Volume 8 — DOCUMENTS

Banishment of the People of Colour from Cincinnati

Prof. T. G. Steward of Wilberforce University directs attention to the following from The Friend which carries an important document bearing on the Free Negroes of Ohio:

In the course of the present year, a law of this state has been brought into view, by the trustees of Cincinnati township, requiring people of colour to give bond and security not to become chargeable to the public, and for their good behaviour—also imposing a fine on those who may employ them. This law was passed upwards of twenty years ago, and I believe has remained inoperative, or nearly so, to the present year. In order that the effects and bearing of the law may be correctly understood, I subjoin the proclamation or notice by the trustees.

To the Public

The undersigned, trustees and overseers of the poor, of the township of Cincinnati hereby give notice, that the duties required of them, by the act of the general assembly of Ohio, entitled An Act to Regulate Black and Mulatto Persons, and the act amendatory thereto, will be rigidly enforced, and all black and mulatto persons, now residents of said Cincinnati township, and who emigrated to, and settled within the township of Cincinnati, without complying with the requisitions of the first section of the amended act, aforesaid, are informed, that unless they enter into bonds as the said act directs, within thirty days from this date, they may expect at the expiration of that time, the law to be rigidly enforced.

And the undersigned would further insert herein, for the information of the citizens of Cincinnati township, the third section of the amendatory act aforesaid, as follows: That if any person being a resident of this state, shall employ, harbour, or conceal any such negro or mulatto person aforesaid, contrary to the provision of the first section of this act, any person so offending, shall forfeit and pay for such an offence, any sum not exceeding one hundred dollars, one half to the informer, and the other half for the use of the poor of the township, in which such person may reside, to be recovered by action of debt before any court having competent jurisdiction, and moreover to be liable for the maintenance and support of such negro or mulatto, provided he, she, or they shall become unable to support themselves. The co-operation of the public is expected in carrying these laws into full effect.

William Mills, Benjamin Hopkins, George Lee,

Trustees of Cincinnati Township.

Comment

When this proclamation was issued, there were upwards of 2,000 people of colour, residing in this city, and nearly all obnoxious to the operations of the law; many of them had resided here for a considerable time, and were comfortably situated—they became unsettled and deprived of employment by this act of banishment and proscription, and much suffering and distress ensued. They deputed two of their number to select and provide a place for them to remove to, who procured a tract of land in Canada. In the meantime some of them commenced making preparations to leave the country, and as the time was very short which the trustees allowed them, they had to incur great losses in disposing of their property, selling for twenty dollars, what cost one hundred dollars. When the thirty days expired, and it was ascertained all did not, or could not comply with the requisitions of the trustees, mobs assailed them at different times, stoning their houses and destroying their property; in the progress of these disgraceful transactions one white man was killed and others wounded.

It is thought about five hundred have gone to Canada, many of these with means exceedingly limited to provide necessaries in a wilderness country, and encounter the rigours of a northern winter; one of their agents, a coloured man, informed me of an instance where twenty-eight persons had set out with a sum not exceeding twenty-five dollars. I confess my mind has been impressed with fearful apprehensions that they will greatly suffer or perish with hunger and cold! Some of them view this act of banishment with so much horror, they have told me the white people had better take them out in the commons and shoot them down, than send them to Canada to perish with hunger and cold!

The Friend, Nov. 28, 1829.

First Protest against Slavery in the United States

Prof. Steward invites attention also to the following extract from The Friend published in Philadelphia April 1831, said to be the first document against slavery published in this country:

"At a General Court held at Warwick the 16th. of May 1657.

"Whereas there is a common course practiced among Englishmen, to buy negroes to that end that they may have them for service or as slaves forever; for the the preventing of such practices among us, let it be ordered, that no black mankind or white being, shall be forced by covenant, bond or otherwise, to serve any man or his assigns longer than ten years, or until they come to be twenty-four years of age, if they be taken in under fourteen, from the time of their coming within the liberties of this Colony—at the end or term of ten years to set them free as the manner is with the English servants. And that man that will not let them go free, or shall sell them away elsewhere, to that end they may be enslaved to others for a longer time, he or they shall forfeit to the Colony forty pounds."

