African americans in the american west
MIFFLIN W. GIBBS IN CALIFORNIA
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- THE VICTORIA EXODUS, 1858
- A Voice From the Oppressed to the Friends of Humanity
- THE PACIFIC APPEAL ON THE FREEDMEN
- THE SAN FRANCISCO ELEVATOR
- JOHN BROWN IN THE WEST: KANSAS, 1858
- HENRY CLAY BRUCE AND KANSAS "FREEDOM"
- THE FREEDMEN AND EDUCATION
- CHAPTER FOUR: Reconstruction in the West
- Felix Haywood Remembers the Day of Jubilo
- Comanche War Parties in Texas
- Henry O Wagoner, Jr., on Black Rights , Black Voting Rights: The View from the Far West , and Black Voting Rights: A Hawaiian Newspapers Response
- Celebrates Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment and Helena Citizens Celebrate Their New Rights
MIFFLIN W. GIBBS IN CALIFORNIA Mifflin W. Gibbs, a Philadelphia native, was one of the four thousand African Americans who arrived in California during the Gold Rush. He arrived in San Francisco in 1850 with only sixty cents and after initially working as a bootblack, formed a partnership in 1851 with fellow Philadelphian, Peter Lester to create the Pioneer Boot and Shoe Emporium. Gibbs, who later moved to British Columbia, and after the Civil War, became a municipal judge in Reconstruction Arkansas, describes his arrival in a chapter from his 1902 autobiography, Shadow and Light. That description which includes the account of the "caning" of his partner which sparked the antebellum civil rights campaign in California, appears in the vignette below. Having made myself somewhat presentable upon leaving the steerage of the steamer, my trunk on a dray, I proceeded to an unprepossessing hotel kept by a colored man on Kearny Street. The cursory view from the outside, and the further inspection on the inside, reminded me of the old lady's description of her watch..."it might look pretty hard on the outside, but the inside works were all right..." I immediately went out, and after many attempts to seek employment of any kind, I approached a house in course of construction and applied to the contractor for work. He replied he did not need help. I asked the price of wages. Ten dollars a day... He said that if I choose to come for nine dollars a day I might. It is unnecessary for me to add that I chose to come... I was not allowed to long pursue carpentering. White employees finding me at work on the same building would "strike." On one occasion the contractor came to me and said, I expect you will have to stop, for this house must be finished in the time specified; but if you can get six or eight equally good workmen, I will let these fellows go. Not that I have any special liking for your people. I am giving these men all the wages they demand, and I am not willing to submit to the tyrany [sic] of their dictation if I can help it... I could not find the men he wanted or subsequent employment of that kind.. All classes of labor were highly remunerative, blacking boots not excepted. I after engaged in this... Saving my earnings, I joined a firm already established in the clothing business. After a year or so engaged, I became a partner in the firm of Lester & Gibbs, importers of fine books and shoes... Our establishment on Clay Street known as the "Emporium for fine books and shoes, imported form Philadelphia, London and Paris," having a reputation for keeping the best and finest in the State, was well patronized, our patrons extending to Oregon and lower California. The business, wholesale and retail, was profitable and maintained for a number of years. Mr. Lester, my partner, being a practical bookmaker, his step to a merchant in that line was easy and lucrative. Thanks to the evolution of events and march of liberal ideas the colored men in California have now a recognized citizenship, and equality before the law. It was not so at the period of which I write. With thrift and a wise circumspection financially, their opportunities were good from every other point of view they were ostracized, assaulted without redress, disfranchised and denied their oath in a court of justice. One occasion will be typical of the condition. One of two mutual friends (both our customers) came in looking over and admiring a display of newly arrived stock, tried on a pair of books, was pleased with them, but said he did not think he needed them then; lay them aside and he would think about it. A short time after, his friend came in, was shown the pair the former had admired... He tried on several and then asked to try on his friend's selection; they only suited, and he insisted on taking them; we objected, but he had them on, and said we need not have fear, he would clear us of blame, and walked out. Knowing they were close friends we were content. Possibly, in a humorous mood, he went straight to his friend, for shortly they both came back, the first asking for his boots; he would receive no explanation (while the cause of the trouble stood mute), and while vile epithets, using a heavy came, again and again assaulted my partner, who was compelled tamely to submit, for had he raised his hand he would have been shot, and no redress...
Composed by one of the suffering class. Mrs. Priscilla Stewart
Our hopes and prospects fled; The tyrant slavery entered here, And laid us all for dead. Sweet home! When shall we find a home? If the tyrant says that we must go The love of gain the reason, And if humanity dare say "No". Then they are tried for treason.
Her scepter and her throne, She looked on us with sympathy And offered us a home. Far better breathe Canadian air Where all are free and well, Than live in slavery's atmosphere And wear the chains of hell. Farewell to our native land, We must wave the parting hand, Never to see thee any more, But seek a foreign land. Farwell to our true friends, Who've suffered dungeon and death. Who have a claim upon our gratitude Whilst God shall lend us breath. May God inspire your hearts, A Marion raise your hands; Never desert your principles Until you've redeemed your land. Source: Delilah Beasley, The Negro Trail Blazers of California (Los Angeles, 1919), p. 263. THE PACIFIC APPEAL ON THE FREEDMEN Founded in San Francisco in 1862 by Philip A. Bell and Peter Anderson, the Pacific Appeal was the second African American newspaper in the far West and the only one in publication during the Civil War. The Appeal claimed to be the voice of the black West, often featuring articles from correspondents as far away as Arizona Territory in the South and Idaho Territory in the North. In the editorial that appeared six weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, the newspaper urges a plan of large scale settlement of the ex-slaves in the West. The editorial appears below. While the free colored people in the eastern States, as also those who are on this coast, are jubilant over the Emancipation Proclamation, it must not be forgotten that there will be a vast number of freedmen that will not be enrolled in the army or placed in the navy--that outside of the Government protection, their characters, their future destiny, will in a great degree, be in their own hands. It has been a favorite theme of debate. "Whether the character of a man is formed for him or by him?" As far as this question relates to the freedmen, every mishap or weakness of theirs will be misconstrued by the enemies of freedom into vices of the deepest dye. To prevent this, our leading men in the east should start a system of land speculation west of Kansas, or in any of the Territories, and endeavor to infuse into the minds of these freedmen the importance of agriculture, that they may become producers. By this means they can come up with the expected growth of the Great West, receive some of the innumerable benefits that well accrue from the building of the Pacific Railroad, and the taxes that they would be compelled to pay in common with other people, for the improvement of the new towns that will spring up, would entitle their children to the benefits of a common school education. The freedman's association in the east will be but temporary and of little avail, except they adopt some practical plan to guide them in the way that they may obtain some of the waste land in the West. As a large number will be thrown on their own resources, it will be best to encourage them to do just like other men: by putting up with hardships until they make themselves homes. It will be fatal to their interest and progress for our leading men in the east to...encourage them to stay in the larger cities--Philadelphia, New York and Boston. The responsibilities of their failure in this sphere of freedom would be a stigma and reproach on the free colored people of the North, as also on our white friends who have been battling in the cause of human freedom. Hence we of the Pacific States should not be hasty in connecting ourselves with any movement that has not a practical bearing upon our welfare. While the Government is disposed to aid and give encouragement by enrolling and enlisting large numbers of our race in the army and navy, there will rest a great responsibility on the free colored people of the North in shaping their movements in a direction that will induce many of these freedmen to take up lands in the West. Our friends in the East should form these land associations forthwith. Source: The Pacific Appeal, February 14, 1863, p. 2. THE SAN FRANCISCO ELEVATOR The political feud between Peter Anderson and Philip Bell founders of the Pacific Appeal in 1862, prompted Bell to create a rival newspaper in 1865, the San Francisco Elevator. The papers competed for the support of black San Francisco for the next two decades, giving the small African American community a rare luxury for the time, two well-managed, uncompromising newspapers. In the vignette below Bell describes the purpose and goal of the Elevator. OUR NAME is indicative of our object, we wish to elevate the oppressed of all nations and of every clime to the position of manhood and freedom. We wish to place all mankind on a level; not by lowering them to one standard, but by elevating them in virtue, intelligence and self-reliance on a level with the most favored of the human race. We are levelers, not to level down, but to level up. We would abolish caste, not class, we would teach the serf that he is by nature created equal to his lord, the slave to his master, the Pariah to the Brahmin; but we would also teach them that something more than natural equality is required to elevate them to a conventional equality with the ruling classes. We know this is a work which will take ages to accomplish, generations must pass away before an end so glorious can be attained, but we will labor on in our humble way, and lend our feeble aid to the noble band who are battling for "God and truth and suffering man." OUR MOTTO.--We claim full "Equality before the Law," we desire nothing more, well will be satisfied with nothing less. Social equality is a bug-bear, a hideous phantom raised by political necromancers to frighten the people from their duty. Laws cannot govern our social relations--custom, stronger than law regulates them, and despite of law or any rules which may be laid down social equality will always find its level. We do not expect, because we trade with a merchant, to visit his house, and mingle with his family; nor do we invite him to our house, and make him a welcome guest; neither can worshiping in the same church, riding in the same car, or voting at the same ballot box, make men associates. We shall strive for "Equality before the law," and let our social relations arrange themselves. OUR POSITION--We will publish nothing in the columns of the ELEVATOR, which we are afraid or ashamed of, and nothing for which we are not willing to assume the responsibility. Editors and publishers of newspapers are held responsible in law for whatever appears in their columns, and as we are legally responsible, so are we willing to become morally and personally responsible. We do not confine our correspondents to our own peculiar views, but we will publish nothing which will be subversive of the interests and the well being of the community in which we live, and the people with whom we are identified. Source: San Francisco Elevator, May 5, 1865, p. 3. JOHN BROWN IN THE WEST: KANSAS, 1858 John Brown remains the most infamous of the abolitionist figures of the 1850s because he chose a path of violence to challenge slavery. Brown's 1859 raid on Harper's Ferry, for example, helped precipitate the Civil War, and his earlier (1855) execution of five proslavery partisans at Pottawatomie Creek, Kansas, suggested his ruthless disregard of his enemies. Yet Brown remained one of a handful of white abolitionists who risked their lives to free slaves. His Christmas raid into Missouri in 1858 for that purpose is described below. One bitterly cold Christmas night in 1858, the firebrand abolitionist John Brown rode through the howling prairie winds of pioneer Kansas in the company of eleven fugitive slaves whom he had rescued from a Missouri plantation. Having tried in vain to find refuge for the bondsmen, the liberator clattered up to a rude log hut a mile west of the predominately free-state settlement of Osawatomie at the source of the Osage River. Rev. Samuel L. Adair, Brown's brother-in-law and owner of the unpretentious dwelling, came to the door and let a grave ear to Brown's urgent plea to shelter the fugitives. The clergyman consulted with his wife on the wisdom of complying with that dangerous request. Florella Brown Adair responded, "I cannot let those poor slaves perish. Bring them in." The next morning, according to one chronicler, "the negro men were secreted in cornshacks and the negro women were safely packed away in the house. The following night, they were taken to a cabin about five miles west of Lane, where they were concealed for more than a month, while officers were riding the country in every direction in search of John Brown and the kidnapped slaves. Source: Gunja SenGupta, "Servants for Freedom: Christian Abolitionists in Territorial Kansas, 1854-1858," Kansas History 16:3(Autumn 1993):200-201. FREEDOM IN KANSAS, 1863 Black Kansas was literally created by the Civil War. Between 1861 and 1865 the African American population of Kansas increased from 627 to over 12,000. Black fugitives arrived from nearby Missouri but also from as far away as the Indian Territory, Arkansas and Texas. As the former slaves poured into the state some white abolitionists such as Richard Cordley of Lawrence assisted their adjustment. In the statement below Cordley however addresses white Kansans who were concerned about the influx. Lawrence was settled as a Free State town and soon became recognized as the headquarters of the Free State movement. As a result it was the center of proslavery hate, and at the same time the center of hope to the slaves across the border. The colored people of Missouri looked to it as a sort of "city of refuge," and when any of them made a "dash for freedom," they usually made Lawrence their first point... When the war broke out in 1861, the slaves on the border took advantage of it to make sure of their freedom, whatever might be the result of the conflict. They did not wait for any proclamation, nor did they ask whether their liberation was a war measure or a civil process. The simple question was whether they could reach the Kansas line without being overtaken.... * * *
What occurred at Lawrence was only a specimen of what was happening all along the border. In all the border communities and in all the Union camps the freed slaves made their appearance. The question of their education and of their Christian training become at once a grave one, and has been a serious one ever since.... The question can hardly be made too prominent--what we do for these people, we do for ourselves. They are a part of the nation, and no wish or will or ours can separate them from us, or separate their destiny from ours. We may restrict immigration as we will, but those people area already here. It is of no use to shut the door. They are already in.... The negroes are not coming. They are here. They will stay here. They are American born. They have been here for more than two hundred and fifty years. They are not going back to Africa. They are not going to South America. They are not going to other parts of our own land. They are going to stay where they are. They are not able to emigrate if they would. We are not able to send them away if we wished. Even if we would and they would, the thing is not possible. It is not possible for eight millions of people to be transported from the land in which they were born, to some land across the seas, or some continent far away. They are to remain, and they are to increase. They are with us and with us to stay. They are to be our neighbors, whatever we may think about it, whatever we may do about it. It is not for us to say whether they shall be our neighbors or not. That has been settled by the providence that has placed them among us. It is only for us to say what sort of neighbors they shall be, and whether we will fulfill our neighborly obligations. Source: Richard Cordley Pioneer Days in Kansas (New York, 1903), pp. 137, 150-151. HENRY CLAY BRUCE AND KANSAS "FREEDOM" In the following vignette Henry Clay Bruce, brother of Blanche K. Bruce, the second black U.S. Senator from Mississippi during Reconstruction, tells of his escape from slavery in Missouri. Bruce's decision to flee Missouri was motivated as much by his desire to avoid conscription into the Union Army as to escape the horrors of slavery. The enlistment of Colored men for the army commenced in Chariton County, Missouri, early in December, 1863, and any slave man who desired to be a soldier and fight for freedom, had an opportunity to do so. Certain men said to be recruiting officers from Iowa, came to Brunswick, to enlist Colored men for the United States Army, which were to be accredited not to Missouri, but to certain townships in Iowa, in order to avoid a draft there.... Being in the United States service themselves, they thought it...right to press in every young man they could find. Being secretly aided by these white officers, who, I learned afterwards, received a certain sum of money for each recruit raised and accredited as above described. These Colored men scoured the county in search of young men for soldiers, causing me to sleep out nights and hide from them in the daytime. I was afraid to go to town while they were there, and greatly relieved when a company was filled out and left from some point in Iowa. Our owner did not want us to leave him and used every persuasive means possible to prevent it. He gave every grown person a free pass, and agreed to give me fifteen dollars per month, with board and clothing, if I would remain with him on the farm, an offer which I had accepted to take effect January 1, 1864. But by March of that year, I saw that it could not be carried out, and concluded to go to Kansas... I made the agreement in good faith, but when I saw that it could not be fulfilled I had not the courage to tell him that I was going to leave him. I was engaged to marry a girl belonging to a man named Allen Farmer, who was opposed to it on the ground, as I was afterwards informed, that he did not want a Negro to visit his farm who could read, because he would spoil his slaves. After it was know that I was courting the girl, he would not allow me to visit his farm nor any of his slaves to visit ours, but they did notwithstanding this order, nearly every Sunday. The girl's aunt was our mutual friend and made all arrangements for our meetings. At one of our secret meetings we decided to elope and fixed March 30, 1864, at nine o'clock, p.m., sharp, as the date for starting. She met me at the appointed time and place with her entire worldly effects tied up in a handkerchief, and I took her up on the horse behind me. Then in great haste we started for Laclede, about thirty miles north of Brunswick, and the nearest point reached by the Hannibal and St. Joe Railroad. This town was occupied by a squad of Union Troops. Having traveled over the country so often, I had acquired an almost perfect knowledge of it, even of the by-paths. We avoided the main road, and made the entire trip without touching the traveled road an any point and without meeting any one and reached Laclede in safety, were we took the train for St. Joe, thence to Weston, where we crossed the Missouri River on a ferry boat to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I then felt myself a free man. I am satisfied, even now, that I was braver that night than I have ever been since. I was a good shot and knew it, and intended to commence shooting as soon as my pursuers showed up; but it was a Godsend to all concerned, and especially to myself and bride, soon to be, that we were not overtaken: for I was determined to fight it out on that line, as surrender meant death to me. I had buckled around my waist a pair of Colt's revolvers and plenty of ammunition, but I feel now that I could not have held out long before a crowd of such men, and while I might have hit one or two of them, they would in the end have killed me.... They expected to overtake us on the mail road, where they would have killed me, taken the girl back and given her a severe flogging, but they were badly fooled, for we traveled east, nearly on a straight line for six miles, then turned north, the correct course of our destination.
