The Journal of Negro History
Chapter 63 : Richard Allen LETTER FROM AN AFRICAN, RESIDENT IN PHILADELPHIA, TO DOROTHY RIPLEY May 1

Richard Allen

LETTER FROM AN AFRICAN, RESIDENT IN PHILADELPHIA, TO DOROTHY RIPLEY

May 17, 1803.

_Respected Friend_,

I am perhaps presumptuous in troubling you to read this. But cannot let slip an opportunity of addressing you with what I wish you to know even when you have arrived at your native country, and may contemplate on a subject which I hope will not displease you, and I will thank Heaven I have it in my power to let one amongst the people called Quakers[2] see, written by the hand of an African, the sentiments of his soul. I mean only to trouble you with the obligations that race of people, myself amongst that great mult.i.tude, are to you indebted; and may the unremitting pains which have been taken not fall to the ground. We have been oppressed with cruelty and the heavy task-masters in the West Indies and the southern States of America for many centuries back, with not only the horrible weight of bondage, but have been subject to heavy iron chains, too heavy to bear, had not the Creator of all things framed our const.i.tutions to bear them, and all the deep cuts and lashes the inhuman-hearted drivers please to mangle us with. Had not the all-directing hand of Providence made us come under the notice of the Friends, who formed an abolition society for our relief, many thousands of us would be dragging out our lives in wretchedness, like those of our brethren who have never yet tasted the sweet cup of liberty.

Yet while the nations of Europe are contending to catch the draught, the African is forbidden to lift up his head towards it. Every man has a right to his liberty, and we must by the ties of nature come under the t.i.tle of men: but are dragged from our native land, in our old age or in our infancy, and sold as the brute, to the planters; the infant dragged from its parents, and the husband from wife and children, and hurried into the cane field, to give independence to their owners, and annex abundance to their riches. And how is this, that G.o.d created us amongst the rest of human beings, and yet man would level us with the brute? We were not all born Christians, but many have become so; and I pray Heaven many thousands of us may be received at the bar of G.o.d amongst the righteous at his right hand, and with you glorify him in Heaven for ever. I pray that the Africans may enjoy his holy privileges, and let their light s.h.i.+ne before men.

The cross[3] you met with in your sermon at Bethel African church grieved me much, but it originated with white men. Had it been one of my complexion, it would prey on my feelings to the very heart. But I hope you will forget it. If I was a converted soul in the Lord, I could address you on a more spiritual subject. But alas! I am an unfortunate being not born a second time. Yet weak as I am, the prayers of an unconverted African shall be offered to Heaven for your happiness on earth, and in the world to come life everlasting. And may the vessel in which you may embark for England be attended with a fair and pleasant pa.s.sage, and land you safe on its sh.o.r.es.

And when you shall lay your head on a dying pillow, to leave this troublesome world, may you be surrounded with a blessed convoy of angels to attend you to the Throne of G.o.d.

I am, Yours, Of The African Race

--"_The Extraordinary Conversion and Religious Experience of Dorothy Ripley with her First Voyage in America_," 132-144.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From England.

[2] He expected I was a member of that society, which I never yet have been.

[3] The cross here mentioned has an allusion to an attempt made by an intoxicated soldier, to disturb our peace, who caused great confusion for a few moments; but kneeling in the midst of this tempestuous storm, G.o.d instantly caused a calm, so that no one received harm.

BOOK REVIEWS

_The Aftermath of the Civil War, in Arkansas_. By Powell Clayton, Governor of Arkansas, 1868 to 1871. Neale Publis.h.i.+ng Company, New York, 1915.

Pp. 378.

Looking at the t.i.tle of this work the student of history would expect that same scientific treatment which is observed in so many of the Reconstruction studies. On the contrary, he finds in this a mere volume of memoirs of a political leader completed in his eighty-second year. The work gives an account of the author's own administration as governor of Arkansas "also of those events that commenced before and extended into it, and those that occurred during that period and continued beyond it."

In view of the fact that he, a man of well-known partisan proclivities, may be charged with criticising his defenceless and dead contemporaries the author says that he endeavored to substantiate "every controvertible and important conclusion." To do this he collected "an immense amount of doc.u.mentary evidence" from which he selected the most appropriate for that purpose. The writer made use of certain doc.u.ments in the Library of Congress and had frequent recourse to the _Arkansas Gazette_.

The book as a whole is essentially political history. It is chiefly concerned with "the Murphy Government," the "Organization and Operations of the Klu Klux Klan," "Martial Law," and the peculiar situation in the counties of Crittenden and Conway. The subjects of immigration, education, state aid to railroads, and the funding of the state debt are all mentioned but they suffer because of the preference given to the discussion of political questions. When one has read the book he is still uninformed as to what was the actual working of the economic and social forces in Arkansas during this period.

This work, however, is valuable for several reasons. In the first place, whether the reader agrees with the author or not he gathers from page to page facts which throw light on other conditions. Moreover, consisting mainly of a discussion of extracts from various records it is a good source book for students who have not access to the doc.u.ments the author has used.

Further it is important to get the viewpoint of the distinguished author who lived through what he writes of and is now sufficiently far removed from the struggle to study it somewhat sympathetically.

C. R. WILSON

_Black and White in the Southern States_. By Maurice S. Evans, C.M.G.--Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1915. Pp. 209.

This book cannot be considered an historical work. Yet when the author makes a survey of the slavery and reconstruction periods with a view to estimating what the Negro has been, what has been done for him, and what he himself has accomplished it claims the attention of historians. From this historic retrospect the author approaches such questions as the Negroes'

grievances, their political rights and wrongs, blood admixture, race hostility and grounds for hope and the like.