The court that enacted this law was composed as follows: John Smith, President; Thomas Olney, General Assistant, from Providence; Samuel Gorton from Warwick; John Green, General Recorder; Randal Holden, Treasurer; Hugh Bewett, General Sergeant.

The Friend, April, 1831.

A Negro Pioneer in the West

Mr. Monroe N. Work invites attention to the fact that in an issue of December 23d, 1920, the Advertiser Journal of Kent, Washington, ran the following story:

"The best and largest yield of wheat ever exhibited," grown in western Washington. It sounds like a real estate folder. And yet at the World's Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876, W. O. Bush, son of George Bush, one of the first settlers on Puget Sound, won the gold premium for wheat he grew on Bush Prairie, just south of Olympia; to this day the wheat is preserved in the Smithsonian Institute.

This record of great wheat yield is a part of the history of one of the families that came to the Northwest and had that quality that made them successful here. George Bush was the first colored man to come to this part of the country, the forerunner of the large number of useful citizens of his race who have followed with the increasing population. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1814, and with his wife from Tennessee started west in 1844.

Before coming west with his family, Bush had made a trip to this country with a number of companions, coming north along the coast from the Mexican border and suffering from the innumerable hardships of the trail, hunger and Indians. He must have liked the prospects, for it was only a short time later that we find him again headed in this direction in company with a number of other hardy pioneers.

The character that made him face the privations of immigration ingratiated him with his companions. There was an unwritten law in Oregon at that time that no colored people should be allowed to settle in that territory. When the group of which Bush was a member approached the Columbia river country and learned of the rule it was decided that if any one attempted to molest Bush all of the members of the company would fight to protect him.

The practice in Oregon was to whip the colored man and if he left after the whipping it was all right and nothing further was done, but if he did not take advantage of the opportunity to escape he was whipped again and again until he either left or died.

There is not any record of an attempt being made to molest Bush, who, with his companions, stayed at the Dalles for several months and later at Washougal at the mouth of the Cowlitz. The following year—1845—they came on to Puget Sound and settled at the head of Budds Inlet at the falls of the DesChutes and founded the town of New Market, now Tumwater.

Those who made up this party were Michael T. Simmons, James McAllister, David Kindred, Gabriel Jones and Bush. The latter decided not to settle right in Tumwater and went back onto the prairie land about four miles and took up a donation claim of 640 acres. It was on that claim that the prize wheat was grown by his oldest son thirty-two years later. There on that claim Bush died in 1863, while the great war for the freedom of his race was being waged. His widow followed him two years later.

Of their six sons, the state has heard a great deal. The eldest, W. O. Bush, was born before the couple left Missouri on their way west, and got the hard training of the pioneer. He took to farming and that he worked the prairie land where his father had settled for all it was worth is shown by the crop he took to Philadelphia. The soil of that section is a black sandy loam on a gravel base. The soil is not too thick in some parts and has a tendency to drain, particularly during the hot, dry summer.

Shortly after the formation of the state Bush was elected a member of the legislature and served two terms during 1890 and 1892. His record in the law-making body was an honorable one and that he was highly respected by the people of Thurston county was shown when they sent him to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 to look after the county's agricultural exhibit.

Concerning the Origin of Wilberforce

While at Tuskegee Institute in 1914 Mrs. Emma Castleman Bowles, who has since died, related this account of the origin of Wilberforce. This story does not agree with the account given in Bishop D. A. Payne's African Methodist Episcopal Church (423 ff.). The value of the document lies mainly in the light which it throws upon the relations between wealthy slaveholders and their children of slave women. There must be much truth in the narrative, for Payne's sketch says that in 1859-60 a majority of the 207 students enrolled "are the natural children of Southern and Southwestern planters." The Special Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, published in 1871 (372-373), supports this statement. Mrs. Bowles' story follows:

Mrs. Emma Castleman Bowles said her father was Stephen S. Castleman, a slave holder who lived on the Yazoo River, about 150 miles from Vicksburg. He owned the Ashland plantation. She was born June 3, 1845. Her mother was a half sister of her father's wife. When Castleman married, her mother was sent to wait on her mistress. Castleman lived with both women. Castleman had two children by his wife and five by his concubine. He hired a white woman to teach Emma. This woman was paid $500 a year. Mrs. Bowles said she was not taught anything, not even to read. She spent her time playing with her half-brother and riding a pony which her father had bought for her.

