SOME UNDISTINGUISHED NEGROES

Solomon Humphries. Traveling through this country in 1833 at the very time when free Negroes were being denounced as an evil of which this country should by all means rid itself, C. D. Arfwedson found in Macon, Georgia a thrifty free Negro named Solomon Humphries, well known by all classes including local officials and even the governor of the State. Humphries had by dint of energy acquired his freedom and had made himself an asset in his community. He was then keeping a large grocery store and had more credit than many other merchants in the town, for he had accumulated about $20,000 worth of property. He had a neat and comfortably furnished home, presided over by his wife, an intelligent woman of color, who was often seen driving with him in his own unostentatious carriage. He was sought by the wealthiest people of the city whom he lavishly entertained at his home, doing them the honor of waiting on them in person himself, although he had a number of slaves who could have rendered this service. Making it a rule to be especially hospitable to strangers, he invited Arfwedson to be his guest while in the city; but on account of having planned to go to Columbus that day, Arfwedson could not accept his invitation.—Arfwedson's United States and Canada in 1833 and 1834, I, p. 425.

A Negro Colonizationist. While the American Colonization Society was being denounced by the free Negroes of the North, many blacks of the same status in the South had a different attitude toward the movement, especially during the twenties before it had been discovered that Liberia was not suitable for a civilized people. One of the Negroes of the South to be won to this movement was a free man of color named Creighton, a slave owner of Charleston, South Carolina. He had accumulated considerable wealth and had begun to feel that it would be better for him to spend his remaining days in a land of freedom. Several other free blacks were induced to go with him. In disposing of his property he offered his slaves, the alternative of being liberated on the condition of accompanying him on his expedition or of remaining in this country[Pg 197] to be sold as other property. Only one of his slaves 3could be prevailed upon to accept freedom on these terms and go with him to Liberia. Creighton then closed up his business in Charleston, purchased for the enterprise a schooner The Calypso and set sail for Africa, October 17, 1821.—Niles Register, XXI, p. 163; taken from The New York Commercial Advertiser.

A Moralist. A white cooper called upon a Negro who owned a fine farm near Cincinnati and expressed a desire to purchase some stave timber from him. The Negro inquired as to what use the cooper would make of it. The latter replied that he had a contract to make some whisky barrels.

"Well, Sir," was the prompt reply, "I have the timber and want the money, but no man can purchase a single stave or hoop pole, or a particle of grain from me for that purpose."

The cooper, of course, became unusually angry on receiving such a stern reproof and contemptuously addressed this man of color, calling him a "Nigger."

"That is very true," mildly replied the Negro. "I can't help that, but I can help selling my timber to make whisky barrels, and I mean to do it."—The Weekly Herald and Philanthropist, May 13, 1846.

A Benevolent Negro. Before the Northwest Territory became disturbed by the influx of free Negroes and fugitives running away from persecution in the South, there had been enough trouble with white vagrants to lead to drastic laws for the protection of certain communities. Michigan, which did not until 1827 pass a measure dealing especially with undesirable Negroes, had prior to this time a law providing for selling idle and dissolute persons at auction. At one of the sales in 1821 a Negro bought a white man and ordered him to follow his master, and the order was obeyed. But the benevolent black took his servant to the steamboat, paid his passage and restored him his freedom, making himself satisfied with sending the white vagrant out of the territory.—Niles Register, XXI, p. 214.

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