The author has had experiences in South Africa and traveled in the United States with a view to studying the condition of the descendants of the African race in this country. His effort seems to be to write such a work as some of those of Sir H. H. Johnson or W. P. Livingstone. He justifies the writing of this work on the grounds that "the partisan spirit, partial to one race or other, permeates most of the writings on this subject."

Feeling that the issues involved are too great, he hoped to avoid this "that no preconceived ideas or partiality should be allowed to cloud clarity of view, or warp the judgment."

Yet although the author speaks well of his good intentions it is apparent that he did not live up to this profession. In the first place, the work is not scientific, facts are not "observed and noted with scrupulous care,"

and conclusions are drawn without warranted data to support them. On the whole then, one must say that this work fails to unravel some "knots in this tangled skein of human endeavor and error." When after a survey of the history of the Negro during the last fifty years an investigator concludes that the Negro has shown an incapacity for commerce and finance, and that he must not struggle to equip himself in the same way that the white man has, one must believe that the writer has not the situation thoroughly in hand. The great difficulty of the author seems to be that he did not remain in the country long enough to know it, did not give sufficient time to the study of conditions, and based his conclusions largely on information obtained from persons who were either too prejudiced or had neither the scientific point of view nor adequate mental development to describe social conditions.

It is not surprising therefore that the author a.s.serts that the record of the Negro during the last fifty years shows that they are chiefly valuable as laborers in drudgery, or weak in foresight and thrift, and unfit for city life. Yet he believes that there is some hope for the blacks, since they can get work and buy land and thereby become economically independent.

He calls attention to such injustices as miscegenation, lynching, unfairness of the courts, and discrimination in traveling.

W. R. WARD

_Samuel Coleridge-Taylor--Musician. His Life and Letters_. By W. C.

Berwick Sayers. Ca.s.sell and Company, London, 1915. Pp. 328.

In this work we have the first extensive account of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. The author of this volume has succeeded in producing a sympathetic and interesting narrative of the life of one of the greatest musicians of his time. Taking up his birth and childhood and then his college days, ending in the romance which attached him to a young Croydon girl, the author does not delay in bringing the reader to a consideration of those fundamentals which made Samuel Coleridge-Taylor famous ...

Much s.p.a.ce is devoted to Coleridge-Taylor's achievement of success with his "Ballade in A Minor." How Sir Edward Elgar extended the promising composer a welcoming hand and arranged for him to write for a concert a short orchestral piece which turned out to be the artist's first great success is well described. The author emphasizes the barbaric strain and orchestral coloring, the prominently marked features which made the composer great.

The next task of the author is to show how the "essential beauty, naive simplicity, unaffected expression and unforced idealism," of Longfellow's "Hiawatha" stirred the artist and set him composing an unambitious cantata which resulted in "Hiawatha's Wedding Feast," and the "Song of Hiawatha."

The expressions of enthusiasm and the euologies which crowned the musician as one of the greatest artists that Great Britain has produced justly const.i.tute a large portion of the work.

His "Visit to America" is an important chapter of the volume. The manner in which the oppressed of his race received him in their troubled land is treated in detail, and the names of the persons and organizations that arose to welcome him are given honorable mention. The author brings out too that so impressed was Coleridge-Taylor with the frank recognition of pure music in America that he once "contemplated the desirability of emigrating to this land."

The book abounds with letters and extracts from publications, which enable the reader to learn for himself how the artist's work was appreciated. The volume is well ill.u.s.trated. In it appear the early portraits of Coleridge-Taylor's mother, of himself, and family, and home, and of the Coleridge-Taylor Society in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. Not only persons who appreciate music but all who have an intelligent interest in the achievements of the Negro should read this work.

J. R. DAVIS

_Race Orthodoxy in the South and other Aspects of the Negro Problem_. By Thomas Pearce Bailey, Ph.D. The Neale Publis.h.i.+ng Company, New York, 1914.

The author of this volume has a long intellectual pedigree. Pedigrees are important in authors who write on the race problem. This is particularly true when they attempt to tell us what the orthodox opinion of the South is regarding the Negro. Much that pa.s.ses for Southern opinion on the Negro is too violent to be taken at its face value. Other interpretations of the South have too frequently been the individual views of eminent men of Southern origin who no longer hold orthodox views.

The author discusses some of these interpretations and criticises them.

There are four princ.i.p.al types. There is the philosophical view, represented by Edgar Gardiner Murphy's "_The Basis of Ascendancy_." Mr.

Murphy "is one of the choicest specimens of n.o.ble character that the South has produced," but he came under Northern influences and his book represents a struggle between Northern and Southern points of view. "The first part of his book seems to be, in the main, pro-Southern and defensive of the South, while the latter part becomes largely Northern and critical of the South." He does not succeed, in the opinion of the author, in synthesizing these two divergent views.

The second type is sociological, represented by "_The Southerner_," a novel written in the form of an autobiography or, perhaps, rather an autobiography written in the form of a novel. The author is supposed to be Walter Hines Page, at present American amba.s.sador to Great Britain. Of this book Mr. Bailey says: "The author is not a Southerner of the spirit, whatever he may be of the flesh. There is something of North Carolina and something of Ma.s.sachusetts in his att.i.tude, but none of the all-inclusive Americanism that alone is able to write about the South with sympathy of the heart yet with balanced discrimination."

To understand the South one must have lived in South Carolina, and understand the "apparent violence" of Ben Tilman, or in Mississippi, the home of Senator Vardaman. The South, the orthodox South, is today as it was before the war, the "far South"; but the sentiments which dominate it are not now, as in slavery days, the sentiments of the "master cla.s.s" but rather those of the "poor white man."