Stories of Black Folk
for
Little Folk
By BESSIE LANDRUM
1923
A. B. CALDWELL PUBLISHING CO.
Atlanta, Ga.1923
(Copyright)
A. B. CALDWELL PUB. CO.
Atlanta, Georgia.PREFACE
The aim of this book is fourfold: to provide the youth with some facts of Negro history; to supply Elementary Schools with selections from standard works of Negro authors; to create within children the desire to admire and to study more deeply the achievements of the Black Folk; and to inspire at the proper time the rising generation of future men and women with information of those, who, in humility and in spite of obstacles, arose from lowly nositions to those of might and power.
The book affords many opportunities for research by the pupils while studying the subordinate characters, facts and events of its stories.
This material may be correlated with lessons in reading, history, civics, literature and language.
B. L.CONTENTS
PAGE
Allen, Richard.............................. 75
Attucks, Crispus............................ 70
Bannecker, Benjamin......................... 70
Bryan, Andrew .............................. 73
Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel..................... 31
Dessalines, Jean Jacques.................... 62
Douglass, Frederick......................... 85
Dumas, Alexandre............................ 35
Dunbar, Paul Laurence......................   7
Ellis, George Washington.................... 26
L’Ouverture, Toussaint...................... 45
Patrocinio, Jose Do......................... 69
Pushkin, Alexander.......................... 41
Roberts, Joseph Jenkin..........,............ 67
Truth, Sojourner............................. 79
Washington, Booker T........................ 95
Wheatley, Phillis........................... 19FREDERICK DOUGLASS
(See Page 85)PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
Now, on the twenty-seventh of June in the year 1872, there was born in Dayton, Ohio, the Black Prince, who had a gift that was a secret to the world, and was more to be desired than Aladdin’s lamp or little Gluck’s golden river; for, aside from being the means of his becoming a king, it was a blessing to the earth, and, furthermore, if revealed and cultivated by his guardian, the only one capable of using it, his gift was to become the glory of his people, the merry Black Folk. But the wee, wee Black Prince was in the power of the giant, which, since the departure of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, had been as prone to rob every prince under his authority—and his authority had been over all races, and particularly over the merry Black Folk—of the glory of his gift as the family of poisons had been to rob any spring of its purity. Hence, before the wee, wee Black Prince was a moment old, he had been bound by the giant where, by being estranged from his guardian, and by being kept as obscurely in the world as an entrapped robin dying in the depths of the wood, he was likely to live and die without so much as knowing that he had a gift.
Therefore the wee, wee Black Prince soon announced his arrival with a lusty cry right in the heart of the big, busy world where he received no more princely attention than if he had been the most ordinary baby thereabouts. For he had nothing to distinguish himself. He neither sprang from a line of kings nor began life in a castle of marble; he neither had a chest of royal robes nor the heritage of a crown of gold. Instead, he came from a pure African stock, which, believing in witches and weird3
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
things and knowing the songs of the winds and waters of their native land, had as bequests to be handed down to the Black Prince their abundant powers to imagine and to sing—heritages to shine as sunbeams in the lowly abode where the Prince began living humbly but happily with his parents, who, though as poor as mice in a church and as ignorant as children just learning to read, made his lowly abode a castle of love. For aside from being as proud of their son and as desirous of his sharing the glories of earth as if they had been financiers having interests on Wall Street, they loved him as if he had been a lord, and named him accordingly. For Joshua, his father, who was something of a prophet, once said to his wife, “Matilda, the Bible says Paul was a great man. This child will be great some day and do you honor.” Hence, the wee Black Prince was named Paul Laurence in honor of a friend of his parents and the Apostle Paul to insure the inspiration of beloved and great people.

By and by, Prince Paul was able to crawl upon his father’s knee and say, “Please tell me a story.” Then Joshua would tell him stories by which he would teach him the dialect and customs of the merry Black Folk. Often he told him about his escape from the South as a runaway slave. Sometimes he was interrupted in that story by Matilda’s saying, “But I left the South as a freeman, after President Lincoln had issued his Emancipation Proclamation.” Sometimes, Joshua either sat quietly using his hands to make shadows on the wall or sat patting his feet in time, to the nasal tones which he drawled forth, and which he said, “Sounded like the song of a banjo________	__FOR LITTLE FOLK________	9
contrived and bowed by a son of the merry Blacks.” Whenever Prince Paul wanted to sit long after twilight listening to more stories, or another song of the banjo or seeing more shadows darting upon the wall, Joshua would say, “The Boogah Man eats little boys who are awake when the stars are shining in the night.” At that, the Prince would say his prayers, get into bed, and enter Dreamland, breathing heavily and slowly in time to a melody which was being sung sweetly enough by his mother for him to think that she could sing better than anybody else on earth.
By and by, Prince Paul became a school-boy. And in the public school where he soon learned to read and write, he began writing something so beautiful that he set his classmates to telling their parents, “Paul Laurence, a black boy in our class, writes poetry—and he is only seven years old!” As Prince Paul learned more about his favorite subjects, spelling, grammar and literature, he wrote better poems, which, when praised by his teachers, made him too happy to cry about the expensive Christmas trees, fine, new clothes to wear on Easter Sabbaths, bundles of explosives to enliven the “Glorious Fourth” or any other joy of childhood, that he never had. But those happy days, during which he was as happy as old King Cole ever dared to be, passed away once during the year 1884, when, with uncontrollable tears and an ache in his heart, he led neighbors and friends to a quiet room to look upon Joshua, who lay stretched between white sheets upon a low couch with his hands folded upon his chest and his features molded into a smile—just as death had left him.10 STORIES OF BLACK FOLK 
Thereafter Prince Paul and his mother struggled to keep the wolf from their door. To do so they endured hardships that they never forgot. On every day except the Sabbath, Matilda washed and ironed from morning till night. Meanwhile, before and after school hours, Prince Paul ran about the streets as a newsboy and cried, “Want a paper? Buy a paper, please!” Thus they supported themselves.
However, Prince Paul was winning glory at school. Once he edited the student paper, and in the year 1891 when he was graduated from the Steel High School, he started the townfolk to saying, “Paul Laurence is a genius; He wrote the song for his class—and it is a real poem!”
Of course Prince Paul was too poor to go to college. So, in order to support his mother and himself, he determined to become a secretary. But as he was a child of the Black Folk, he had to become a bell-boy.
He, however, kept studying and writing poetry as often as he had time to do so. He liked to write about the merry Black Folk in the style and dialect of the stories that he had heard from Joshua.
In consequence of his study, he began reaping blessings that seemed to have been miracles. Once, right in the elevator where he worked, he faced three American scholars.
“Are you Paul, the poet?” asked the scholars.
“I am Paul—and I try to write poems,” answered Prince Paul.
“Will you tell us about yourself?” asked the scholars. “Where were you born? Where do you live? Who are your people?”11
_______________FOR LITTLE FOLK
Then Prince Paul told them about Joshua and the stories he had told him; he told them about Matilda and her hardships; and about himself and his poetry.
After listening to Prince Paul, the scholars were sure that he was a poet. So they praised his works, and when they left him, they carried some of his poems away with them.
A few weeks afterwards, Prince Paul thrust a newspaper before Matilda and cried, “Oh, ma, those scholars had the poems that I gave them published in this big American paper and in the leading papers of England!”
After a few months, he said to her, “Ma, I am going to have a book published.”
Poor Prince Paul had no money to pay for the publishing of his book, and feeling like a friendless beggar, he was about to stop hoping to see it in print, because he had failed to have it published on credit, when he met a kind publisher who, upon noting his sadness, asked, “What is the matter, Paul?”
Prince Paul answered his question. Then the manager took his poems, and Prince Paul hurried away to say to Matilda, “Oh, ma, they are going to print my book!”
He received his book, “Oak and Ivy,” from the publisher during the year 1892. And he soon earned enough money by selling copies of it to pay for its publication. ׳
During that year, he began receiving invitations to recite his works before distinguished audiences in Dayton, Detroit, Toledo, Chicago and in many other cities, where he went with barely railroad fare, and12__________STORIES OF BLACK FOLK ______________
whence he returned with even less money, unless he had received recompense for his reading.
In fact, at that time, the poor Prince was meeting the giant every day. He was almost unknown, and when he had published his second book, “Majors and Minor,” he began selling a few copies of it when he needed to sell thousands of them, for he was trying to support himself and his mother and buy a home.
But just when the old giant was crushing the Prince to death, Dr. William Dean Howells, a famous American journalist and writer, read “Majors and Minor.” Dr. Howells liked the book, and expressed his appreciation of it in an article that he had published in an edition of “Harper’s Weekly.” His article was read in every important country in the world.
“Mr. Howells has made you famous,” a friend of the Prince said to him.
And he had. As soon as Mr. Howells’ article had been read, people in America and abroad began buying “Oak and Ivy” and “Majors and Minor.”
Prince Paul was as happy when he was told of the sale of his books, as if he had found his bag of gold at the end of the rain-bow. Of course he was grateful to Mr. Howells, so when he was having published his book, “Lyrics of Lowly Life,” its introduction was written by Mr. Howells.
Thousands of people read his books. Soon Prince Paul was known in many parts of the world as Paul Laurence Dunbar, the Afro-American poet. He recited his “Little Brown Baby,” “When de Co’n Pone’s Hot,” “Christmas Is a-Cumiri,” “When Malin-dy Sings,” “Ode to Ethiopia,” and his other famousFOR LITTLE FOLK
13
works to thousands of people in America and in England. He wrote twelve volumes of poetry, three novels and five collections of short stories. Some of the world’s best thinkers spoke of him as follows:
“I regard Paul Dunbar as the most promising young colored man in America,” said Frederick Douglass, the Afro-American statesman and orator.
“So far as I could remember, Paul Dunbar was the only man of pure African blood and American civilization to feel the Negro life aesthetically and express it lyrically. * * * I feel that he has made the strongest claim for the Negro in English literature, that the Negro has made,” wrote Mr. Howells in his introduction in “Lyrics of Lowly Life.”
“While I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Dunbar only once or twice, I was a great admirer of his poetry and prose,” said ex-President Roosevelt.
Mr. Robert Ingersoll said: “I have only time to say that Dunbar is a genius.”
James Whitcomb Riley wrote a letter to Prince Paul. In his letter he wrote as follows: “Certainly your gift is evidenced by this ‘Drowsy Day’ poem. Already you have many friends, and you can have thousands more by being simply honest and just to yourself and to the high source of your endowment.”
While in the midst of his glory, Prince Paul was happily married to a young lady whom he loved dearly. For a while he was very happy, for his guardian had revealed his gift, which was his talent to write poetry, and so cultivated it that Prince Paul had become the Black King of Verse whose poetic talent was known to be the glory of his people, the merry Black Folk, and was cheering and enriching14	STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
the world with poetry. King Paul might have lived on and on as happily as Croesus ever lived, and he might have cheered the world for many a year by using his poetical gift, which was more to be desired than Aladdin’s lamp or little Gluck’s golden river, if the old giant never had claimed him for his own.
One day the old giant met King Paul and taunted him thus: “Ha, ha, ha! My fine Prince, while a boy and while a very young man you fought me regardless of the hard times and scant earnings I heaped upon you. But, by doing so, you lost strength, my fine Prince! And now my faithful servant, Disease, shall slay you and your wonderful guardian.”
And before he could find anything or anybody to save him from his fate, poor King Paul began coughing, and feeling weak and sick. And before anybody could cure him, he began dwindling into a frail, sick King.
Twice he fled to the Rocky Mountains to find a curative. But he never found that. So on February 9, 1906, while his mother and a few friends were with him at his home in Dayton, King Paul began repeating the twenty-third Psalm, and when he had said, “When I walk through the valley and shadow,” he was hushed. For old Disease had slain him.
Then the dreadful old giant, that was nothing more than Poverty in which poor children are born, raced on spreading ruin and sorrow without a single regret for King Paul and his faithful guardian, who was nothing more than King Paul’s own Free Will.FOR LITTLE FOLK
15
HYMN.
“When storms arise
And dark’ning skies
About me threat’ning lower,
To Thee, 0 Lord, I raise mine eyes, To Thee my tortured spirit flies
For solace in that hour.
“Thy mighty arm
Will let no harm
Come near me nor befall me;
Thy voice shall quiet my alarm When life’s great battle waxeth warm—
No foeman shall appall me.
“Upon Thy breast
Secure I rest,
From sorrow and vexation
No more by sinful cares oppressed,
But in Thy presence ever blest,
0 God of my salvation.”
A DROWSY DAY.
“The air is dark, the sky is gray,
The misty shadows come and go,
And here within my dusty room Each chair looks ghostly in the gloom.
Outside the rain falls cold and slow— Half-stinging drops, half-blinding spray.
Each slightest sound is magnified,
For drowsy quiet holds her reign;
The burnt stick in the fireplace breaks, The nodding cat with start awakes,
And then to sleep drops off again, Unheeding Towser at her side.
I look far out across the lawn,
Where huddled stand the silly sheep;16
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
My work lies idle at my hands,
My thoughts fly like scattered strands
Of thread, and on the verge of sleep Still half awake I dream and yawn.
What spirits rise before my eyes!
How various of kind and form!
Sweet memories of days long past,
The dream of youth that could not last,
Each smiling calm, each raging storm, That swept across my early skies.
Before my windows sweep and sway, And chaff in tortures of unrest.
My chin sinks down upon my breast;
I can not work on such a day,
But only sit and dream and drowse.”
A BOY’S SUMMER SONG.
“ ’Tis fine to play In the fragrant hay,
And romp on the golden load:
To ride old Jack To the barn and back,
Or traipp on a shady road.
To pause and drink,
At a mossy brink;
Änd so I say On a summer’s day
What’s so fine as being a boy?
Ha, Ha!
With line and hook By a babbling brook,
The fisherman’s sport we ply;
And list the song Of the feathered throng
That flit in the branches nigh.
At last we stripFOR LITTLE FOLK
17
For a quiet dip;
Ah, that is the best of joy.
For this I say On a summer’s day,
What’s so fine as being a boy? Ha, Ha!”
THE SANDMAN.
“I know a man With face of tan
But who is ever kind;
Whom girls and boys Leave games and toys
Each eventide to find.
When day grows dim They watch for him
He comes to place his claim;
He wears the crown Of dreaming-town;
The sand-man is his name.
When sparkling eyes Droop sleepywise
And busy lips grow dumb;
When little heads Nod towards the beds,
We know the sand-man’s come.”
LITTLE BROWN BABY.
“Little brown baby wif spa’klin’ eyes,
Come to yo׳ pappy an’ set on his knee.
What you been doin’, suh, makin’ san’ pies? Look at dat bib—you’s ez du’ty ez me.
Look at dat mouf—dat’s merlasses, I bet; Come hyeah, Maria, an’ wipe off his han’s
Bees gwine to ketch you an’ eat you up yit, Bein’ so sticky an’ sweet—goodness Ian’s!18
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
Little brown baby wif spa’klin’ eyes,
Who’s pappy’s darlin’ an’ who’s pappy’s chile?
Who is it all de day never once tries Fo’ to be cross, or once loses dat smile ?
Whah did you git dem teef? My, you’s a scamp! Whah did dat dimple come f’om in you’ chin?
Pappy do’ know yo—I b’lives you’s a tramp; Mammy, dis hyeah’s some ol’ straggler got in!
Let’s th’ow him outen de do’ in de san’
We do’ want stragglers a-layin’ ’round hyeah;
Let’s gin him ’way to de big buggah man;
I know he’s hidin’ erroun’ hyeah right neah.
Buggah-man, buggah-man, come in de do’
Hyeah’s a bad boy you kin have fu’ to eat
Mammy an’ pappy do’ want him no mo’
Swaller him down f’om his haid to his feet!
Dah, now, I t’ought dat you’d hug me up close.
Go back, ol’ buggah, you sha’n’t have dis boy.
He ain’t no tramp, ner no straggler, of co’se;
He’s pappy’s pa’dner an’ playmate an’ joy.
Come to you’ pallet now—go to yo’ res’
Wisht you could alius know ease an’ cleah skies;
Wisht you could stay jes’ a chile on my breas’— Little brown baby wid spa’klin’ eyes!”
LIFE.
“A crust of bread and a corner to sleep in,
A minute to smile and an hour to weep in,
A pint of joy to a peck of trouble
And never a laugh but the moans come double;
And that is life!
A crust and a corner that love makes precious,
With the smile to warm and the tears to refresh us; And joy seems sweeter when cares come after,
And a moan is the finest of foils for laughter:
And that is life!”PHILLIS WHEATLEY
Once upon a time over a hundred years ago, when the land of flowers, sunshine and music was possessed mostly by the Merry Black Folk, there was born there among them, so Mother Moon told the Stars, the most precious little Princess in the Kingdom of the Blacks.
For eight fiery summers she laughed and played in the wonderful gardens of her native land as freely as the mischievous pygmies whom nobody could catch and punish for the pranks they played upon the folks thereabouts. So there she was—just a swarthy, tiny creature, growing among the palms, the fruits, and blossoms, and other graceful things that nodded in the breezes. And she was as cheerful as a lark; for her heart was full of joy, and her song was full of her beautiful thoughts. But of course she was that sort of a Princess. For she was surrounded by the beauty and song of thousands of creatures.
In the jungles about her, many big and little waters were tinkling and humming, “On we gurgle as we struggle to meet the River King!”
And the River King responded, “Rush to me, rush to me, the old, old Congo, and I’ll bear you humming waters to the mighty Ocean King—the Atlantic, the Atlantic.”
And between the humming waters, birds by thousands in the tree tops every day were trilling sweetly, “Warble, warble, warble, warble!”
Even the lions and tigers, the elephants and zebras and the monkeys and gorillas and other beasts rioting in the jungles struck up discords at in-PHILLIS WHEATLEYFOR LITTLE FOLK
21
tervals as if they had agreed amopg themselves to enliven the land with their terrifying¡ npises.
Now, one day, in spite of the Great Sahara, the old dragon that lay on its hot bed of sand ready to smother the intruders in the land, and Abyssinia’s highland daughters, whose icy gaps pierced the clouds as those beautiful giantesses guarded the land every day in the year, that precious little Princess was carried away from her own black mother and from everybody else who loved hgr, and was enslaved by some strange, stern traders,.
Soon afterwards, as helpless and alone as a captured bird with broken wings, she stood beside the Ocean King, the great Atlantic, looking for the last time upon Africa, her beautiful native land of sunshine, flowers and music. Oh, hpw miserable the little Princess was while leaving Africa, the bride of the sun, with its golden crops and fragrant blossoms which the sun had given her! But the Merry Black Folk—not even their Witch Doctor, who used roots and herbs to make folks well and happy—did not redeem the Princess. So away she was carried, over water and land, till she was too sick to cry.
Finally she was placed in a slave market in America in Boston, Massachusetts, where she and other black slaves stood more helpless and alone than the stray dogs in the roads. But, being a wise little Princess, she was able to behave respectfully, cheerfully and intelligently. Consequently she found what she needed. She found love.
The lady who loved her was as good as a fairy. Of course a fairy God-Mother would have touched that miserable little slave and changed her into a22
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
happy little Princess. That is what Mrs. John Wheatley, the lady who loved her, finally did; as soon as she saw the correct decorum of the little slave, she bought her and called her, “My little Phillis Wheatley.” Little Phillis was carried to Mrs. Wheatley’s home, where she was given nice things to eat, comfortable clothes to wear, and was taught to read and write.
Then, like Paul Laurence, the Black Prince of verse, little Phillis began writing wonderful poems. And people began saying, “Phillis Wheatley is a genius!”
And little Phillis was indeed a genius. In verse, she gave to the world some of the music that she had inherited in Africa, her beautiful native land of sunshine, flowers and music. And thousands of people in America and in Europe liked her poems.
One day she wrote a poem about General George Washington, the hero of the Revolutionary War. After reading her poem, he wrote the following letter to her:
“Miss Phillis—Your favor of the 26th of October did not reach my hands till the middle of December. Time enough, you will say, to have given an answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of important occurences, continually interposing to distract the mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will apologize for the delay, and plead my excuse for seeming neglect. I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me, in the elegant lines enclosed; and however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyrie, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetical talents; in honor of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the poem had I not been apprehensive, that while I only meant to give this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation ofI______________FOR LITTLE FOLK ,_______________23
vanity. This and nothing else, determined me to not give it place in public prints.
“If you should ever come to'Cambridge, or near headquarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favored by the muses, and to whom nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations.
“I am with great respect, your obedient, humble servant, “GEORGE WASHINGTON.”
In the year of 1773, she collected her poems which she had published in her book, “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.”
“We are reading poems by Phillis Wheatley in our class,” said many school children. For her works were studied in the schools of that day.
Once she visited England. There she became famous as a poetess. In fact, at that time, she was known in many parts of the world as “the African Poetess.”
Now, when the Princess returned to America, she became very sad. She was unhappy all the rest of her life. Upon returning to Mrs. Wheatley, the dear lady who had loved her, and had made her happier than her own black mother could have done, the Princess found the dear lady very sick, and within a short while, she saw her pass from life. Being bereft of the lady who had made it possible for America to know the beautiful thoughts that enriched her mind, and had made her the Princess of Poetry, the Princess was sad indeed.
Soon afterwards Princess Phillis was married to a young man of Boston, Massachusetts. But though she was married and, after a time was the mother of a dear little daughter, she was unhappy, for her baby24	STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
soon died, and she gradually became weak and sick. Finally, on December the fifth, in the year 1784,
Princess Phillis closed her eyes and went away from this world.
But the world still honors her as the Black Poetess from Africa, the land of sunshine, flowers and music.
HIS EXCELLENCY, GEORGE WASHINGTON.
Celestial choir! enthroned in realms of light, Columbia’s scenes of glorious toils I write;
While freedom’s cause her anxious breast alarms, She flashed dreadful in refulgent arms,
See, Mother Earth her offspring’s fate bemoan,
And nations gaze at scenes before unknown:
See the bright beams of heaven’s revolving light Involved in sorrow and in veil of night The goddess comes, she moves divinely fair,
Olive and laurel bind her golden hair;
Where ever shines the native of the skies, Unnumbered charms and recent graces rise.
Muse! bow propitious while my pen relates How pour her arms through a thousand gates;
As when Eolus heaven’s fair face deforms, Enwrapped in temptest and a night of storms; Astonished ocean feels the wild uproar,
The refluent surges beat the resounding shore;
Or thick as leaves in Autumn’s golden reign,
Such and so many moves the warrior’s train,
In bright array to seek the world of war,
Where high unfurled the ensign waves in air.
Shall I to Washington their praises recite?
Enough, thou knowest them in the fields of fight. Thee, first in peace and honor we demand,
Famed for their valor, for thy virtue more,
Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore.
One century scarce performed its destined round When Gallic powers Columbia’s fury found;FOR LITTLE FOLK
25
And, may you, whoever dares disgrace The land of freedom’s heaven-defended race. Fixed are the eyes of nations on the scales, For in their hope Columbia’s arm prevails, Amen, Britannia droops the pensive head, While round increase the rising hills of dead. Ah. cruel blindness in Columbia’s state, Lament thy thirst of boundless power too late Proceed, great chief; virtue on thy side;
Thy every action let the goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine With gold unfading, Washington, be thine.GEORGE WASHINGTON ELLIS
Now, in the year 1917, the Merry Black Folk grieved because of the death of George Washington Ellis, one of their sons, who had traveled and sojourned in their beautiful and rich Mother-land of sunshine, flowers and music, where he saw and heard much that he afterwards wrote in books for the world to read.
Fortunately, when George Washington Ellis wai a little boy he liked to go to school. He learned rap idly in the public schools of Atchison, Kansas, hk home town, and at the University of Kansas, Gun ton’s Institute of Economics and Sociology in Nev York City and at Howard University, in Washing ton, D. C.
“Now what will he do?” asked the Merry Blacl Folk as he left Howard University.
But he did not serve them at that time by travel ing in their Mother-land to learn about their people living there. Instead he became a lawyer at Law rence, Kansas. Later he was a clerk in the Depart ment of Interior at Washington, D. C.
Then the time came for him to perform the sacree and noble duty of studying the lives of his people in Africa. He was appointed Secretary of the American I egation to Liberia, Africa, by President Theodore Roosevelt.
He was glad to work in Liberia. There he traveled among the happy Blacks, many of whom were living as their ancestors were living when Princess Phillis was playing somewhere in the gardens there.
After several years, he returned to America where he wrote several books in which he described27.
FOR LITTLE FOLK
w
life among the Merry Black Folk in Africa. Among his books appear the following works, “Negro Culture in West Africa,” “The Leopard’s Claw,” “Negro Achievements in Social Progress,” “Liberia in the Political Psychology of West Africa,” “Islam as a Factor in West African Culture” and “Dynamic Factors in the Liberian Situation.”
In his works, he wrote many interesting and instructive descriptions about his people. He called them beautiful people and told about their sorrows as if he would have given his life to have removed their darkness, and thereby, he attempted to endear them to the readers of his books. He told the legends and proverbs to many people, who learned that the Merry Black Folk in Africa are like other primitive people in many respects. Thus he answered his noble call—to reveal the truth about the Blacks in Africa.
THE MAN AND THE GOAT.
A man went into the forest and set a rope trap, and the trap caught a bush goat. The man was so eager to kill the goat that in his zeal he made a mistake, and with his knife he struck the rope, and cut it instead of the goat, and the goat ran away. The man followed the goat for many hours; by and by the man became tired; the man called to the goat to wait, and when the goat stopped the man said to it: “Twins can not eat goat meat. My wife is a twin, my children are twins, and I am a twin. I do not wish to eat you. I was only joking.” The goat said in reply, “If you, your wife and your children are all twins and you do not wish to eat me, why have you followed me all these hours?”28__________STORIES OF BLACK FOLK_________________
One man liked to fight, and he whipped everybody he met. He took three cows and went about his country, offering these three cows to anybody who could whip him.
THE TWO FIGHTERS.
One lazy man heard about this man’s fighting, and came to him and told him that he could whip him. “Before we fight,” said the lazy man, “we must bet. I will bring my three cows and the one who whips will take the six.” The champion fighter said, “All right; we will fight tomorrow.” The lazy man before he started to the fight told his boy that if the fighter struck him four good licks, he intended to run. “All right,” said the boy, “let us go.” The two men met to fight. And they began to fight. The champion fighter struck the lazy man four strong blows when the lazy man cried out to the boy, “The time has come.” The boy said, “Wait until he strikes you one more time.” Then the great fighter said to himself, “This man wants to wait until I strike him again before he does what he intends to do; he surely means to kill me.” And he at once stopped fighting and ran. And the lazy man won the six cows and the fight.
VAI PROVERBS.
“The person who says catch a cat by the neck has been bitten before.” When a person is about to stand somebody’s bond and some one warns him not to do so and he wants to know why not, the answer is, “The person who says,” etc.
The Vais like to dress and some of the worst characters of the community appear in the finest and most costly dress. On ceremonial occasions some of these bad people appear so well that they excite the comment, “The house looks pretty from the outside, but the inside is bad.”FOR LITTLE FOLK
29
“The rice bird finds a place to sit down first before he begins to eat rice.” That is to say before a person undertakes to do anything he should first get power or make preparations.
“Old cloth has a new pocket.” That is, a poor man suddenly gets a little money or is raised in position.
“The elephant never gets tired of carrying his tusks.” That is, no matter how poor people become they try to support their people. And if they complain the above words are echoed in their ears. If they complain when they are doing any other thing they ought to do they hear this proverb.
“A little rain every day will make the river swell.” People are encouraged to save money by repeating to them this old saying.SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR
“I would like to hear that little boy play his violin,” said a noted musician as he saw little Prince Samuel playing marbles with one hand and holding a tiny violin in the other.
So, after leading the Prince into his studio, the musician handed a piece of music to him and said, “Play this.”
As little Prince Samuel finished playing that piece and several others, he heard the musician shouting, “Bravo! Bravo!” And soon afterwards he began teaching the little Prince to play his precious little instrument.
Now, Prince Samuel’s father was a fickle, black surgeon, who had hailed from Sierra Leone, and, who, shortly after the birth of the Prince in London, England, on the fifteenth of August, in the year 1875, had deserted his family, and had returned to Africa without having left as much as a crust of bread for his little son.
But the little Prince was loved greatly by his mother, an English lady, who toiled faithfully to support and educate him. And so when he was given the tiny violin by a poor workman, he was allowed to take lessons upon it. Prince Samuel soon learned to play simple pieces, and after being instructed for a while by the noted musician, he began attracting the public’s attention to his performances. And within a short time, he was being called a genius.
Prince Samuel also learned vocal music. So one day he came to his mother saying, “Listen, mother!” Then he played and sang a song that he had composed.
He began playing in public programs while he32
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
was young enough for his teacher to say afterwards, “He was so small that I had to stand him on son e boxes that he might be seen above the ferns by tl e audience.”
By and By, he began singing in the St. George s and St. Mary’s choirs. Through the efforts of M Herbert A. Walters, the choir-master of the St. George Church, he was sent to the Royal Acaden y of Music where, in the year 1893, he was given a scholarship in composition, and whence he was gra l-uated during the next year. During the next tv o years, he won the Lesley Alexander prize for composition.
When Prince Samuel was seventeen years old, he composed his “In Thee, 0 Lord.” In time, he composed many songs, a number of compositions for string, wind and horn instruments, and many syi i-phonic, orchestral and choral works. He got his best inspirations from the folk-lore of the Black Folk. While thus inspired he composed his “African Dances,” “African Romances,” and his “Songs of Slavery.”
Like many a fine prince in fairy tales, Prince Samuel was happily married to a sweet tempered lady, who sang sweetly. And they had two children, each of whom had the gift of music.
But like Prince Paul, Prince Samuel was seized by old Disease. So one morning, he told his wife that he had dreamed of shaking hands with somebody in heaven. “You know what that means,” said the Prince. “I am going to die.”
Sure enough. Prince Samuel, who really had become the great Black King of Music, became weakFOR LITTLE FOLK
33
and sick. And on the Sabbath of September 1, 1912, as he lay propped on pillows conducting an imaginary choir, King Samuel suddenly closed his eyes and passed quietly from this beautiful, green earth which he had enriched with his wonderful music.ALEXANDRE DUMASALEXANDRE DUMAS
“I will not go to the Seminary!” once cried little Alexandre Dumas, the tiny French genius of long ago, as he looked straight at his mother, although he knew that she wanted him to go to a boarding school where he could study theology.
Then he stamped as noisily as he could; frowned darkly upon the trunks of clothes that he had been expected to carry to the school; and talked as independently about his not going to the Seminary as if he had been a hundred years old.
However, after seeing that his behavior was grieving his mother, he became a bit nenitent, and stole from her presence to cry about his display of anger, and to write a letter of aoologies to her.
Now, little Alexandre wept bitterlv, and wrote rapidlv; for he had a new notion that he wanted to try. So he shortly cried, “There, when mother reads this letter from me, she will know that I love her dearly, even though I will not go to the Seminary.”
And then he ran away. He ran and ran and ran and ran! On he ran until he came to a hut in the woods.
“May I stay with you?” Alexandre asked the man who lived in the hut.
“Yes,” answered the man.
Three davs later little Alexandre said to the man, “I am going to my mother.”
“Goodbye,” answered the man.
Now little Alexandre was dad to return to his mother. For he dearly loved her. In fact, while returning to her, he believed that he had loved his mother ever since he had come into the world on36
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
the twenty-fourth of July in the year 1802 at Villers-Cotterets, France, and that he had sympathized wit' i her because she had been struggling to support he • family ever since the death of his father, Genera[ Thomas Alexandre Dumas, whom the Austrians ha I called “the black devil,” because of his prowess a¿ battle.
And his mother was glad of his return as th father in the Biblical story was of the return of hi 3 prodigal son.
“But Alexandre,” said his mother to him, “yo 1 must study Latin, arithmetic and writing under th 3 directions of a private teacher.”
Now Prince Alexandre had never liked to stud;. And at one time in the past, he had neglected stud¿ -ing music to the extent that his teacher had discoi -tinued instructing him, and had said to his mother: “Alexandre has no sense of music whatever!”
But to keep from remaining an ignorant, wortl ־ less little Prince, he determined to learn something. Hence he mastered writing.
When he was sixteen years old, he was able to write well, hence he was employed as a secertary for the Duke of Orleans.
Of course there was a reason why Prince Alexandre did not want to study theology, and there was a reason why he mastered writing. And within a few years he was successful in showing his mother and the whole world why he wrote instead of preaching, for he soon said to one of his friends, “I like to write stories. I want to become a novelist.”
“Then you should study German and Italian,” answered his friend.FQR LITTLE FOLK	37
At last Alexandre had found a purpose for which he was willing to study. He diligently studied Italian and German so that he could write novels and
P^ys.	, • 1 ״ i
Now, unfortunately, Alexandre was a faithful subject of old King Frivolity. Often he was serving that old King at places of merriment when he should have been serving the Duke, or studying and writing books.
So finally the Duke said: “Alexandre, you are unfaithful, and cannot serve me any longer.”
After being dismissed by the Duke, he studied all the more to become a writer. And once, when he was seventeen years old, he sat in a popular theater seeing the performance of his first drama, “Henry III.” He realized how necessary it was for “Henry III” to please the vast audience that crowded the theater. For if it did not succeed, he and his mother would continue in poverty. But if it succeeded—oh, how his heart thumped as he thought of the money he would earn because of it, and of the nice things he would buy for his mother, who at that very time was critically sick.
Now “Henry III” was a success. From its beginning to its end, the audience applauded it again and again. Between its acts, happy Prince Alexandre rushed to his mother to say, “ ‘Henry IIP has made our fortune!”
And it had. Thereafter Alexandre was able to spend his time writing books. He wrote two hundred and seventy-seven books. And he was honored as a great novelist all over the world. In the year 1838, he was saddened by the death of his mother.38	STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
One day, when he was sixty-eight years old, h! put aside his pen and fell asleep. He never awoke. Many years afterwards, a splendid statue was erected in honor of him at Paris, France. For he ha 1 been a great French King of Novels.
HOW THE DUC DE BEAUFORT AMUSED HIS LEISUR ■1 HOURS IN THE DONJON OF VINCENNES.
His next act was to purchase a dog from one of his kee -ers. With this animal, which he called Pistache, he w? s often shut up for hours alone, superintending, as every or e supposed, its education. At last, when Pistache was suit -ciently well trained, Monsieur de Beaufort invited the go -ernors and officers of Vincennes to attend a representatic i which he was going to have in his apartment.
The party assembled: the room was lighted with w¿ \־ lights, and the prisoner, with a bit of plaster he had takt 11 out of the wall in his room, had traced a long white line c 1 the floor. Pistache on a signal from his master, placed hir: -self on this line, raised himself on his hind paws, and holdir g in his front paws a wand with which clothes used to 1-e beaten, he began to dance upon the line with as many co■ -tortions as a rope-dancer. Having been several times up and down it, he gave the wand back to his master, and bega 1, without hesitation, to perform the same revolutions over again.
The intelligent creature was received with loud applause.
The first part of the entertainment being concluded Pi s-tache was desired to say what o’clock it was; he was shown Monsieur de Chavigny’s watch; it was then half-past six. The dog raised and dropped his paw six times; the seventh he let it remain upraised. Nothing could be better done; a sun-dial could not have shown the hour with greater precision.
Then the question was put to him who was the best jailer in all the prisons of France?
The dog performed three evolutions round the circle, and laid himself with the deepest respect at the feet ofFOR LITTLE FOLK
39
Monsieur de Chavigny, who at first seemed inclined to like the joke, and laughed aloud; but a frown soon succeeded, and he bit his lips with vexation.
Then he put to Pistache this difficult question; who was the greatest thief in the world?
Pistache went again the round of the circle, but stopped at no one; and at last, went to the door, and began to scratch and bark.
“See, gentlemen,” said M. de Beaufort, “this wonderful animal, not finding here what I asked for, seeks it out of doors; you shall, however, have his answer. Pistache, my friend, come here. Is not the greatest thief in the world, Monsieur (the king’s secretary) La Camus, who came to Paris with twenty francs in his pocket, and who now possesses six millions?”
The dog shook his head.
“Then is it not,” resumed the duke, “the Superintendent Emery, who gave his son, when he married, three hundred thousand francs and a house, compared to which the Tuil-leries are a heap of ruins and the Louvre a paltry building ?”
The dog again shook his head as if to say “No.”
“Then,” said the prisoner, “let’s think who it can be; can it possibly be the illustrious coxcomb, Mazarin de Piscina, hey?”
“Gentlemen, you see,” said the duke to those present, w'ho dared not even smile, “that it is the illustrious coxcomb, who is the greatest thief in the world; at least according to Pistache.”
“Let us go to another of his exercises.”
“Gentlemen !”—there was a profound silence in the room when the duke again addresses them—“do you not remember that the Due de Quis taught all the dogs in Paris to jump for Mademoiselle de Pons, whom he styled, ‘the fairest of the fair?’ Pistache is going to show you how superior he is to all other dogs. Monsieur de Chavigny, be so good as to lend me your cane. Now, Pistache, my dear, jump the height of this cane for Madame Montbazon.”
The dog found no difficulty in it, and jumped joyfully for Madame de Montbazon.
“But,” interposed M. de Chavigny, “it seems to me that40
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
Pistache is only doing what other dogs have done when the have jumped for Mademoiselle Pons.”
“Stop,” said the duke, “Pistache, jump for the queen. And he raised his cane six inches higher.
The dog sprang, and in spite of the height, jumped ligh' ly over it.
“And now,” said the duke, raising it still six inche higher, “jump for the king.”
The dog obeyed and jumped quickly over the cane.
“Now, then,” said the duke, as he spoke, lowered th i cane almost level with the ground; “Pistache, my frien<, jump for the illustrious coxcomb, Mazarin de Piscina.”
The dog turned his back on the cane.
“What,” asked the duke, “what do you mean?” and hi gave him the cane again, first making a semicircle from hi < head to the tail of Pistache. “Jump, then, Monsieur Pi. -tache.”
But Pistache, as at first, turned round on his legs, and stood with his back to the cane.
Monsieur de Beaufort made the experiment the thii 1 time; but this time Pistache rushed furiously on the cane and broke it with his teeth.
Monsieur de Beaufort took the pieces out of his mouth, and presented them with great formality to Monsieur de Chavigny, saying that for the evening, the entertainment was ended, but in three months it should be repeated, when Pistache would have learned some new tricks.
(Selected from “Twenty Years After.”)
ip״!•*׳•ALEXANDER PUSHKIN
While Alexandre, the little French genius, was living a little above want, and was refusing to attend the Seminary, Alexander Pushkin, a little Russian genius, was living like a lord in the Lyceum in his native land. Those two, little Alexandre, of France, and little Alexander, of Russia, were similar characters; they were unfaithful students; were loyal subjects of King Frivolity; and were fond of reading and writing.
Like Prince Paul Laurence, little Alexander Pushkin wrote poetry during childhood. While in the Lyceum, he wrote poems in the French and Russian languages. He had them published when he was fifteen years old. Then he was recognized as a genius.
Once he recited one of his poems during a public program at the Lyceum, and thereby won a public blessing from Derghavin, a noted literary critic.
After leaving the Lyceum he continued studying and writing poetry. He soon joined a literary club, the object of which was to encourage or inspire somebody to write pure Russian poetry. For nobody had become the national poet of that country. Each member of the club tried to become or help somebody else to become the national poet. So Alexander soon began writing a Russian poem. One day he finished it and read it at the club.
“Bravo! Alexander, you have written real Russian verse!” cried the members of the club, as he finished reading his poem.
Of course Prince Alexander wrote Russian verse, for he loved and understood his country. In fact, he loved Russia so well that in the year 1817 he entered
42	STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
the service of the government in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
While serving the government he met some young men, who were Liberals. He liked those young men, and finally became a Liberal. Then he began writing articles that defended the cause of the Liberals. His articles displeased the government officials. Hence they ordered Prince Alexander’s banishment.
“Alexander Pushkin is our poet, and he shall not spend the rest of his life as an exile,” said his influential political friends, and they kept him from being banished for a while.
However, as time passed, Alexander showed that he was as loyal to the Liberals as his great-grand father, the brave old African Prince Ibraham Hannibal, had been to Peter the Great by whom Hannibal was owned as a slave, but by whom he was also educated and made a General in the Russian army. So Prince Alexander wrote other Liberal articles.
“Alexander Pushkin shall leave Moscow!” the government officials finally declared, and they banished him during the year 1820.
For four years he was an exile in southern Russia, where he learned more to write about than he had known since June 7, 1799, the day on which he was born, at Moscow. He studied life in the Caucasus, learned the old legends of Crimea, and observed the habits of the Gypsies, with whom he traveled for several months.
After returning to Moscow, he studied the history of the people living in the northern part of the country. Then he began writing works that de-FOR LITTLE FOLK
43
scribed the lives of these people, and that made him famous as the Father of Russian Poetry. His works were full of realism and nationalism. He wrote a sufficient number of them to fill an edition of seven volumes. He was the favorite poet of Nicholas I, and was the most popular writer in Russia. In time he became the imperial historiographer, and as such wrote the life of Peter the Great.
Now on the tenth of February in the year 1837, when Pushkin had become the King of Russian Verse, he fought a duel with Baron Dantes. In the times of Prince Alexander, duels were considered as honorable and necessary contests. The poor Prince was wounded in the duel—and in two days he was dead.
All Russia mourned for King Alexander. The Czar, Nicholas I, showed his respect for him by ordering an edition of his works. Thus passed from life Alexander Pushkin, the father and King of Russian poetry, who had written of death as follows:
“Happy the man who early quits The feast of life, not caring to drain The sparkling goblet, filled with wine.
Happy the man who dares not wait To read the final page of life’s romance But suddenly bids the world adieu.”TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURETOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE
Once upon a time, nearly two hundred years ago, when the poor Blacks in Haiti were needing a Moses to deliver them from bondage, Francois Dominique Toussaint, a little, black slave was born there among them.
Soon little Toussaint was growing as rapidly as if he were hurrying into manhood to perform some great and noble act. So within a few years he was doing chores, and noticing everything and everybody on his owner’s plantation, which was known as the Breda Estate, and where he was kept for many years either as a worker in the fields of tobacco or as a postilion; the latter being an honored person in the opinions of the miserable field-hands whom Toussaint was moved to pity every day in the year. As he saw them overworked, beaten, starved and murdered, he pitied them as he pitied himself. In fact he would have given his life for the emancipation of the slaves in Haiti.
But, for many years, he could do nothing more to help them than to live a chaste and inspiring life, and to remain a faithful, industrious slave. Consequently he was the favorite thereabouts. Naturally he
■was trusted and raised to a postilion by his owner by whom he was taught reading, writing and arithmetic. As for his brethren, the black slaves, they loved and revered him as a gracious father at whose command they would have entered the jaws of death.
When Toussaint became a tall, strong man he was married to a black lady named Suzanna Simon Baptiste. And they had two sons whom they called Isaac and Saint Jean. Toussaint also had a step-son named Placide.46
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
Now when Toussaint was about forty-five years old, he and many other black slaves were grieved by the martyrdom of two Haitians; one of whom was Jacques Oge, a mulatto of Dondon, and the other wTas Jean Baptist Chavanne, a brave old soldier of Riv-iers. The slaves were concerned more about the events which were the causes of their martyrdom than they were about the tragic ends of them. Oge, a man of wealth, considerable influence and intelligence, had attempted to help his people, the free mulattoes of Haiti, have the enormous taxes they were being assessed reduced, and to help them win the rights to vote in public elections, to hold civil positions, to practice professions, and to gain other rights which were essentials for their advancement Upon hearing of the murder of some mulattoes who had attempted to vote at a public poll in Haiti, Oge. hurried from France where he had gone to plead the cause of his people to the “Friends of the Blacks,’ a body that favored the Black Folk. After landing in Haiti, Oge and Chavanne led about two hundred and fifty mulattoes against their oppressors, the white citizens of the island. During the attack, nearly all the mulattoes were captured and imprisoned for life or were hanged. But Oge and Chavanne were broken alive upon the “wheel.” After their deaths, their heads were cut off and placed upon poles that stood upon roads that lead to their native towns.
The more Toussaint and his enslaved brethren thought about the martyred men, the more often they said to themselves, “If they so treated free men, they can not become our liberators!”FOR LITTLE FOLK	47
Hence the black slaves determined to follow the advice of these words:
“Who would be free,
Themselves must strike the blow.”
So on the dark stormy night of August 14, 1791, Toussaint presided over them in a secret meeting in which they planned to revolt against their owners, the mulattoes and white people of Haiti.
They told nobody about their meeting. But at midnight in August 22, 1791, they stormed Saint Domingo. With Jean Francois, a stern, brave slave as their leader, they ran about spreading death and destruction and crying:
“Liberty! Liberty!! Liberty!!!”
After seeing the escape of his owner, Toussaint fought with the revolting slaves. He maneuvered as if nature had fashioned him for a general. In time he became their leader.
Now, while Toussaint was directing their insurrection, there were other turmoils on the island. For the mulattoes under the leadership of their powerful chief, Andre Riguad, began fighting for civil rights. Then, one day, English and Spanish troops landed at Haiti, that beautiful little island, which, with its valleys and mountains, its fruits and forests, and its population of French and Spanish people and Indians and Negroes, was a possession of France.
“Ah, the Spanish and English want to possess the land!” said the black slaves.
And they spoke the truth. Soon they were asked to support the cause of the Spanish and English.
“Give us liberty and we will fight!” answered the slaves.48
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
Throughout the war, Toussaint and his forces fought for their liberty. At one time they aided the Spanish, at another, the English. Finally Toussaint and his troops understood the French to say:
“Fight for France, and you shall have liberty.”
So they espoused the French cause.
Soon afterwards, Toussaint became the general-in-chief of the Haitian army. He led his troops from one victory to another. Where others failed, his army triumphed. For their general-in-chief was a genius at battling.
Upon noticing the generalship of Toussaint, a French soldier cried, “Why, this man makes an opening everywhere !”
Immediately his troops began cheering him thus, “L’Ouverture ! L’Ouverture ! !” for the French word for “opening” is “l’ouverture.” Thereafter their brave general was known as Toussaint L’Ouverture.
L’Ouverture worked on and off the battle-field. He drilled his ignorant, half-starved brethren, who fought in rags, until his troops were fit to serve a king. To every man joining his army, he usually presented a gun while saying :
“This gun is liberty; hold for certain that the day when you no more have it, you will be returned to slavery.” And he often inspired the blacks by saying to them, “Your gun is your liberty.”
־ To reinforce his army, he issued the following proclamation:
“In Camp Turel, August 29, 1793. “Brothers and Friends:
“I am Toussaint L’Ouverture; my name is perhaps known to you. I have undertaken to avenge your wrongs. It is my_______________FOR LITTLE FOLK	49
desire that liberty and equality shall reip in Saint Domingo. I am striving to this end. Come and unite with us, brothers, and combat with us for the same cause.
“Your very humble and very obedient servant, “Signed: Toussaint L’Ouverture,
“General for the public welfare.”
His black brothers answered his call. And he led them to victory.
Hence, on the twenty-second of July in the year 1795, a treaty, known as the Treaty of Basel, was made between Spain and France. By it all Spanish possessions in Saint Domingo were ceded to France. Finally on the twenty-third of October in the year 1798, the English army surrendered.
Then the black Haitians said, “Now we are freemen !”
Immediately Toussaint L’Ouverture began governing the land. On November 26, 1798, he wrote a letter to President Adams of the United States asking for the reopening of trade between Haiti and the States.
Now, even though Toussaint L’Ouverture had led the Blacks to freedom, he had opposers. Brave General Riguad, who had led the mulattoes to victory, had the support of his forces. In fact, thousands of Haitians wanted Riguad to govern the land.
So, for several months, civil war was waged between the armies of L’Ouverture and those of Riguad.
Riguad and his army fought bravely, but finally they were crushed by L’Ouverture’s forces, which were led by General Jean Jacques Bessalines, a dauntless fighter, and General Henri Christophe, a50
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
staunch supporter of the general-in-chief. During the month of August in the year 1800, L’Ouverture and Riguad settled on terms of peace.
L’Ouverture then sent to prison a high official named Roume, who had supported Riguad.
Then Toussaint L’Ouverture became the “sole ruler” of his country. As such he strove for the growth of Haiti. At all times he demanded decency and correct living from the citizens. Though he never enforced his laws by cruelty, he ever used stern measures upon breakers of the laws.
Like Captain John Smith, the Jamestown colonist, L’Ouverture would not tolerate laziness. He compelled the freemen to cultivate the plantations, but he was generous. To the former slave-holders who had fled from Haiti during the insurrection of the black slaves, he said: “Return to Haiti, your native land, and enjoy its wealth. For the wealth of the land is yours as well as ours.”
The Haitians grew to love Toussaint L’Ouverture because of his benevolence and sincerity. They offered to make him king, but he refused the crown.
Now Toussaint L’Ouverture could not forget the misery that he and his brethren had suffered as slaves. Whenever he thought of the possible return of slavery—and he often thought of it—he became sad, and tried to think of a law which, if adopted, would bring about “The absolute adoption of the principle that no man born red, black or white can be the property of another man.”
Soon he thought of the law he wanted, and he said, “Haiti must have a constitution.”
Then he chose nine of the most intelligent men51
_____________FOR LITTLE FOLK
on the island to write it, but he directed the making of their constitution. He tried to have one made which would be as beneficial as the constitutions of America and France had proven to have been.
Finally the nine wise men finished writing the constitution. And in July in the year 1801, it was adopted by the governmental officials during stately ceremonies, that were held in Place d’Armes at the Cape. Toussaint L’Ouverture was pleased with the constitution because it declared that slavery was abolished forever from the land and that all men born and living in Saint Domingo were freemen and Frenchmen. A copy of it was sent immediately to Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul of France.
According to the constitution, L’Ouverture was to be the governor as long as he lived, and he was to name the governor who would succeed him. Hence, as soon as the constitution was adopted, L’Ouverture made plans for a long and successful reign. Because of his wise rule and thorough plans, the island became prosperous. The plantations yielded great harvests of tobacco ; fruits and flowers were plenteous ; and the ex-slaves became some of the merriest Black Folk in the world.
Those were the happiest days of Toussaint L’Ouverture’s life. For his dreams had come true. He and his brethren were freemen. Largely through his efforts, the entire island had been won for France, and the weary Haitians had won peace. The world was recognizing L’Ouverture as a warrior and as a ruler of exceptional ability.
L’Ouverture wanted his sons to become intelligent and useful. So he sent them to Paris, France,52____________STORIES OF BLACK FOLK______________________
to be educated. Just how anxious he was to have them improve is shown by the following letter that he wrote to them.
Toussaint L’Ouverture, general-in-chief of the army of Saint Domingo, to Isaac and Placide, his sons at the National Institute, Paris.
Cape Francois, April 14, 1799. “The Citizen Bonnet has brought to me, my dear chil-
dren, the letter which you wrote me last 5th Pluvoise. The respect with which you honor your papa and your mamma has given pleasure to us both. I will embrace for you your brother Saint Jean and your cousin Pauline when I see them. I have put the little Saint Jean at Port-de-Paix with Citizen Granville, an instructor of youth. You will soon see the son of this respectable citizen at the National Institute. It will be proper to cultivate his friendship; he is your compatriot ; his father is my friend; these are very mild claims for this young man.
“My dear children, many respectable persons are interested in you. You must redouble your zeal and application, so as not to deceive my hopes. But without religion, without the assistance of God, your efforts will be useless; it is strictly necessary that you pray night and morning in order to inspire you with virtuous sentiments. Avoid and detest everything that may have the imprint of vice; respect your teachers, and all of your superiors; be solicitous, civil and honorable toward your associates then you will be well thought of by all; and thus make the consolation of your good papa and your good mamma who cherish you so tenderly. Your mamma and myself embrace you, my dear children, thousands and thousands of times.
“I am your good papa,
“Toussaint L’Ouverture.”
Now, while Isaac and Placide were reading their father’s letter, there was a powerful ruler elsewhere in Paris, who was planning to overthrow their noble parent._______________FOR LITTLE FOLK	53
For the First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, was displeased with the government of Haiti. Some historians record that Bonaparte presumed that L’Ouverture, if left to govern the land, finally would attempt to make Haiti an independent country. But whatever his thoughts were about L’Ouverture, on October 1, 1801, Bonaparte ordered his brother-in-law, General Le Clerc, to take a powerful fleet to Saint Domingo. In that fleet, which left France during December in the year 1801, were General Andre Riguad and L’Ouverture’s sons, Placide and Isaac.
Soon afterwards, General Henri Christophe, L’Ouverture’s faithful friend, who had charge of the post in Cape Francois, saw the approach of the fleet. Immediately he sent a messenger with news of it to L’Ouverture, who then was away from the cape. Christophe then sent an officer to ask that General Le Clerc might delay the landing of the fleet until, 'he had heard from General L’Ouverture.
But General Le Clerc twice refused to grant his request. Hence Christopher said to the messenger: “They take us for sieves then. Go, say to General Le Clerc that the French will find here only a heap of ashes, and that the very ground will burn them!”
As the fleet continued advancing, General Christophe began destroying the town by first firing his own home. After the Cape and the surrounding plantations had been destroyed, he and his forces escaped to the neighboring mountains.
Then General Le Clerc and his forces landed and took possession of the town.
When General L’Ouverture saw the French54
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
troops, he said to his brethren, “All France has come to Haiti. They can only come to make us slaves.”
But the French General said to them, “We do not come to make you slaves; this man Toussaint tells you lies; join us and you will have the rights you claim.”
Now, many of the ex-slaves believed the words of the French General, and therefore they deserted L’Ouverture to join Le Clerc’s army. But General L’Ouverture never believed that the French troops were sent to Haiti during the time of peace for any other purpose than to enslave his people. And he again determined to fight for their liberty.
One day L’Ouverture was visited by his sons, Isaac and Placide. He was glad to see his boys, though he was pained to see them wearing the uniforms of the French troops, and was grieved to find them in the army of his enemies. But he embraced them again and again, and cried, “My children, take your choice and whatever it shall be, I shall always cherish you—even though you enter the ranks of my enemies!”
“Very well, my father,” said Isaac, “Behold in me a faithful servant of France who can never resign himself to bear arms •against her.”
But Placide cried, “I am for you, my father; I fear the future; I fear slavery; I am ready to combat against it.”
Then Placide was given command of one of L’Ouverture’s battalions. But Isaac went away with his mother, and remained neutral during the struggles of his father.
Now, General Le Clerc had hoped that Toussaint________________FOR LITTLE FOLK/i( i. ___________55
L’Ouverture would have given up the fight for freedom for the sake of his sons. But upon seeing the result of his sons’ visit, the French General planned to defeat L’Ouverture and his army. So he issued a proclamation in which he made clear the purpose of his expedition. In his proclamation he made attractive promises and stern threats to the Haitians. To those supporting the French cause, he promised peace and happiness; to the deserters of L’Ouver-ture’s army, he promised enrollment in the French army, and he promised liberty to all Haitians. He declared that he had ordered General L’Ouverture bo wait upon him for the purpose of offering him the place of lieutenant-colonel in his army. As General L’Ouverture did not wait upon him, General Le Glerc issued a proclamation which began thus:
“I order as follows:
“ ‘That Generals Toussaint and Christophe be outlawed, and every citizen is hereby ordered to at-ack and treat them as rebels to the French Republic.’ ”
But Toussaint L’Ouverture was undaunted. Again he made dreaded soldiers of poor, ignorant )lack men. And he again led them in a fight for heir liberty.
Once General Dessalines, a brave officer in j’Ouverture’s army, held a torch over a caisson of powder while he shouted to a garrison of blacks:
“I only want brave men with me. We are going to be attacked this morning. Let those who wish to be slaves to the French leave the fort. Let those, on the contrary, who wish to be free men rally to me.”
“We will die for liberty!” cried the soldiers.56	STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
“I will blow up everything if the French enter this fort!” declared Dessalines, waving the torch over the powder, and thus showing the result of L’Ouver-ture’s teaching.
How determined they were to fight and, if necessary, to die for liberty is recorded by M. Firmin, the Haitian statesman, as follows:
“The retreat at Crete a Pierrot, where the troops of Dessalines opened for themselves a passage by the bayonet through an enemy ten times more numerous than themselves is one of the most brilliant feats of arms in the history of Haiti.”
General Le Clerc soon saw that he had underestimated Toussaint L’Ouverture’s army. For soon after landing in Saint Domingo he had remarked:
“All the Negroes, when they see an army, will lay down their arms. They will be only too glad to obtain pardon.”
Aside from the attacks of the black troops, the French soldiers were suffering with a fever which was destroying thousands of them. Therefore, Le Clerc made advantageous terms with all soldiers who deserted L’Ouverture and joined his army. Finally he offered terms of peace to the Haitians, and thereby caused the surrender of Christophe’s and Dessa-lines’s troops.
One day, even Toussaint L’Ouverture decided to accept Le Clerc’s terms of peace. So one morning he went to his headquarters. There he thanked the grenadiers and dragoons for the faithfulness and bravery they had exhibited in his army. For the last time he reviewed them as they passed before him_________________FOR LITTLE FOLK	57 on parade, and, after telling them about the terms of peace that he had accepted, he bade them goodbye.
On May 5, 1802, L’Ouverture signed the treaty of peace, whose important articles included the following attractive ones:
I. The inviolable liberty of all citizens of Saint Domingo.
IL The maintenance in their grades and in their functions of all officers, military and civil, of the indigenes.
III. Toussaint L’Ouverture to retain his staff, and to retire to whatever part of the colonial territory he might choose.
Thus after waging two wars for their liberty, the Blacks of Haiti put aside their arms and returned to their homes.
Toussaint L’Ouverture returned to his home and family as the General of a division; for the authorities in France had put General Le Clerc at the head of civil and military affairs in Haiti.
One day, a few weeks later, General L’Ouverture received the following letter, which had been sent to please General Le Clerc.
“My Dear General:
“We have some arrangements to make together that it is impossible to explain by letter, which we may terminate in a conference of an hour. If I had not already gone beyond my strength in the work and arrangement of details, I would have been the bearer of my own message today; but not being able to go out at this time, I must ask you to do what I have done—if you have got over your indisposition. Let it be tomorrow. When the question is the accomplishment of good we ought not to postpone.
“You will not find in my rural habitation all the enter-58 __________STORIES OF BLACK FOLK_____________
tainment and comfort that I would wish in receiving you, but you will find the hearty welcome of a brave man whose ,strongest desire is the prosperity of the colony and your ,own personal happiness.
“If Madame Toussaint, whose acquaintance I very much desire to make, wishes to accompany you it will afford me great satisfaction. If she requires a horse I will send her mine. I assure you, general, that you will never find a friend more sincere than myself. With the confidence of the captain-general, and the friendship of all who are subordinate to him, you will enjoy perfect tranquillity.
“I cordially salute you,
“Brunet.”
“P. S. Your servant who is on his way to Port-au-Prince, passed here this morning. His passport was in due form on his departure.”
Poor Toussaint L’Ouverture accepted General Brunet’s invitation, and in consequence became a doomed man. For after being received cordially at the appointed place by General Brunet, he was arrested by officers, who were serving under General Brunet. Soon afterwards, L’Ouverture with his wife and sons were put on board the frigate “Le Creole’’ to be carried to France.
As brave L’Ouverture left Haiti, he looked at his captors and said:
“In overthrowing me, you have broken down only the trunk of the tree of liberty for the Blacks; it will spring up again from its roots which are many and deep.”
However, in spite of his captivity, L’Ouverture was loyal to France. Once he said to one of his sons:
“My boy, you will one day go back to Saint Domingo ; forget that France murdered your father.”
One day, he was taken from the ship and carriedFOR LITTLE FOLK	59
to Fort Joux, where, so very near to beautiful Paris, he was imprisoned, and hurried to the fate which the world now regrets and dislikes to recall. For, like Joan of Arc, L’Ouverture was tortured to death. First he was separated from his family and his friends and finally from Mars Plaisir, his faithful servant, who would have died to save the life of his great black General. He wa,s deprived of everything that gave comfort to him. When he was made to give up his uniform he only said: “Is it necessary to add this humiliation to my misfortune?”
Upon having to give up his razor so that he would have nothing with which to commit suicide, he said : “I have been misjudged, if I am thought to be lacking in courage to support my sorrow.”
Now poor L’Ouverture asked again and again for a trial. As he did not have one, he wanted the Minister of Marine to help him, so he wrote the following-letter :
‘‘Citizen Minister :
•T was arrested with all my family by the order of the Captain-General, who had given me his word of honor, and had promised me the protection of the French government. I make bold to claim his justice and his benevolence. If I have committed faults, I alone should suffer the penalties. I beg you, Citizen Minister, to interest yourself with the Fii/st Consul in behalf of my family and myself.
“Salutation and respect,
“Toussaint L’Ouverture.”
As L’Ouverture received no help from the Minister of Marine, he became sadder and more alone as the days passed away. He often cheered himself by thinking about his family. Once he wrote to his wife as follows:60___________STORIES OF BLACK FOLK___________________
“My dear Wife:
i “I profit of '.the occasion of a good general to let you hear from me. I was sick on arriving here, but the commandant of this place, who is a man of humanity, has given me all aid possible. Thanks to God, I am much better. You know my fondness to my family and my devotion to the woman that I cherish. Why have you not let me hear from you ? Greet all for me. I pray them to conduct themselves well, to exercise much wisdom and virtue. I have said to you already that you are responsible for their conduct before God and with respect to your husband. Let me know if Placide is with you. I embrace you most tenderly.
“I am for life your faithful husband,
“Toussaint L’Ouverture.”
Thereafter, poor L’Ouverture was miserable from morning till night. Often he was hungry and cold. Months passed and still he was kept there in the dungeon in poverty with naught to comfort him. He spent weary hours wondering about his black brethren in Haiti. But like a crumbling oak in a deserted forest, he steadily weakened in the lonely prison.
So to the French authorities, the commandant of Fort Joux made the following report:
“Toussaint is always sick; he has a constant cough; for several days, he has been compelled to carry his left arm in a sling; and his voice is singularly changed.”
Soon afterwards L’Ouverture was left alone in the prison, and he nearly starved. A few days later he was left again. But once, during that miserable desertion, as he sat in the dungeon leaning his head against a chimney, he was relieved of the sorrows of Fort Joux. So when the commandant returned on April 7, 1803, instead of seeing the wretched black________________FOR LITTLE FOLK	61
hero, he saw the frail remains of Toussaint L’Ouverture, the Moses of Haiti, of whom Wendell Phillips afterwards wrote thus:
“You think me a fanatic, for you read history, not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when truth gets a hearing, the Muse of history will put Phoceon for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright consummate flower of our earlier civilization, then dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue above them all the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L’Ouverture.”JEAN JACQUES DESSALINES
Now, when Jean Jacques Dessalines, the fierce, black warrior in General Le Clerc’s army, heard that the French had captured Toussaint L’Ouverture, he became as angry as Thor, the old Norse God, became when he found that the giants had stolen his hammer. For just as Thor’s hammer had kept beautiful Asgard a free home for the Norse Gods, just so Toussaint L’Ouverture had kept rich Haiti a free country for the Black Folk.
But Dessalines was as wise as he was angry; for in his heart was a great resolution. So he was careful to obey every command made by General Le Clerc. He even assisted in carrying out his order to disarm the blacks; though he believed that L’Ouverture had spoken wisely when he said to the blacks, “Your gun is your liberty.” And Dessalines rejoiced and took heart when he saw thousands of his people either escaping to the mountains with their muskets or suffering torture rather than give them up. Meanwhile he kept his resolution a secret, though he trembled to tell his friends about it when he heard his people saying:
“Our freedom is lost! We are serving as slaves at Guadeloupe and Martinique.”
By and by, on the thirteenth of October, in the year 1802, a brave mulatto in General Le Clerc’s army led the colored troops in an insurrection against the French.
Knowing that his people were thoroughly disgusted with French rule, Dessalines joined the revolting troops. He soon raised a powerful army withFOR LITTLE FOLK
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which he showed that L’Ouverture spoke the truth when he looked at his captors and said:
“In overthrowing me, you have broken down only the trunk of the tree of liberty for the Blacks; it will spring up again from its roots which are many and deep.”
Thereafter the French and the blacks fought desperately. As General Le Clerc had died with fever, General Rochambeau from France had been given command of the French army. He determined to destroy the black troops. He even turned armies of bull dogs upon them. And he fed the dogs upon his black prisoners.
But Dessalines and his troops would not surrender. They determined to have liberty, or to die fighting for it. Whenever it was possible his soldiers were helped by the brave black women of Haiti. Sometimes the women were killed for giving food and shelter to the revolting troops. But they always died defending the cause of their countrymen. Once as a black woman received fatal wounds, she expressed the sentiment of her countrymen by saying, “It is sweet to die when liberty is lost.”
Now Dessalines rejoiced to see the Blacks and the mulattoes fighting together for freedom; and he thanked the private citizens for helping his army. To encourage the soldiers and citizens to fight and
Ito endure privations, he often said to them:
“We must make Haiti free and independent.”
Then his troops won battles that made the whole world praise them.
Dessalines’ army steadily won ground, and relentlessly pursued the French. “The ninth of Octo-64
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
ber, 1803, Dessalines with an army of 22,000 seasoned veterans, and with ample supplies of military material laid siege to Port-au-Prince. General Lavallette commanded the French troops enclosed within the city and its environs; it is impossible to give the exact strength of his command. Dessalines maintained the siege with frequent attacks for about a month with the apparent purpose of bringing about the evacuation which finally resulted. The whole French force them concentrated at the Cape. Here within a few square miles of territory all that remained of the splendid army that France had sent to reduce a handful of Negro and mulatto brigands were to make their last stand. The Cape, surrounded with walls and bristling with fortifications, Rocham-beau believed practically unassailable. He could hardly fancy that a general attack would soon be made.
“Dessalines, however, was now fast approaching his zenith. Leaving Petion to hold Port-au-Prince, and without giving his army any repose, he turned his march northward and by the time Lavallette’s forces were landed and stationed at the Cape, he, with his victorious army, was under the walls of the cape.”
