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I would wish,
candidly, however, before the Lord, to be understood, that I would not
give a pinch of snuff to be married to any white person I ever
saw in all the days of my life. And I do say it, that the black man, or
man of color, who will leave his own color (provided he can get one who
is good for any thing) and marry a white woman, to be a double slave to
her just because she is white, ought to be treated by her as he
surely will be, viz; as a niger!!!
It is not indeed what I care about intermarriages with the whites, which
induced me to pass this subject in review; for the Lord knows, that
there is a day coming when they will be glad enough to get into the
company of the blacks, notwithstanding, we are, in this generation, levelled by them almost on a level with the brute creation; and some of
us they treat even worse than they do the brutes that perish.
***
But to
prove farther that the condition of the Israelites was better under the
Egyptians than ours is under the whites, I call upon the professing christians, I call upon the philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant
himself, to show me a page of history, either sacred or profane, on
which a verse can be found, which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped
the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel by telling
them that they were not of the human family. Can the whites deny
this charge? Have they not, after having reduced us to the deplorable
condition of slaves under their feet, held us up as descending
originally from the tribes of Monkeys or Orang-Outangs? O!
my God! I appeal to every man of feeling—is not this
insupportable? Is it not heaping the most gross insult upon
our miseries, because they have got us under their feet and
we cannot help ourselves? Oh! pity us we pray thee, Lord
Jesus, Master.
***
O! that the
colored people were long since of Moses' excellent disposition, instead
of courting favor with, and telling news and lies to our natural
enemies, against each other—aiding them to keep their hellish chains
of slavery upon us. Would we not long before this time, have been
respectable men, instead of such wretched victims of oppression as we
are? Would they be able to drag our mothers, our fathers, our wives, our
children and ourselves, around the world in chains and hand-cuffs as
they do, to dig up gold and silver for them and theirs? This question,
my brethren, I leave for you to digest; and may God Almighty force it
home to your hearts. Remember that unless you are united, keeping your
tongues within your teeth, you will be afraid to trust your secrets to
each other, and thus perpetuate our miseries under the christians!!!!!
***
Fear
not the number and education of our enemies, against whom we
shall have to contend for our lawful right; guaranteed to us by our
Maker; for why should we be afraid, when God is, and will
continue (if we continue humble) to be on our side?
The
man who would not fight under our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in the
glorious and heavenly cause of freedom and of God—to be delivered from
the most wretched, abject and servile slavery, that ever a people was
afflicted with since the foundation of the world, to the present
day—ought to be kept with all of his children or family, in slavery, or
in chains, to be butchered by his cruel enemies.
I saw
a paragraph, a few years since, in a South Carolina paper, which,
speaking of the barbarity of the Turks it said: "The Turks are the most
barbarous people in the world—they treat the Greeks more like brutes
than human beings." And in the same paper was an advertisement, which
said: "Eight well built Virginia and Maryland Negro fellows and
four wenches will positively be sold this day to the
highest bidder!" And what astonished me still more was, to see in
this same humane paper!! the cuts of three men, with clubs and
budgets on their backs, and an advertisement offering a considerable sum
of money for their apprehension and delivery. I declare it is really so
funny to hear the Southerners and Westerners of this country talk
about barbarity, that it is positively, enough to make a man
smile.
***
Here
let me ask Mr. Jefferson, (but he is gone to answer at the bar of God,
for the deeds done in his body while living,) I therefore ask the whole
American people, had I not rather die, or be put to death than to be a
slave to any tyrant, who takes not only my own, but my wife and
children's lives by the inches? Yea, would I meet death with avidity
far! far!! in preference to such servile submission to the
murderous hands of tyrants.
***
The whites have always been
an unjust, jealous unmerciful, avaricious and blood thirsty set of
beings, always seeking after power and authority.—We view them all over
the confederacy of Greece, where they were first known to be any thing,
(in consequence of education) we see them there, cutting each other's
throats—trying to subject each other to wretchedness and misery, to
effect which they used all kinds of deceitful, unfair and unmerciful
means. We view them next in Rome, where the spirit of tyranny and deceit
raged still higher.—We view them in Gaul, Spain and in Britain—in fine,
we view them all over Europe, together with what were scattered about in
Asia and Africa, as heathens, and we see them acting more like devils
than accountable men. But some may ask, did not the blacks of Africa,
and the mulattoes of Asia, go on in the same way as did the whites of
Europe. I answer no—they never were half so avaricious, deceitful and
unmerciful as the whites, according to their knowledge.
