te 25: _Ibid._, p. 29.]

[Footnote 26: _Letter of Mr. Stanbury Boyce._]

[Footnote 27: St. Lucia and Trinidad were then considered unfavorable to
the working of the new system.--See _The African Repository_, XXVII,
p. 196.]

[Footnote 28: _Niles Register_, LXIII, p. 65.]

[Footnote 29: _Ibid._, LXIII, p. 65.]

[Footnote 30: Cromwell, _The Negro in American History_, pp. 43-44.]

CHAPTER V

THE SUCCESSFUL MIGRANT

The reader will naturally be interested in learning exactly what these
thousands of Negroes did on free soil. To estimate these achievements the
casual reader of contemporary testimony would now, as such persons did
then, find it decidedly easy. He would say that in spite of the unfailing
aid which philanthropists gave the blacks, they seldom kept themselves
above want and, therefore, became a public charge, afflicting their
communities with so much poverty, disease and crime that they were
considered the lepers of society. The student of history, however, must
look beyond these comments for the whole truth. One must take into
consideration the fact that in most cases these Negroes escaped as
fugitives without sufficient food and clothing to comfort them until they
could reach free soil, lacking the small fund with which the pioneer
usually provided himself in going to establish a home in the wilderness,
and lacking, above all, initiative of which slavery had deprived them.
Furthermore, these refugees with few exceptions had to go to places where
they were not wanted and in some cases to points from which they were
driven as undesirables, although preparation for their coming had
sometimes gone to the extent of purchasing homes and making provision for
employment upon arrival.[1] Several well-established Negro settlements in
the North, moreover, were broken up by the slave hunters after the passing
of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.[2]

The increasing intensity of the hatred of the Negroes must be understood
too both as a cause and result of their intolerable condition. Prior to
1800 the Negroes of the North were in fair circumstances. Until that time
it was generally believed that the whites and the blacks would soon reach
the advanced stage of living together on a basis of absolute equality.[3]
The Negroes had not at that time exceeded the number that could be
assimilated by the sympathizing communities in that section. The
intolerable legislation of the South, however, forced so many free Neg