Dessalines led his troops to victory though sometimes he made them suffer hardships. But he never-sent his troops where he would not go. He liked to fight in the most dangerous places. “When he went into battle, it was like a workman preparing himself for work; he put off his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves and with arms as bare as the blade of his sword, he was a blaze of fire, intrepid, and at theFOR LITTLE FOLK
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same time full of resource. If victorious, he made nothing of it; he thought of nothing but amusement, and the dance. He forced his soldiers to cross impassable mountains, to traverse plains at giants’ pace, without pay and badly fed; and harassed and fatigued to assault and carry towns in the face of blazing artillery. He did not fear to assume upon his own head the entire responsibility of his measures. ‘What to me is the opinion of posterity,’ said he, ‘so I save my country?’ ”
Now, one day General Rochambeau reported to France that his army was in a desperate condition, and that it was “pressed almost to death by absolute famine.” It was also being destroyed by the Haitian fever.
So, one day, just when Dessalines wanted freedom more than he had wanted it since his birth in Haiti in the year 1760; just when he was about to storm the French quarters and by sheer force crush the troops therein, he received a message in which he read that General Rochambeau had surrendered.
Now, when the Haitians saw that they really were free, they would have none to rule them but their brave deliverer, Jean Jacques Dessalines. So on the eighth of October in the year 1804 he was crowned First Emperor of Haiti.
Unfortunately Dessalines soon displeased his subjects. He ruled them as rigidly as he ever had ruled his soldiers upon the battle fields. So many of them hated him, and consequently formed insurrections. On October 17, 1806, Dessalines attempted to overcome a revolt. He rode in the midst of the revolting soldiers who did not salute him with military honors.66	STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
“What does this mean?” cried Dessalines as he noticed their neglect.
But a non-commissioned black officer shot hirr to death. Thus ended the life of Jean Jacques Dessa lines, the brave ex-slave, who never ceased from battling till he had fulfilled his resolve to make beautifu little Haiti an independent country.JOSEPH JENKIN ROBERTS
Long, long ago, soon after the American Colonization Society had caused Liberia, Africa, to be set aside as the country of the Black Folk: and while the native black tribes kept fighting to redeem the land which they had sold to their American brothers, Joseph Jenkin Roberts, a brave mulatto just twenty years old, left his native land, the United States, and moved into the new colony.
At first Roberts worked as a trader. And he was a very good trader. He was gracious and honest. So when the fierce Chief Gatumba led his tribe, the Goias, against the Liberians, the black colonists chose Roberts to lead them against the Goias. Roberts and his forces finally put the natives to flight.
One day, Thomas H. Buchanan, a brave white man, who was the governor of Liberia, died. Then the colonists elected Roberts as governor of the land.
As soon as Roberts became their governor, he found that Liberia needed the respect and friendship of England, France, America and other large countries. So he told his countrymen that Liberia should become a free and independent country so that it could enjoy the rights of a free country.
Thereupon the colonists held a constitutional convention of July 26, 1847, and declared Liberia to be a free country. They also framed and adopted a constitution for Liberia.
In October of the same year, Roberts was elected President of the land. He faithfully served his country for four terms. Afterwards he became the president of the Liberia College, an important school in68_________STORIES OF BLACK FOLK _
the country. And again in the year 1872 he was elected President of Liberia.
But in the year 1876, just one year after he gave up the office of presidency, he had a severe chill, and on the twenty-first of February during the same year, he died while he was beloved and honored by the brave black Liberians whom, for many years, he had served faithfully.JOSE DO PATROCINO
Once upon a time a black bondwoman in Brazil had a son named Jose Do Patrocinio.
Now when Jose was a small boy, he resolved to become a strong advocate for the emancipation of the Black Folk of Brazil, for he hated slavery. He had seen his mother suffer as a slave, and he often grieved because of her condition and because of the trials of other slaves.
By and by, he was sent to school where he showed talent in writing and speaking. Years afterwards he left school to begin writing for a paper called The New Gazette. He wrote many articles that expressed his condemnation of slavery, and had them published in the paper. He also traveled throughout Brazil and in foreign countries and advocated the caus^ of his people.
Finally he persuaded Done Isabel, the Regent of Brazil, to espouse the cause of his people. Thereupon, on the thirteenth of May in the year 1888, Done Isabel emancipated the 1,500,000 black slaves in Brazil.
Twelve years after the emancipation of his people, Jose Do Patrocinio died, but until this day he is beloved by the Brazilian Blacks, and is honored as the great statesman who brought about their freedom without the shedding of blood.CRISPUS ATTUCKS
Once upon a time, in the days of the great George Washington, there lived in big, beautiful America a tall, strong slave named Crispus Attucks, who was as bold as a knight. And on the eastern shore ol the same fair land there were thirteen colonies of brave English subjects, who, with their slaves, Crispus Attucks and his black fellow-slaves, were conquering the land.
Now, Crispus Attucks and the colonists loveci freedom as dearly as the birds loved flying in the air. So, once while the colonists were warring against the French for the possession of the Ohic Valley, a fairy-like land to the west of them, the tall strong slave ran away from his owner.
To induce his friends and even strangers to helg him find his tall, strong slave, Attucks’ owner hac published in a paper called the Boston Gazette oi the Weekly Journal the following advertisement:
“Run away from his master, William Brown of Fram ington, on the 30th of September last, a mulatto fellow about twenty-seven years of age, named Crispus, 6 feet, 2 inches high, short curl’d hair, his knees nearer togethei than common, had on a light color’d bear-skin coat, a plan brown fustain jacket and a checked woolen shirt.
“Whoever shall take up said runaway, and convey him t( his master, shall have ten pounds old tenor reward, and al! necessary charges paid. And all masters of vessels and all others are hereby cautioned against concealing or carrying off said servant on penalty of the law.
“Boston, October 2, 1750.”
But the runaway was not returned. In fact he was given very little attention by the readers of the paper; for they were concerned sufficiently about the war to allow his owner to put on his three-cornered hat and go alone after him. And after theyFOR LITTLE FOLK
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had driven the French from the Ohio Valley, they were too happy over their victory to care whether he was lost or found.
Meanwhile Attucks had come from his hiding place, and had begun living peaceably among the free Blacks. Gradually, he became a big-hearted, loyal American, who would have given his life to save the land.
Soon afterwards the colonists were taxed by England to pay the debts made by their war with France. Now, like the Plebeans of ancient Rome, the colonists wanted to help make the laws of their country, and to help decide upon the taxes imposed upon them. Hence they asked to be represented in the English Parliament, the body that taxed them. But they might as well have asked for seats on the moon, for they were kept out of Parliament by its members who said:
“Many of the towns, boroughs and shires of these British Isles have no representative in Parliament, and yet the Parliament taxes them.”
But the Americans answered, “Taxation without representation is tyranny!”
Then English troops were sent to enforce the laws of Parliament.
Thereupon many Americans braved the fury of England, and fired their countrymen to resist their oppressors.
“The sun of American Liberty has set!” said their
J great statesman, Benjamin Franklin.
“Give me liberty or give me death!” declared the famous patriot, Patrick Henry, in Virginia.
All America was astir over the quartering of72
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
British troops among the colonists. And Crispus Attacks, the true American, wrote to the governor of the Province in which he lived as follows:
“Sir:
“You will hear from us with astonishment. You ought to hear from us with horror. You are chargeable before Goc and man for our blood. The soldiers here were but passive instruments, mere machines, neither moral nor voluntary agents in our destruction. You were a free agent. You acted coolly and with all the premeditated malice, not against us in particular, but against the people in general, whicl in the sight of the law, is an ingredient in the compositioi of murder. You will hear further from me hereafter.
“Crispus Attucks.”
But regardless of the protests of the colonists, the British soldiers remained in America; and, once dur ing the year 1770, some of the troops cut down t liberty pole in New York. Thereupon the Americans began defying the troublesome troops. Crispus Attucks said, “The way to get rid of these soldiers is t( attack the main guard; strike at the root; this is the nest!”
Finally, on the fifth of March in the year 1770, Attucks led a party of citizen through the streets of Boston till a detachment of the quartered army was reached on State Street. There, before the soldiers, Attucks and his followers pled the American cause.
The troops lost patience with the little band, and fired upon its speakers. Crispus Attucks was mortally wounded in the affray that followed. Soon after his death, his remains were carried to Faneuil Hall and viewed by thousands of people, who recognized him, as the world does today, as the first Black martyr of the American Revolution.ANDREW BRYAN
Long, long ago, Andrew Bryan, a pious and blameless slave, lived among the pines and flowers, the brooklets and meadows of the beautiful state of Georgia.
Now, Bryan was as splendid a creature as the things of nature, that were budding and blooming and singing in obedience to the will of the Creator, upon his owner’s plantation. And he was a devout Baptist. Having heard the fiery sermons of a black minister named George Liele, Bryan determined to dedicate his life as a minister of the Gospel. So upon hearing of Liele’s departure from Georgia for the purpose of preaching to the Black Folk in Jamaica, Bryan began preaching in Savannah, Georgia. At first he was allowed to preach in a building in a section of the city called Yamacraw. But, within a short while, he was ordered to move his church. Being unable to secure a suitable building for his services, he began preaching in a barn.
Soon after founding the church in the year 1788, Bryan began enduring trials because of his zeal for spreading the Faith. With ease he interested the slaves in the doctrine that he preached. Hence he was opposed by the slave-holders who did not want their slaves to spend so much time in church. As Bryan’s influence over his followers was sufficient to cause them to attend church at all hazards, he provoked his opposers to use drastic measures against his work. Often the members of the church were whipped or imprisoned for regularly attending the First Bryan Baptist Church, as his church was called. Even Bryan was imprisoned, and once he was74
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
whipped until the blood fairly poured from him. But he continued preaching, and often was heard to say, “I would suffer death for the cause of Jesus Christ!”
Finally he was allowed to preach as freely as he chose. And within a few years he had received many members into his church. Thus, for many years, he caused the Christian faith to spread among the Black Folk of Georgia. And, finally, when he was taken out of the world, he was spoken of as being “the instrument of doing more good among the poor slaves than all the learned Doctors in America ever had done.”RICHARD ALLEN
Once upon a time a poor slave named Richard Allen began preaching the gospel. He began preaching under adverse circumstances. He was twenty-two years old, and of course he had to work through the day, but he often preached at night to his fellowslaves and to many other people, for he was anxious to spread the Christian religion among sinners, and he rejoiced at every opportunity that he found to tell them about the great Jehovah. Once, while conducting a service, he saw his owner in the congregation ; knowing that his owner was unconverted, Allen made a strong appeal for the cause of Christ. Finally, he heard his owner professing the faith of Christ.
In time, he traveled through the Middle States and caused thousands of people to embrace the Christian religion.
Now in the time of Alien’s early evangelistic work, he had to join a white Methodist Church, because the Black Folk had no churches of their own. Finally he realized that his people needed a church of their own. Hence in the year 1787, he accomplished one of the most important and noble deeds ever performed among the Black Folk in America. He founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He became its first Bishop, and until his death— which occurred many years after his elevation to the Bishopric—he remained the head of the religious organization which, in time, became known and widely followed throughout the world.
-BENJAMIN BANNECKER
Now, in clue season, Benjamin Bannecker, the grandson of a native black African, was born. He was as poor as the pet animals that he played with He had nothing that he could have lived without and continued serving the world to the fullest extent oi his desires and talents. Through childhood he livec with his relations in a very humble home in Baltimore County, Maryland.
Little Benjamin was busy from morning til night. While many children of his times were as playful and wild as the rabbits of the fields, he wa;• as quiet and studious as a sage. He borrowed mam books, and used them to teach himself to read. Thu-he studied until he became a scholar.
One day, after Bannecker had become a wise man he invented a clock that could strike off the hours His device was the first one of its kind to be mad in the United States. Immediately, his fame as ai inventor spread abroad. He kept studying, anc therefore published an almanac that contained information about the weather in and about the state of Maryland during the years 1792-1806. Many American students liked his almanac. So when the City of Washington, D. C., was being planned, the scholars who admired him employed him to help survey it.
Bannecker lived many years as a quiet, thoughtful student. During the last years of his life he lived alone.FOR LITTLE FOLK
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One day his neighbors missed seeing him in his garden, and they noticed that his house remained closed longer than it usually did. So they entered his home, and found wise, black Bannecker lying where he had died. Soon afterwards they buried the remains of Bannecker, the inventor and the astronomer, who having been born in due season had contributed a bright page to the history of the American Black Folk during their dark years of slavery.SOJOURNER TRUTHSOJOURNER TRUTH
“Mammy, what makes you groan so?” asked Isabella, a little black slave of olden times as she watched her miserable mother swaying in the starlight, that gleamed upon the estate of her owner, a Dutchman living in Hurley, Ulster County, New York.
“I am groaning to think of my poor children! I do not know where they be; they don’t know where I be! I look up at the stars—and they look at the stars!” Poor Betsy answered, and continued groaning.
So James, the father of little Isabella, could have cried out in anguish, but, having a sterner nature, he sorrowed silently.
In compliance to the laws of New York, when Betsy and James were forty years old, they were liberated, and, with nowhere to go and nothing to live upon, they soon were forced to trudge away, leaving little Isabella as a helpless slave.
Isabella was as thriving as the golden grain ripening in the southern fields, so when she was nine years old she was sold for a good price to a family that spoke English, a language unknown to Isabella. Hence, many times, she was punished severely for misunderstanding the commands of her owners. On one Sabbath morning, however, as the blood poured from her back as she was being whipped for a reason that she never understood, she stopped beggingmercy from her oppressor, and began praying to God for help.
Soon afterwards, she was visited by her father, and was successful in confiding her sad experiences to him. As the result of his visit, she was bought soon afterwards by a kind slave-holder.
