CHAPTER XII.

NEGRO SETTLEMENTS IN OHIO AND THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.
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     A FEW miles west of Xenia, Ohio, is a quiet little community of which one occasionally sees the name in the newspapers, but in regard to which very little is known by the outside world, even among its immediate neighbours.  This is the Negro town of Wilberforce, which is, however, not a town in the ordinary sense of the word, but rather a suburb of Xenia, from which it is distant an hour's walk and with which it is connected only a stage.
     What distinguishes Wilberforce from other communities in the North is the fact that it is the home of what is, so far as I know, the first permanent Negro institution of learning established for Negroes and by Negroes in the United States.  A few years ago, I visited this community in order to take part in the semi-centennial celebration of the founding of the University there.  During my visit I was especially impressed with the quiet charm of the surroundings, the comfort and simplicity of the homes I visited, and the general air of culture and

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refinement which pervaded the whole community.  I doubt if there is any Negro community in the United States in which, in proportion to the population, there is so large a number of beautiful and well-conducted homes.  Besides that, there was an air of permanence and stability about this community which does not meet elsewhere, even in the quiet and orderly suburbs that one frequently finds in the neighbourhood of a good Negro school.  Here at any rate, it seemed to me, a certain number of coloured people had found themselves, had made a permanent settlement on the soil and were at home.
     The history of Wilberforce goes back to a time before the War.  In  its origin, this is representative of a number of other Negro communities that were established in different parts of Ohio during that period.  Most of these communities have disappeared and been forgotten, but there are many coloured people in all parts of the Northern states who trace their history back to one or another of these little Negro settlements that were started partly by fugitive slaves and partly by free coloured people, who left the South in order to find a home in teh free soil of the Northwest Territory.
     The thing that gives a peculiar and interesting character to many of these ante-bellum Negro settlements is that they were made by Southern slave holders who desired to free their slaves and

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were not able to do so under the restrictions that were imposed upon emancipation in the Southern States.  Many of the coloured people in these settlements were the natural children of their master.  For example, John M. Langston, the first coloured man to represent Virginia in the Congress of the United States, was freed by the terms of his father's will, in 1834.  In his autobiography, he has given a vivid description of the manner in which he, in company with the other slaves who had been freed at his father's death, made a long journey across the mountains from Louisa County, Virginia, to Chillicothe, Ohio.  Before his election to Congress from Virginia, Mr. Langston graduated in 1849 from Oberlin University, had been admitted to the bar of Ohio in 1854, and elected clerk of several Ohio townships.  He was the first coloured man in Ohio, it is said, to be elected to any sort of office by popular vote.
     When John Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia, died, he gave freedom to all his slaves and provided that they should be transported to some other part of the country, "where not less than two thousand and not more than four thousand acres of land should be purchased for them."  The Randolph Freedmen went to Ohio with the purpose of settling in Mercer County, but they were not allowed to enter upon the land which had been purchased for them, because the German settlers in that part of

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the country did not want them there.  The community was soon after scattered, but descendants of the Randolph slaves are still living in the neighbourhood of Piqua and Troy, in Miami County, Ohio.  The most noted of them as I have learned, is Goodrich Giles, whose father was a member of the original immigrants.  Mr. Giles now owns four hundred and twenty-five acres of land just out of Piqua.  He is said to be worth something over $50,000.  Two years ago, a sort of family reunion of the descendants of the Randolph slaves was held in Ohio, and, as a result of the gathering, an organisation, was formed among a few of the descendants for the purpose of investigating their claims to the land in Mercer County which was purchased for them under the terms of John Randolph's will, but of which they never secured possession.
     The little community at Wilberforce grew out of a similar effort of a number of Southern planters to secure a foothold in a free state for their former slaves.  In 1856 there was already a considerable number of the free Negroes settled at what was then known as Tawawa Springs.  In that year it was decided to establish at this place a school for these coloured immigrants and refugees.  At the time of the breaking out of the War this school had nearly one hundred pupils.  Many of them were the coloured children of the white planters

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who had been sent North to be educated.  With the breaking out of the Civil War, however, the support this school received from its Southern patrons ceased.  The institution soon fell into decay and, in March, 1863, it was sold for a debt
of ten thousand dollars to the African Methodist Episcopal Church.  This was the origin of Wilberforce.
     Of the little colony of Negro refugees who settled in this neighborhood before 1861, there still remain a few families.  The memories of others are preserved in the names of some of their descendants who occupy farms in the neighbourhood.  But the community has continued to grow.  A few farmers, attracted by the advantages of the University, have purchased farms in the neighborhood; a few former students, who have made a success elsewhere, have gone back there to make their home.  The rest of the community is made up of the officers of the school and their families, together with some four hundred students.
     One thing that has given character to this little town, and made it attractive as a residence for Negroes, is the number of distinguished men of the Negro race who have lived and worked there.  Among others whose memories are still preserved there is Bishop Daniel A. Payne, who was, more than any one else, responsible for the existence of the colony.  He lived there for many years until

