FootNote
The new kid on the block, FootNote is known for digitizing historical
documents... many of which are genealogical gems. With naturalizations,
city directories, war records, newspapers, town records, etc... this new
kid is quickly being recognized as an alternative to Ancestry.
While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
One of our most interesting
exchanges is an "Illustrated Roman Catholic
Quarterly edited and published by the
Fathers of St. Joseph's Missionary Society
of the Sacred Heart," its "Record of
Missions among the Colored People of the
United States."
We need not say that we have no sympathy
with Romanism and its errors, nor with the
"Missionary Society of the Sacred Heart,"
and its efforts to plant Romanism among the
colored people of the South.
We can, however, but admire the fidelity of
the church to its doctrines, and the
Christian example it gives to all missionary
societies in its recognition of man as man.
The quotations which we make from the Roman
Catholic Quarterly will account for the
strong hold that Romanism is beginning to
secure upon the negro race.
The following, for example, is a Roman
Catholic tribute to John Brown:
On the 2nd of December next, thirty years
will have passed since John Brown, in his
sixtieth winter, ascended the scaffold and
gave his life for the colored race.
Connecticut gave the hero birth—from heroes;
New York, in her Adirondack recesses,
developed in him that spirit of liberty
which Ohio had nurtured, and is forever
honored by his grave; while Virginia,
"building better than she knew," bestowed
the martyr's crown. It was necessary that
one man should die for the people (John
xviii, 14), and God arranged that he who is
likewise one of the great benefactors of the
human race as well as of his native land
should crimson and beautify with his blood
the soil that gave a cradle and a tomb to
the Father of his Country.
Grand indeed is the greatness of the
rock-ribbed Adirondacks where John Brown
lived, prayed, thought out his great
life-thought, and made his first trials in
the work of emancipation, but grander is the
stone there that marks the grave of him
whose mighty spirit is still "marching on;"
for the greatness of that soul invests the
tomb with moral grandeur, and calls "all the
astonishing magnificence of unintelligent
creation poor."
Fair indeed are the banks of the Shenandoah,
and beautiful the landscape on which the
dying eyes of the hero rested, but more
lovely far the death of him and of his sons
and comrades,—"even in death they were not
divided" (2nd Kings i, 19), because the most
beautiful thing in the world or out of it is
love, and he and they died of love for their
brethren, God's children. It is truly
fitting, therefore, that they who were
rescued by him from bondage should love and
honor his glorious name, and that we all
should chant the praises of the man who was
the chosen instrument of Providence in
destroying out of our country the inhuman
custom of human slavery.
The Southern Congregationalist, published in
Atlanta, does not have a high opinion of
such men as John Brown. We quote:
There are men who never are mistaken. If
your opinion or plan, no matter how well
sustained, differs from theirs, they
solemnly greet you: "Our conscience is our
monitor: we can make no concessions of
principle." The case is ended. You may as
well make your humble bow and pass on,
leaving them in their lofty and superior
place. Such men are of little use in the
world. They may have a few satellites, but
that is all. It is noticeable how uniformly
the conscience and principles of these men
agree with their prejudices, salaries and
other interests, and with changed
circumstances how "concessions" distill from
them gently as the dew.
We quote again from the St. Joseph's
Advocate, as to the color line:
Man was created in God's own image and
likeness. This image and likeness is,
however, not a physical one, it is a
spiritual or soul likeness. The likeness and
image of the operation of the human soul—the
mind—through the material, physical medium
of the brain, is not only similar, but
substantially and formally alike in every
division of the human race. It thus follows
that fundamentally there is an identity of
mental or soul activity and action in all
the human race. Neither color, nor form, nor
feature, nor clime, operates a change on the
formal and fundamental identity of human
thought as evolved by the human mind....
