The Worthington advance., 1878-10-17
kidnapping American Negroes.
IChicago Times.i

In the special telegraphic dispatches to
the Times published yesterday, appears the
statement that the state department has had
its attention called to the fact that there are
free American negroes kidnapped from the
Southern States, who are kept in condition
of captivity and servitude on plantations in
the island of Cuba.
Fernado L. de Queralta, at present in the
United States, formerly of Cuba. and who
was an officer in the union army during the
rebellion in the United States, affirms in an
affidavit, sworn to before United States
commissioner for the Southern district of
Florida, that, when q colonel in the liberal or
revolutionary army of Cuba, he found a
colored man not acquainted with the Ian
guage, his native tongue being English. That
upon questioning him the coiored man told
him that he had formerly been slave on q
plantation called Tourney place, near New
Orleans, La; that he was taken to Cuha with
four others in 1866, and sent up the coun-
try; that since that time to the present he
and others have been working as slaves
ON SUGAR PLANTATIONS,
labor which they are compelled to undergo,
and for which they have never received any
remuneration whatever.
Col. Queralta, whose character for veraci-
ty is vouched for by no less authority than
Gen. Sherman, further says, under oath,
that at the plantation of a certain Mr.. O'Cal-
laghan, in Cuba, there are three native
American negroes, who could not speak the
language, and who admitted that they were
not native to Cuba; and the affiant adds that
he has every reason to believe that there
are numbers of free American ne
groes who have been kidnapped from South.
ern plantations, and rushed through South
ern ports just before the close of the war
and even since the war, and that these ne
groes have been sold into slavery in Cuba, OF
are chartered by cruel owners and overseers
as slaves on the plantations there.
Although it seems almost incredible that
such atrocities could have been committed
and that there are now hundreds of free
American negroes who have been forced
into an endless and painful captivity in
Cuba, a country whose arbitrary and crue
institutions are the very opposite of the in.
stitutions of their own free land, sufficient
evidence has come to light, and has indeed
been gathered by Times reporters in this
very city to prove these assertions to be
facts, and has revealed the truth of at le ast
one wholesale kidnapping infamy of The
sort, to which the attention of the State de-
partment was called some time since, but
with no effect.
In view Of
THE STARTLING FACTS
disclosed by the story, the undoubted verac
ity and personal knowledge of the gentle
man who furnishes certain clues to the mat
ter, and the fact that the whole case in full
with all incidentals bearing upon it, an6
with explicit information as to where ant
how to find the criminals and bring them t.
punishment, was laid before the state de-
partment some time since, the apathy ani
indifference of that department of the gov
ernment to the cruel outrage o.
which it was thus informed can be attributed
only to sinister motives or private inter
est. In the opinion of those from whom
the Times obtained some of its information
it was because the official at the head of tn,
State department has, like Seward of old
shown . very favorable consideration to al
matters in which the Spanish interest wa
involved, and further, because the lady wht
owned the slaves Of which the story treat.