80
STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
For a year and a half, little Isabella was happy, then she was sold to a family the mother of which was adverse to the Black Folk, and, naturally, was disposed to show animosity for Isabella. The father and little daughter of the family, however, were pleased with her, and often praised her work.
“Isabella can do more work than six common people can do,” often remarked the father.
“She half does her work, that is why she can work so fast,” said the mother of the household, one day, as she pointed to some dingy vegetables that had been cooked by Isabella.
But Isabella’s reputation was saved by the little daughter, who later discovered a plot of another servant named Kate, and cried out, “Poppee! Kate has been putting ashes among the vegetables! I saw her do it! Look at those that fell outside of the kettle! You can see now what makes them so dingy every morning, though Isabella washes them clean.”
For seventeen years she was a faithful slave in that home where she was married, and where she became the mother of several children, who, except the youngest one, in time were sold from her.
Soon one morning, when Isabella was thirty-nine years old, she left her owner’s home, carrying her baby with her. On the following night, she stopped at the home of some kind people, and hired herself as a servant to them.
Soon afterwards, she was found by her owner, who said, “Well, Isabella, so you have run away from me.”
“No, 1׳ did not run away,” answered Isabella; “I walked away by daylight, because you promised toFOR LITTLE FOLK
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liberate me one year before my fortieth birthday in appreciation of the many years that I have served your family.”
“You must go back with me,” said the owner.
“No, I won’t go back with you!” answered Isabella.
“Well, I shall take the child,” he answered.
“Neither shall you take my child!” cried Isabella.
Thereupon Isabella’s kind employers paid to her owner the price he exacted for her baby and herself. Then they liberated her.
For several years Isabella strove merely for her livelihood. But, finally, she began traveling over the country teaching the story of Christ to the Black Folk, and lecturing for the cause of the abolitionists, a body of brave people, who advocated the emancipation of the Blacks in America. During that time, she called herself Sojourner Truth.
Many people wondered about the source of her name. And Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of the famous book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin, once said to her, “Well, Sojourner, did you always go by this name?”
“No, ’deed, my name was Isabella,” said Sojourner, “but when I left the house of bondage, I left everything behind. I wa’n’t goin’ to keep nothin’ of Egypt on me, an’ so I went to the Lord an’ asked him to give me a new name. An’ the Lord gave me Sojourner, because I was to travel up an’ down the land, showin’ the people their sins, an’ bein’ a sign unto them. Afterward, I told de Lord I wanted another name, ’cause everybody else had two names;82
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an’ cle Lord give me Truth, because I was to declare de truth to de people.”
In time, Sojourner became famous as an abolitionist and as a suffragist. She could neither read nor write, hence, she was not raised above her brethren by knowledge from books, but by her unusual abilities, her strong personality and her strange philosophy. And by them she became the Libyan Sibyl of the Black Folk. She was revered and praised by people of all classes. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe spoke of her as follows, “I never knew a person who possessed so much of that subtle, controlling power, called presence, as she.” Wendell Phillips, the remarkable abolitionist said, “I have known a few words from Sojourner Truth to electrify an audience. At a meeting in Faneuil Hall, Frederick Douglass, the great advocate for the freedom of his people, the Black Folk, was about to lose hope for his cause, but Sojourner Truth lifted her long finger, and asked, loud enough to be heard by all, ‘Frederick, is God dead?’ That was all she said, but it was enough.”
Sojourner was as witty as she was wise. Once, she answered an old friend, who inquired about her occupation, as follows, “Years ago, when I lived in the city of New York, my occupation was scouring brass door-knobs; but now I go about scouring copperheads.”
At another time she went to the White House and said to the marshal, “I want to see President Lincoln.”
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“Yes, I mus’ see him. If he knew I was here, he’d come down an’ see me,”answered Sojourner.
Then the marshal went to tell the President about his strange visitor.
“I do believe she is Sojourner Truth,” said President Lincoln, “bring her up here.”
Within a few minutes the President was saying, “Sojourner Truth, how glad I am to see you!”
“Mr. President,” said Sojourner, “when you first took your seat I feared you would be torn to pieces, for I likened you unto Daniel, who was thrown into de lions’ den, an’ ef de lions did not tear you to pieces, I knew dat it would be God dat had saved you; an’ I said ef He spared me I would see you befo’ de fo’ years expired, an’ He has done so, an’ now I am here to see you for myself. I never heafn of you befo’ you was talked of for President.”
“I had heard of you many times before that,” answered the President. Then he showed a Bible that he had received from the Black Folk of Baltimore, Maryland.
“This is beautiful indeed,” said Sojourner, looking at his Bible, “the colored people have given this to the head of the government, and that government once sanctioned laws that would not permit its people to learn enough to enable them to read this book.”
As Sojourner needed alms to support her works, she handed a photograph of herself to President Lincoln and said, “It’s got a black face, but a white back, an’ I’d like one of yours with a green back.”
The President laughed, gave her some paper money and said, “There’s my face with a green back.”84
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Then Sojourner showed her book for autographs, and as she afterwards said, “He took the little book, and with the same hand that signed the death warrant of slavery, he wrote as follows, ‘For Aunty Sojourner Truth, Oct. 29, 1864. A. Lincoln.’ ”
After the Civil War, Sojourner traveled about lecturing to the Black Folk on Proper Living. Once she said in an address to them, “Be clean! Be clean! For cleanliness is Godliness.” At one time she petitioned Congress to colonize the freemen in a portion of the western section of the country. Her petition failed in Congress, but it caused an exodus of the Black Folk to that section.
Thus, Sojourner Truth, the most remarkable black woman of her day, worked for the elevation of the American Black Folk until she was over a hundred years old. And, before she passed from this resourceful and attractive world, November 26,1883, she bequeathed to forthcoming workers in need of inspiration against adversity, the secret of her rise, which she expressed thus, “I am a self-made woman.”FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Once there was a poor, miserable slave. He was allowed to have nothing of his own, and he was used as meanly as the beasts of burden on his owner’s plantation. He was <?iven so little food that he was hungry many of his days; and as he was kept in rags from his head to his feet, he shivered in the winter’s cold and swooned in the summer’s heat. Through all the days, except the Sabbaths, he was worked in the fields of cotton where he was given nothing for his labor but curses and beatings by the overseer of his owner’s slaves.
Now, once as poor Frederick lay wounded and bleeding in a fence-corner where he had been flogged nigh unto death by the overseer because of his failure to break a pair of oxen, he thought more seriously than he ever had done before of his plight. He thought of his black mother, who had been dead for many a year, and he wished that she was alive and with him to bind his wounds and to show him mercy and love. Then he thought of the overseer and of his flogging. Poor Frederick, as he was thinking thus, he was miserable sufficiently to have been made so by the Creator for a noble purpose. While thinking thus, he was inspired to begin resisting conditions. Finally he cried, “I shall take no more flogging!”
Then he arose and went to his owner whose protection he failed to get, so he had to return to the dreaded overseer. But during Frederick’s next flogging, he dealt sufficient blows upon the overseer to send him off in rage and in pain and in no wise willing to try to flog him again.86	•	STORIES OF BLACK FOLK______
As Frederick realized the probability of his serving another man against whom he could not protect himself, he remained as miserable as ever he had been.
But by being miserable by day and by night, he was made to despise his lot in life. One night, as he was listening to the sad singing of his fellow-slaves in a secret religious service, he was impressed by a strain of words as follows:
“Run to Jesus, shun the danger,
I don’t expect to stay much longer here.”
“Ah,” Frederick finally cried while considering a literal meaning of those words, “they express my thoughts. I don’t expect to stay much longer here; I shall flee from bondage!”
For many years, Frederick often prayed to God for the opportunity to escape from bondage. Meanwhile he was hired by his owner to several slaveholders. During those years, he determined to cultivate himself, and to assist his fellow-slaves. Now, years before, while a small boy, one of his owners had taught him a bit about reading. So as he was being passed from slave-holder to slave-holder, he was faithful to study reading and writing while serving those whose tasks he was able to complete in time to pursue an education in secret. Once, he studied to preach the gospel, and at midnight, when nobody else was about, he practiced preaching among the stock, which he would address as, “Dear Brethren.” For a while he also taught in a Sabbath School.
One day, while the apprentice of a ship-builder in Baltimore, he realized that he had his desired op-FOR LITTLE FOLK '	87
portunity. So he disguised himself as a sailor, and escaped to. New York City, where he soon was married to Miss Anna Murray, a lady whom he had known for some time. Frederick and his wife immediately, moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he introduced himself as Frederick Douglass.
Now, Frederick Douglass remembered the Black Folk in bondage, and as he wanted to help them, he began attending the meetings held by abolitionists, a noble group of advocates of freedom for the Black Folk. He met William Loyd Garrison, a leader among them, who caused Douglass to deliver a speech on slavery on the eleventh of August in the year 1841. On that occasion, he vividly described the life of a slave, and thereby won many followers for the abolitionists, and made himself famous as a lecturer. His speech was published in many leading papers of America. Soon afterwards, Douglass became an agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Then he traveled through many northern states, lecturing and making friends for the abolitionists. He often advertised his own lectures. Once, at Grafton, Massachusetts, he went about the streets ringing a bell and crying, “Notice! Frederick Douglass, recently a slave, will lecture on American slavery, on Grafton Common, this evening at seven o’clock.” On that evening, he delivered his speech entitled the “Open Sesame” to a large audience that sufficiently liked his speech for him to receive an invitation to give other lectures in the largest church in the town. Afterwards, to further the cause of the Black Folk, he wrote his autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,” and had it pub-88_________STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
lished; his book bounteously served its purpose, and gradually passed from print. In the year 1845, he visited Europe where he made sentiment for the cause of the Blacks. His lecturing tour through Ireland, Scotland and England was almost an ovation. While in Ireland, he was given a “soiree” and the administration of the temperance pledge by a noted priest. During a speech, he impressed his audience by saying, “Slavery is not what takes away any one right or property in man; it takes away man himself, and makes him the property of his fellow. It is what unmans man, takes him from himself, dooms him as a degraded thing, ranks him with the bridled horse and muzzled ox, to be swayed by the caprice, and sold at the will of his master.”
Upon receiving a splendid Bible bound in gold from the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in Belfast in 1846, he said, “I accept thankfully this Bible; and while it shall have the best place in my house, I trust also to give its precepts a place in my heart.”
Before leaving England, he was liberated by friends who bought his freedom from Hugh Auld, his American owner. He thanked them for their charity to him, but he also told them that “he had just as much right to sell Hugh Auld as Auld had to sell him.”
At times, Douglass almost despaired of seeing his people emancipated. But he often regained hope for the success of the cause of the Blacks by the sound doctrine of Sojourner Truth, for she, the most remarkable black woman of her age, could find some joy in all experiences and conditions. But Douglass89
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never would have needed cheering during those years if he could have known that he and Sojourner, Garrison and other abolitionists were important and perhaps inspired forgers for the great and forthcoming Emancipator, who had grieved over the condition of his native section, the beautiful South, and, with sincerity, had said of slavery, “If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I’ll hit it hard!”
But regardless of his ignorance of the future, Douglass struggled on in his efforts to the best of his ability. As many Americans in all sections believed that slavery increased the wealth of the country, and that it was a problem for each citizen to solve for himself, they often violently attacked the abolitionists. Once Douglass was beaten and wounded severely by them. But he had the respect of many noble people whom he liked to serve, and for whom he sometimes acted as spokesman for his race. Hence he once wrote to Mrs. Harriett Beecher Stowe as follows:
“Rochester, March 8, 1853.
“My dear Mrs. Stowe:
“You kindly informed me when at your home a fortnight ago, that you designed to do something which would permanently contribute to the- improvement and elevation of the free colored people in the United States. You expressed an interest in such of this class as had become free by their exertions, and desired most of all to be of service to them. In what manner and by what means you can assist that class most successfully is the subject upon which you have done me the honor to ask my opinion. . ׳.!. I assert then that poverty, ignorance, and degradation are the combined evils; or in other words, these constitute the social disease of the free colored people in the United States. . . .
“The plan which I humbly submit in answer to this in-90	STORIES OF BLACK FOLK
quiry (and I hope that it may find favor with you, and with the many friends of humanity who honor, love and co-operate with you) is the establishment in Rochester, New York, or in another part of the United States equally favorable to such an enterprise, of an Industrial College in which shall be taught several important branches of the mechanic arts. This College shall be open to colored youth.
“Wishing you, dear madam, renewed health, a pleasant passage and safe return to your native land,
“I am, most truly, your gratified friend,
“Frederick Douglass.”
In the year 1847, Douglass began publishing in Rochester, New York, a paper he first called the “North Star,” but which he afterwards called “Frederick Douglass’ Paper.” In the year 1858, he began publishing a magazine called “Douglass’ Monthly,” which ran until the year 1860, when it became a weekly paper. Of course, he stressed the needs of his people in his editions, which, like the slave-poems of John Greenleaf Whittier, those of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the anti-slave articles by James Russell Lowell, William Lloyd Garrison and other noted characters, spread sentiment favorable to the cause of the Black Folk.
Now, when John Brown, that great and strange supporter of the “Underground Railway”—a secret route used by slaves escaping from their owners, that fierce fighter in the “holy crusade for freedom”— the conflict between the citizens of Kansas and Missouri to decide whether Kansas would be a free or slave state—when he, fearless John Brown, with a force of dauntless white men and black slaves raided Virginia for the purpose of inciting the slaves to revolt against slave-holders and thereby become eman-_____________FOR LITTLE FOLK	91
cipated, Frederick Douglass was charged with conspiring with the raiders. So about the time that Brown was hanged and many of his followers captured and sentenced, Douglass hurried to England to avoid being subjected to legal proceedings, that would have followed the requisition that was made for his arrest by the governor of Virginia. Of that trip to England, he afterwards said, “I fled from the talons of the American eagle to nestle in the mane of the British lion.”
