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

rrow from the Negro the Civilization that made them Great.-Cause of the Decli

Table of

ty of Ethiopia,-for it was founded by colonies of Negroes. Through its open gates long and ceaseless caravans, laden with gold, silver, ivory, frankincense, and palm-oil, poured the riches of Africa into the capacious lap of the city. The learning of this people, embalmed in the immortal hieroglyphic, flowed adown the Nile, and, like spray, spread over the delta of that time-honored stream, on by the beautiful and venerable city of Thebes,-the city of a hundred gates, another monument to Negro genius and civilization, and more ancient than the cities of the Delta,-until Greece an

ibes, with fixed habitations, devoting themselves to husbandry, building cities, cultivating the arts,-in a word, forming well-regulated societies. The traditions of the Chinese place the first progenitors of that people on the high table-land, whence the great rivers flow: they mike them

inally, secure to the inhabitants of these fortunate regions plentiful harvests in return for light labor. Nevertheless, the conflict with the river itself and with the desert,-which, on the banks of the Euphrates, as on those of the Nile and the Indus, is ever threatening to invade the cultivated lands,-the necessity of irrigation, the inconstancy of the seasons, keep forethought alive

se nations come rapidly forward, and reach in the remotest antiquity a degree of culture of which the temples and t

s we have seen, has separated them; little intercourse is established between them; the social principle on which they are founded is exhausted by the very formation of the social state they enjoy, and

y live, they have, nevertheless some grand characteristics common to all, some family traits that betray the nature of the continent and

y of the primitive Negro? why this people lost their

able fact, that the people who built those cities are less mortal than their handiwork. Notwithstanding their degradation, their woes and wrongs, the perils of the forest and dangers of the des

tate of civilization? It was forgetfulness of God, idolatry! "Righ

ids are. Their location on the Dark Continent, their surroundings, and the amount of light that has come to them from the outside worl

ched farther. In the fertile low countries beyond the Sahara, watered by rivers which descend northward from the central highlands, Africa has contained for centuries several Negro empires, originally founded by Mohammedans. The Negroes of this part of Africa are people of a very different description from the black pagan nations farther towards the South. They have adopted many of the arts of civilized society, and have subjected themselves to governments and political institutions. They practise agriculture, and have learned the necessary, and even some of the ornamental, arts of life, and dwell in towns of considerable extent; many of which are said to contain ten thousand, and even thirty thousand inhabitants,-a circumstance which implies a considerable advancement in industry and the resources of subsistence. All

ood in them are considered Negroes, it is technically incorrect. For the real Negro was not the sole subject sold into slavery: very many of the noblest types of mankind in Africa have, through the uncertainties of war, found their wa

TNO

and Man,

es, has been very deleterious. An African child will eat salt by the handful, and, once tasting it, will cry for it. The ocea

ory of Mankind, vo