The Underground Railroad
some of our Alabama people? If you would see some instances of
apparent poverty and ignorance that I have seen perhaps you
would not wonder very much at the conservative voting in the
State. A few days since I was about to pay a woman a dollar and
a quarter for some washing in ten cent (currency) notes, when
she informed me that she could not count it; she must trust to
my honesty--she could count forty cents. Since I left Eufaula I
have seen something of plantation life. The first plantation I
visited was about five or six miles from Eufaula, and I should
think that the improvement in some of the cabins was not very
much in advance of what it was in Slavery. The cabins are made
with doors, but not, to my recollection, a single window pane or
speck of plastering; and yet even in some of those lowly homes I
met with hospitality. A room to myself is a luxury that I do not
always enjoy. Still I live through it, and find life rather
interesting. The people have much to learn. The condition of the
women is not very enviable in some cases. They have had some of
them a terribly hard time in Slavery, and their subjection has
not ceased in freedom. * * * One man said of some women,
that a man must leave them or whip them. * * * Let me
introduce you to another scene: here is a gathering; a large
fire is burning out of doors, and here are one or two boys with
hats on. Here is a little girl with her bonnet on, and there a
little boy moves off and commences to climb a tree. Do you know
what the gathering means? It is a school, and the teacher, I
believe, is paid from the school fund. He says he is from New
Hampshire. That may be. But to look at him and to hear him
teach, you would perhaps think him not very lately from the
North; at least I do not think he is a model teacher. They have
a church; but somehow they have burnt a hole, I understand, in
the top, and so I lectured inside, and they gathered around the
fire outside. Here is another--what shall I call
it?--meeting-place. It is a brush arbor. And what pray is that?
Shall I call it an edifice or an improvised meeting-house? Well,
it is called a brush arbor. It is a kind of brush house with
seats, and a kind of covering made partly, I rather think, of
branches of trees, and an humble place for pulpit. I lectured in
a place where they seemed to have no other church; but I spoke
at a house. In Glenville, a little out-of-the-way place, I spent
part of a week. There they have two unfinished churches. One has
not a single pane of glass, and the same aperture that admits
the light also gives ingress to the air; and the other one, I
rather think, is less finished than that. I spoke in one, and
then the white people gave me a hall, and quite a number
attended.... I am now at Union Springs, where I shall probably
room with three women. But amid all this roughing it in the
bush, I find a field of work where kindness and hospitality have
thrown their sunshine around my way. And Oh what a field of work
is here! How much one needs the Spirit of our dear Master to
make one's life a living, loving force to help men to higher
planes of thought and action. I am giving all my lectures with
free admission; but still I get along, and the way has been
opening for me almost ever since I have been South. Oh, if some
more of our young women would only consecrate their lives to the
work of upbuilding the race! Oh, if I could only see our young
men and women aiming to build up a future for themselves which
would grandly contrast with the past--with its pain, ignorance
and low social condition."
It may be well to add that Mrs. Harper's letters from which we have
copied were simply private, never intended for publication; and while
they bear obvious marks of truthfulness, discrimination and
impartiality, it becomes us to say that a more strictly conscientious
woman we have never known.
Returning to Philadelphia after many months of hard labor in the South,
Mrs. Harper, instead of seeking needed rest and recreation, scarcely
allows a day to pass without seeking to aid in the reformation of the
outcast and degraded. The earnest advice which she gives on the subject
of temperance and moral reforms generally causes some to reflect, even
among adults, and induces a number of poor children to attend day and
Sabbath-schools. The condition of this class, she feels, appeals loudly
for a remedy to respectable and intelligent colored citizens; and whilst
not discouraged, she is often quite saddened at the supineness of the
better class. During the past summer when it was too warm to labor in
the South she spent several months in this field without a farthing's
reward. She assisted in organizing a Sabbath-school, and accepted the
office of Assistant Superintendent under the auspices of the Young Men's
Christian Association.
Mrs. Harper reads the best magazines and ablest weeklies, as well as
more elaborate works, not excepting such authors as De Tocqueville,
Mill, Ruskin, Buckle, Guizot, &c. In espousing the cause of the
oppressed as a poet and lecturer, had she neglected to fortify her mind
in the manner she did, she would have been weighed and found wanting
long since. Before friends and foes, the learned and the unlearned,
North and South, Mrs. Harper has pleaded the cause of her race in a
manner that has commanded the greatest respect; indeed, it is hardly too
much to say, that during seventeen years of public labor she has made
thousands of speeches without doing herself or people discredit in a
single instance, but has accomplished a great deal in the way of
removing prejudice. May we not hope that the rising generation at least
will take encouragement by her example and find an argument of rare
force in favor of mental and moral equality, and above all be awakened
to see how prejudices and difficulties may be surmounted by continual
struggles, intelligence and a virtuous character?
