NEGRO RACE

[s. 545] : Much ignorance and confusion attend the use of the word Negro, and there is much trouble in properly cla ifying the race. In its widest sense the term is applied to those sections of the human race who have black, or distinctly dark, skins as opposed to those who have yellow or brown complexions. In this somewhat ill-defined use it designates the inhabitants (1) of Africa south of the Sahara, (2) of the peninsula of India south of the In do Gang etic plains, (3) of Malaysia and the greater part of Austral asia. In this wide dispersion the peculiar characteristics of the pure Negro have been modified by contact with the Mongol on one side and the Caucasian on the other. In a more restricted sense, the Negro race includes two cla es: the true Negro of African type, and the Papuan, or Me lanes i an, type. /. African Negro: While it is true that all Negroes of this cla are Africans, it is not true that all Africans are Negroes, and the two terms should not be used synonymously. The geographical distribution of the true Negro race TSavulowL Negro Race includes all of the west coast lying along the Niger, the Senegal, and Gambia rivers, and the country between them, together with parts of the Sudan. This area is thus a thin belt of territory along the center of Africa, not all of which is inhabited solely by Negroes, and which forms but a very small part of the whole continent. Here and there, scattered through other sections, especially to the south, occasional tribes of true Negroes may be met, but the limits above given are in the main correct. The home of the race in its purity is in the district between the Volta and Niger, the Kong Mountains and the coast, where are found remains of the Negro kingdoms of Benin. Dahomey, and Yoruba, Dif while just west of the Volta is A shanti. ferent tribes are found throughout this whole territory, such as the Jolofs and Man dingoes in Sene gambia, the Susu on the Rio Pongas, the Temne, inland from Lagos, the Ibo on the Lower Niger, the Hausa-speaking tribes north of the Niger confluence, besides the tribes about Lake Tchad and in the parts about Darfur. It is the generally accepted opinion that the Negroes were the aborigines, or, at least, the If, as first settlers, in the region they occupy. seems plausible, they belong to some branch of the Hamitic family, the indications are that they were among the first to come from Asia into Africa. The Bantu race followed, crowding the Negro to the south and west, and pushing the Hottentot Bushmen ahead until the three divisions of the African races occupied their Within respective localities as now defined. these limits, however, the Negroes have been The slave subject to much unrest and change. trade dimished their numbers, and in later years the return of the descendants of former slaves has perhaps modified in a slight degree their racial characteristics. Racial Characteristics: The true Negro is marked by an unusual length of arm; projecting jaws; small brain; black eye; flat, short nose; thick, red, protruding lips; thick skull; short woolly hair; weak legs, prehensile great toe, and projecting heel; black or brown skin, thick and velvety, with a strong odor. In their native home the race is regarded as naturally inferior in mental development to many of the races of the world. The po ibilities of development are affirmed and denied by In the aboriginal state writers of equal weight. His nature is sunny the Negro is a mere savage. and childlike. Inordinately susceptible to flattery, he can easily be influenced. While rendered cruel by the lust for gold, he is naturally gentle. He appreciates the beautiful, and is fond of songs and mirth. The victim of gro superstition, he retains belief in a supreme being. He is indolent, slothful and improvident. If his animal wants are satisfied, he is content. He knows how to conceal his real feelings, and can be an enigma hard to solve if he so chooses. He responds quickly to kindne , and will prove his gratitude by great devotion. Morally, Polygamy is practised, his standard is very low. but marriage ties are almost unknown. The women are the slaves of the men. Cannibalism is sometimes indulged in, and human sacrifices have been offered to the fetish objects of their Some worship, some of which are most hideous. of the tribes have a great degree of skill in the Buildings, metal-work, arts and manufactures. all show a degree of civilizaclothes of skins, — Ne(Jrro Race Nellore 528 tion which is proof of the capabilities of the race. Mungo Park found Sego, the capital of Bambasa, a city of 30,000 people, with two-story houses, containing mosques in every quarter, with To ferries over the Niger for men and beasts. sum up, in the words of Dr. Cust: “Many great ancient times have had their day of races greatne , exhausted the power that was in them, and have been completely broken up, trodden down, or utterly effaced by younger and more powerful races. But this cannot be said of the Negro race they are not broken, fewer in number, or poorer in resources; tho pre ed upon from without, they have proved to be the only race Their soil is wonder suitable to the climate. minerals abundant, their fully fertile, their build the houses, hunt, and fish, leaving the heavier work to be done by the women. The latter are more modest than the rest of the Polynesian races. The Papuan languages form a cla by themselves, differing widely from the Malayo-Polynesian languages, and split into dialects by so small an abstacle to intercourse as a brook. III. Mixed Races: The slave-trade has scattered the Negro race throughout the globe. In most countries of the eastern hemisphere the Negro is lost in the general population; and altho a trace of black blood