River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1878-10-17
kidnapping American Negroes.
Chicago Times.t

kidnapping American Negroes.
Chicago Times.
In the special Geographic 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.
Tornado 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 colonel in the liberal or
revolutionary Amy 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 a
plantation called Tourney place, near New
Orleans, La; that he was taken to Cuba 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 complied 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. OCal-
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, or
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 cruel
institutions are the very opposite of the in
situations of their own free land, sufficient
evidence has come to light, and has indeed
been gathered by IGnleS reporters in this
very city to prove these assertions to be
facts, and has revealed the truth of at least
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
Al. ~. Ell
with all incidentals bearing upon it, and
with explicit information as to where and
how to find the criminals and bring them to
punishment, was laid before the state de-
partment some time since, the apathy and
Indifference of that department of the gov
eminent to the cruel outrage of
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 the
State department has, like Seward of old,
shown very favorable consideration to all
matters in which the Spanish interest was
involved, and further, because the lady who
owned the slaves of which the story treats
had, just about the time the matter was laid
before the State department, married an army
official, and their friends possibly did not
wish to create an unpleasant notoriety
about it.
Whether such reasons amounted to any
thing or not no one can say; possibly not,
but certain it is that reliable parties, them
selves formerly in the government service,
and with every opportunity of knowing the
facts, did lay case before
THE STATE DEPARTMENT,
involving the freedom and life of no less
than at least 100 freed American negroes
condemned to captivity in Cuba through the
rapacity and cruely of man who forcibly
shipped them through Galveston just before
the close of the war, and now is completely
ignored by the State department, although
the clues were given which would have res
cued the negroes, and would yet rescue them,
or the survivors and their children, and
bring their oppressors to the punishment
they so richly deserve.
The wife of the late illustrious
SENATOR STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS
was before her marriage to the little
GIANT fascinating widow of North Caro-
lima. At the time of her marriage to
Illinois gifted son she owned large prop
erty at the South, on which were 100 to $50
negroes. When the war broke out these
negroes were sent upon an unimproved
plantation near Greenville, Miss, to work
on shares between their owner and the pro-
prietor of the land, as was the common Gus
tom at the time. The agreement was that
after two years. work the owner of the
negroes was to have half of the
cotton yield. The overseer Of these
colored men was selfish, cruel,
and, it is said, grossly dishonest man, and
when the war had reached its climax. and
federal troops were raiding the stronghold
of the South, he reported to the Douglas
family that the negroes Lad died, fed, and
were all lost to the estate. So far from this
being the case, the fact was the man rail-
roaded his unfortunate victims to Galveston, |
then rebel port, and forcibly kidnapping
them there, the negroes were put on board .
schooner and shipped to Cuba, where the
remainder of them now are.
After the war the Douglas heirs sued the |
United States on claim for $240, 900 for |
damages for the cotton alleged to have been
ON the Greenviiie plantation, The |
suit was tried, or at least commenced some
time ago in Washington, and the overseer |
who had first plundered the Douglas estate
Of the negroes, as it is alleged, and who had |
sold or chartered them into slavery in Cuba, |
had the audacity to return to Washington,
AS WITNESS
for the Douglas claimants, and against the |
United States, in the case arising from the |
cotton claim.
Then it was that the government officers |
employed in the case, and who had learned |
Of all the facts in Greenvilie and vicinity, |
prepared statement for the government and |
laid it before the State department. The ar |
rest of the man for kidnapping was emphat-
cally urged, as through his agency and the
consular service the whereabouts of these |
unfortunate men could have been ascertained |
and their freedom secured The case was 1
ignored, and has been ever since, and many |
want to know why it has been.
An Incident in School.
ain an Episcopal boarding school, a few