Henry Highland Garnet: An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America

Photo: Henry Highland Garnet, circa 1881.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Henry Highland Garnet (b. December 23, 1815 – d. February 13, 1882) was often categorized as a radical abolitionist minister because he discussed civil disobedience, including armed resistance. Born into the United States' slavery system in 1815 Maryland, at the estate of Colonel William Spencer, by age 9, Garnet would escape with his father, a captured Mandingo chief. His father led the family through the Underground Railroad system from Maryland to Delaware, Pennsylvania and, finally, New York. This would mark just the beginning of Garnet's many challenges to live free among the racially volatile Europeans of the Americas who were bent on maintaining Africans as a slave class.

AN ADDRESS TO THE SLAVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

BY HENRY HIGHLAND GARNET.
______________________ 

This Address, by Henry Highland Garnet, was made before the National Convention of Colored Citizens on August 16, 1843 in Buffalo, New York

Brethren and Fellow-Citizens: Your brethren of the North, East, and West have been accustomed to meet together in National Conventions, to sympathize with each other, and to weep over your unhappy condition. In these meetings we have addressed all classes of the free, but we have never, until this time, sent a word of consolation and advice to you. We have been contented in sitting still and mourning over your sorrows, earnestly hoping that before this day your sacred liberties would have been restored. But, we have hoped in vain. Years have rolled on, and tens of thousands have been borne on streams of blood and tears, to the shores of eternity. While you have been oppressed, we have also been partakers with you; nor can we be free while you are enslaved. We, therefore, write to you as being bound with you.

Many of you are bound to us, not only by the ties of a common humanity, but we are connected by the more tender relations of parents, wives, husbands, children, brothers, and sisters, and friends. As such we most affectionately address you.

Slavery has fixed a deep gulf between you and us, and while it shuts out from you the relief and consolation which your friends would willingly render, it afflicts and persecutes you with a fierce- ness which we might not expect to see in the fiends of hell. But still the Almighty Father of mercies has left to us a glimmering ray of hope, which shines out like a lone star in a cloudy sky. Mankind are becoming wiser, and better—the oppressor’s power is fading, and you, every day, are becoming better informed, and more numerous. Your grievances, brethren, are many. We shall not attempt, in this short address, to present to the world all the dark catalogue of this nation’s sins, which have been committed upon an innocent people. Nor is it indeed necessary, for you feel them from day to day, and all the civilized world look upon them with amazement.

Two hundred and twenty-seven years ago, the first of our injured race were brought to the shores of America. They came not with glad spirits to select their homes in the New World. They came not with their own consent, to find an unmolested enjoyment of the blessings of this fruitful soil. The first dealings they had with men calling themselves Christians, exhibited to them the worst features of corrupt, and sordid hearts: and convinced them that no cruelty is too great, no villainy and no robbery too abhorrent for even enlightened men to perform, when influenced by avarice and lust. Neither did they come flying upon the wings of Liberty, to a land of freedom. But they came with broken hearts, from their beloved native land, and were doomed to unrequited toil and deep degradation. Nor did the evil of their bondage end at their emancipation by death. Succeeding generations inherited their chains, and millions have come from eternity into time, and have returned again to the world of spirits, cursed and ruined by American slavery.

The propagators of the system, or their immediate ancestors, very soon discovered its growing evil, and its tremendous wickedness, and secret promises were made to destroy it. The gross inconsistency of a people holding slaves, who had themselves “ferried o’er the wave” for freedom’s sake, was too apparent to be entirely over-looked. The voice of Freedom cried, “Emancipate your slaves.” Humanity supplicated with tears for the deliverance of the children of Africa. Wisdom urged her solemn plea. The bleeding captive pleaded his innocence, and pointed to Christianity who stood weeping at the cross. Jehovah frowned upon the nefarious institution, and thunderbolts, red with vengeance, struggled to leap forth to blast the guilty wretches who maintained it. But all was vain. Slavery had stretched its dark wings of death over the land, the Church stood silently by—the priests prophesied falsely, and the people loved to have it so. Its throne is established, and now it reigns triumphant.

Nearly three millions of your fellow-citizens are prohibited by law and public opinion (which in this country is stronger than law) from reading the Book of Life. Your intellect has been destroyed as much as possible, and every ray of light they have attempted to shut out from your minds. The oppressors themselves have become involved in the ruin. They have become weak, sensual, and rapacious—they have cursed you—they have cursed themselves—they have cursed the earth which they have trod.

