Historical Annotation

1034 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION

Commons. Curran also fought in five duels, as both the challenged and the challenger. DNB, 5:332-40.

475.28-29 fourteenth and fifteenth amendments are virtually nullified] Redeemers in the southern states opposed the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments' enfranchisement of African Americans by limiting black voting power and indirectly keeping Republicans from holding governmental positions. In Georgia a poll tax was established, which restricted much of the state's underclass black population from voting, while in Mississippi, Alabama, and other southern states gerrymandering techniques were executed to weaken the remaining black vote. Additionally, Mississippi rid itself of Republican officials by establishing strict bond requirements, while North Carolina and Alabama even managed to restore the localized form of government they maintained during the antebellum era by transferring power to select county officials. By the mid-1870s such actions effectively discouraged many north-erners from continuing federal protection of southern blacks. Foner, Reconstruction, 422, 586-87, 590-91.

476.26-29 swindled out of. . . life and starvation ] Following the Civil War, exslaves in the South were often abused by white landowners, who contractually mortgaged their crops at inflated fees of from $5 to $10 per acre. Black farmers of cotton crops were particularly mistreated, since the ginning process required for the cotton was controlled by white landlords who monopolized the market and forced tenants to accept their high production fees. Additionally, white southern storekeepers tended to price products at over twice their market value and charged high interest rates on outstanding balances. As a result of such white-imposed credit systems, most rural blacks in the South remained in debt-ridden poverty throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Roger L. Ransom and Richard Sutch, One Kind of Freedom: The Economic Consequences of Emancipation (New York, 1977), 159-70; Painter, Exodusters, 54-68.

477.18-19 When the Hebrews ... from the Egyptians] The Bible states that, upon their emancipation, the Hebrews were "spoiled" by their erstwhile masters, and received from the Egyptians everything they required. The emancipation of the Hebrews from Egypt forms the core of what is known as the Exodus event found in the Old Testament book of the same name. It was during this time that Moses became the leader of the Hebrew people, ultimately leading them to Canaan, "the promised land." Although the Exodus event was once believed to have been a historical event, modern historians doubt in varying degrees the story's accuracy. Most agree that, at the very least, the general historicity of the Exodus event explains most reasonably the other known facts of that era and region. Conclusive dating of the Exodus event based on extrabiblical sources is impossible, though a plausible period from 1260 to 1220 BCE has been established. Exod. 3:1-19; Anchor Bible Dictionary, 2:700-08.

477.20-21 serfs of Russia ... make a living ] Alexander II 's Emancipation Manifesto of 5 March 1861 freed most classes of Russian serfs. those laboring on

HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 1035

private estates and in domestic households. All emancipated serfs were granted the full rights of citizens, including the ability to marry, own property, and own and oper-ate businesses. Serfs owned by wealthy landlords were given allotments of land, while household serfs were not. State-owned serfs remained in bondage until 1866. Bruce F. Adams, "The Emancipation of the Russian Serfs, 1861," in Events That Changed the World in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Frank W. Thackeray and John E. Findling (Westport, Conn., 1996), 93-111; N. M. Druzhinin, "The Emancipation Legislation," in Emancipation of the Russian Serfs, ed. Terence Emmons (New York, 1963), 19-25.

478.8-11 Jews ... in all countries] Full Jewish emancipation was achieved during the mid-nineteenth century in most countries except tsarist Russia. In uneven develop-ments throughout Western and Central Europe between 1830 and 1880, Jews were no longer restricted in rights of residence, real estate acquisition, and choice of profes-sion. Hilary L. Rubinstein et al., The Jews in the Modern World: A History since 1750 (London, 2002), 14-44.

478.30 You cannot make an empty sack stand on end] Variants of this aphorism, which has seventeenth-century Italian antecedents. appeared in Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac in 1740, 1750, and 1758. Leonard W. Labaree, ed., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 39 vols. (1959--), 2:248, 3:446, 7:348.

479.25 We shall reap as we sow] Douglass paraphrases Gal. 6:7.

480.1-2 colored schools in ... the white schools] The city's first black public school was established in 1864, and by 1868 all Washington districts except the fifth contained respectably furnished schools for African American children. Teacher per-formance at these schools had heen deemed more than satisfactory. Blacks partici-pated energetically in the development and growth of the school system, which was in most respects structurally equivalent to the public school system serving whites. Henry Barnard, Special Report of the Commissioner of Education on the Condition and Improvement of the Public Schools in the District of Columbia, Submitted to the Senate, June 1868, and to the House, with Additions, June 13, 1870 (Washington, D.C., 1871), 274-76; Emmett D. Preston, Jr., "The Development of Negro Education in the District of Columbia," Journal of Negro Education, 9:601-03 (October 1940).

