Pomeroy weekly telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio) 1860-1866, 1862-03-21
The Port ROYAL Fact.

On Monday last the steamer atlantic
sailed from New York for Port Royal
with cargo of clergyman, schoolmas-
ters, and schoolmistresses, Bibles,
school-books, agricultural tools, sewing
machines, etc. The cargo was destined
for the use of some 10000 persons with
black skins, male and female, who are
now tenants of the sea islands occupied
by the United States on the coast of
South Carolina and Georgia. The ex-
pense of it was chiefly borne by char
liable institution lately established at
Boston, with branches at New York,
etc.; which, we will take leave to say,
appears to us to be fully as we'll enti-
tied to the support Of benevolent Chris
tians as any foreign nation in existe nee.
We take it that this is very great
fact, which all the fine talk of pro and
anti slavery orators in and out of Con-
gress cannot gainsay or dissolve. Here
are over ten thousand persons with black
skins, who are living under the protec-
ton of the United States flag, and whom
we are going to educate-the males to
WORK and manage sea-island planta tions
of cotton on scientific principles; the
females to sew and comprehend domes-
tic economy; both to read, write, cipher,
and realize moral and religious obllga-
tions. In short time this colony OF
ten thousand persons with black skins
will be twenty thousand, and by and by
it will be two hundred thousand. Now
it inhabsts two or three extremely fer
tile and happy islands; it will monopo-
lie all the outlying islets and will
probably encreach on the main land it
SELF For facts of this kind are of their
nature progressive Civilization and
Christianity take no steps backward
1t strikes US that if some of our lead
ing men would be SO good as to forget
for while their own Importance, and
the necessity of keeping themselves con-
stantly before the apple of the Ameri-
can eye, this Port Royal fact would,
without their aid, achieve, quietly and
noiselessly, without bloodshed, and
without rapine or violence, some of the
extremely desirable results for which
they are SO fatiguingly clamorous, and
which it is the business of this great
war to achieve. If we contribute small
share of our subsistence to impart to
those unfortunate persons with black
skins, who are thrown by the rebellion
upon our tender mercy, some portion of
the educational and moral advantag ges
which our enlightened laws secure for
p the meanest of our own people, Provi-
dence will probably render them the in
strument of effecting revolution which
will change the face Of American des-
tiny. ~ -.."
| It has been proposed by some we'll
intentioned but weak mined people to
deport these persons with black skins
to various islands or continents very far
5 away indeed. And it has also been
3 proposed by some evil-intentioned but
strong minded people to deport-not
persons with white skins who are in
t arms agliust as, aud have cost us al.
ready more than thousand dollars
apiece, to other continents or islands
S still further away. It is impossible to
D say to what straits this Government Of
, ours may by and-by be reduced. Il
may go into the transportation business
for living. When it does, these rival
propositions will doubtless be fairly
considered. Meanwhile, the great fact
!. at Port Royal stares us in the face, ano
until some better thing can be suggested
We hope that everybody who can spare
0 a dollar will help to send Bibles, ant
t spelling books, and teachers, and sew
ing machines, and cotton gins, and other
implements of civilization there, for the
benefit of these poor persons with black
, skins whom this atrocious rebellion has
e thrown upon our hands. Harper