Year: 1879

To the Editor of the Boston Journal:


In your dignifed editorial of the 9th
inst, regarding the Mississippi Block
ade," after acknowledging that the
facts | gave in my letter to the Daily
Advertiser are painful enough" that
it has been indeed demonstrated in
many other ways that the negro is not
yet secure even in his most ordinary
rights in the South;'' that ''the first
resort of the Southern whites, in any
endeavor to influence or restrain him,
is almost always to violence or terror
ism," and that ''to shoot or hang a
'nigger' is not yet regarded as crime
in the South, and in some portions it
is looked upon as scarcely more than a
pleasantly" you say, there are two
points, however, which are not made
clear" by my letter. The first is, you
say, that the condition of things
which | describe is that now existing;
the other is that any good end would
be accomplished by chartering special
steamboats, for the gratuitous trans
portation of negro emigrants."


| take it for granted that you will
be glad to publish what [ have to say
on these two points of your editorial,
as well as a suitable answer to your
question as to how [ would feel if |
were planter with crops half grown,
and an expedition were organized to
entice away my hands and leave me
to ruin?"


To your first point, namely, wheth-
er the state of things which | describe
now exists, let me reply by saying my
latest information is from parties
whom | know in Baton Rouge, Vicks-
burg, Natchez and New Orleans, who
write me that at many points on the
river there are thousands of colored
people waiting for transportation, but
who, though ready to pay for it, are
refused passage by the steamboat Off
GERS. My latest communication is
from a white gentleman in Baton
Rouge, under date of June 30 This
man was a member of the Board OF
Education when | was State Super
intendent, and is as thoroughly relia-
BILE as any man | knew in all the
South. He says: Just above here, on
the opposite side of the river, there are
more than thousand people who have
been there for four or five weeks
suffering great privation and hardship
because the steamboats, all passed them


giving no heed to their calls by day OF
their signal fires by night Further


on he says: Il wrote you before thai


there are four hundred people in thi!
parish who are organized to leave, an(
who have made all their arrangement:
to 90, but they are not able to ge


passage on the regular boats. asked
YOU what the cost would be of spe
: cial boat to take them to St. Louis
: but have not yet been informed. They
are ready to pay for their owu boat
) and many Of them are able to pay fo
) few acres of land for themselve
when they reach the West. The whit,
people seem to be all banded togethe
to keep them from going, just to graf
ify desire to torment and annoy
them. These have the regular boat
completely in their power" Thi
t letter reached me the very day my let
J. ter to the Advertiser was in print, s.
that | could not give it then. Anoth


er letter from a member of the Emi
grafton Society in New Orleans, date
e June "A, and forwarded by Senate
. Window from Washington, says: :


have just made tour of the uppe


parishes, and especially along the riv


er. At some landings, where larg
: numbers Of our suffering people wer
: encamped for weeks there are nov
e none They have been set upon i
q the night and driven to the woods b


the Leaguers. Some were shot dow
like beasts, while others were tied han