480.7 bull-dozer's whip] A bull-dose, or bull-doze, was a severe flogging or forceful coercion. Later the word was used for a heavy pistol or for one who used such a weapon. During Reconstruction the term "Bulldozers" was one of a number of the nicknames applied to terrorist groups aiming at the violent overthrow of Republican state governments in the South. Roller and Twyman, Encyclopedia of Southern History, 159; Mathews, Dictionary of Americanisms, 1:461-62.

480.12-14 To-day the negro ... millions in Louisiana] The figure for Georgia can he verified: state records in 1879 listed the aggregate taxed property of blacks as $5,182,398. Report of the Comptroller General of Georgia, 153-57.

481.4 On the day ... James A. Garfield] President James A. Garfield was interred at Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery on 26 Septemher 1881. He had been shot on the

1036 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION

morning of 2 July 1881 as he and several cabinet members waited to board a train at the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad terminal in Washington, D.C. The assassin, a disgruntled office seeker named Charles Guiteau, entered the station and fired two shots at the president. One passed through his coat sleeve, but the second entered Garfield's abdomen, mortally wounding him. The president was taken to the White House, where he was attended by several doctors. In early September he was moved to the New Jersey shore to escape the capital's late summer heat. On 19 September he died from complications of the wound. Funeral services were held at the Capitol on 23 September, before the body was moved to Ohio for burial. New York Times, 3 July, 23 September 1881; Doenecke, Presidencies of Garfield and Arthur, 53-54.

481.4-5 Lake View cemetery, Cleveland, Ohio] Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery was Ohio's first rural cemetery. It was founded in 1869 by Jeptha H. Wade and others who believed that Cleveland should have a garden cemetery outside the city limits, which would focus on natural beauty and have an atmosphere suggesting a park. Lake View was established east of Cleveland and had a view of Lake Erie. Since Cleveland already had specifically designated Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish cemeteries, Lake View was designated as nonsectarian. Some of the dignitaries interred at Lake View include John D. Rockefeller and President James A. Garfield. Marian J. Morton, Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery (Charleston, S .C., 2004), 7-8.

481.8 Fifteenth street Presbyterian church] The Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., was originally located in a schoolhouse owned by John F. Cook on H Street near 14th Northwest. It was established in 1842 and was known as the First Colored Presbyterian Church of Washington. Forty people originally wor-shiped there, but in 1853 they were joined by members from surrounding churches such as the First, Second, and Fourth Presbyterian Churches. This increase enabled the members to build a small frame church on Fifteenth Street, between I and K Streets. The first pastor was John F. Cook, who was officially installed as minister in 1855. Following his pastorate, there were several temporary ministers who served two or three years at most. From 1878 to 1885, Reverend Francis J. Grimke preached there, and the church had a spiritual awakening. The Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church became well known before and after the Civil War as a place of public assem-bly and referendum. The building was sold in 1918, and the church was relocated to a larger structure on R and Fifteenth Streets. H. W. Crew, Centennial History of the City of Washington, D.C. (Dayton, Ohio, 1892), 565; John W. Cromwell, "The First Negro Churches in the District of Columbia," JNH, 7:80-81 (January 1922).

481.12- 13 made the following ... and touching event] Douglass delivered this eulogy for the assassinated President James A. Garfield at a memorial service on 26 September 1881 in Washington, D.C. Washington (D.C.) National Republican, 27 September 1881; Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 5:35-37.

483.1 John Mercer Langston] John Mercer Langston (1829-97), educator, lawyer, diplomat, and U.S. congressman, was born in Louisa County, Virginia, to a white planter and his mistress, an emancipated slave of black and American Indian ancestry.

HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 1037

Orphaned at an early age but possessed of a substantial inheritance, Langston grew up in Ohio, graduated from Oberlin College (1849), and, in 1854, gained admission to the Ohio bar under a precedent allowing certain rights to "a colored man who is nearer white than mulatto or half-breed." A year later he won the office of town clerk in Brownhelm and with it the distinction of being one of the first blacks to hold public office in the United States. He later held elective posts in Oberlin. During the late 1840s and the 1850s he and his older brother Charles were active in the black conven-tion movement in Ohio. At first a colonizationist, Langston shifted his emphasis to campaigning for black education and suffrage. He also spoke at temperance and antislavery functions and helped to found and finance the black Ohio State AntiSlavery Society, of which he was president from 1858 to 1861. Long sympathetic to the strategy of direct resistance advocated by David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet,Langston supported rescues of captured fugitive slaves and recruited volunteers for John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry. During the Civil War he recruited black troops, opposed discrimination in the army, headed the National Equal Rights League, and successfully defended Edmonia Lewis, later a noted black sculptor, in a celebrated poisoning case at Oberlin College. Langston was inspector general of the Freedmen's Bureau in 1868 and a leading proponent of loyalty to the Republican party at conventions of the Colored National Labor Union in 1869 and 1871. From 1869 until 1876 he was a professor of law and dean at Howard University. Appointed minister to Haiti in 1877, Langston held diplomatic posts until 1885, when he returned to Virginia as president of Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute in Petersburg. In 1888 he won a disputed congressional election in Virginia's Fourth District, defeating a white Democrat and a white Republican in a race that was ultimately decided by the House of Representatives. Douglass opposed Langston's candidacy as tending to split the Republican ranks. John Mercer Langston. From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capital (Hartford, Conn., 1894); Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 176; Geoffrey Blodgett, "John Mercer Langston and the Case of Edmonia Lewis: Oberlin, 1862," JNH, 53:201-18 (July 1968); William Cheek, "A Negro Runs for Congress: John Mercer Langston and the Virginia Campaign of 1888," JNH, 52:14-34 (January 1967); ibid., "John Mercer Langston: Black Protest Leader and Abolitionist," CWH, 16:101-20 (June 1970); DANB, 382-84; DAB, 10:597-98.

