Mixed Race Studies

“Nothing so accelerates the human race as the mingling of races. And in this country we are going to have all the opposite nationalities intermingled. It is the intermingling of the races in America that is going to destroy the last vestige of race prejudice. How heaven feels about it you may conclude from the fact that Christ, a Jew and born of a Jewess, promulgated a religion for all races, and that Paul, a Jew, became the chief apostle to the Gentiles..” —Reverend Thomas De Witt Talmage

“Room for All,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, (Monday, March 3, 1889, page 2, column 4). Source: Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection.

Room for All

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Monday, 1889-03-04
page 2, column 4
Source: Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection
Transcribed and edited by Steven F. Riley

Rev. Dr. Talmage as an Anti Know Nothing.

Rev. Dr. Talmage preached a patriotic sermon yesterday morning. His subject was: “Should America, be Reserved for Americans?” and he answered it in the most anti-Know Nothing style. A very large audience listened. The text was: “And hath made of one blood all nation.” The preacher spoke in part as follows:

I think God built this continent and organized this United States Republic, to demonstrate the stupendous idea of my text. If a Persian stays in Persia he remains Persian, if a Swiss stays in Switzerland he remains a Swiss, if an Austrian stays in Austria he remains an Austrian; but all these and other nationalities coining to America become Americans. This continent is a chemical laboratory where all foreign bloods are to be inextricably mixed, and race antipathies race prejudices are to perish, and this sermon is an ax by which I hope to kill some of them or help to kill some of them.

It is not a difficult thing for me to preach this sermon, because while my ancestors came to this country about two hundred and fifty years ago, some of them came from Wales, and some from Scotland, and some from Holland, and some from other nationalities, so that I feel at home with all people from under the sky and feel a blood relation to all of them. There are madcaps and patriotic lunatics who are ever and anon crying out, “America for Americans! down with the Germans! down with the Irish! down with the Jews! down with the Chinese!” and these vociferations come from many directions, and I propose this morning, as far as possible, to drown them out by the full organ of my text, and to pull out all the stops and put my foot on the pedal that will open the loudest pipes, and run my fingers over all the four banks of ivory keys while I play the chant of my text: “God hath made of one blood all nations.”

There are not five persons in this audience, or in any audience to-day in America—unless it be on an Indian reservation—who did not descend from foreigners, if you go far enough back. The only native Americans are the Modocs and the Mohawks and the Choctaws and the Cherokees and the Seminoles and the Shawnees and such like. If the cry, “America for Americans,” be a Christian and righteous cry, then you and I have no business here, and we had better charter the steamers and the sloops and the yachts and the men of war and get out of this land as quick as possible. If this cry that I abhor had been a successful cry at the start, where now stand our American cities would have stood Indian wigwams, and the Connecticut and the Hudson, instead of being cut with the prow of steamers, would be cut with canoes, and the Mississippi River, instead of being the main artery of this continent would have been only a trough for deer and antelope and wild pigeons to drink out of.

What makes the cry “America for Americans” the more absurd and the more inhuman and the more unchristian is the fact that people who only arrived in this country in their boyhood or only one or two generations back are joining in the cry. Escaped from foreign despotisms themselves, they say: “Now shut the door; don’t let any more escape.” Having got ashore in the lifeboat from the shipwreck, they say: “Now pull up the boat on the beach and let all the rest of the passengers go to the bottom.” And people who have yet the Scotch and the Irish and the English and the Italian brogue are saying: “America for Americans.” How would it be if the native inhabitants of heaven, the angels who were born there, the cherubim and seraphim who have always lived there–should come out on the shore of heaven when you and I at last try to go up, and they should come out and shout to us: “Go back: Heaven for the Heavenians!”

The fact is, that here is a subject which needs to be presented from every American pulpit. Of course, we do not want America to become a convict colony. We would build a wall high as heaven and deep as hell against all foreign thieves, cut throats, pickpockets and Anarchists. We would not allow them even to wipe their feet on the mat of the outside door of Castle Garden. If England and France and Germany and Russia send their vagabonds here because they want to get rid of them, let us put those vagabonds in chains and send them back again to the place whence they came.