In March 1858, Castleman sent his daughter Emma to Cincinnati by his brother-in-law, her half uncle, O. Leroy Ross. Here, she was emancipated and acknowledged as Castleman's daughter. Ross then brought her to Wilberforce and placed her in school.

Tawawa Springs was a summer resort for Southern slave holders. The Springs were medicinal. The Hotel Tawawa had 350 rooms, extensive grounds, elaborate water works for fountains, etc. There were several cottages on either side of the hotel. Slave holders would bring their families and slaves and live either in the hotel or in the cottages. A law was passed in Ohio forbidding the bringing of slaves into the State. Then white help and free Negro servants were used. The place declined financially and was finally sold for debt. Several planters banded together bought the place and turned it into a school for their illegitimate children by Negro women. Stephen S. Castleman was one of these men. Mrs. Bowles said this was done about 1856 or 1857.[2]

There were about nine teachers, all Yankees. The first principal was Rev. M. P. Gaddis. Richard Rust was the first President. The students, with a few exceptions, were children of slave holders.

Money was deposited in Cincinnati banks for the use of the children. President Rust was given power to draw on banks as the children needed money.

The following were named as among the slave owners who brought their children to the school. A planter named Mosley from Warren, Miss., brought seven children by three different mothers and freed them. Senator Hemphill of Virginia brought two daughters and emancipated them. A planter by the name of Smith brought eight children from Mississippi with their mother about 1859. He had a slave man and woman to wait on them. He was arrested and made to emancipate them. He bought a large tract of land for them. A brick house he built was later owned by Colonel Charles Young. The woman had lived with Smith under compulsion, and as soon as she was emancipated would have nothing more to do with him. Mrs. Bowles said that she went to school with these children and often visited the family. She had seen the mother strip herself to the waist and show how her back had been mutilated to make her submit to her master's wishes. A man named Piper came and brought 10 children and their mother. She was jet black. After the war he married her and settled in Darke County, Ohio.

General T. C. McMackin, a hotel owner of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was appointed by Castleman as his daughter's guardian. She said that she got in a fight with another school girl and was put on bread and water. She wrote her father. He had McMackin come to Wilberforce and adjust the matter. Her father, and she said the fathers generally, lavished money on their children. She had a box that held fifty silver dollars. This her father kept full of silver dollars for her to buy candy with.

Abolition was preached constantly in the school. She came to hate slavery. She had seen great cruelties inflicted on her mother and other slaves. Her mother took up with a slave man. Emma was a child, sleeping in the room. Many a night her father would come and curse the slave and compel him to leave the cabin. Then he would whip him and her mother. Whipping was on bare back from 39 to 300 lashes. Slave stripped naked and hands and feet tied to stakes driven into the ground. Stocks were also used. The lash and the stocks were both used on her mother's slave husband. They were put in the stocks at night and whipped night and morning.

Mrs. Bowles was courted in school by a class-mate, named George W. Harding, whose father was a large slave holder in Tennessee. President Rust tried to break it up. He wrote her father. Castleman wrote his daughter that he did not send her North to waste her time with a nigger. If she did not stop he would come and get her, cow hide her and bring her home and put her in the cotton field. She replied that "if her mother was good enough for him to sleep with, that a nigger was good enough for her to marry." She married Harding March 5, 1862. He had received considerable wealth from his father. When they married he had $55,000,[3] and later inherited $80,000 from his mother.

The war stopped communications with the South. As soon as the war closed, Castleman wrote to find out about his daughter and learned that she was married and the mother of two children. He wrote to her to come home and leave her niggers. If she didn't she would not get any of his property. She wrote him that he had beaten her mother and made her bear five children out of wedlock and that she would not forsake her husband and her lawfully born children.

FOOTNOTES: