Don'tletusdisturbyou,"Isaid."There'splentyofroomforusall.

butshiftlesscultivationhadwell-nighexhaustedthesoil.

goophered

Canaan

holocaust

t is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunde

THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK ESSAYS AND SKETCHES

Jordan roll”

O Black and Unknown Bard

swing low”?

But it was a bootless strife for colored people.

This is a white man's government," and regardless of numbers the white man should rule. "No Negro domination" became the new legend on the sanguinary banner of the sunny South, and under it rode the Ku Klux Klan, the Regulators, and the lawless mobs, which for any cause chose to murder one man or a dozen as suited their purpose best. It was a long, gory campaign; the blood chills and the heart almost loses faith in Christianity when one thinks of Yazoo, Hamburg, Edgefield, Copiah, and the countless massacres of defenseless Negroes, whose only crime was the attempt to exercise their right to vote.

. In a government "of the people, for the people, and by the people," the Negro's vote became an important factor in all matters of state and national politics. But this did not last long. The southern white man would not consider that the Negro had any right which a white man was bound to respect, and the idea of a republican form of government in the southern states grew into general contempt. It was maintained that "This is a white man's government," and regardless of numbers the white man should rule. "No Negro domination" became the new legend on the sanguinary banner of the sunny South, and under it rode the Ku Klux Klan, the Regulators, and the lawless mobs, which for any cause chose to murder one man or a dozen as suited their purpose bes

The student of American sociology will find the year 1894 marked by a pronounced awakening of the public conscience to a system of anarchy and outlawry which had grown during a series of ten years to be so common, that scenes of unusual brutality failed to have any visible effect upon the humane sentiments of the people of our land.

I had forgot wide fields; and clear brown streams;The perfect loveliness that God has made,—Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.And now—unwittingly, you've made me dreamOf violets, and my soul's forgotten gleam.

On wasted fields, and writhing grotesque things Once men. My soul in pity flings

I must sit and sew.

Suffice it to say, that he persecuted me for four years, and I--I--became a mother. The child of which he was the father was the only child that I ever brought into the world. If my poor boy ever suffered any humiliating pangs on account of birth, he could not blame his mother

I want Elizabeth to be a good girl and not to thinke that becasue I am bound so fare that gods not abble to open the way * * * *

 In the morning my father called me to him and kissed me, then held me out at arms' length as if he were regarding his child with pride. "She is growing into a large fine girl," he remarked Page 23 to my mother. "I dun no which I like best, you or Lizzie, as both are so dear to me." My mother's name was Agnes, and my father delighted to call me his "Little Lizzie." While yet my father and mother were speaking hopefully, joyfully of the future, Mr. Burwell came to the cabin, with a letter in his hand. He was a kind master in some things, and as gently as possible informed my parents that they must part; for in two hours my father must join his master at Dinwiddie, and go with him to the West, where he had determined to make his future home. The announcement fell upon the little circle in that rude-log cabin like a thunderbolt. I can remember the scene as if it were but yesterday;--how my father cried out against the cruel separation; his last kiss; his wild straining of my mother to his bosom; the solemn prayer to Heaven; the tears and sobs--the fearful anguish of broken hearts. The last kiss, the last good-by; and he, my father, was gone, gone forever.

THE TROUBLE OF THE WORLD

GABRIEL

the fact that these were called "negro melodies" was itself a tribute to the musical genius of the race. *

As a child, I loved my mistress; and, looking back on the happy days I spent with her, I try to think with less bitterness of this act of injustice

When my grandmother lent her hard earnings to her mistress, she trusted solely to her honor. The honor of a slaveholder to a slave!

 READER, be assured this narrative is no fiction. I am aware that some of my adventures may seem incredible; but they are, nevertheless, strictly true.

he poor fellow's back was literally cut to pieces; so much so, that he was not able to work for ten or twelve days.

When his master returned home, he was much pleased to find that Randall had been subdued in his absence.

Mr. Cook, I have always tried to please you since you have been on the plantation, and I find you are determined not to be satisfied with my work, let me do as well as I may. No man has laid hands on me, to whip me, for the last ten years, and I have long since come to the conclusion not to be whipped by any man livi

At this, Mrs. Franks, on learning, was quite surprised; but on finding that themaid gave no just cause for it, took no further notice of it, designedly evadingthe matter

handsome

theCompromise

\'hen black and white fou~ht side by s1<.l

Boun to a petty _Y • 1--h . ·1 o.-1 ler c1ce. Beca.use e wears • r • I' .

America, it is to thee. Thou hoasted land of lihnty,

The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness.

The home plantation of Colonel Lloyd wore the appearance of a country village.

Chesapeake

The poor men seem to be all in confusion, and don't know what to do. Why children, if you have won1an's rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won't be so much trouble.

When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother.1 And Jesus wept and Lazarus came forth.

She pursued both unorthodo d . l relitlious th t d th · · 1 f Ifill x an convent10na. · ei· pa s owar e sp1ntua u ment she longed for

We, there-fore, write to you as being bound with you.

rethren and Fellow-Citizens:—Y

The colonists threw the blame upon England.. They said that the mother country entailed the evil upon them, and that they would rid themselves of it if they could. The world thought they were sin-cere, and the philanthropic pitied them. But time soon tested their sincerity

But to prove farther that the condition of the Israelites was better under the Egyptians than ours is under the whites. I call upon the professing Christians, I call upon the philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant himself, to show me a page of history, either sacred or profane, on which a verse can be found, which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel, by telling them that they were not of the human family.

"And Pharaoh, said unto Joseph, thou shalt be over my house, and according unto thy word shall all my people be ruled: only in the throne will I be greater than thou."*         * See Genesis, chap. xli.         "And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, see, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt."**         ** xli. 44.         "And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in all the land of Egypt."***

except however, the sons of Africa) are called men, and of course are, and ought to be free. But we, (coloured people) and our children are brutes!! and of course are, and ought to be SLAVES to the American people and their children forever!! to dig their mines and work their farms; and thus go on enriching them, from one generation to another with our blood and our tears!!!!

the white Christians of America, who hold us in slavery, (or, more properly speaking, pretenders to Christianity,)

Cape for Saint-Marc, a small town in st· Doming~e, now known as Haiti.

Sejour wrote an intensely nationalistic ode, "Le Retour de Napoleon," which expressed his admiration for Napoleon· and his identification with France.

He stayed on to launch a literary career unhampered by the racial pro-scriptions of the _antebellum Squth.

Finally, a few statistics: twenty-six of Allen's hymns have con- cordances in hymnals published by white compilers before 1801; thirty, in collections published after 1801; and eight hymns apparently are unique. Allen's collection undoubtedly includes songs that circulated in oral traditions, which he would have picked up during the

was published. Whether or not black Methodists should be credited with inventing this form, as some contemporary sources imply, certainly Allen must be credited with being the first to publish exam

hymn books of Baptists and other denominations for his hymnal. His main criterion apparently was whether or not the hymns had appeal for his congregation. In his writings he expresses concern about the "emotional natures" of his people, many of them ex- slaves, being swallowed up in cold, intellectual r

Ethiop

Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,

'TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

St. Nicholas was the unfortunate village, first to be devoted to the resentful rage of the cruel enemy. All the natives were doomed to suffer; the mother and the infant that reposed on her bosom, fell by the same sword, while groans of the sick served only as the guides which discovered them to the inhumanity of the inexorable, at whose hands they met a miserable death

St. Domingo,

DURING the long and bloody contest, in St. Domingo, between the white man, who flourished the child of sensuality, rioting on the miseries of his slaves; had the sons of Africa, who, provoked to madness, and armed themselves against French barbarity

The awful creatures had not catched her,

Not many rods distant from his head.

The names of whom I'll not leave out. Samuel Allen like a hero fout,

To his directions I promised faithfully to conform. When I arrived with my master's articles at his house, my master's father asked me for his son's keys, as he wanted to see what his trunks contained. I told him that my master intrusted me with the care of them until he should return, and that I had given him my word to be faithful to the trust, and could not therefore give him or any other person the keys without my master's directions.

He thus died without informing his enemies of the place where his money lay. I saw him while he was thus tortured to death. The shocking scene is to this day fresh in my mind, and I have often been overcome while thinking on it. He was a man of remarkable stature. I should judge as much as six feet and six or seven inches high, two feet across his shoulders, and every way well proportioned. He was a man of remarkable strength and resolution, affable, kind and gentle, ruling with equity and moderation.

The reader is here presented with an account, not of a renowned politician or warrior, but of an untutored African slave, brought into this Christian country at eight years of age,

Each represents some interesting scene of real life, such as a great achievement, domestic employment, a pathetic story, or some rural sport; and as the subject is generally founded on some recent event, it is therefore ever new. This gives our dances a spirit and variety which I have scarcely seen elsewhere*.

This kingdom is divided into many provinces or districts: in one of the most remote and fertile of which, Page 5 called Eboe, I was born, in the year 1745, in a charming fruitful vale, named Essaka.

 I BELIEVE it is difficult for those who publish their own memoirs to escape the imputation of vanity; nor is this Page 2 the only disadvantage under which they labour: it is also their misfortune, that what is uncommon is rarely, if ever, believed, and what is obvious we are apt to turn from with disgust, and to charge the writer with impertinence.