483.2 Port au Prince] The capital of Haiti and its chief seaport, Port-au-Prince is located in the southwestern part of the country, at the end of the Gulf of Gonaives. It was founded in 1749 by French sugar planters in the area originally called Saint Dominique, renamed Haiti in 1804. Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer, 2:2489-90.

483.3 Liberia] Assisted by the American Colonization Society, free black American settlers arrived in 1822 in what would be called the Republic of Liberia. Over the next twenty-five years, new settlements were established along the coast; the most prominent was Moesurado, founded in 1822, which became Monrovia, the new nation's capital. The settlers, who became known as "Americo-Liberians," declared the national independence of Liberia in 1847. Indigenous people in the territory were

1038 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION

composed of several different tribes, including the Kru and Grebo. Emigration to Liberia from the United States continued well into the 1870s; many of the new settlers were "recaptives," Africans rescued from the now illegal slave ships. Despite their belief that Africa was a "Promised Land," America-Liberians carried over many American customs and social standards. Both the Americo-Liberians and many of the recaptives considered themselves both American and superior to the indigenous tribal Africans. The government of Liberia was ostensibly democratic and was modeled after that of the United States. The True Whig party, led by Americo-Liberians, dominated Liberian politics, often offering the only candidates for office, until 12 April 1980, when a military coup d'etat took control of the nation. Liebenow, Liberia, 11-29, 88-92, 184-96; Robert Rinehart, "Historical Setting," in Liberia, ed. Nelson, 1-32; Irving Kaplan et al., "The Society and Its Environment," in ibid., 70-72. 483.10 Professor Greener] Philadelphia-born Richard T. Greener (1844-1922) was the first African American to graduate from Harvard College, graduating in 1870. Greener then read law and was admitted to the bar in South Carolina in 1876. He taught at Howard University's Law Department and then became dean (1879-80). He came into conflict with Frederick Douglass, who then served as a Howard University trustee, over the issue of western migration for African Americans. As secretary of the Exodus Committee, Greener advocated migration to Kansas, but Douglass strongly opposed the Exoduster Movement. Following the disbanding of Howard University's law school in 1880, Greener worked as a lawyer and campaigned for the Republican party in 1884. In 1885 he secured appointment as chief examiner for the New York City Civil Service Board, maintaining that post until 1889. In 1898 he was appointed the first U.S. consul to Vladivostok, Russia, remaining there until 1905. Greener later settled in Chicago, where he worked for an insurance company, and became active in the Niagara Movement. Allison Blakely, "Richard T. Greener and the 'Talented Tenth's' Dilemma," JNH, 59:305-21 (October 1974); ANB, 9:535-37; DAB, 7:578-79.

483.13-14 Rev. W. W. Hicks] Born in Wales, William Watkin Hicks (c. 1836-?) immigrated to central Pennsylvania with his parents in 1848. He began a career in the Methodist Episcopal church in 1861 as a missionary to India. After returning to America in 1863 because of illness. Hicks was called to minister at churches in Frederick, Maryland, and then in Brooklyn.In 1868 he moved south and held ministerial positions in Charleston, Macon, and Savannnah before moving to Jacksonville. Florida, around 1875, where he won a seat in the state Legislature as a Liberal Republican. While there Hicks also served as the superintendent of public instruction from 1875 to 1876. Hicks joined Douglass during speaking engagements at least twice. The first occasion was in New York City for a Republican campaign stop on 25 October 1880. Then on 26 September 1881 Hicks spoke with Senator John M. Langston and Douglass at a memorial meeting for President Garfield. Following Garfield's assassination, Hicks, now a Presbyterian minister in Washington. D.C., became the spiritual adviser to the assassin, Charles J. Guiteau, for his trial and execu-