they brought with them were
soon lost.

There was less opportunity in the United States also than in the West
Indies for a slave to meet one of his own people, because the
plantations were considerably smaller, more widely scattered and,
especially, because as soon as they were landed in this country,
slaves were immediately divided and shipped in small numbers,
frequently no more than one or two at a time, to different
plantations. This was the procedure with the very first Negroes
brought to this country. It was found easier to deal with the slaves,
if they were separated from their kinsmen.

On the plantation they were thrown together with slaves who had
already forgotten or only dimly remembered their life in Africa.
English was the only language of the plantation. The attitude of the
slave plantation to each fresh arrival seems to have been much like
that of the older immigrant towards the greenhorn. Everything that
marked him as an alien was regarded as ridiculous and barbaric.[6]
Furthermore, the slave had in fact very little desire to return to his
native land. I once had an opportunity to talk with an old man living
just outside of Mobile, who was a member of what was known as the
African colony. This African colony represented the cargo of one of
the last slave ships successful in landing in this country just at the
opening of the war. The old man remembered Africa and gave me a very
interesting account of the way in which he was captured and brought to
America. I asked him if he had ever wished to return. He said that a
missionary who had been in their country and spoke their language had
visited them at one time. This missionary offered to send them back to
Africa and even urged them to go. "I told him," said the old man, "I
crossed the ocean once, but I made up my mind then never to trust
myself in a boat with a white man again."

The fact that the Negro brought with him from Africa so little
tradition which he was able to transmit and perpetuate on American
soil, makes that race unique among all peoples of our cosmopolitan
population. Other peoples have lost, under the disintegrating
influence of the American environment, much of their cultural
heritage. None have been so utterly cut off and estranged from their
ancestral land, traditions and people. It is just because of this that
the history of the Negro offers exceptional materials for determining
the relative influence of temperamental and historic