CES.--HE HAS ALWAYS HAD A PLACE IN HISTORY,
THOUGH INCIDENTAL.--NEGRO TYPE CAUSED BY DEGRADATION.--NEGRO
EMPIRES AN EVIDENCE OF CRUDE ABILITY FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT.--INFLUENCE
OF THE TWO CHRISTIAN GOVERNMENTS ON THE WEST COAST UPON THE
HEATHEN.--ORATION ON EARLY CHRISTIANITY IN AFRICA.--THE DUTY OF
CHRISTIANITY TO EVANGELIZE AFRICA.

The preceding ten chapters are introductory in their nature. We felt
that they were necessary to a history of the Colored race in the
United States. We desired to explain and explode two erroneous
ideas,--the curse of Canaan, and the theory that the Negro is a
distinct species,--that were educated into our white countrymen during
the long and starless night of the bondage of the Negro. It must
appear patent to every honest student of God's word, that the slavery
interpretation of the curse of Canaan is without warrant of Scripture,
and at war with the broad and catholic teachings of the New Testament.
It is a sad commentary on American civilization to find even a few men
like Helper, "Ariel," and the author of "The Adamic Race" still
croaking about the inferiority of the Negro; but it is highly
gratifying to know that they no longer find an audience or readers,
not even in the South. A man never hates his neighbors until he has
injured them. Then, in justification of his unjustifiable conduct, he
uses slander for argument.

During the late war thousands of mouths filled with vituperative wrath
against the colored race were silenced as in the presence of the
heroic deeds of "the despised race," and since the war the obloquy of
the Negro's enemies has been turned into the most fulsome praise.

We stand in line and are in harmony with history and historians
--modern and ancient, sacred and profane--on the subject of the unity
of the human family. There are, however, a few who differ; but their
wild, incoherent, and unscholarly theories deserve the mercy of our
silence.

It is our firm conviction, and it is not wholly unsupported by
history, that the Creator gave all the nations arts and sciences.
Where nations have turned aside to idolatry they have lost their
civilization. The Canaanites, Jebusites, Hivites, etc., the
idolatrous[115] nations inhabiting the land of Canaan, were the
descendants of Canaan; and the only charge the Lord brought against
them when he commanded Joshua to exterminate them was, that they were
his enemies[116] in all that that term implies. The