The colonies 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 sincere, and the philanthropic pitied them. But time soon tested their sincerity. In a few years the colonists grew strong, and severed themselves from the British Government. Their independence was declared, and they took their station among the sovereign powers of the earth. The declaration was a glorious document. Sages admired it, and the patriotic of every nation reverenced the God-like sentiments which it contained. When the power of Government returned to their hands, did they emancipate the slaves? No; they rather added new links to our chains. Were they ignorant of the principles of Liberty? Certainly they were not. The sentiments of their revolutionary orators fell in burning eloquence upon their hearts, and with one voice they cried, Liberty or death. Oh what a sentence was that! It ran from soul to soul like electric fire, and nerved the arm of thousands to fight in the holy cause of Freedom. Among the diversity of opinions that are entertained in regard to physical resistance, there are but a few found to gainsay that stern declaration. We are among those who do not.

Slavery! How much misery is comprehended in that single word. What mind is there that does not shrink from its direful effects? Unless the image of God be obliterated from the soul, all men cherish the love of Liberty. The nice discerning political economist does not regard the sacred right more than the untutored African who roams in the wilds of Congo. Nor has the one more right to the full enjoyment of his freedom than the other. In every man’s mind the good seeds of liberty are planted, and he who brings his fellow down so low, as to make him contented with a condition of slavery, commits the highest crime against God and man. Brethren, your oppressors aim to do this. They endeavor to make you as much like brutes as possible. When they have blinded the eyes of your mind when they have embittered the sweet waters of life—when they have shut out the light which shines from the word of God—then, and not till then, has American slavery done its perfect work.

To such degradation it is sinful in the Extreme for you to make voluntary submission. The divine commandments you are in duty bound to reverence and obey. If you do not obey them, you will surely meet with the displeasure of the Almighty. He requires you to love him supremely, and your neighbor as yourself—to keep the Sabbath day holy—to search the Scriptures—and bring up your children with respect for his laws, and to worship no other God but him. But slavery sets all these at nought, and hurls defiance in the face of Jehovah. The forlorn condition in which you are placed, does not destroy your moral obligation to God. You are not certain of heaven, because you suffer yourselves to remain in a state of slavery, where you cannot obey the commandments of the Sovereign of the universe. If the ignorance of slavery is a passport to heaven, then it is a blessing, and no curse, and you should rather desire its perpetuity than its abolition. God will not receive slavery, nor ignorance, nor any other state of mind, for love and obedience to him. Your condition does not absolve you from your moral obligation. The diabolical injustice by which your liberties are cloven down, neither God; nor angels, or just men, command you to suffer for a single moment. Therefore it is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means, both moral; intellectual and physical that promises success. If a band of heathen men should attempt to enslave a race of Christians, and to place their children under the influence of some false religion, surely, Heaven would frown upon the men who would not resist such aggression, even to death. If, on the other hand, a band of Christians should attempt to enslave a race of heathen men, and to entail slavery upon them, and to keep them in heathenism in the midst of Christianity, the God of heaven would smile upon every effort which the injured might make to dis-enthrall themselves.

Brethren, it is as wrong for your lordly oppressors to keep you in slavery, as it was for the man thief to steal our ancestors from the coast of Africa. You should therefore now use the same manner of resistance, as would have been just in our ancestors, when the bloody footprints of the first remorseless soul-thief was placed upon the shores of our fatherland. The humblest peasant is as free in the sight of God as the proudest monarch that ever swayed a sceptre. Liberty is a spirit sent out from God, and like its great Author, is no respecter of persons.

Brethren, the time has come when you must act for yourselves. It is an old and true saying that, “if hereditary bondmen would be free, they must themselves strike the blow.” You can plead your own cause, and do the work of emancipation better than any others. The nations of the old world are moving in the great cause of universal freedom, and some of them at least will, ere long, do you justice. The combined powers of Europe have placed their broad seal of disapprobation upon the African slave-trade. But in the slave-holding parts of the United States, the trade is as brisk as ever. They buy and sell you as though you were brute beasts. The North has done much—her opinion of slavery in the abstract is known. But in regard to the South, we adopt the opinion of the New York Evangelist —“We have advanced so far, that the cause apparently waits for a more effectual door to be thrown open than has been yet.” We are about to point you to that more effectual door. Look around you, and behold the bosoms of your loving wives heaving with untold agonies! Hear the cries of your poor children! Remember the stripes your fathers bore. Think of the torture and disgrace of your noble mothers. Think of your wretched sisters, loving virtue and purity, as they are driven into concubinage and are exposed to the unbridled lusts of incarnate devils. Think of the undying glory that hangs around the ancient name of Africa—and forget not that you are native-born American citizens, and as such, you are justly entitled to all the rights that are granted to the freest. Think how many tears you have poured out. upon the soil which you have cultivated with unrequited toil and enriched with your blood; and then go to your lordly enslavers and tell them plainly, that you are determined to be free. Appeal to their sense of justice, and tell them that they have no more right to oppress you, than you have to enslave them. Entreat them to remove the grievous burdens which they have imposed upon you, and to remunerate you for your labor. Promise them renewed diligence in the cultivation of the soil, if they will render to you an equivalent for your services. Point them to the increase of happiness and prosperity in the British West Indies since the Act of Emancipation.

