Page:A defence of the negro race in America from the assaults and charges of Rev. J. L. Tucker.djvu/32

 equal, and in many cases superior, to all other modern Missionaries. And yet Dr. Tucker gravely tells us, "Send no Northern Missionaries down here!" And why, forsooth, this mandate? Because, without doubt, something besides the grace of God, and high literary culture, and a knowledge of human nature is needed. And pray what is this special quality needed? Why, to use the grotesque language of a humorous acquaintance, "these Northern men—wise, learned, experienced in God's work, full of the Holy Ghost—lack a knowledge of the special science of ." That, Dr. Tucker would have us believe, is the exclusive possession of Southern slaveholders!

But how comes it to pass that Northern people "rarely know a Negro when they see him?" As Dr. Tucker seems oblivious of some facts in American history, let me briefly set before him two classes of facts:

The first class:

(a) Let me say that Northern people from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, &c, went to Africa in slave ships, stole and bought native Negroes from the predatory chiefs, and brought them in cargoes to the Northern States. And this fact, first of all, shows some "acquaintance" of a very sorry nature "with Negroes" on the part of northern people.

(b) These captured Negroes were bought by Northern people by thousands; worked on their farms and in their houses; and ofttimes were put upon the auction block and sold as goods and chattels. And this fact implies, secondly, a further acquaintance with Negroes.

(c) And, lastly, that these Northern people were not Negro-worshipers is evidenced by the fact that these Negroes were kept in ignorance by their owners; whipped at the whipping-post; families were separated; treated as brutes; once under the suspicion of insurrection, were