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he died in 1892.  Bishop Benjamin W . Arnett, who was a real force in Ohio affairs during his connection with Wilberforce, lived in this community for thirty-five years.  It is said that he was the first coloured man in the United States to represent a constituency where the majority were white, and the first to be foreman of a jury where all the other members were white.  As member from Green County to the Ohio Legislature in 1886 and 1887, he was largely responsible for the repeal of the remnant of what were known as the “Black Laws.”
     Much was said during the anti-slavery agitation of the efforts of the Southern Church to justify African slavery.  There was, in fact, a very serious attempt to find justification in the Bible for slavery, but any one who will study the history of Christianity in the South and its influence upon slavery cannot fail to see that, in spite of all that was said by individual preachers and in spite of all that was done by church organisations, there was always a large number of white slave-holders in the South who felt deep down in their hearts that slavery was wrong.  In his will, written in 1819, John Randolph says:  "I give my slaves their freedom, to which my conscience tells me they are justly entitled.  It has long been a matter of deepest regret to me that the circumstances under which I inherited them and the obstacles thrown in the

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way by the laws of the land have prevented me in emancipating them in my lifetime, which it is my full intention to do in case I can accomplish it."
     These words pretty well express the deepest sentiment of a great many people who held slaves before the Civil War, but owing to the obstacles thrown in the way of emancipation, did not go so far as John Randolph and actually free their slaves.  I have often thought that the peculiar interest which former slave-holders have manifested in their former slaves was due to this feeling that they had a special responsibility toward these people whom they had held at one time under conditions which their consciences could not entirely justify.
     As a
 

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signed by C. F. Northrup, director.  Mr. Northrup as I was informed, is a Negro.
     Among other things which attracted my attention during my visit was the existence in Calvin of the Grand Army Post, named after Matthew Artis, who was one of the large number of coloured soldiers who enlisted from this township during the War.  The commander of the Post at the time of my visit was Bishop Curtis, who was a member of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, took part in the attack on Fort Wagner and, it is said, was shot with a fragment of the same shell which killed his commander, Robert Gould Shaw.
     At the present time, Negroes hold the offices of supervisor, clerk, road commissioner, and school director in the township of Calvin.  There are two highway commissioners, two justices of the peace, two constables, two members of the Board of Review, who are Negroes.  None of these men, I may add, are professional politicians, and none of them were elected because of their colour.  In fact, as near as I could learn, there is no question of colour, but merely of fitness for the duties of offices in the politics of Cass County.
     In a recent study of this township, under the title of "Negro Governments in the North," Richard R. Wright, Jr. says:

     The Negroes, who make up the township, are, as a rule, land owners.  There are one hundred and sixty-three Negroes on the

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tax books; they own 8, 853.73 acres of land, assessed at $224,062, and with a market value possibly of $400,000.  Some of these were included among the land-owners mentioned having property in other townships and counties also; and some own city property.  The wealthiest of them owns about 800 acres in all, several pieces of city property, and has personal property amounting to more than $18,000.  Several families are reported to be worth from $50,000 to $100,000 and one to be worth more than $150,000.

     I have stated the facts in regard to this Negro colony in Cass County at some length because they illustrate what has gone on in a number of other similar colonies in Ohio and neighbouring states.  They show, at any rate, the efforts of those Southern people, who sought to give to their slaves the advantage of freedom, were not entirely in vain.
     The history of these efforts of Southern white people and the Southern Negroes to lessen, to some extent, the evils of slavery by emigration to the free soil of the Northwest Territory, seems to me one of the most important chapters in the Story of the Negro.  It should not be forgotten in this connection that Abraham Lincoln was himself born in the South and that many, if not most of the leaders of the abolition movement in Ohio and Indiana, were in full sympathy with that portion of the Southern people who wanted to do away with slavery.  They represented the heart and conscience of thousands of others whose voices were drowned in the factional political strife which grew up as a result of the anti-slavery agitation.

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     I feel a peculiar interest in the work of those men because I believe that the men in the South, who quietly, earnestly, and unostentatiously are seeking to better conditions in the South to-day, are, in a certain sense, the direct descendants of those Southern anti-slavery people of Ohio and the Middle West.  At any rate, they are following in the traditions and working in the spirit of these earlier men.

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