Tell them in language which they cannot misunderstand, of the exceeding sinfulness of slavery, and of a future judgment, and of the righteous retributions of an indignant God. Inform them that all you desire is freedom, and that nothing else will suffice. Do this, and for ever after cease to toil for the heartless tyrants, who give you no other reward but stripes and abuse. If they then commence the work of death, they, and not you, will be responsible for the consequences. You had far better all die—die immediately, than live slaves, and entail your wretchedness upon your posterity. If you would be free in this generation, here is your only hope. However much you and all of us may desire it, there is not much hope of redemption without the shedding of blood. If you must bleed, let it all come at once—rather die freemen, than live to be the slaves. It is impossible, like the children of Israel, to make a grand exodus from the land of bondage. The Pharaohs are on both sides of the blood-red waters! You cannot move en masse, to the dominions of the British Queen—nor can you pass through Florida and overrun Texas, and at last find peace in Mexico. The propagators of American slavery are spending their blood and treasure, that they may plant the black flag in the heart of Mexico and riot in the halls of the Montezumas. In the language of the Rev. Robert Hall, when addressing the volunteers of Bristol, who were rushing forth to repel the invasion of Napoleon, who threatened to lay waste the fair homes of England, “Religion is too much interested in your behalf, not to shed over you her most gracious influences.”

You will not be compelled to spend much time in order to become inured to hardships. From the first moment that you breathed the air of heaven, you have been accustomed to nothing else but hardships. The heroes of the American Revolution were never put upon harder fare than a peck of corn and a few herrings per week. You have not become enervated by the luxuries of life. Your sternest energies have been beaten out upon. the anvil of severe trial, Slavery has done this, to make you subservient to its own purposes; but it has done more than this, it has prepared you for any emergency. If you receive good treatment, it is what you could hardly expect; if you meet with pain, sorrow, and even death, these are the common lot of the slaves. Fellow-men! patient sufferers! behold your dearest rights crushed to the earth! See your sons murdered, and your wives, mothers and sisters doomed to prostitution. In the name of the merciful God, and by all that life is worth, let it no longer be a debatable question, whether it is better to choose Liberty or death. In 1822, Denmark Vesey, of South Carolina, formed a plan for the liberation of his fellow-men. In the whole history of human efforts to overthrow slavery, a more complicated and tremendous plan was never formed. He was betrayed by the treachery of his own people, and died a martyr to freedom. Many a brave hero fell, but history, faithful to her high trust, will transcribe his name on the same monument with Moses, Hampden, Tell, Bruce and Wallace, Toussaint L’Ouverture, Lafayette and Washington. That tremendous movement shook the whole empire of slavery. The guilty soul-thieves were overwhelmed with fear. It is a matter of fact, that at that time, and in consequence of the threatened revolution, the slave States talked strongly of emancipation. But they blew but one blast of the trumpet of freedom, and then laid it aside. As these men became quiet, the slaveholders ceased to talk about emancipation: and now behold your condition today! Angels sigh over it, and humanity has long since exhausted her tears in weeping on your account! The patriotic Nathaniel Turner followed Denmark Vesey. He was goaded to desperation by wrong and injustice. By despotism, his name has been recorded on the list of infamy; and future generations will remember him among the noble and brave. Next arose the immortal Joseph Cinque, the hero of the Amistad. He was a native African, and by the help of God he emancipated a whole ship-load of his fellow-men on the high seas. And he now sings of liberty on the sunny hills of Africa and beneath his native palm-trees, where he hears the lion roar and feels himself as free as that king of the forest.

Next arose Madison Washington, that bright star of freedom, and took his station in the constellation of true heroism. He was a slave on board the brig Creole, of Richmond, bound to New Orleans, that great slave mart, with a hundred and four others. Nineteen struck for liberty or death. But one life was taken, and the whole were emancipated, and the vessel was carried into Nassau, New Providence. Noble men! Those who have fallen in freedom’s conflict, their memories will be cherished by the true-hearted and the God-fearing in all future generations; those who are living, their names are surrounded by a halo of glory. Brethren, arise, arise! Strike for your lives and liberties. Now is the day and the hour. Let every slave throughout the land do this, and the days of slavery are numbered. You cannot be more oppressed than you have been—you cannot suffer greater cruelties than you have already. Rather die freemen than live to be slaves. Remember that you are four millions! It is in your power so to torment the God-cursed slaveholders, that they will be glad to let you go free. If the scale was turned, and black men were the masters and white men the slaves, every destructive agent and element would be employed to lay the oppressor low. Danger and death would hang over their heads day and night. Yes, the tyrants would meet with plagues more terrible than those of Pharaoh. But you are a patient people. You act as though you were made for the special use of these devils. You act as though your daughters were born to pamper the lusts of your masters and overseers. And worse than all, you tamely submit while your lords tear your wives from your embraces and defile them before your eyes. In the name of God, we ask, are you men? Where is the blood of your fathers? Has it all run out of your veins? Awake, awake, millions of voices are calling you! Your dead fathers speak to you from their graves. Heaven, as with a voice of thunder, calls on you to arise from the dust. Let your motto be resistance! resistance! resistance! No oppressed people have ever secured their liberty without resistance. What kind of resistance you had better make, you must decide by the circumstances that surround you, and according to the suggestion of expediency. Brethren, adieu! Trust in the living God. Labor for the peace of the human race, and remember that you are four millions.   
―――――――  
Published in Henry Highland Garnet, Walker’s Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life. See also Garnet’s Address to the Slaves of the United States of America. New-York, Printed by J. H. Tobitt, 1848, pages 89–97.

What Harriet Tubman Teaches Us Today

Photo: Harriet Tubman, The Moses of Her People (born circa 1825 – died March 10, 1913)

Harriet Tubman was an African woman and anti-slavery activist in the eastern Atlantic coastal region that would become known as the New England and later the United States of America. Tubman carried out clandestine operations against slavery that could rival the most sophisticated military strategies known to Western military lore. If you are wondering why her story is not revered more in U.S. history, it is because she symbolizes the defeat of the myth of European dominion over African people.

An exact date of birth for Tubman is unknown, but commentators report that she believed she was born in 1825, accounts vary from 1820 to 1825. Her parents were Harriet Green and Benjamin Ross, a captured and enslaved African couple who named their girl child Araminta Ross. The name Araminta also arises among the children of Africa in Salvador, Bahia. There is also the city of Aramita in the Oyam District, in the Northern Region of Uganda. The accounts are not clear as to the exact origins of her parents in Africa. Her maternal grandmother, whose name was Modesty, is her earliest known ancestor born in Africa. Her grandmother would arrive into slavery among the Patterson family along the Eastern Shore of Maryland, according to the biographer Catherine Clinton's book Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom. Araminta Ross had brothers and sisters and would marry and have children of her own. In 1844, at the age of 25, she married John Tubman. She married Nelson Davis in 1869 and they shared 19 years in marriage. After becoming free, she changed her name to Harriet -- the name of her mother.

What have we learned from Harriet Tubman? I asked this question during times when musicians and artists of African descent feel it appropriate to fictionalize her life through imagery that would bring debauchery upon her legacy. While comments require review at this blog before posting due to efforts to crash the blog through comments, I encourage you to share your own thoughts about Tubman here. 

Where Do We Go From Here?

In 1967, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. penned his Atlantic speech Where Do We Go From Here? King must have been channeling our ancestors, including Harriet Tubman. For Tubman, the answer to this age old question of a long wandering people, people of an ancient lineage - the oldest - was clearly that we must not maintain a presence among those who would enslave our very bodies. While physical slavery among Africans has been overcome, in significant part -- I will leave discussion of the prison industrial complex as physical slavery to another day -- the biggest challenge facing African families in the diaspora today is systemic racism that is fueled by the continued myth of European superiority. This translates in our daily lives into the marginalization of African family life at various levels: spiritually, psychologically, economically, etc. 

Where do we go from here? We must maintain our cultural integrity among a people who would exploit our talents to promote debase cultural arts. We must establish community institutions and family structures that promote real freedom for our children. We must honor the old civil rights. These are all fights worth undertaking.

Save Yourself - By Any Means Necessary

There has been a long running dictomy within African cultures since time immemorial. Malcolm X and King were examples of but one of those dictomies, representing the African Muslim man and the African Christian man. What the two men shared was the one great aim towards the freedom of African people. Nothing extra, just fair opportunity like everyone else on the planet.

Harriet Tubman did not wait on anyone to free her from the bondage of physical slavery. She did not wait on a leader to rise up. She became the leader. She proclaimed herself free. Equipped with a steadfast determination that freedom was her natural lot and no human had a right to take that away from her, Tubman teaches us that we must first save ourselves, by any means necessary.

The Cambridge Democrat promised a reward for the recovery of "MINTY, aged about 27 years, is of a chestnut color, fine looking, and about 5 feet high." She would fetch $50 if located in Maryland. During the 1930s, the artist Jacob Lawrence depicted the life of Harriet Tubman and included a runaway notice as text for one of the 31 images in his art panels. The caption stated "negro girl, Harriet, sometimes called Minty. Is dark chestnut color, rather stout build, but bright and handsome. Speaks rather deep and has a scar over the left temple."

Don't Look Back - No Fear

Before Harriet Tubman escaped, she spoke of a recurring dream of a "flight" to freedom:

"flying over fields and towns, and rivers and mountains, looking down upon them 'like a bird,' and reaching at last a great fence, or sometimes a river, over which she would try to fly.... It "'peared like I wouldn't have the strength, and just as I was sinkin' down, there would be ladies all drest in white over there, and they would put out their arms and pull me 'cross." -- From Harriet Tubman, the Moses of Her People, Sarah Bradford (1993).

One of Harriet Tubman's legacy stories is that when she took her freedom, she went back to free others. She became one of those ladies all dressed in white who would help pull those over who dared to fly to freedom.

Along the way, there were those who decided at some point along the journey that the cost of freedom was too high. The fear of the flight to freedom became too great. They would rather turn back to the plantation life of slavery. Well, somebody should have told them about our ancestor Tubman. As one of the original conductors of the Underground Railroad, the passage on her train was a one-way ticket. No stop overs and no return tickets.

This was reasonable. Slaveholders treated slaves as commodities, promoting childbearing to increase their property interests. These same slavers would have no remorse on a returned slave when it came to torturing the freedom route right out of him. The brutality that such a slave would undergo is beyond our modern capacity to imagine. Tubman could not take the chance of having slavers on her track. You either continue towards freedom or you die.

Don't Look Back - But Do Reach Back

A fugitive girl in her twenties ventured from the only home she knew hoping to find freedom. When Harriet Tubman left the slave state of Maryland during September 1849, she was a married woman who had to leave her own husband behind because he did not share her dream of freedom. She made a treacherous journey that required a mighty nerve and resourcefulness, especially for a woman. In the night, led by the North Star, she did not know when the sound of bloodhounds were aimed for her or others. She would have to depend on all the teachings of her people to navigate through unknown lands.

When Tubman arrived in the free North, southeastern Pennsylvania, most of Delaware and northeastern Maryland contained the largest concentration of free Africans in the nation. By 1850, more Africans resided in these three states than free Africans in all other states combined. Tubman sought refuge in Philadelphia where liberties among Black Philadephians were quite striking in terms of mobility and economic opportunity.

When compared to her former Maryland home, free Africans had their own institutions: churches and charities, building and loan collectives, insurance and burial societies, separate branches of the Masons and other learned society groups. Soon, as the number of Africans grew, along with their prosperity, Northern cities like Philadelphia began enacting an increasing number of Fugitive Slave Laws, Bloodhound Laws and Slave Codes to manage the growing anxiety that this prosperity created among the European populations.

Despite these challenges, Harriet Tubman found employment in the North and became self supporting. Why would Tubman go back into the slave territories to free others in the early 1850s? Fugitives spent major resources evading the possible sight of slavers who had also built clandestine channels aimed at recovering the bodies of Africans they believed belonged to them.

Tubman had secured work in the North. She had freedom of mobility and lived in a big city with many comforts like many of us today. There is no way to truly know what convinced Tubman, a woman with a bounty over her head, that she herself must go back into the slavers territory to help rescue others. It may have come first from her love for her family. Biographers report that her first mission was to bring her niece, Kizzy, and Kizzy's off-springs out of slavery. The word was that they were scheduled to appear before a slaver's auction block.

Looking back, how many of us would go back? Does Sankofa just symbolize looking back at history with the comfort of a perceived distance, or does it mean looking back to see better what's going on right now? In today's world, with all its ills, who would be a change agent for a more peaceful and free society? How many are willing to risk their own freedom to help another gain freedom? How many are grappling with their own personal freedom choices in today's world? The legacy of Harriet Tubman is powerful and has much to teach us today.

David Walker's Appeal: The Historical Document of 1829

Published in September 1829, David Walker's Appeal is 

cited among Pan African scholars as the most exacting

anti-slavery document of its time.

Excerpts from David Walker's Appeal 

My dearly beloved Brethren and Fellow Citizens.

Having travelled over a considerable portion of these United States, and having, in the course of my travels, taken the most accurate observations of things as they exist -- the result of my observations has warranted the full and unshaken conviction, that we, (coloured people of these United States,) are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began; and I pray God that none like us ever may live again until time shall be no more. They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves, which last were made up from almost every nation under heaven, whose sufferings under those ancient and heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and Christian nation, no more than a cypher -- or, in other words, those heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more among them than the name and form of slavery; while wretchedness and endless miseries were reserved, apparently in a phial, to be poured out upon, our fathers ourselves and our children, by Christian Americans! 

...

... 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. Can the whites deny this charge? Have they not, after having reduced us to the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet, held us up as descending originally from the tribes of Monkeys or Orang-Outangs? O! my God! I appeal to every man of feeling-is not this insupportable? Is it not heaping the most gross insult upon our miseries, because they have got us under their feet and we cannot help ourselves? Oh! pity us we pray thee, Lord Jesus, Master. -- Has Mr. Jefferson declared to the world, that we are inferior to the whites, both in the endowments of our bodies and our minds? It is indeed surprising, that a man of such great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts, should speak so of a set of men in chains. I do not know what to compare it to, unless, like putting one wild deer in an iron cage, where it will be secured, and hold another by the side of the same, then let it go, and expect the one in the cage to run as fast as the one at liberty. So far, my brethren, were the Egyptians from heaping these insults upon their slaves, that Pharaoh's daughter took Moses, a son of Israel for her own, as will appear by the following. 

...

The world knows, that slavery as it existed was, mans, (which was the primary cause of their destruction) was, comparatively speaking, no more than a cypher, when compared with ours under the Americans. Indeed I should not have noticed the Roman slaves, had not the very learned and penetrating Mr. Jefferson said, "when a master was murdered, all his slaves in the same house, or within hearing, were condemned to death." -- Here let me ask Mr. Jefferson, (but he is gone to answer at the bar of God, for the deeds done in his body while living,) I therefore ask the whole American people, had I not rather die, or be put to death, than to be a slave to any tyrant, who takes not only my own, but my wife and children's lives by the inches? Yea, would I meet death with avidity far! far!! in preference to such servile submission to the murderous hands of tyrants. Mr. Jefferson's very severe remarks on us have been so extensively argued upon by men whose attainments in literature, I shall never be able to reach, that I would not have meddled with it, were it not to solicit each of my brethren, who has the spirit of a man, to buy a copy of Mr. Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia," and put it in the hand of his son. 

...

But let us review Mr. Jefferson's remarks respecting us some further. Comparing our miserable fathers, with the learned philosophers of Greece, he says: "Yet notwithstanding these and other discouraging circumstances among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists. They excelled too, in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their master's children; Epictetus, Terence and Phaedrus, were slaves, -- but they were of the race of whites. It is not their condition then, but nature, which has produced the distinction." See this, my brethren! ! Do you believe that this assertion is swallowed by millions of the whites? Do you know that Mr. Jefferson was one of as great characters as ever lived among the whites? See his writings for the world, and public labours for the United States of America. Do you believe that the assertions of such a man, will pass away into oblivion unobserved by this people and the world? If you do you are much mistaken-See how the American people treat us -- have we souls in our bodies? Are we men who have any spirits at all? I know that there are many swell-bellied fellows among us, whose greatest object is to fill their stomachs. Such I do not mean -- I am after those who know and feel, that we are MEN, as well as other people; to them, I say, that unless we try to refute Mr. Jefferson's arguments respecting us, we will only establish them. 

...

...I must observe to my brethren that at the close of the first Revolution in this country, with Great Britain, there were but thirteen States in the Union, now there are twenty-four, most of which are slave-holding States, and the whites are dragging us around in chains and in handcuffs, to their new States and Territories to work their mines and farms, to enrich them and their children-and millions of them believing firmly that we being a little darker than they, were made by our Creator to be an inheritance to them and their children for ever-the same as a parcel of brutes.

