COLORED RACE IN AMERICA. CONTAINING ALSO THEIR ANCIENT AND MODERN LIFE IN AFRICA, MODES OF LIVING, EMPLOYMENTS, CUSTOMS, THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVERY THE CIVIL WAR, EMANCIPATION, EDUCATION AND ADVANCEMENT OF THE COLORED RACE, THEIR CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS. PREPARED AND ARRANGED BY WM. T. ALEXANDER, A. M. "And God said: 'Let there be Light,' and there was Light." Issued by subscription only, and not for sale in the book stores. Residents of any State desiring a copy should address the Publishing Co., and an agent will call upon them. EIGHTH REVISED EDITION. KANSAS CITY, MO. PALMETTO PUBLISHING CO. 1800. TO THE MILLIONS OF OUR COLORED CITIZENS WHOSE Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by THE PALMETTO PUBLISHING CO., in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. PREFACE. In presenting this history to the Colored Race in America, the author does so with an earnest desire that it will be the means of acquainting them to a fuller extent with the history of their race and their civil and political liberties, which have been secured to them through civil strife and on fields of carnage, dedicated, and consecrated, as they are by the blood and tears of the Nation. We believe that they will fully realize the importance and necessity of a work of this character, teaching, and tracing, as it does their early history through the dark and gloomy ages of the past, and bringing it forward out of that darkness into the glorious light of rational liberty. Nor can the importance of the subject be over-estimated. The present condition of the colored people demands that they should be informed of their history and learn of those causes which held them in bondage; the introduction of slavery on the American Continent, and of the great social revolution in this country, which operated under Providence to break their shackles and release them from a hideous and debasing thraldom. They must awake to the new destinies which await them, made necessary by the growth and development of the times. Their freedom they have, but of what avail is physical emancipation if the mind be permitted to grope in darkness or dwell in the region of ignorance? The liberty yet to be extended to the colored people, is liberty, not political but intellectual, that which gives them to know and to understand the nature of those rights, to obtain which so much has been sacrificed. To keep in ignorance the masses has ever been the rubric of oppression. The advancement of the times, and the changes in their social condition, make it absolutely necessary that the colored people should fully understand all matters relating, as they do, directly to them, and more especially does this apply to the younger generation, who must meet upon that plane of social condition, their white brother, to which the advancement of the times is so rapidly pressing, or fall behind in the race and sink into degradation. To the parent, therefore, the study and acquaintance of his history becomes doubly important, since it is for him to impart that knowledge to his children, the tender objects of his affection and care. Should the parent neglect this important duty, whom then could he blame? The subjects embraced in this work are of vast importance and need careful attention. It is only by a thorough knowledge of the past history of the race that the colored people will be better able to avail themselves of the blessings the future has in store for them. Slavery is extinct, and on its tombstone is written, with bayonet dipped in blood, "Dead, never to be resurrected in America." But there are some abuses still in existence, and will ever so continue until the colored man fits himself for the duties of life, and steps forth into the political arena to do battle for himself. |