The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1844-02-15
THE AFRICAN RACE.

| THE AFRICAN RACE.
Who are the men oppression has brutal
lied and trodden under foot till their claims
to manhood have been gravely questioned
Has the African race always been bowed
as by the sickness of the soul, till the eye
has grown dim and the God given mind
fitted only for machinery TO be worked by
the skill of another TO the accomplishment
of his designs2 Whom seek we 10 elevate
from the dust, by giving back into their
hands the stolen brthrigh; of freedom ? We
seek the elevation of people whose ances-
tors were kings and heroes. Three thou
sand years ago and the race now looked
down upon as the connecting link between
man and the brute were in the front ranks
in civilization and in science. All have
Leard of Egypt, with her twenty thousand
cities and her eternal pylamds-of Thebes
with her temples and palaces and her hun
dred gates. Who peopled these homes Of
literature and science? The Negro
his aeecy locks and sable hue Here dwet
the darkbrowed SEsosTRIs, the mighty
warrior, beside the W wheels of whose tri-
umphal car ran conquered kings. We are,
in fact, indebted 10 the ancestors of the very
men we now degrade and abuse, for the
civilization of which we are so proud. From
whom did we receive it? From our Euro
pean ancestors - they from the Greeks and
Romans and Jews they from the Elhio-
plans and Egyptians. Are these humilat-
ing facts disputed? Read the following
extract from a speech before the Colonial
ton Society in 1888, by Alexander H.
Everett:
"The founders Of the principal Grecian
cities, such as Athens, Thebes, and Delphi,
came from Egypt, and for centuries alter-
wards, their descendants returned to that
country, as the source and centre of civiliz
alton. There it was that the generous and
stirring spirits of the lime - Herodotus,
Homer, Plato, Pylhagoras, and the rest,
made their noble voyages of intellectual
and moral discovery, as ours now make
them in Eng France, Germany, and
Italy. Sir, the Egyptians were the masters
Of the Greeks and the Jews, and conse-
quently of all the modern nations in civil
Iza,ion, and they had carried it very nearly
as far - in some respects, perhaps, good
deal further than any subsequent people
The ruins of the Egyptian temples laugh
to scorn the architectural monuments Of any
other part of the world. They will be what
they are now, the delight and admiration of
travellers from all quarters, when the grass
is growing on the sites Of ST.. Peters and
81. Paul's-the present pride Of Rome and
London.
Well, Sir, who were the Egyptians ?
They were Africans-and of what race?
1t is sometimes pretended, that tho Africans,
and of Ethiopian extraction, they were not
black. But what says the father Of history.
who had travelled among them, and knew
their appearance, as well as we know that
Of our neighbors in Canada Sir, 9erodo'
tus tells you that the Egyptians were blacks,
with curled hair. Some writers have IN
dertaken 10 dispute his authority, but can
not bring myself 10 believe thai The father
of history did not know black from white.
1t seems, therefore, that for this very civil
izaton of which we are so proud, and which
is the only ground Of our present claim Of
superiority, we are indebted TO the ances-
tors of these very blacks, whom we are
pleased to consider as naturally incapable
Of civilization"