But you build a wall at the Narrows, in front of New York Harbor, or at the Golden Gate, in front of San Francisco, to keep out the honest, hard working populations of this world who want to breathe the free air of America, or get a better livelihood for their families, and it is only a question of time when that wall will tumble down on us under the red hot thunderbolts of the Lord God Almighty. They are coming, they will continue to come, and, if I had voice loud enough to be heard across the seas this morning, I would put it to the utmost tension and I would say: “Let them come!” You mean, shriveled up, stingy, blasted soul, seated at your silver dinner plate piled up with bursting roast turkey incarnadined with cranberry, your mouth full and your fork full, cramming down a superabundance that sets your digestive organs into a state of terror, do let some
other nation of the earth have at least a wishing bone.

I believe that some of this cry is an honest cry on the part of people who really fear that America is going to be over-crowded. Now, let me say to all such people: Take the populations’ of the whole earth—all the people of Europe, Asia, Africa and all the islands of the sea—and pour them out on the American continent, and yet there will be room. The Rocky Mountain desert and all the other American barrenesses are to be fertilized, and as Salt Lake City and Utah once could not have raised in many places as much as a spear of grass, they have become the gardens of the world through artificial irrigation, so the time will come when all the barren places on this American continent through artificial irrigation will be brought into a productive state, and, like Illinois’ prairie, wave with wheat fields, or, like Wisconsin farm, rustle with corn tassels. Beside that, after a century or two, when the country gets tolerably well occupied the tide of immigration will set the other way, and the politics and the governmental affairs of other nations; all being made right and Ireland turned into one complete garden, it will invite generations back again, and Russia brought out from, under despotism and made a glorious place to live in, will invite whole generations of Russians back again, and every year there will he hundreds of thousands of Americans going to other continents. And then, the centuries rolling on, after a while all the continents full and crowded, what then?

Some night, a panther meteor wandering through the heavens will put its paw on the world and stop it. Then putting its panther teeth into the neck of the mountain ranges, it will take our world and shake it lifeless, as easily as a rat terrier a rat. I have as much fear that the porpoises in the Atlantic Ocean will multiply until they stop the shipping as I have fear that this country will ever be too much crowded. By the addition of a foreign population to our native population and the intermingling of races on this continent there is going after a while to be a race in 95 per cent, better, stronger, mightier than any race now on the earth, on either side of the Atlantic. Intermarriage of families, intermarriage of nations is depressing, crippling. Marriage outside of one’s nationality, and especially marriage into a style of nationality entirely different from your own is a mighty gain. What makes the Scotch-Irish blood second in pedigree to none because of its brain and stamina of character? It is because the two most unlike people in the world are a Scotchman and an Irishman. Those nationalities intermingle and have the Scotch-Irish blood, and then they go right up to the Supreme Court bench, and right to the front or all merchandise and all jurisprudence.

Nothing so accelerates the human race as the mingling of races. And in this country we are going to have all the opposite nationalities intermingled. It is the intermingling of the races in America that is going to destroy the last vestige of race prejudice. How heaven feels about it you may conclude from the fact that Christ, a Jew and born of a Jewess, promulgated a religion for all races, and that Paul, a Jew, became the chief apostle to the Gentiles, and that Christ has allowed to burst upon us in splendor in this very year the charity of Mr. Hirsch, the Jew, who, after giving $10,000,000 to Christian charities and hospitals in January gave $40,000,000 for schools to educate the Jews in France, Germany and Russia, and, as he says, to extinguish race prejudice. Those $50,000,000 given to the Christians and the Jews for alleviating and educational purposes, not bestowed in a last will and testament when a man must give up his money anyhow, but at 55 years of age and in good health—a magnificence of benevolence never equated since the world was created.

I confess that I used to have some race prejudices, but, thank God, they have all gone, and if I sat to-day in this church, and on one side of me sat a black man, and on the other side of me sat an Indian, and before me sat a Chinaman, and behind me sat a Turk, I would be just as happy as I am now standing in the presence of this brilliant assemblage, and I am about as happy now as I can be and live. Oh it will be healthy for this American atmosphere, healthy for American life when we can take this miserable corpse of race prejudice and bury it. Bring all your spades now and let us dig a grave. Dig it deep down, deeper down, deeper down until we come to the very heart of the earth, half way across China, but no further lest the poison get out on the other side of the world. Then let down this accursed carcass of race prejudice into this deep grave. Then put on the top of it all the mean things that have ever been said about Jew and Gentile, between Turk and Russian, between English and French, between Mongolian and anti Mongolian. Then let us have for a tombstone a scorched and jagged chunk of scoria spit out by some volcanic eruption and chisel on it this epitaph: “Here lies one who cursed the centuries, aged nearly 6.000 years. Departed this life for the perdition from whence it came. No peace to its ashes.”

