nd night, and
say, that I sent no body to serve them? that I was only solicitous about my
own name, and forgetful of my ancestors? White men are not acquainted with
these circumstances; but I now tell you that you may hear and know, and
inform your countrymen, why customs are made, and will be made, as long as
black men continue to possess their country; the few that can be spared
from this necessary celebration, we sell to the white men; and happy, no
doubt, are such, when they find themselves on the Grigwhee, to be disposed
of to the Europeans. "We shall still drink water," say they to themselves;
"white men will not kill us; and we may even avoid punishment, by serving
our new masters with fidelity."

--_The New York Weekly Magazine_, II, 430, 1792.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Othello," the author of these two essays, was identified as a Negro
by Abbe Gregoire in his "De la litterature des Negres."

[2] The writer refers here to the Convention of 1787 which framed the
Constitution of the United States.

[3] Here the writer has in mind the organization of the English Society
for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and the support given the cause by
Wilberforce, Pitt, Fox and Burke in England and by Brissot, Claviere and
Montmorin in France.

[4] Rhode Island had failed to ratify the Constitution of the United
States.

[5] During the first forty years of the republic there was much talk about
colonizing the Negroes in the West.

[6] The writer refers here to the acts of Pennsylvania, providing for the
abolition of slavery.

[7] In 1740 South Carolina enacted a law prohibiting any one from teaching
a slave to read or employing one in "any manner of writing." Georgia
enacted the same law in 1770.

[8] This letter was originally published in England, where the number of
Negroes had considerably increased after the war in America.

[9] The country expression for the woods was "Bush."

LETTERS SHOWING THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE EARLY NEGRO CHURCHES OF
GEORGIA AND THE WEST INDIES[1]

AN ACCOUNT OF SEVERAL BAPTIST CHURCHES, CONSISTING CHIEFLY OF NEGRO
SLAVES: PARTICULARLY OF ONE AT KINGSTON, IN JAMAICA; AND ANOTHER AT
SAVANNAH IN GEORGIA

A letter from the late Rev. Mr. Joseph Cook of the Euhaw, upper Indian
Land, South Carolina, bearing date Sept. 15, 1790, "A poor negro, commonly
called, among his own friends, Brother George, has been so highly favoured
of God, as to plant the first Baptist Church in Sa