require some time
to develop in this field the necessary standard to secure a
distinction between the significant and insignificant and between
truth and fiction. On account of the emphasis which has been recently
given to this study, many novices lacking especially the historical
point of view have entered this field because it is so productive that
it is an easy task to write a work therein. Benjamin Brawley whose
chief preparation and efforts have been restricted to English is one
of these novices. Among his first efforts were _A Short History of the
American Negro_ and _The Negro in Literature and Art_. In neither of
these works does he exhibit the knowledge required by the standards of
present day historiography. This more recent work although more
extensive than the others has no better claim to its being called
history.

There can be no question as to many valuable facts contained in this
work, but it lacks proportion, style, and accuracy. The book begins
with a study of African origins based largely on Wiener's _Africa and
the Discovery of America_ and upon Lady Lugard's _Tropical
Dependency_. He next takes up the Negro in the Spanish exploration but
has little or nothing to say about the Negroes in connection with
other explorers. His treatment of the development of the slave trade
and of the introduction of slavery shows a slightly improved
conception of his task. In his discussion of the Negroes in the
colonies, into which he works servitude and slavery, the Indian, the
mulatto, the free Negro, and efforts for social betterment, he
presents a veritable hodgepodge. Passing then to the study of the
estrangement from Great Britain, the participation of the Negro in the
Revolutionary War, and the effect of that movement upon the Negro's
social and political situation, he exhibits no scientific grasp of the
status of the Negroes during the eighteenth century or of what they
were thinking and doing. The treatment of the new West, the South, and
the West Indies, which follows this portion of the book is merely
certain generalizations which may be obtained from an average
knowledge of American history and from such topical discussions of the
Negro history as may be found in B.A. Johnson's _History of the Negro
Race_ or in John W. Cromwell's _The Negro in American History_. In his
discussion of the Indian and the Negro there is an effort which serves
to direct attention to a neglected aspect of our history, that is,