“The newspapers recently reported that the private secretary to Mr. Blount of Georgia, representing the United States in the Hawaiian Islands, would shortly marry the daughter of a rich Chinaman of Honolulu. This educated young gentleman and of social standing seeks an alliance with an ex-coolie—a pig eyed pagan. Who will dare say that the olive colored octoroons and quadroons, the bright mulattoes, the heiresses of wealthy-men of mixed blood, will not be sought in the next century by impecunious, thriftless and idle young men of the white race? The negro maidens are seen at certain colleges for women of high degree in the North. Whereunto will this grow?”

“Southern Race Question,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, (July 25, 1893), page 2, column 5.

Southern Race Question

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Tuesday, 1893-07-25
page 2, column 5
Source: Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection
Transcribed by Steven F. Riley

The Views Expressed in a Richmond Religious Newspaper

How the Negro Is Taking Advantage of the Opportunities for Advancement—Some Singular Ideas as to the Future Outcome of Present Developments — Another Talker Suggests a Colored State.

Richmond, Va., July 25—A startling editorial appeared in the last issue of the Richmond Christian Advocate, the leading Methodist organ In the South, on the negro question, Written by Dr. J. J. Lafferty. Among other things it said:

“A Southern Methodist advocate has this incident: In a village of the cotton belt a big, burly blackr ode up to a store and said to the owner: ‘Let this man (pointing to a poor white laborer) have two dollars’ worth of goods and charge it to me.’ This transaction may fret the reader, but it has a wide significance.”

“The Northern people, during the war, were drawn to the plantation peasantry of the South. The lot of fat and fun loving negro, the happiest working class on earth, was, for years, pictured as a bitter bondage, the slave was represented as longing for freedom, and during the war praying through the nights for the coming of the national troops. Those moving though mistaken fancies and much more of the same sort, stirred the philanthropic heart of the cotton thread millionaires, and the rich army contractors turned virtuous. A great sum was sent South for the education of the negro. It expenditure. In the main, helped the negro. It was wisely directed that these donations should have a practical turn. What was the outcome? We find in nearly every Southern state the negro boys of the brighter sort in training schools.”

“In the meanwhile, the negro reported in the census is growing rapidly as a citizen, with a home and decent income, a thrifty member of society. Moreover, the Southern commonwealth began after the war to tax the white property holders heavily to educate the sons of the non tax paying negro.”

“The negro laborer received as much money for coarse work as the ex-soldier of Lee. The white man consumed more of his earnings in house rent, clothing and food, hence he could not spare his son at the school. He needed the boy at the plow to aid in bringing up the family. The negro boy first loomed in the free school to read and write, then he learned in these technical schools how to make fine shoes, buggies, saddles, etc.”

“The newspapers recently reported that the private secretary to Mr. Blount of Georgia, representing the United States in the Hawaiian Islands, would shortly marry the daughter of a rich Chinaman of Honolulu. This educated young gentleman and of social standing seeks an alliance with an ex-coolie—a pig eyed pagan. Who will dare say that the olive colored octoroons and quadroons, the bright mulattoes, the heiresses of wealthy-men of mixed blood, will not be sought in the next century by impecunious, thriftless and idle young men of the white race? The negro maidens are seen at certain colleges for women of high degree in the North. Whereunto will this grow?”

“Consider the future of the friendless and fatherless boy of the white race in the South. Can he pay $500 to attend the Stevens Institute in New York. Can he command money for board and raiment while a student at any state school with a small annex of tools and a shop? He hasn’t money enough to buy oven a railroad ticket to such a college.”

“The grandchildren of warlike men with historic names, who made the Southern army a synonym of dauntless courage, are drifting toward the helot class, and in the century dawning there will come to pass social conditions that would stir the corpses in the jackets of grey.

“No man has soon the harvest from the sowing after Appomattox. The statesmen among us robbed the ex-soldier of Lee to educate black competitors of his children. Then Northern millionaires, in hatred of the paroled citizens, have endowed colleges of tools and machines to equip the ex-slave to surpass and subjugate the sons of the confederate in the struggle for the best pay and position in the skilled trades. It is a condition and not a theory that confronts us. Thoughtful men do not contest the fact.”