is seen in Morocco, in Arabia, Malabar, and Ceylon, and in the various races lying between India and New Guinea, where the Papuan type is met with, they have power left m: of reproduction exceeding calculation. We know now from the instances of men who have had the advantages of culture that they are not deficient in intelligence, probity, and even genius, yet they have left absolutely not a monument to tell of the material greatne of any particular tribe, or of any ancient civilization, as in Central America and Asia; not a written or sculptured document; they have but a scant store ot proverbs and traditions.” Language: The zone occupied by the Negro presents a greater diversity of tongues than is to be found elsewhere in the world, except perhaps in parts of America, in Me lanes i a, or Caucasia. In the Cust-MilUer cla ification of African languages the Negro is one of six divisions, and in it are included four sub-cla es, such as the Atlantic, Niger, Central, and Nile; in the entire group 195 languages are recognized and 49 dialects. They belong to the agglutinating type, and are often characterized by intricacy of structure and delicate all iterativene . The Grebo language on the coast of northern Guinea is monosyllabic, and is spoken with great rapidity. The Mandingo language, spoken in Senegal and Gambia, is a smooth tongue, with a predominance of vowels, and a remarkable minutene in defining the time of an action. II. Papuan Negro: The name Papua is a Malay term meaning “frizzled,” and points at once to the mark which distinguishes the frizzly haired Negro from the straight-haired Malay. The purest type of the Papuan is found on the western part of the island of New Guinea or Papua, but the influence of the race is felt throughout the whole of Me lanes i a and parts of Polynesia, where they mingle and amalgamate with the Malay or Mongoloid race. In the words of Mr. Wallace: “The Papuans are well-made, have regular features, intelligent black eyes, small, white teeth, curly hair, thick lips, and large mouth; the nose is sharp but flat beneath, the nostrils large, and the skin dark brown.” The Polynesians are considered by some ethnologists as differing in no fundamental particular from the Papuans, while others cla them with the Malay, as an intermediate type between the Malay and the Negro. In their temperament and customs the Papuans show many traits similar to those of the African Negro. Their belief in sorcery, their superstitions in regard to bits of wood and stone as causes of disease, their easy-going, listle life, light-hearted and boisterous moods, all point to similarity of origin. In their architecture, rude as it is, they follow the Malay fashion of building on piles. They show a great degree of skill in agriculture. The men no distinctive mark, and no statistics are available to indicate the number of Negroes, or the proportion of the population which they form. The degree of intermingling which has gone on in the western hemisphere has given rise to many mixed races, with more or le of Negro blood in them. The terms Creole, Quadroon, Octoroon, or Mulatto are well known and generally understood, but there are other le common terms, such as: Mestizo, half-breed, of either white and Negro, or Indian and Negro; Creole, in addition to the common meaning of one born in Spanish America, of European parents, is also applied in Peru to the children of Mestizoes; Zambo, half-breed, but usually the i ue of Negro and Indian, or Negro and Mulatto; Zambo Preto, progeny of Negro father and Zambo mother. In the South American countries these terms are multiplied until almost every shade of mixture has its appropriate term. Tho the slave-trade is carried on in a few places still, yet practically slavery is extinct, and the many Negroes who are in the countries to which they have been taken as slaves are now freedmen. The American Negro: 1. In the United States. — From the time of the first arrival of Negroes as slaves in the colony of Virginia in 1619 till the Emancipation Act in 1865, Negro slavery has been identified with and has greatly influenced the history of the nation. The final solution of the great question of slavery left the country with a greater question confronting it, which is called the Negro Question. During the first half of the last century the number of Negroes brought to the United States was from 60,000 to 70,000 annually, and the number multiplied, until in 1900 the Negro or colored element numbered 8,840,000, or 11| per cent, of the whole population. Comparatively few of this number are of unmixed blood, while many retain but a trace of Negro origin, and are in their mental and physical characteristics almost entirely Caucasian. In the Southern States, the purer type of Negro is found, and they exhibit the characteristics already described. jovial, light-hearted race, fond of a laugh, living only in the present, contented with mere animal pleasures, full of superstition which in some has taken the form of religious fervor, not strict in their ideas as to the rights of property, po e ing a low order of cunning rather than intelligence, full of moral sentiment and lofty emotions, but prone to immoral actions and low crimes; fearing the Voodoo woman with her fetishes, and yet shouting amen in Christian services with much unction the Negro, as A — NeKro Race SS9 modified by his environment in the United States, presents a mixture of good and evil, of childlilie simplicity and cunning secretivene , of deep feeling and weak character, of hopele ne and of po ibility, which may well stagger the and try the patience of those who are trying to educate and Christianize him. Notable faith instances of full-blooded Negroes there are who have shown an