But it was soon evident that they needed help in other directions than of securing a livelihood. They were mostly ignorant, only now and then one being able to read. In slavery no one was permitted to learn, it being a crime to teach a slave to read. We could not think of having this multitude with us, and not do something to teach and elevate them. They were very anxious to learn. They had got the impression that there was a connection between liberty and learning. Our public schools would soon provide for the children. but the grown people had no time to attend the public schools, and there was no provision for them in these schools if they had been able to attend them. Mr. S.N. Simpson...conceived of the idea of applying the Sunday-school methods to this problem. He proposed a night school where these people could have free instruction. There was no money to pay teachers, and he proposed that citizens volunteer to teach each evening for a couple of hours. He secured a room and organized a corps of volunteer teachers, mostly ladies, and commenced the school. About a hundred men and women, eager to learn, came to it.... The teachers were naturally from among the best people of the town... It brought them in contact with these newcomers, and the interest did not cease with the closing of the session. Many of the colored people got a start in this school which enabled them to learn to read... Besides teaching the lessons, lectures were given on their new duties and their new relations to society.... They had to begin, like little children, with the alphabet. But they earnestness with which they learn is exceedingly interesting. They seem to be straining forward with all their might, as if they could not learn fast enough. One young man who had been to the school only five nights, and began with the alphabet, now spells in words of two syllables. Another, in the same time, has progressed so that he could read, quite rapidly, the simple lessons given in the spelling-book. The scholars were of all ages. Here is a class of little girls, eager and restless; there is a class of grown men, solemn and earnest. A class of maidens in their teens contrasts with another of elderly women. But all alike showed their same intentness of application... Some who began when the school opened, can now read with some fluency, and were ready to commence with figures. Source: Richard Cordley Pioneer Days in Kansas (New York, 1903), pp. 138-140, 142-143. CHAPTER FOUR: Reconstruction in the West Reconstruction is usually associated with the defeated South during the decade following the Civil War. Yet, as the vignettes in this chapter reflect, the political process also involved western states and territories which had to define new relationships between their white and black citizens. The first vignette, Felix Haywood Remembers the Day of Jubilo depicts one Texas slave's immediate response to his freedom. Juneteenth: Birth of an African American Holiday shows how western blacks have permanently incorporated the celebration of the Texas Emancipation Proclamation while Bill Simms Migrates to Kansas shows the post-war response of a Missouri ex-slave to his new freedom. The vignette Reconstruction Violence in Texas: John Wesley Hardin describes the conditions the freedpeople faced right after the war while Comanche War Parties in Texas is a reminder that the state had both a reconstruction and frontier legacy. The vignette Black Kansans Call for Equal Rights suggests that the freedpeople in the West are intent on demanding full citizenship. Symbolic of that citizenship in the minds of many freedpeople was the nation's embrace of the Fifteenth Amendment. The vignettes Henry O Wagoner, Jr., on Black Rights, Black Voting Rights: The View from the Far West, and Black Voting Rights: A Hawaiian Newspaper's Response, illustrate both the black campaign for the Fifteenth Amendment and white support for the measure. The Reconstruction Amendments: Oregon's Response, however, reminds us that such support was not universal in the region. The vignettes The Elevator Celebrates Passage of the Fifteenth Amendment and Helena Citizens Celebrate Their New Rights reflect black hopes with the amendment's eventual passage. School Segregation Comes to Portland, however, indicates that ratification of the amendments did not ensure equal rights for African Americans. Terms for Week Four: Texas Emancipation Proclamation "Juneteenth" Texas Black Codes Matthew Gaines George T. Ruby Edmund Davis Texas Republican Party Texas State Police Freedperson "adoption" Allen Wilson Case Portland's Colored School, 1867 Dr. W. H. C. Stephenson William Jefferson Hardin Territorial Suffrage Act, 1867 Lewis Douglass Charles H. Langston Henry O. Wagoner, Jr. Directory: sites -> default -> files files -> Answer True False 2 points Question 2 files -> Northern England’s set-jetting locations files -> Nstructions for Acquiring Excess Equipment online, through the 1033 Program files -> Occupational health and safety files -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten Point Program files -> International programs roel profile files -> Fermi Questions a guide for Teachers, Students, and Event Supervisors Lloyd Abrams, Ph. D. DuPont Company, cr&D/ccas experimental Station Wilmington, de 19880 files -> Personal Information Name: Maha Al-Ammari Nationality: Saudi Relationship Status Download 1.07 Mb. Share with your friends:
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