But he soon returned to the United States to help make safe the “talons of the American eagle.” During the Civil War, he was in his native land, and at every opportunity was pleading for the enrollment of black soldiers in the federal army. Finally he was given the pleasure of seeing black men fighting for the Union. And Douglass never was made ashamed of them. Afterwards, he liked to tell about their bravery. He often spoke of two black heroes, one of whom said, while being carried bleeding and wounded from the position where he had held the American flag, “Boys, the old flag never touched the ground!” and the other black soldier said to his superior officer shortly before he was slain at his post, “Colonel, I will bring back these colors to you, or report to God the reason why!”
Now, on the first of January in the year 1863, Douglass saw the end of slavery in the United States. For on that date, President Abraham Lincoln did with slavery as he resolved in previous years to do with it at his first opportunity—he “hit it hard.” On that date, he issued his Emancipation Proclamation which gave liberty to every slave living in the92_________STORIES OF BLACK FOLK____________
states then rebelling against the United States government.
Thereafter, Douglass lived as a faithful statesman. At times he served in important positions. Once he was marshal for the District of Columbia; at another time he was the Recorder of Deeds for the District; and at another time he was Minister to Haiti.
Once, several years after the Civil War in a jubilee meeting in which the Black Folk crowded Faneuil Hall to celebrate their emancipation, Douglass said, “I tell you the Negro is coming up. He is rising. Why, only a few years ago, we were the Lazarus of the South.” Many years afterwards, he visited in Talbot County, Maryland, where he was born, and spoke there to the black school children as follows:
“I once knew a little colored boy whose mother and father died when he was but six years old. He was a slave, and had no one to care for him. He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, and in cold weather would crawl into a meal bag head foremost, and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm. Often he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy his hunger, and many times has he crawled under the barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat.
“That boy did not wear pants like you do, but a tow linen shirt. Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster’s spelling book, and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and speak, and soon became well known. He became Presidential Elector, United States Marshal, United States Recorder, United States Diplomat, and accumulated some wealth. He wore broadcloth, and didn’t have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table. That boy was Frederick Douglass.
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think because you are colored you can’t accomplish anything. Strive earnestly to add to your knowledge. So long as you remain in ignorance, so long will you fail to command the respect of your fellow men.”
Douglas accumulated an estate estimated at about $200,000.00. After the death of his first wife, he was married to a lady from New England. He spent the last years of his life happily in his home in the suburbs of Washington, D. C. He never became a recluse. He lectured and helped his people as long as he lived. On February the twenty-second in the year 1895, Douglass attended the National Woman’s Council in Washington. He returned home and began talking cheerfully to his wife, but suddenly he clasped his hands over his heart and fell unconscious; within twenty minutes he passed from the world, which had grown to love him as the great black orator, abolitionist and statesman.BOOKER TALIAFERRO WASHINGTONBOOKER TALIAFERRO WASHINGTON
Now, about five years before President Abraham Lincoln sent forth the black slaves to earn their fortunes, King Thrift was born an American bondsman. But, for a while, he was known merely as the black boy, Booker.
From a toddling child, little Booker was useful. Before he was able to speak plainly, he was faithful to hand to his mother the pots and pans that glistened and swung in the kitchen-cabin where he and she slept by night, and where she strove by day as the cook for their owner’s family, a thriving group of happy people living in Franklin County, Virginia, upon a vast plantation that teemed with slaves and plenty. And as soon as he was large enough to hold the reins of horses, he was happy to assist the ladies of his owner’s household when they rode horseback; often, as he was employed thus, he was heard calling, “Gee! Whoa!” to the horses as proudly as if he had been a nobleman driving his own team.
Now Booker was ambitious also. Once after the ladies had returned from riding, he saw them linger to chatter and eat dainties, and he said to himself, “When I can talk and eat as they are doing, Ii will be as happy as ever I want to be!”
At another time, he heard a black man reading a book, and he said, “When I can read as well as he is reading, I will want nothing more.” Thus, though a slave, young Booker wanted freedom and education.
As Booker was born־ when he could use his talents to serve the Black Folk, he experienced and saw only a few horrors of slavery. Many nights he96
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went to his bed of rags very hungry, cold and painful. Often, during those wretched times, he was served at midnight with a meal obtained and prepared mysteriously by his mother. He had but one garment, which was made of hard flax and therefore did not protect him from the winter’s cold, and felt like the pricking of needles and pins.
But before the overseer’s rod fell upon him, Booker stood with his mother, brother and sister, and many other slaves listening to the reading of President Lincoln’s famous Emancipation Proclamation. As soon as the blessed article was read, Booker’s mother clasped her little ones and said, “Now, my children, we are free!”
Booker did not understand what she meant, but he felt that happiness was in store for the Black Folk thereabout. And he never forgot the joy shown by the freemen on that day.
One day, soon afterwards, little Booker, his mother, his brother and his sister left the plantation and went to seek their fortunes. They traveled in a wagon, upon which they slept all the nights during their journey except when they slept on the ground. After several days they stopped at Malden, West Virginia. There they met Booker’s stepfather, who had been separated from his family for some time.
Now, Booker’s father had sent for his wife and little ones, and he had real joy in his heart because of their coming. He moved them into a little shanty, and soon found work for the boys in the salt furnaces and coal mines. Thus the family became as snug as peas in a pod, and as cheerful as a brook.FOR LITTLE FOLK
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But one day Booker had a new thought in his head. He thought about •going to school. He heard of a school where some children in Malden were being taught by a black teacher.
“Please let me go to that school,” said Booker to his parents. •
“My son,” said his step-father, “when we do not need the money that you can earn during school hours, you may attend school.”
Poor Booker was disappointed, for he was anxious to learn to read and write. His mother was concerned about his disappointment. So she bought a book for him, and, though she could not read a single word, she tried to help him learn to read it; hence he and his mother often sat guessing the words in his book. Booker, however, finally learned to read by studying the labels printed on the sacks that he handled at the salt furnaces.
One day, after he had learned to read, his stepfather said, “Booker, you may attend school, if you will rise early every morning and do as much work as you possibly can before school opens.”
“I will get up at four o’clock, and work until I barely have time to walk to school,” promised Booker.
Soon afterwards Booker entered school. To his surprise he found that the other children there had a Christian name and a surname. Booker had but one name, so he thought hard and fast to think of what to say by the time the teacher asked about his name. Suddenly the teacher asked:
“Booker, what is your full name?”
“Booker Washington,” he answered at once. Thus98
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he selected for himself the name of the first great American General and President.
Of course Booker had little time to play. Once he played marbles on the Sabbath.
Suddenly a pious old man stood over him and said, “You ought to be in the Sabbath School!”
Booker followed the old man into a Sabbath School, and thereafter he attended that school whenever he could do so.
Soon afterwards he hired himself as a house-servant to a stern, exacting old lady, who taught him to be thrifty and industrious. But as he disliked her sharp criticisms about his work, he ran away from her home and hired himself to a captain of a steamboat. He was discharged, however, because he was unable to serve as a waiter. Thereupon he returned to the stern, exacting lady, and, after begging her pardon for running away, asked to be employed again. In time he became attached to her, and grew to admire her strong character.
One day, Booker heard of Hampton Institute, the school where poor students could earn the expenses of their education. So he said to his mother, “I want to attend Hampton Institute.”
By and by, he really started to Hampton Institute with his clothes bundled at the end of a stick that he carried across his shoulder. Once he had to stop and earn his railroad fare by helping to unload a vessel for several days; during the nights he slept under a plank sidewalk. Finally he reached Hampton Institute with fifty cents in his pockets.
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hopeful of remaining when he heard the examiner say, “Young man, you may sweep this room.”
Of course he had learned to sweep rooms in the home of the stern, exacting lady. And as he felt that his education depended upon the sweeping of the room, he swept it again and again, and dusted it again and again. When the examiner returned, she rubbed her handkerchief over the tables and chairs ; as she found no dust upon them, she smiled at Booker and said:
“I guess we will try you as a student.”
And her words filled Booker with joy.
Booker studied faithfully for three years and then graduated with honor from the institution. One day he returned to his home in Malden. As his mother had died, he had to begin his life-work as a teacher without her encouragement. For three years he taught in the school there, both day and night. He also taught in two Sunday Schools. Of his pupils he afterwards said :
“I insisted that each pupil should come to school clean, should have his or her hands and face washed and hair combed, and should keep the buttons on his or her clothing.”
Thereafter he had his pupils keep the rules of cleanliness.
When he left Malden, he attended the Wayland Seminary at Washington, D. C. A year later he went to Hampton Institute to teach.
One day the Principal of Hampton said to Booker Washington, “I want you to go to Tuskegee, Alabama, and there teach in a school.”
So Washington went to Tuskegee. For a while he100	STORIES OF BLACK FOLK______________
taught about thirty pupils in an old church and in a little shanty. During heavy rains he taught under an umbrella held by a pupil to keep from getting wet in the leaky building. A few years later, after many pupils entered the school, Washington raised enough money by giving public programs, begging funds and by making loans to purchase a large farm and to erect several splendid buildings; upon the farm and into these buildings he moved the school, which was called the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. It grew larger and larger until there were over a thousand pupils in it, more than fifty buildings upon its grounds and over fifty teachers conducting classes there.
So Booker Washington became famous in nearly all parts of the world because of his work at Tuskegee Institute. Thousands of people visited the school to see the black boys and girls learning trades, actually erecting the school building, raising the stock, running the farms, cooking the meals, and doing everything else which was necessary to help educate themselves, and improve the school.
By that time Washington had become a noted orator. He had lectured in America and abroad about his work at Tuskegee, and thereby he had attracted the attention of thousands of people to his oratorical talent. But his work as an educator surpassed all his other efforts; he had become great King Thrift. For he had taught the Merry Black Folk to use their brawn and brains to earn their fortunes.
King Thrift lived happily for many years. HePOR LITTLE FOLK
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liked to walk over the campus of Tuskegee and see the students learning various trades or industries, or studying in other departments. He was married three times. In the year 1882, he was married to Miss Fannie N. Smith, of West Virginia; she died two years afterwards and left a little daughter. In 1885, he was married to Miss Olivia Davidson, of Virginia, who became the devoted mother of two sons. After her death in the year 1889, he was married to an excellent lady from Mississippi.
Thus King Thrift served the world until the fourteenth of November, in the year 1915. On that day he left the beautiful world whose resources were the fortunes that he had taught his people, the Merry Black Folk, to dig from the ground.
Thousands of people mourned for him, and in the year 1922, thousands of people helped raise a splendid monument in his honor upon the grounds of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute.
In a speech at the Peace Jubilee in Chicago, Dr. Washington said:
“On an important occasion in the life of the Master, when it fell to him to pronounce judgment on two courses of action, these memorable words fell from his lips; ‘And Mary hath chosen the better part.’ This was the supreme test in the case of an individual. It is the highest test in case of a race or nation. Let us apply the test to the American Negro.
“In the life of our Republic, when he has had the opportunity to choose, has it been the better or the worse part? When in the childhood of this nation the Negro was asked to submit to slavery or choose death and extinction, as102
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did the aborigines, he chose the better part, that which perpetuated the race.
“When in 1776, the Negro was asked to decide between British oppression and American independence, we find him choosing the better part, and Crispus Attucks, a Negro, was the first to shed his blood on State Street, Boston, that the white people might enjoy liberty forever, though his race remained in slavery.
“When in 1814, at New Orleans, the test of patriotism came again, we find the Negro choosing the better part, and General Andrew Jackson himself testifying that no heart was more loyal and no arm more strong and useful in defense of righteousness.
“When the long and memorable struggle came between union and separation, when we knew the victory on one hand meant freedom, and defeat on the other his continued enslavement, with the full knowledge of the portentous meaning of it all, when the suggestion and temptation came to burn the home and massacre wife and children during the absence of the master in battle, and thus insure his liberty, we find him choosing the better part, and for four long years protecting and supporting the helpless, defenseless ones entrusted to his care.
“When in 1863 the cause of the Union seemed to quiver in the balance, and when there were doubt and distrust, the Negro was asked to come to the rescue in arms, and the valor displayed at Fort Wagner and Port Pillow testifies most eloquently again that the Negro chose the better part.
“When a few months ago the safety and honor of the Republic were threatened by a foreign foe, when the wail and anguish of the oppressed from a distance reached his ears, we find the Negro forgetting his own wrongs, forgetting th'e laws and customs that discriminated against him in his own country, again choosing the better part—the part of honor and humanity. And if you would know how he deported himself in the field at Santiago, apply for an answer to Shafter and Roosevelt and Wheeler. Let themFOR LITTLE FOLK
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tell how the Negro faced death and laid down his life in defense of honor and humanity, and when you have gotten the full story of the heroic conduct of the Negro in the Spanish-American war—heard it from the lips of Northern soldiers and Southern soldiers, from ex-abolitionists and ex-masters —then decide within yourselves whether a race that is thus willing to die for its country should not be given the highest opportunity to live for its country.”Pictures
Copies of the beautiful pictures appearing in this book, mounted on cards 6x9 inches, ready for framing, or suitable for schoolroom decoration without framing, may be had in lots of three or more, postpaid, at 25 cents per picture.
A. B. CALDWELL PUBLISHING CO. Atlanta, Georgia