intelligence, a strength of mind and executive ability, a stedfast faith and upright life, equal to that of the Caucasian; and tiiese instances, when viewed in connection with their as yet meager opportunities, may fairly be placed in comparison with the great majority which seem to give weight to the opinion that the Negro is mentally and morally mferior to, and can never be on an equality with, the white race which surrounds him. It has been suggested that the Negro is not so much immoral as non-moral, for there seems to be such a lack of the perception of right and wrong that a Negro will stop on his way to or from a prayer-meeting, at which he takes a fervid part, to lift a chicken from a neighbor’s hen-roost. The Rev. Dr. Tucker, at the American Church Congre in 1883, brought out this side of the American Negro character when he spoke of Negro mi ionaries who were earnest and succe ful, unconscious of hypocrisy, but who were guilty of lives of the gro est immowere addicted to lying and thieving, and yet were respected and heeded by their flocks. The Negro question is looked at in two distinct ways, not only by the politician but by the Christian, and the difference is due mainly to rality, By those presence or absence of perspective. who live away from the daily contact with the Negro, who look at him idealized, as a man entitled to the rights of men, to all the privileges of citizenship, and to all the yearning love which a fallen image of God should excite in the Christian heart, the practical difEculties in the way of civilizing. Christian i zing, and elevating the Negro to the lauded plane of equality are oftentimes overlooked, and theory takes the place of practise, sentiment of common-sense, and faith and hope overpower “works.” To those who live among the Negroes, who daily see the deficiencies in their character, in their capabilities, in their morals, there is an absence of perspective, •and they take the other extreme view that little: can be done for them, that liberty and equality should for some time, at least, be mere words This is not only without practical meaning. true of upright and honorable men who are not distinctivel)’ Christian, but men who are anxious to save the souls of the Negroes are just as averse as their political neighbors to contact with Negroes on terms of equality, or to recogAmong the men nition of their political rights. who are ready to keep the Negro from the polls, by violence if nece ary, are men who are active in Christian work. Between these two widely divergent views of the Negro there is, without doubt, as in all things, a middle ground, and to that mean the opinion of wise men is turning; but as yet it cannot be clearly defined, nor is the question yet solved. While the political part of the Negro question is taxing the thought of the statesmen, the Church is doing her part to aid in the solution. In addition to the mi ionary work of the different churches, and that of the American Mi ionary A ociation, there is a large and flourish34 Nellore The ing church among the Negroes themselves. African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1816, and in 1880 it had a total membership of over 400,000, and supported a mi ionary society which was organized in 1844 as the Parent Home and Foreign Mi ionary Society. In 1888 nearly 300 mi ionaries were engaged in the home work of the church, tho it has been only within the last ten years that any succe ful mi ion has been established in foreign lands. In addition to their own church, the Negroes form fifteen conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South). Of the Baptists, a large proportion in the Southern States are Negroes, and many of the ministers have been men of great power and of great zeal in religious life. There is also a considerable number of Negroes in the Episcopal Church, and a certain number ^ are Roman Catholics. the there the mixture is so blended that Negro ancestry is hard to trace. Of the population (1900), 13,500But 000, the Negro element is put at 60,000. by the constitution of 1824 all distinctions of virtually race were abolished, and they are amalgamated with the rest of the people. About 43 per cent, of the people are of mixed race, Negroes, Indians, and other races. 3. Central America: The number of the colored or Negro population in Central America has been estimated at 50,000. In this section of the country intermingling with the Indians and other races is very great, and there is little social distinction between them. 4. South America: Brazil was the last country In 1850 the in America to abolish slavery. slaves were estimated at 2,500,000; in 1887 the returns as official slaves were given on the numbering 723,419, and by a law pa ed in 1888 slavery was abolished. The Negroes are found principally in the provinces of Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas, and according to the census of 1890 numbered In 2,097,426, besides those of mixed blood. the other countries of South America the Negroes are so mixed with the other races (as in Peru), or form so small an element in the population, that no definite statement as to their numbers 2. In Mexico: It number of Negroes is diificult to calculate in Mexico, for can be attempted. 5. West Indies: The number of Negroes in the West Indies is about 3,000,000. Slavery was abolished in the British West Indies in 1834, in the French po e ions in 1848, and in Cuba in 1886. The vitality of the race is surprising and is unaltered by their location, except when they leave the tropics or sub-tropics. The farther north they go, the greater the mortality, and their stability as a race, in constitution and numbers, depends upon the restriction of their habitation to the warm climates. 547