Are we MEN! ! -- I ask you, O my brethren I are we MEN? Did our Creator make us to be slaves to dust and ashes like ourselves? Are they not dying worms as well as we? Have they not to make their appearance before the tribunal of Heaven, to answer for the deeds done in the body, as well as we? Have we any other Master but Jesus Christ alone? Is he not their Master as well as ours? -- What right then, have we to obey and call any other Master, but Himself? How we could be so submissive to a gang of men, whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as ourselves or not, I never could conceive. However, this is shut up with the Lord, and we cannot precisely tell -- but I declare, we judge men by their works.

The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and blood-thirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority. 

...

...to my no ordinary astonishment, [a] Reverend gentleman got up and told us (coloured people) that slaves must be obedient to their masters -- must do their duty to their masters or be whipped -- the whip was made for the backs of fools, &c. Here I pause for a moment, to give the world time to consider what was my surprise, to hear such preaching from a minister of my Master, whose very gospel is that of peace and not of blood and whips, as this pretended preacher tried to make us believe. What the American preachers can think of us, I aver this day before my God, I have never been able to define. They have newspapers and monthly periodicals, which they receive in continual succession, but on the pages of which, you will scarcely ever find a paragraph respecting slavery, which is ten thousand times more injurious to this country than all the other evils put together; and which will be the final overthrow of its government, unless something is very speedily done; for their cup is nearly full.-Perhaps they will laugh at or make light of this; but I tell you Americans! that unless you speedily alter your course, you and your Country are gone! ! ! ! 

...

If any of us see fit to go away, go to those who have been for many years, and are now our greatest earthly friends and benefactors -- the English. If not so, go to our brethren, the Haytians, who, according to their word, are bound to protect and comfort us. The Americans say, that we are ungrateful-but I ask them for heaven's sake, what should we be grateful to them for -- for murdering our fathers and mothers ? -- Or do they wish us to return thanks to them for chaining and handcuffing us, branding us, cramming fire down our throats, or for keeping us in slavery, and beating us nearly or quite to death to make us work in ignorance and miseries, to support them and their families. They certainly think that we are a gang of fools. Those among them, who have volunteered their services for our redemption, though we are unable to compensate them for their labours, we nevertheless thank them from the bottom of our hearts, and have our eyes steadfastly fixed upon them, and their labours of love for God and man. -- But do slave-holders think that we thank them for keeping us in miseries, and taking our lives by the inches? 

...

Let no man of us budge one step, and let slave-holders come to beat us from our country. America is more our country, than it is the whites-we have enriched it with our blood and tears. The greatest riches in all America have arisen from our blood and tears: -- and will they drive us from our property and homes, which we have earned with our blood? They must look sharp or this very thing will bring swift destruction upon them. The Americans have got so fat on our blood and groans, that they have almost forgotten the God of armies. But let the go on. 

...

Do the colonizationists think to send us off without first being reconciled to us? Do they think to bundle us up like brutes and send us off, as they did our brethren of the State of Ohio? Have they not to be reconciled to us, or reconcile us to them, for the cruelties with which they have afflicted our fathers and us? Methinks colonizationists think they have a set of brutes to deal with, sure enough. Do they think to drive us from our country and homes, after having enriched it with our blood and tears, and keep back millions of our dear brethren, sunk in the most barbarous wretchedness, to dig up gold and silver for them and their children? Surely, the Americans must think that we are brutes, as some of them have represented us to be. They think that we do not feel for our brethren, whom they are murdering by the inches, but they are dreadfully deceived. 

...

What nation under heaven, will be able to do any thing with us, unless God gives us up into its hand? But Americans. I declare to you, while you keep us and our children in bondage, and treat us like brutes, to make us support you and your families, we cannot be your friends. You do not look for it do you? Treat us then like men, and we will be your friends. And there is not a doubt in my mind, but that the whole of the past will be sunk into oblivion, and we yet, under God, will become a united and happy people. The whites may say it is impossible, but remember that nothing is impossible with God. 

...

I count my life not dear unto me, but I am ready to be offered at any moment, For what is the use of living, when in fact I am dead. But remember, Americans, that as miserable, wretched, degraded and abject as you have made us in preceding, and in this generation, to support you and your families, that some of you, (whites) on the continent of America, will yet curse the day that you ever were born. You want slaves, and want us for your slaves ! ! ! My colour will yet, root some of you out of the very face of the earth ! ! ! ! ! ! You may doubt it if you please. I know that thousands will doubt-they think they have us so well secured in wretchedness, to them and their children, that it is impossible for such things to occur. 