Fifty thousand copies at least of her four small books have been sold to
those who have listened to her eloquent lectures. One of those
productions entitled "Moses" has been used to entertain audiences with
evening readings in various parts of the country. With what effect may
be seen from the two brief notices as follows:
"Mrs. F.E.W. Harper delivered a poem upon 'Moses' in Wilbraham
to a large and delighted audience. She is a woman of high moral
tone, with superior native powers highly cultivated, and a
captivating eloquence that hold her audience in rapt attention
from the beginning to the close. She will delight any
intelligent audience, and those who wish first-class lecturers
cannot do better than to secure her services."--_Zion's Herald,
Boston._
"Mrs. Frances E.W. Harper read her poem of 'Moses' last evening
at Rev. Mr. Harrison's church to a good audience. It deals with
the story of the Hebrew Moses from his finding in the wicker
basket on the Nile to his death on Mount Nebo and his burial in
an unknown grave; following closely the Scripture account. It
contains about 700 lines, beginning with blank verse of the
common measure, and changing to other measures, but always
without rhyme; and is a pathetic and well-sustained piece. Mrs.
Harper recited it with good effect, and it was well received.
She is a lady of much talent, and always speaks well,
particularly when her subject relates to the condition of her
own people, in whose welfare, before and since the war, she has
taken the deepest interest. As a lecturer Mrs. Harper is more
effective than most of those who come before our lyceums; with a
natural eloquence that is very moving."--_Galesburgh Register,
Ill._
Grace Greenwood, in the Independent in noticing a Course of Lectures in
which Mrs. Harper spoke (in Philadelphia) pays this tribute to her:
"Next on the course was Mrs Harper, a colored woman; about as
colored as some of the Cuban belles I have met with at Saratoga.
She has a noble head, this bronze muse; a strong face, with a
shadowed glow upon it, indicative of thoughtful fervor, and of a
nature most femininely sensitive, but not in the least morbid.
Her form is delicate, her hands daintily small. She stands
quietly beside her desk, and speaks without notes, with gestures
few and fitting. Her manner is marked by dignity and composure.
She is never assuming, never theatrical. In the first part of
her lecture she was most impressive in her pleading for the race
with whom her lot is cast. There was something touching in her
attitude as their representative. The woe of two hundred years
sighed through her tones. Every glance of her sad eyes was a
mournful remonstrance against injustice and wrong. Feeling on
her soul, as she must have felt it, the chilling weight of
caste, she seemed to say:
'I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,
As once Eleotra her sepulchral urn.'
... As I listened to her, there swept over me, in a chill wave
of horror, the realization that this noble woman had she not
been rescued from her mother's condition, might have been sold
on the auction-block, to the highest bidder--her intellect,
fancy, eloquence, the flashing wit, that might make the delight
of a Parisian saloon, and her pure, Christian character all
thrown in--the recollection that women like her could be dragged
out of public conveyances in our own city, or frowned out of
fashionable churches by Anglo-Saxon saints."
THE END.
INDEX.
* * * * *
PREFACE, 1-6.
ILLUSTRATIONS, 7, 8.
CONTENTS, 9-21.
Anthony, Kit, and wife Leah, and three children,
Adam, Mary, and Murry, 99.
Amby, Nat, 102.
Amby, Elizabeth, 102.
Augusta, John, (letter.) 110.
Anderson, Henry, alias Wm. Anderson, 137.
Amos, Stephen, alias Henry Johnson, 160.
Atkins, Wm. Henry, 211.
Atkinson, Anthony, 260.
Atkinson, John, 299.
Anderson, Geo., 316.
Anderson, Thos., 334.
Ashmead, John W., attorney of U.S., for E. Dist., Pa., 356.
Aldridge, Bazil, 392.
Aldridge, Caroline, 401.
Alexander, John, 429.
Armstead, Moses, 430.
Allen, Andrew, 435.
Allison, Ebenezer, 449.
Anderson, Joshua John, 472.
Alligood, Geo., 488.
Alligood, Jim, 488.
"A woman with two children," 503.
Archer, Sam, 526.
Alberti, Geo. F., 534.