The Indianapolis leader. (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1879-1890, 1880-08-07
The African Race-Its Place In Amsrf-
can History.

[Communicated.l
When Macauley prophesied that at some
future day the tourist from New Zealand
might stand on the ruins of London bridge
and gaze with silent awe upon the crumb-
ling relics of a forgotten age, the world
smiled and hooted and jeered at the daring
thinker, even while it hung breathless upon
the melliAuency of his diction and the els-
quence of his pen.
The essayest and his contemporaries have
long been asleep with their fathers in the
silent halls of death, and London town
still stands, not in the twilight of decaying
splendor, but in the full meridian of glory,
more depraved and wicked than Babylon
ever was = more religious than ancient
Jerusalem-richer than Troy or Phoenecia-
more learned than Athens or Rome.
And yet as far as the continuity of the
splendor and greatness of the metropolis of
the world is concerned, what boots it, or
what does it prove, that Macauley is dead
and impotent either for good or bad, or that
his prophecy has so far come to naught? Is
it zoo late for England to share the fate of
other nations? and has history ceased to
repeat itself2 For where now is Rome?
"She lives bu. in the tales Of other times;
her pro I'D pavilliens and her mighty colon
AIDES now but echo family to the pilgrims
tread" Time is ever silently writing over
the face of material nature, / must con-
quer "The loudest blast that ever filled re-
nown's obstreperous trump, fades in the
lapse of ages and expires"
And this law of decay and change applies
not only to the governments of men, but to
races and individuals as WELL
Some curious antiquarian, filed with a
love of research, has taken pains to penetrate
the cobwebs and dust of oblivion and OBJ
scurity, which, for more than thirty GEN.
turies has rested like pail upon the origin
and antecedants of those wandering nomads
of the plains and highways of the world, the
Gypsies, only to inform us that long ago in
the infancy of days, ere the genius of civili-
zation had permeated the continents of
Europe and America, they had yielded the
wand of science and the arts had dictated to
the contemporaneous nations of their epoch
such political laws and social customs as
then ruled the world. Stupcndous change!
To-day "Queen" of that once famous race
is frequently seen leading her train of "for-
tune tellers'' and beggars through the streets
of your cities and towns, asking that you
cross her hands with silver, while she sscon-
lures the wandering stars in the interest of
your fate, while none are found $50 poor as
to do her reverence"
A mighty nation, numbered by the mil
lions, who once held unbounded sway from
pole to pole on this continent, has passed al
most from the gaze of men to make room for
the creatures and customs of this same law
of change and decay, which, paradoxical as
it may seem, mas decreed that the polished
shall sink TO barbarism, and the once bar
barrie states take their places.
1t is therefore in this connection that the
future historian and philosopher will find
much to wonder at and moralize over in the
history of the African race.
More than satellite once in the galaxy OF
nations which way back in the morning OF
this mundane .sphere it flashed refulgent
and powerful around the centers of civiliza-
tion and learning-to-day and for thou
sand ages has the requiem of her midday
| glory been chanted. Once a nation of kings
and potenates and princes of the line ere
Rome stood upon her seven hills and the
star of Bethlehem had arisen to-day the
crumbling architecture and heaps of land
that mark the sites of her former glory, are
all that remains to tell that once she had
arisen and fourished and fell.
| Such was the condition of the African
race up to the dawn of the sixteenth cen
tury, although God, through the mouth o.
His people, had promulgated the decree thai
Ethiopia should again stretch forth her hands
and take her place amongst the nations o
the earth. Dark as the prospect seemed a
this period, Africas long night began t.
break, when the avarice of man sought he
shores IN the interest of human slavery
Transplanted upon the shores of America b,
force, violence and guile, Gods word wa
commencing strangely but surely to be full
filled, and who doubts its contamination
No one who has read and thought and oh
served. Has He not declared in tones tina
will ever reverberate adown the tide of tim
81 am Alpha and Omega" and decreed tina
"the first shall be last and though ye b
dead yet shall you live again. Hope super
nal-mercy infinitel
4 have been asked what place in m
opinion the historian should assign the color
ed man in American history And an
swer, no place. but every place. On the pag
that shall record the struggles and priva
IlOIs Ol the cOOnieS Will re De IOunu Snarln
in double sense the expressions of tn
hour. In the chapter that. contains the woe
full story of her travail in her struggle fo
freedom from the opportunities and tyran
nies of the mother land, will again be per
eeived, not only in the capacity of the hus
-bandman, for the starving colonists, but a
the first martyr to American liberty; and S
on down through each successive decade c
American history is his presence seen an
his individuality felt, not as the insect o
the wheel, but part of the whole struC
ture. Being present at the birth, sheddin
his blood in defense of the cradle of liberty
he will, if ever such thing come to pass, b
''in at the death"-a part of the warp an
woof. an integral factor greater than a
others, he must flourish with the whole c
wither with the same. 'Tis law unchang'
.able-irrevocable
Looking through history of the lat
civil war in this land | read the words, 9TH
, colored brigade covered itself with glor,
giving to destruction as never men ha
before, their presence was Inspiration to ou
side and terror to the foe" Sure enough
, had quite forgotten, for they were at For
Pillow, Wagner, Port Hudson, Honey Hi
and Pittsburg Landing-unchanging spots
, other places will be forgotten indeed, br
YOU shall never, for long after the sections
animosities which engendered you about, al
/, fox-glove and ivy of forgetfulness, will 20