Chapter XI

SOCIAL PROGRESS, 1820-1860¹⁷⁷

So far in our study we have seen the Negro as the object of interest on the part of the American people. Some were disposed to give him a helping hand, some to keep him in bondage, and some thought that it might be possible to dispose of any problem by sending him out of the country. In all this period of agitation and ferment, aside from the efforts of friends in his behalf, just what was the Negro doing to work out his own salvation? If for the time being we can look primarily at constructive effort rather than disabilities, just what do we find that on his own account he was doing to rise to the full stature of manhood?

Naturally in the answer to such a question we shall have to be concerned with those people who had already attained unto nominal freedom. We shall indeed find many examples of industrious slaves who, working in agreement with their owners, managed sometimes to purchase themselves and even to secure ownership of their families. Such cases, while considerable in the aggregate, were after all exceptional, and for the ordinary slave on the plantation the outlook was hopeless enough. In 1860 the free persons formed just one-ninth of the total Negro population in the country, there being 487,970 of them to 3,953,760 slaves. It is a commonplace to remark the progress that the race has made since emancipation. A study of the facts, however, will show that with all their disadvantages less than half a million people had before 1860 not only made such progress as amasses a surprising total, but that they had already entered every large field of endeavor in which the race is engaged to-day.

We have seen that the Church was from the first the race's foremost form of social organization, and that sometimes in very close touch with it developed the early lodges of such a body as the Masons. By 1800 emancipation was well under way; then began emigration from the South to the central West; emigration brought into being the Underground Railroad; and finally all forces worked together for the development of Negro business, the press, conventions, and other forms of activity. It was natural that states so close to the border as Pennsylvania and Ohio should be important in this early development.

The Church continued the growth that it had begun several decades before. The A.M.E. denomination advanced rapidly from 7 churches and 400 members in 1816 to 286 churches and 73,000 members by the close of the Civil War. Naturally such a distinctively Negro organization could make little progress in the South before the war, but there were small congregations in Charleston and New Orleans, and William Paul Quinn blazed a path in the West, going from Pittsburgh to St. Louis.

In 1847 the Prince Hall Lodge of the Masons in Massachusetts, the First Independent African Grand Lodge in Pennsylvania, and the Hiram Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania formed a National Grand Lodge, and from one or another of these all other Grand Lodges among Negroes have descended. In 1842 the members of the Philomathean Institute of New York and of the Philadelphia Library Company and Debating Society applied for admission to the International Order of Odd Fellows. They were refused on account of their race. Thereupon Peter Ogden, a Negro, who had already joined the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows of England, secured a charter for the first Negro American lodge, Philomathean, No. 646, of New York, which was set up March 1, 1843. It was followed within the next two years by lodges in New York, Philadelphia, Albany, and Poughkeepsie. The Knights of Pythias were not organized until 1864 in Washington; but the Grand Order of Galilean Fishermen started on its career in Baltimore in 1856.

The benefit societies developed apace. At first they were small and confined to a group of persons well known to each other, thus being genuinely fraternal. Simple in form, they imposed an initiation fee of hardly less than $2.50 or more than $5.00, a monthly fee of about 50 cents, and gave sick dues ranging from $1.50 to $5.00 a month, with guarantee of payment of one's funeral expenses and subsequent help to the widow. By 1838 there were in Philadelphia alone 100 such groups with 7,448 members. As bringing together spirits supposedly congenial, these organizations largely took the place of clubs, and the meetings were relished accordingly. Some drifted into secret societies, and after the Civil War some that had not cultivated the idea of insurance were forced to add this feature to their work.

In professional life the Negro had by 1860 made a noteworthy beginning. Already he had been forced to give attention to the law, though as yet little by way of actual practice had been done. In this field Robert Morris, Jr., of Boston, was probably foremost. William C. Nell, of Rochester and Boston, at the time prominent in newspaper work and politics, is now best remembered for his study of the Negro in the early wars of the country. About the middle of the century Samuel Ringgold Ward, author of the Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro, and one of the most eloquent men of the time, was for several years pastor of a white Congregational church in Courtlandville, N.Y.; and Henry Highland Garnett was the pastor of a white congregation in Troy, and well known as a public-spirited citizen as well. Upon James W.C. Pennington the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred by Heidelberg, and generally this man had a reputation in England and on the continent of Europe as well as in America. About the same time Bishops Daniel A. Payne and William Paul Quinn were adding to the dignity of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Before 1860 a situation that arose more than once took from Negroes the real credit for inventions. If a slave made an invention he was not permitted to take out a patent, for no slave could make a contract. At the same time the slave's master could not take out a patent for him, for the Government would not recognize the slave as having the legal right to make the assignment to his master. It is certain that Negroes, who did most of the mechanical work in the South before the Civil War, made more than one suggestion for the improvement of machinery. We have already referred to the strong claim put forth by a member of the race for the real credit of the cotton-gin. The honor of being the first Negro to be granted a patent belongs to Henry Blair, of Maryland, who in 1834 received official protection for a corn harvester.

It is thus evident that honorable achievement on the part of Negroes and general advance in social welfare by no means began with the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1860 eight-ninths of the members of the race were still slaves, but in the face of every possible handicap the one-ninth that was free had entered practically every great field of human endeavor. Many were respected citizens in their communities, and a few had even laid the foundations of wealth. While there was as yet no book of unquestioned genius or scholarship, there was considerable intellectual activity, and only time and a little more freedom from economic pressure were needed for the production of works of the first order of merit.