New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-04-14
The Free oolored People of Louisiana

To THE EDITORS OF THE CRESCENT: In the
course of the conversation with my old friend,
already alluded to in a paper published in the
Crescent of the 22d February, cursorily re-
ferred to the social condition of the free colored
people of Louisiana 1t elected the following
remarks:
with our interior polity, these are delicate
grounds to be trodden upon Nevertheless, such
is the invariable correct department and, /
must add, the wonted good sense OF these people
(bear in mind that | am speaking exclu-
sively of the natioe colored population of Lou
isiana,) that this question loses much of the po-
litcal Importance one would naturally suppose
was attached to it. The mooting of it, however,
requires all the forbearance, federation and
calm reason which such subject imperiousy
calls for, and we should especially endeavor to
free it from prejudices which time has made re-
spectacle, if prejudiees can ever be made so.
A perfect knowledge of the character of this
people is also requisite, and l know no better
mode of reaching this end than by relating
what, with few intervening absences, a residence
of over fifty years in Louisiana, has made me
an eye witness to.
In the hour Of need we have invariably found
them as devotedly attached to our country as any
of u.s. / remember well that in 1911 or 10, (the
precise period slips my memory } upon the rising
of the slaves of the Parish Of St. John the Bap-
tst, which cost the lives of some of our worthiest
citizens, one did better service or was more
| useful in quelliDg the insurrection than F.
R, native colored man, planter of that
parish.
Subsequently, when the English invaded Louis
iana-unlike some of the foreigners who were
then here and who, no doubt from distaste for
the smell OF gunpowder, entrenched themselves
behind their nationality to avoid military duty
these people, to man, simultaneously rose and
together with thai portion of the colored people
OF St Domingo who, with the whites, had emf
grated to the Island of Cuba and who, upon the
invasion of Spain by Napoleon were, as French
men, expelled from thence and found refuge in
New Orleans, as freely bled as ourselves in de-
Tense of our invaded country.
We now see among them men whose wealth
would enable them to live in prineely style in
Europe clinging with devotion to their native
soil. Chance has sometimes led me into the in
terror of their families. and l must confess that
for education, good breeding and high sentiments
of honor, few, very few indeed, are their su-
periors.
We find among them merchants and brokers
of no mean standing on change, planters of ex-
tensive means, builders and first rate mechanics
They have also furnished their full quota to the
sciences, to medicine, to literature, to the fine
arts.
But whilst these men have on every occasion
shown their devotion to the country, and are
now adding lustre to the name of Louisiana,
what have. we done for them beyond counte-
| nancing them in the ordinary pursuits of life,
| and showing that respect for them which their
correct department entities them to- True
they ask for nothing, but this very reason ought
think, to add to existing reasons for extending
| to them such honorable distinction for past
| services and actual worth as may not too glar-
ingly clash with the exigences of our social or
| ganization.
As unwilling rs i may be to make invidious
| comparisons, / cannot, however, refrain from
remarking that we see every day men who have
come here without dollar in their pocket, and
who, after fifteen or twenty years Of toll and
sordid economy, have managed to scrape up
fortune, abandon the country with their earn
| ings; whilst. on the other hand, we see some OF
| these colored men, whose wealth would secure
to them an enViable position elsewhere, cling
with strong attachment to the place OF their
| birth.
Now, eschewing all prediction or feeling in
| the matter. and reducing it to plain question
Of political economy, would ask who of the
two is, to US, the most desirable, he who leaves
the country with his acquired wealth. and d.
minishes, pro tdnt0, our active means, or he
1 who remains and spends among us the income
which his fortune yields him. If you should
have any doubt on the subject, just turn to i'll.
fated Ireland and see the state to which she has
peen reduced by the absence of her great landed
proprietors, who spend their income abroad, and
/ then decide. You know that as regards Ireland
the British Court is, to all intents and purposes
as much of foreign one as those of France, Ma
| plies, etc.
The sentiments which | have Just uttered are
am cure, participated in by the mass of our
old sober thinking residents, the reputed "ruth-
| less oppressors' of the African race
The expression of such opinions, if it ever
reaches them, will no doubt astonlsh our Every
good friends the Aholitionists. If there should
| be any among them, and of this can hardly
doubt, who are not sagitating'' for the sole pur.
| pose of creating political capital and arc
honestly Of the opinion which they profess
| 1t will enlighten them as to the vast difference
| which exists between the social condition of the
free colored people here in the shot bed of sla.
very, and their position in the free State.
| amongst their 'soi-disant" friends The stri-
| king difference which also exists between oar
feelings as respects this class Of people and theirs
| will also Come out in bold relief, for they mus
see, that whilst they, the s'Abolitionists, the
pseudo good friends. of these people, are strain
ing every nerve to ship every one of them off tt
| the lingering life and premature death which
the ungenial climate of Liberia has in store fol
/ them, We, the s'unprineipled shareholders be.
| sides the respect which VIC have at all time:
/ showa 70 shVsg Thpse worth has procured frI
thss .hs rsssseas hssa 81 liberty, $50 elss dir