It follows that the negro race, thinking the
same thoughts, have the same apprehension of
the perfect, good and true, and, thinking in
the same lines as the Caucasian race, must
needs be of the same order of creation, in
the image and likeness of their Maker,
although physically different in color, yet
in mind and soul the same. This, too,
removes the theory of the inferiority of
races, and relegates it to the lumber room
of the mere physicist or corporal anatomist,
who, because he cannot find life in death
any more than thought, would deny life as he
would deny the soul, even as La Place would
not admit a Creator—God— because he could
not see him at the end of his telescope....
Naturally working for and under white men,
their industry, versatility and
submissiveness have made many people think
they were an inferior race. This cannot be.
Give them a fair chance in life's battle,
train their minds, fill their immortal souls
with worthy conceptions of the truth as only
presented by the Roman Catholic Church, and
you will make of the negro race a kind,
charitable, intelligent, worthy Christian
people, as full of love for the country of
their former enslavement as the best patriot
descendant of the Revolutionary fathers.
Tried in peace and in war when they have
received but half the training of the white
race, they have not been found wanting, but
have proven themselves worthy of offices of
trust and honor in every sphere of life and
as good Christians as God has ever granted
His divine grace to. His promises are for
all nations and for all times, and
necessarily for the negro as for the white
man, all of whom in their souls are created
in His own image and likeness from the
beginning.
Apropos of Romanism among the colored
people, Archbishop Janssens, of New Orleans,
writes:
Last year there were baptized 3,705 colored
children and 297 colored adults, which I
estimate forms a population of about 75,000
Catholics in this Diocese.
We have six convents of colored Sisters, of
which four are schools, one an asylum for 74
girls, and the other an asylum, for 21 old
women. There are, besides, nine schools
conducted by white Sisters, and eleven
schools conducted by lay teachers—in all,
twenty-four schools with 1,330 scholars. It
is not bad.
At Emmetsburg, Maryland, the Roman Catholics
report the following:
The Sisters are putting up a large and fine
edifice which will be ready for business in
September, and will accommodate all the
Catholic children, both white-colored and
black-colored in the town and vicinity. I am
curious to know if this is the first
instance in which children of both the
dominant races will be educated under one
roof.
Says the editor: "How quickly the color-line
disappears in the Catholic Church."
By Pres. R.C. Hitchcock.
Every little while, some article giving
ultra views of "The Problem," gets into the
papers, sometimes painting a roseate-hued
picture, and again some one, who does not
find people of dusky hue all angels, writes
that there is no hope; that all experiments
leading to intellectual and especially to
moral elevation are failures; and that she
(as one wrote) is ready or almost ready, "to
throw away the Bible and advise the negroes
to be honestly heathen."
I will indicate a few plain signs of
progress. The negroes are rapidly learning
self-control. Six years ago, if a package
was left in the hall over night, there would
be signs in the morning that it had been
meddled with. The contents might be all
there—I have not found them greatly given to
peculation, from the first—but they did not
seem to have the power to resist the
temptation to peep. Now, this is never done;
a package of any kind may be left where it
is freely accessible for weeks, and it will
be untouched.
The first time a fire occurred in our
neighborhood, what a panic there was! All
were screaming and tearing about, trunks
were dragged out of rooms, and one boy threw
his out of a second story window. It was all
we could possibly do to quiet them and
restore order. Since then, there has been a
fire so near as to scorch the rear fence and
no panic, no screaming, hardly a student
left his room. Formerly, on the receipt of
bad news, as the intelligence of the death
of a friend, it was not uncommon for one to
have a fit of hysterics or something
resembling it; now, such news is received
with deep feeling indeed, and with tears,
but no hysterics or fit of any kind.
There is, also, a grand growth in the sister
virtue of gratitude. In this, they have more
to overcome, probably, than in any other
matter, for here they carry an inheritance
of great weight, from the old slave days.
Why should they be grateful? What chance to
exercise the feeling! It became, like the
eyes of the fish in the Styx of Mammoth
Cave, useless, and to all appearances
disappeared. But the germ is there, and with
light it will again come to the surface.