...

See your Declaration Americans! ! ! Do you understand your own language? Hear your languages, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776 -- "We hold these truths to be self evident -- that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL! ! that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! !" Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of Independence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us -- men who have never given your fathers or you the least provocation! ! ! ! ! ! 

Abd al Rahman Ibrahima Ibn Sori: From Guinea to the Mississippi Delta

Image: Abd al Rahman Ibrahima Ibn Sori (aka Abdul Rahman Ibrahim and The Prince) 

(Born: 1762 - Died: 1829)

In 1762, Abd al Rahman Ibrahima Ibn Sori was born within a royal family, son of King Sori, in the village of Timbo in what is today known as the Republic of Guinea in the region of Fouta Djallon (aka Futa Jalon, lit. "the land of the Fulbe and Jalunke"). Ibrahima was born among the Fulbe (aka Fulani, Fula, Fullah, Foulah; singular: Poulas, Peul, Pullo) of the Timbo region. The Fulbe were primarily muslim cattle herders in this West African mountainous region where the Niger river rises and runs eastward. In fact, Guinea's mountains are the source of the Niger, Gambia and Senegal rivers, with its highest point at Mount Nimba. 

Today the cool, mountainous Futa Jallon region runs roughly 

north-south through the middle of the Republic of Guinea.

According to the book Prince Among Slaves, written by Professor Terry Alford, the non-muslim Jalunke was the majority tribal group within the Futa Jallon region in Guinea where Ibrahima was born. According to Prof. Alford, conflict within the ethnically pluralistic Fulbe-Jalunke society occurred when the Jalunke leadership announced a declaration forbidding public prayer. Karamoko Alfa, the leading Fulbe cleric, declared jihad against the Jalunke for what was deemed a direct affront to Islam. A ceremonial slashing open of the Fulbe farmer's drums marked the beginning of this great West African war. 

From Futa Djallon to the Mississippi Delta

By 1788, at the age of 26, Ibrahima was a military leader within the Fulbe army when he was reportedly ambushed, captured and sold to slave traders. Ibrahima was shipped to the United States where he was eventually sold to a Natchez, Mississippi slave trader by the name of Thomas Foster. Ibrahima's knowledge of agriculture operations and his leadership skills made him a central figure on Foster's cotton plantation. By 1794, Ibrahima married Isabella, also enslaved on the Foster plantation and would have five sons and four daughters.  

As the story goes, one day Ibrahima was recognized by an Irish surgeon, Dr. John Cox, who had traveled to Timbo during his shipping ventures with an English ship. Cox was aided by Ibrahima's family for six months when he was stranded and fell ill in the Futa Jallon region. Cox asked Foster to sell Ibrahima to him so that he could free him for return to his West African homeland. Mr. Foster refused. Cox petitioned vigorously on Ibrahima's behalf until his dead in 1816. 

In 1826, a letter Ibrahima wrote in Arabic addressed to his family in West Africa was picked up by Andrew Marschalk, a local newsman who sent a copy to the federal capital in Washington D.C., to the attention of U.S. Senator Thomas Reed. Reed forwarded the correspondence to the U.S. Consulate in Morocco, assuming that Ibrahima was a Moor. Though Ibrahima was not a Moroccan citizen, Sultan of Morocco Abderrahmane was touched by his story and petitioned U.S. President John Quincy Adams to release Ibrahima from the institution of slavery. 

The Prince Among Slaves Returns to West Africa

In 1828, Henry Clay, then U.S. Secretary of State, interceded on behalf of "The Prince", the name given Ibrahima by Natchez, Mississippi residents. Foster stipulated that he would grant Ibrahima's legal release from slavery only if he left without his family and returned to Africa. Despite the Ibrahimas' public speaking efforts to raise enough money to purchase freedom for their nine children before leaving for Africa, they raised only half of the money Foster required for the purchase. 

At age 66, after 40 years in slavery, Ibrahima sailed to Monrovia, Liberia in 1828. By July 1, 1829, a caravan was reportedly en route to Liberia, carrying family members from his Futa homeland. Ibrahima caught a fever and died at the age of 67, never making it to his native village in the Futa Jallon. He died July 6, 1829. His wife Isabella was reunited with two sons and their families whose freedom and transport was financed by the Ibrahima's funds. The remaining family in Mississippi was inherited by Foster's heirs and scattered across the South before further efforts could be made on their behalf. To his legacy, Ibrahima left behind the narrative of his full story, a rare gem within the legacy of the early colonial history of Africans in America.