History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1

Race and One Language.- One

Table of

ehumanizing treatment of the Negro. But, fortunately for the Negro and for humanity at large, we live now in an epoch when race malice and sectional hate are disappearing beneath the horizon of a brighter and better future. The Negro in America

charge that the Negro does not belong to the human family. Happily, ther

ce to Adam, speaks of him as "man;" and that the divine injunction to them was,-Adam and Eve,-"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."[4] As among the animals, so here in the higher order, there were two,-a pair,-"male and female," of the human species. We may begin with man,

rd was provoked to destroy the earth with a flood, with the exception of Noah, his wife, his t

ehold, the people is one, and they have all one language." Attention is called to this verse, because we have here the testimony of the Lord that "the people is one," and that the language of the people is one. This verse establishes two very important facts; i.e., there was but one nationality, and hence but one language. The fact that they had but one language furnishes reasonable proof that they were of one blood; and the historian has covered the whole question very carefully by recording the great truth that they were on

He did not only "confound their language," but "scattered them from thence," from Babel, "upon the face of all the earth." Here, then, are two very important facts: their language was confused, and they were "scattered." They were not only "scattered," they were "scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth." That is, they were dispersed very widely, sent into the various and remote parts of the earth; and the

ed physiologists are of opinion that the primary varieties of the human form are more properly but three; viz., the Caucasian, Mongolian, and Ethiopian. This number corresponds with that of Noah's sons. Assigning, therefore, the Mongolian race to Japheth, and the Ethiopian to Ham, the Caucasian, the noblest race, will belong to Shem, the third son of Noah, himself descended from Seth, the third son of Adam. That the primary distinctions of the human varieties are but three, has been further maintained by the erudite Prichard; who, while he rejects the nomenclature both of Blumenbach and Cuvier, as implying absolute divisions, arranges the leading varieties of the human skull under three sections, differing from those of Cuv

of Greece, and the fountain of learning and philosophy." He told the "men of Athens," that, as he travelled through their beautiful city, he had not been unmindful of its attractions; that he had not been indifferent to the claims of its citizens to scholarship and culture, and that among other things he noticed an altar erected to an unknown God. He went on to remark, that, great as their city

ion,"-hath located them geographically. The language quoted is very explicit. "He hath determined the bounds of their habitation," that is, "all the nations of men.[8] We have, then, the fact, that there are different "nations of men

fers to Adam as the "one man" by whom sin came into the world.[9] His Epistle to the Romans abounds in passages which prove

n family. It is so preposterous, that one has a keen sense of humiliation in the assured consciousness that he goes r

ermon from this passage.[11] And many of the most celebrated pictures of "The Crucifixion," in Europe, represent this Cyrenian as black, and give him a very prominent place in the most tragic scene ever witnessed on this earth. In the Acts of the Apostles we have a very full and interesting account of the conversion and immersion of the Ethiopian eunuch, "a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for

a tradition existed that a woman, by name Hendaque (which comes as near as possible to the Greek name Χανδακη), once governed all that country. Near this place are extensive ruins, consisting of broken pedestals and obelisks, which Bruce conjectures to be those of Meroe, the capital of the African Ethiopia, which is described by Herodotus as a great city in his time, namely, four hund

hom we have been writing were Negroes,-we mean black. "Can the Ethiopian," asks the prophet, "change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" The prophet was as thoroughly aware that the Ethiopian

he valuable testimony of Jeremiah, the scholarly evidence o

scussion: so we call attention at this time to the fact, that the Cushites,

es in the curse of Canaan. "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of ser

lment was reserved for his posterity after they had lost the knowledge of God, and become utterly polluted by the abominations of heathen idolatry. The Almighty, foreseeing this total degradation of the race, ordained them to se

acter is changed. There is not a single passage to show us that he continued his avocation as a preacher. He became a husbandman; he kept a vineyard; and, more than all, he drank of the wine and got drunk! Awaking from a state of inebriation, he knew that Ham had beheld his nakedness and "told his two brethren." But "Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness."[19] It is quite n

ld naturally expect to find all of Canaan's descendants in bondage, and all of Shem's out of bondage,-free! If this prophecy-granting this point to the learned bishop for argument's sake-has not been fulfilled, then we conclude one of two things; namely, these are not the words of God, or they have not been fulfilled. But they were not the words of prophecy, and consequently never had any divine authority. It was Canaan upon whom Noah pronounced the curse: and Canaan was the son of Ham; and Ham, it is said, is the progenitor of the Negro race. The Canaanites were not bondmen, but freemen,-powerful tribes when the Hebrews invaded their country;

an records the genealogy of the descendants of Ham and Canaan. We

eh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city. And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, and Pathrusim, and Casluhim (out of whom came Philistim), and Caphtorim. And Canaan begat Sidon his first-born, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the Hivit

e beginning of his kingdom," etc. We find that Cush was the oldest son of Ham, and the father of Nimrod the "mighty one in the earth," whose "kingdom" was so extensive. He founded the Babylonian empire, and was the father of the founder of the city of Nineveh, one of the

s peopled by Misraim, the second son of Ham. Who were the Shemites? They were Hebrews! The Shemites were in slavery to the Hamites. Melchizedek, whose name was expressive of his character,-king of righteousness (or a righteous king), was a worthy priest of the most high God; and Abimelech, whose name imports parental king, pleaded the integrity of his heart and the righteousness of his nation before God, and his plea was admitted. Yet both these personages appear to have been Canaanites."[22] Melchizedek and Abimelech were Canaanites, and the most sacred and honorable characters in Old-Testament history. It was Abraham, a Shemite, who, meeting Melchizedek, a Canaanite, gave him a tenth of all his spoils. It was Nimrod, a Cushite, who "went to Asher, and built Nineveh," after subduing the Shemites, So it seems very plain that Noah's prophecy di

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en. v

l. of Geo

, he would have been at war with observation and critical investigation. But, having announced a wonderful truth in reference to the unity of the human race as based u

separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the ch

. v. 12

he same fact in the twenty-seventh chapter, thirty-second verse. "And at they came o

Melville'

cts vi

subsisted for several generations in th

ll and Scott's

Biblical Cycl

l those whose color was darkened by the sun.-Sm

e also the twenty-sixth

Views of Sl

Gen.

de. See also Dr. Morton, and Eth

en. x.

Dr.

Gen.

al Cyclop?dia, p. 3

Ps. c

nly to the Canaanites, the descendants of Canaan, Noah's grandson. Nothi