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Via The London News and The National Era

The Transport of the Africans to the French West Indies

The great irregularity of the West African mail steamers has of late interrupted the current of the history of the notorious Regis contract for supplying the French West Indies with purchased Africans. The last arrivals, however, put us in possession of some additional facts quite conclusive as to the character of this traffic.

Subsequently to the news that the Portuguese authorities had refused to allow the French purchase of negroes within the limits of the province of Angola, our readers may recollect that advices from the West Indies announced the arrival in the French Antilles of one of M. Regis’s ships with a cargo of 800 Africans, 100 of whom lost their lives in an attempt to land them. But hitherto there has been nothing positively known as to where this unhappy batch of negroes was obtained. (more…)

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale was written by iconic American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. The book is widely considered to be a “Great American Novel”.

The story tells the adventures of a wandering sailor named Ishmael, and his travels on a whaling vessel named Pequod and commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab is driven by a single driving purpose — revenge against a specific elusive white sperm whale whale he calls “Moby Dick”. The whale destroyed Ahab’s ship and cost him his leg in an earlier encounter.

Through Ishmael’s journey Mellville examines the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of God. His descriptions of a sailor’s life aboard a whaling ship, are woven into the narrative to give the book its rich sense of time and place.

Moby-Dick was first published by Richard Bentley in London on October 18, 1851, in a shorter three-volume edition titled The Whale. New York City publisher Harper and Brothers were the first to publish “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale” as a complete novel on November 14, 1851. The novel initially garnered very mixed reviews, but over time Moby-Dick has come to take a place in the list of great American novels.

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The National Era, a weekly abolitionist newspaper, published a wider range of material which, unlike the National Anti-Slavery Standard, was not exclusively dedicated to the slavery issue. The paper’s editor  was interested in publishing literary ideas as well as developments and changes taking place during this period of history.  A regular feature was the paper’s “Literary Notices”.  The November 20, 1851 edition contained the announcement about Moby-Dick.

The voyage of the Pequod

(more…)

Speech of Hon. Charles E. Clarke of New York on the Bill establishing the Boundary between Texas and New Mexico.

Delivered in the House of Representatives, Aug. 30, 1850.

I rise with much hesitation, aware of the great value of time, and of my inability to gain attention; but the attack of my colleague (Mr. BROOKS) obliges me to reply, or to seem to admit that I have been guilty of some great legislative impropriety. The remarks of the gentleman were intended, not to instruct us how we should vote hereafter, but to inflict punishment for votes already given; and the chief burden of his remarks was the incongruity of the gentlemen who voted together on two occasions – to reject the Texas boundary bill, and that it was not in order to add to that bill the Senate bill giving a Territorial Government to New Mexico – instead of any abstract impropriety of the votes themselves.

The gentlemen whose votes my colleague scrutinizes are his equals in place, and perhaps in patriotism, and holding themselves amenable to their constituents and their consciences, will not be greatly moved because my colleague has seen fit to vituperate. For one, I am content to do what is right, and shall not be deterred from that course because others, who usually vote in opposition, unite with me.

The bill which I voted to reject on its first reading gives, in my estimation, at least seventy thousand square miles of territory, now free, to Texas, and of course to irremediable and hopeless slavery – a tract of territory nine times as large as the State of Massachusetts. It gives it in such shape that it embraces on three sides a tract of Indian territory two hundred and ten miles square, with the Missouri Compromise line only to be run, for its northern boundary you have a new slaveholding State, as soon as it shall please the white men to quarrel away the Indians.

Of the intention to make that Indian Territory into a slave State, I have no doubt; and that, I believe, is the reason for the peculiar shape of the territory ceded to Texas. Look at the map, and see “the tracks of the beast!”

The same bill, under the pretence of indemnity for surrendering to us all that part of New Mexico which lies east of the Rio Grande, gives to Texas ten millions of dollars, ($10,000,000). Again: by clear and undoubted concert of action, the Senate bill giving a Territorial Government to New Mexico , without the ordinance of ’87, (the Wilmot Proviso – the freedom clause,) is moved as an additional section to the bill. The Speaker decides that this is in order, and I vote, in common with political opponents, that it is not in order.

Read the rest of this important speech by logging into Accessible Archives and browsing to the October 3, 1850 issue of The National Era.

Collection: African American Newspapers
Publication: The National Era
Date: October 3, 1850
Title: Speech Of Hon. Charles E. Clarke, of New York
Location: Washington, D.C.

About Charles Ezra Clarke

Charles Ezra Clarke, a Representative from New York; born in Saybrook, Conn., April 8, 1790; completed preparatory studies and was graduated from Yale College in 1809; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1815 and commenced practice in Watertown, N.Y.; moved to Great Bend, Jefferson County, N.Y., in 1840; member of the State assembly in 1839 and 1840; elected as a Whig to the Thirty-first Congress (March 4, 1849-March 3, 1851); resumed the practice of law; also built and operated a gristmill and engaged in agricultural pursuits; died in Great Bend, N.Y., December 29, 1863; interment in Brookside Cemetery, Watertown, N.Y.

This is part two of a two part article focused on the slavery laws of Lousiana compiled by an anonymous contributor from Maryland specifically for the National Era newspaper. This was a major endeavor in the days before Wikipedia and online legislative databases.

The article below has been abridged for the web. To view the complete article, please access the Accessible Archives database and search using the data at the end.  Part one of the article is Law Of Slavery in The State of Louisiana.

III. BLACK CODE OF LOUISIANA.

Law of June 7, 1806.

• SEC. 1. Slaves shall have free enjoyment of Sundays, and shall be paid fifty cents a day, or its customary equivalent, for their labor when employed by the free inhabitants – provided this privilege shall not be extended to slaves employed as servants, carriage drivers, hospital waiters, or in carrying provisions to market.
• SEC. 2. Every owner shall give to each of his slaves one barrel of Indian corn, or its equivalent, in rice, beans, or other grain, and one pint of salt, in kind, every month, under a penalty of a fine of ten dollars for every offence against this provision. (more…)

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, many of the African American papers in the north as well as abolitionist papers frequently published eye witness accounts of how slaves were treated in the south.

In addition to that type of story, they also sometimes published excerpts from the various state’s legal code as it applied to slaves. These are not the complete legal documents since they focused on the specific laws and rules that would keep the injustice inherent in slavery alive in the minds of their readers.

This is part one of a two part article focused on the slavery laws of Lousiana compiled by an anonymous contributor from Maryland specifically for the National Era newspaper. This was a major endeavor in the days before Wikipedia and online legislative databases.

Information below has been abridged for the web. To view the complete article, please access the Accessible Archives database and search using the data at the end. (more…)