The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-09-01

to American historical literature during
the present year than the volume entitled
American Negro Slavery, study Of ne
gro plantation life in the Southern, United
States, by Ulrich B. Phillips, professor
of American history in the University of
Michigan at Ann Arbor. Prof. Phillips
has long been a student of the social con-
ditions which have characterized the de-
velopment of this country.
His knowledge of the plantation ne
groes extends back to the days Of his
youth, a part of which was spent among
them; and hence he is able to write Of
them and Of their environment with
sympathy and appreciation rarely found
among those who can see nothing but un-
mitigated evil in the life led by the COL
ored race in America before the civil war.
The Materials of History.
The work is not, nor does it profess to
be, history. 1t is rather carefully Sc
lected and well arranged collection of
materials for history. The author has
sought these in a multitude of original
sources of information, and we can well
believe that his researches must have cost
him years of time and labor. His plan
did not contemplate a consideration of
the anti-slavery movement; so that the
political aspects of the slavery question
which agitated the country prior to the
civil war are noticed only incidentally,
where they are discussed at all.
In the main, after an interesting ac-
count of the rise, prosperity and repres-
SION of the slave trade, the book is con-
fined to a survey of the slave system as
It existed in this country in all its eharac-
beristic features; and as the plantation
regime prevailed in the regions of its
greatest concentration the author has
given most attention to negro slavery as
1t existed on the plantations of the old
South.
Conditions Under Slavery.
In humane minds the horrors Of the
dave trade so outweigh and obscure every
other consideration that We are apt to
forget that it was not always a change
for the worse to bring its victims from
Africa to the New World. In Africa
many of them had already been slaves,
and slaves under conditions far worse
than any which would confront them in
America On the Guinea coast, in equa-.
torial Africa, where most Of the American
slaves were obtained, slavery prevailed
among nearly all the native tribes except
such as procured their subsistence by
hunting, so that the African chiefs Of
that region were active slave traders even
before the development of the trans
atlantic slave traffic.
"One of the chief hardships of the
slaves was the liability Of being put to
death at their masters funeral in order
that their spirits might continue in his
service. In such case it was customary
on the Gold Coast to give the victim notice
of his approaching death by suddenly
thrusting knife through each cheek with
The blades crossing in his mouth so that
he might not curse his master before he
0le0. WIN 0duuS lieu UclL1u uc
would then be led to the ceremonial
slaughter"
Once the captive of an American slave
trader, the negro became an object of the
utmost solicitude so far as the preserva-
ton Of his life and health was concerned;
and after being landed at his destination
in the West Indies or the North American
colonies and put to work. the selfish in
terests Of his master insured him against
any cruelty or i'll treatment which less
ened his capacity for useful physical
labor. This meant a good deal. 1t
meant that the American negro slave
must be fairly well housed, well clothed
and well fed; he was cared for in sickness
and was secure against the infection of
many punishments to which he had been
subject in the land from which he came.
On the Guinea Coast.
Prof. Phillips paints a striking picture
of the slave traders paradise-the Guinea