I could cite scores of anecdotes. I will
give but one, and I give this because it
also illustrates a most loveable trait of
character which abounds among these
people—sympathy for suffering. Mrs. H. and
myself started one day, to drive from New
Iberia to the Avery salt mine, some ten
miles distant. It was Monday following a
hard Sunday's work speaking; it was as hot
as days can be out in the Teche country, and
when a little more than half way there, I
was suffering from a terrific headache. We
were too far to go back, and so drove on.
Arrived at the "Island," we drove, as
directed, to the boarding house, seeking a
place where I could at least lie down, to
find only a shed filled with tables, where
the men ate, going elsewhere to sleep. I
asked Mrs. H. to drive on and, holding on
behind the carriage, was groping my way
along, more dead than alive, when I heard a
voice cry out, "Why, howdy, Professor, how
ever came you here?" Glad was I to hear a
friendly voice. It was that of a young girl
who had been, some months before, a visitor
at the University, and to whom I had given a
little book and spoken some friendly words.
My bread came back to me—a whole loaf for a
crumb. All day long, she and her mother, who
left her wash tub to attend to me, worked
over my miserable head. A mile and more she
ran in the burning sun for ice, and no herb
that grew on "Petit Anse" from which a
decoction could be made, was left untried,
until ice, herbs, and a tough constitution
prevailed, and I was able to ride home. I
offered pay, but it was almost indignantly
refused. I wish space would allow me to tell
a hundred stories to illustrate their
kind-heartedness, not only to each other,
but to strangers, and even to their old
masters and mistresses.
Their Christian faith is something
wonderful. It has been my blessed privilege
to be at the bedside of several young people
as the death angel hovered near, and nowhere
did I ever feel so near the pearly gates.
Such pure faith and perfect confidence, such
perfect resignation, one could almost hear
the rustle of the wings as Azrael bent down
to take the sweet spirit home.
They have gained much in stability of
character. Frivolity and silly nonsense are
not the rule. Our boys and girls who go out
to teach, carry a load of responsibility
with them. Some of the parishes have been
almost entirely transformed by their work.
Three of our boys last summer built the
school houses in which they taught, the
people contributing time, lumber and money,
and they are the only school houses in the
State, outside of the large towns, that were
built for, or are fit for, the purpose. Two
of them have halls above for meetings, are
fitted up with blackboards, desks, etc. The
stories our boys tell of their efforts to
introduce modern appliances and methods,
remind me of those I used to hear from the
old veterans Barnard, Camp, and others, of
their struggles in the early days in
Connecticut.
They have grown in cleanliness and industry
beyond expression. When I first came here,
it was sometimes harder to get a bit of work
done than to do it myself. Now, it is a
pleasure to work with them.
In nothing, perhaps, has there been so great
a gain as in the habit of reading. The
progress in this is simply astonishing, and
cannot be described in a few words. Seven
years ago, there was hardly a reader in the
school. Now, many of our young people come
to my library and, looking over my books,
talk of them and their authors as
intelligently as young people of the same
age in Massachusetts would.
I conclude by saying that, in this far-away
corner, God has greatly blessed the efforts
made by faithful teachers, and there is
every cause for encouragement and hope.
The Southern Associations were represented
by six colored delegates in the National
Council. Their bearing and ability won the
respect and admiration of the whole Council.
They were modest and manly in their
deportment, prudent in their counsels and
very eloquent in their speech. They showed
themselves to be the peers of their white
brethren, and demonstrated beyond a question
the capacity of the colored man for the
highest intellectual and moral training.
They were a credit to the American
Missionary Association, whose pupils they
have been, and were a living and triumphant
vindication of its work at the South.
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materials that may imply negative stereotypes reflecting the culture or
language of a particular period or place. These items are presented as
part of the historical record and should not be interpreted to mean that
the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes implied
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