But we will leave the whites
or Europeans as heathens and take a view of them as Christians, in which
capacity we see them as cruel, if not more so than ever. In fact, take
them as a body, they are ten times more cruel avaricious and unmerciful
than ever they were; for while they were heathens they were bad enough
it is true, but it is positively a fact that they were not quite so
audacious as to go and take vessel loads of men, women and children, and
in cold blood and through devilishness, throw them into the sea, and
murder them in all kind of ways. While they were heathens, they were too
ignorant for such barbarity. But being Christians, enlightened and
sensible, they are completely prepared for such hellish cruelties.
Now suppose God were to give them more sense,
what would they do. If it were possible would they not dethrone
Jehovah and seat themselves upon his throne?
***
I would crawl on my hands
and knees through mud and mire, to the feet of a learned man, where I
would sit and humbly supplicate him to instil into me, that which
neither devils nor tyrants could remove, only with my life—for the
Africans to acquire learning in this country, makes tyrants quake and
tremble on their sandy foundation. Why what is the matter? Why, they
know that their infernal deeds of cruelty will be made known to the
world. Do you suppose one man of good sense and learning would submit
himself, his father, mother, wife and children, to be slaves to a
wretched man like himself, who, instead of compensating him for his
labours, chains, handcuffs and beats him and family almost to death,
leaving life enough in them, however, to work for, and call him master?
No! no! he would cut his devilish throat from ear to ear, and well do
slaveholders know it....
***
Did not God make us as it seemed best to himself?
What right, then, has one of us, to despise another and to treat him
cruel, on account of his colour, which none but the God who made it can
alter? Can there be a greater absurdity in nature, and particularly in a
free republican country? But the Americans, having introduced slavery
among them, their hearts have become almost seared, as with an hot iron,
and God has nearly given them up to believe a lie in preference to the
truth!!! and I am awfully afraid that pride, prejudice, avarice and
blood, will, before long, prove the final ruin of this happy republic,
or land of liberty!!! Can any thing be a greater mockery of religion
than the way in which it is conducted by the Americans? It appears as
though they are bent only on daring God Almighty to do his best—they
chain and handcuff us and our children and drive us around the country
like brutes, and go into the house of the God of justice to return Him
thanks for having aided him in their infernal cruelties inflicted upon
us. Will the Lord suffer this people to go on much longer, taking his
holy name in vain? Will he not stop them,
preachers and all? O
Americans! Americans!! I call God—I call angels—I call men, to witness,
that your destruction is
at hand, and will be speedily consummated unless you REPENT.
***
I have several
times called the white Americans our natural enemies—I shall here
define my meaning of the phrase. Shem, Ham, and Japheth, together with
their father Noah and wives, I believe were not natural enemies to each
other. When the ark rested after the flood upon Mount Arrarat in Asia,
they (eight) were all the people which could be found alive in all the
earth—in fact if scriptures be true (which I believe are) there were no
other living men in all the earth, notwithstanding some ignorant
creatures hesitate not to tell us, that we, (the blacks) are the seed of
Cain, the murderer of his brother Abel. But where those ignorant and
avaricious wretches could have got their information, I am unable to
declare. Did they receive it from the Bible? I have searched the Bible
as well as they, if I am not as well learned as they are, and have never
seen a verse which testifies
whether we are the
seed of Cain or of Abel.—Yet those men tell us that we are of the seed
of Cain and that God put a dark stain upon us, that we might be known as
their slaves!!! Now I ask those avaricious and ignorant wretches, who
act more like the seed of Cain, by murdering, the whites or the blacks?
How many vessel loads of human beings have the blacks thrown into the
seas? How many thousand souls have the blacks murdered in cold blood to
make them work in wretchedness and ignorance, to support them and their
families?
-- However, let us be the seed of Cain, Harry, Dick or Tom!!! God will
show the whites what we are yet. I say, from the beginning, I do not
think that we were natural enemies to each other. But the whites having
made us so wretched, by subjecting us to slavery, and having murdered so
many millions of us in order to make us work for them, and out of
devilishness—and they taking our wives, whom we love as we do
ourselves—our mothers who bore the pains of death to give us birth—our
fathers & dear little children, and ourselves, and strip and beat us one
before the other—chain, handcuff and drag us about like
rattle-snakes—shoot us down like wild bears, before each other's faces,
to make us submissive to and work to support them and their families.
They (the whites) know well if we are men—and there is a secret
monitor in their hearts which tells them we are—they know, I say, if we
are men, and see them treating us in the manner they do, that
there can be nothing in our hearts but death alone, for them;
notwithstanding we may appear cheerful, when we see them murdering our
dear mothers and wives, because we cannot help ourselves....Consequently
they, themselves, (and not us) render themselves our natural enemies, by
treating us so cruel.
***
"We
hold these truths to be self evident—that ALL
MEN are created EQUAL! that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!!" |
