Page:The rising son, or, The antecedents and advancement of the colored race (IA risingsonthe00browrich).pdf/308

 CHAPTER XXXVI.

DISCONTENT AND INSURRECTION.

An undeveloped discontent always pervaded the black population of the South, bond and free. Human bondage is ever fruitful of insurrection, wherever it exists, and under whatever circumstances it may be found. The laws forbidding either free people of color or slaves to assemble in any considerable numbers for religious, or any other purpose, without two or more whites being present, and the rigorous enforcement of such laws, show how fearful the slave-*masters were of their injured victims.

Everything was done to make the Negro feel that he was not a man, but a thing; his inferiority was impressed upon him in all possible ways. In the great cities of the South, free colored ladies were not allowed to wear a veil in the streets, or in any public places. A violation of this law was visited with thirty-nine lashes upon the bare back. The same was inflicted upon the free colored man who should be seen upon the streets with a cigar in his mouth, or a walking-stick in his hand. Both, when walking the streets, were forbidden to take the inside of the pave