Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1891-08-27
The Negroes and Liberia.

new lork sun.
As Senator Bruce says the negroes Of
the south are doing too well where
they are to make the hazardous expert
ment of emigrating to Liberia under the
seductions of the boastful eloquenee Of
an agent of Liberian colonization
scheme.
In many respects they are the most
fortunate laboring population in the
world. They passed suddenly from
slavery to freedom and citizenship, the
transition involving a complete social
revolution, and yet the change took
place peaceably. Their former owners
suffered tremendous loss of property
by their emancipation, but the negroes
were not made victims of the vain re-
grets of their masters. The relations
between capital and labor were radi-
cally revolutionized, yet no violent col
| lision occurred. The slave was trans
| formed into free wage Garner, and he
became sharer of the crop he raised,
or a tenant of his old master, from
whom he received every opportunity to
| profit by his own industry and frugality.
If he suffered from lack of capital, his
landlord also was often, If not usually,
in the same situation himself. Both
were obliged to trust to the chance of
the crops To carry them through, lift
their liens and pay their debts for sup
plies. The tenant was better off than
the landlord in having lighter load Of
obligations and fewer wants. He risked
nothing except his labor for he began
with nothing except his own hauds.
Thus the former slaves had oppor-
tunities for acquiring independence
enjoyed by no other laboring popula-
ton. They were almost who'll ugri-
culturists, and land for their filling was
ready at their hands They had sub
stantial monopoly of the labor, and they
were peculiarly adapted to it. Their
capacities and their deficiencies We're
understood fully by the southern people,
by whom they were treated with an I'M
diligence which they would not have
received elsewhere; for the experience
of slavery had engendered III the whites
the habit of exercising guardianship
over them, and of feeling a sense of re-
sponsihility for their welfare. Hence,
with all the talk about ouirages on the
negroes, and though some Of it may be
! justified in certain sporadic cases, the
trust and affection of the emancipated
/, slaves went out TO their old masters as
to no other people. They still honor a
! southern gentleman as the highest type
Of manhood, and give him an amount of
respect and confidence which they yield
to no one beside.
Under such treatment and with OPP
, portunities so extraordinary, the adj
vancement of the southern negroes
: since emancipation has been without u
parallel in the history Of people 50
lately enslaved. Almost without excep-
! ton, there is not a capable, industrious
and thrifty negro in the south who i.
7 not prospecting. As Senator Bruce
shows by statistics, the race has passed
: from complete illiteracy to an education
G which the free schools are making uni.
versal among the new generation, and
g from absolute poverty to great aggre
5 gate possessions. So far, therefore, from
4 the south's deserving the criticism tina
$ ii has uniustly treated the negroes since
o emancipation, it is entitled to gren
II praise and glory for the justice, liber
# atty, wisdom and consids .tion with
IS which ii has dealt with them. The tire
C mendous social revolution has pro
ceeded simultaneously with wonder
= full development of the prosperity of tn
l, region, and if in the general progres
d either race has gained the more, it ha
IS been the African.
e II is not surprising, then, that the ne
!. groes of the south do not banker afte
a Liberia, though it is in the land of thei
8 origin and is a republic of their owi
d race.