Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/66

 rant of the weaknesses of the African race. He published about this time, in an abolitionist paper called the Ram's Horn, a clever satire on the negro character, entitled "Sambo's Mistakes." The manuscript is still preserved, in Brown's undoubted handwriting. It was evidently intended for an admonition. Or did it merely express a great misgiving with regard to the negro race which had entered Brown's intuitively working mind? It represents Sambo as shallow, vain, "fond of joining societies," bound to spend his money and remain poor, disputatious about things of no moment, tenacious of small points of difference, fond of gewgaws, self-indulgent, obsequious to the whites, and more inclined to fight over religious tenets than for his own liberty.

"Sambo's Mistakes" is said to be Brown's longest literary composition. It is surely a little masterpiece in its way. It has a certain prophetic value,