Madison, Wis., July 25—At the Monona lake assembly yesterday, John Temple Graves of Georgia advanced some radical ideas regarding the negro race problem in his lecture entitled, “Uncle Tom’s’ New Cabin.” He said:

“The remedy Is to be found in a negro state planted in the heart of our own great republic, under the shadow of the flag, under the benediction of the government. Here let him, unmolested, work out his final destiny. In the region of Colorado, Now Mexico and Arizona is to be found on area of 150,000,000 acres upon which our whole negro population could find subsistence and yet not be so densely populated as I found Germany or Belgium. The government should lend them every aid in developing the country. Negroes alone should hold the offices and rule the country. Nor are they opposed to such action. Actual investigation has shown that numbers are ready to go even to Africa where they can have a state of their own.”

Gwinnett Street Colored Folks Are Talking About the Marriage of the White Man to the Octoroon

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Thursday, 1898-03-31
page 2, column 5
Source: Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection

The colored folks in Gwinnett Street are talking to-day of the marriage which took place two weeks ago. Miss Zoe Ball, a vocalist and pianist, to William L. Morton, a commercial traveler and former variety show manager. Morton is white, but his wife is an octoroon. It is said that they first met in a local music hall last Summer and that Morton became infatuated with Miss Ball from the first.

The marriage was performed at 125 Harrison Avenue, on March 16, by the Rev. H. Guelich. The couple had made two previous calls at the rectory and had interviews with the Rev. Mr. Guelich. He expressed his willingness to marry them and on the evening of the 16th, between 7 and 8 o’clock they called with two witnesses, George Burrell and Edith Camp, both colored.

Speaking to an Eagle reporter this morning the Rev. Mr. Guelich said that he was surprised that there should have been any talk or gossip about the marriage. He said he was not aware Miss Ball was a negress. He said he could not discern the difference between her and a white woman. She gave her age as 24 and her birthplace as Louisville, Ky. Morton said that he was 34 and that he was born in Newark, N.J.

Appo Will Serve Six Months

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Thursday, 1895-10-03
page 12, column 2
Source: Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection

George Appo, the Chinese half-bred, who obtained notoriety especially through his testimony before the Lexow senate investigating committee, and who pleaded guilty to assault in the third degree in the stabbing of Policeman Michael J. Rein of the West Thirtieth street station on April 9, was this morning sentenced to six months in the penitentiary by Judge Cowing in Part II, New York general sessions.

A Sad Case of Amalgamation

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Volume 19, Number 211
1860-09-05
page 1, column 6
Source: Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection

The reporter of the Philadelphia Press has been around among the colored folks of Philadelphia, and In the course of his peregrination he met with the following case of practical amalgamation:

We were next gratified with something previously new to us—a case of practical amalgamation. We had wrought up our feelings to such abhorrence of the intermarriage of races, that nothing short of the absolute misery of families so produced was expected. The chronicle, however, must be true to the experience, and we are compelled to state that this single case of wedded amalgamation was not so repulsive in its effects as we bad wished it to be.

Being cautioned by the officer to say nothing of our prejudices, we passed through a cleanly-arched alley, and trod by a row of rear brick buildings. Hastily glancing through an open door, we saw a thin, neat-looking white woman industriously sewing. At her feet a negro child was playing and she stooped to kiss it as the door post hid her from view.  A black man was chopping wood in the yard. Three yellow children clustered around him, and at the moment the child which bad been gambolling at the woman’s feet tottered from the house and called him ‘Pappy!’

The man looked angrily at us, but he said nothing.

‘Do your children still help you at the market, Tom?’ said the officer.

‘Yes, sir,’ said the man, chopping away at the stick of wood. As he seemed adverse to making any reply, the officer said:

‘Such children as these I never knew—up at 5 o’clock every morning, and wheeling a heavy go-cart through the streets; they are going someday to be richer than their father.’

‘I hope so,’ said the man.  ‘God knows I am poor enough.’ He continued to chop.

‘Nonsense,’ said the officer. ‘Why, Tom, you take care of your money, never drink. How much better off are vou than your neighbors?’

‘I know that,’ said the man, interestedly, leaning upon his axe, ‘but I want to be rich enough to leave this street. I don’t want these boys to grow up with low people or to live in this unhealthy neighborhood. They are good boys, but I don’t like to tell them so. They make—the three of them—as much wages as I do.’

We understood from our guide that the negro and the woman were legally married; that she had been poor, and his attentions to her in poverty had placed her under obligations which ended in wedlock. As we passed out and peeped stealthily again at the woman, fondling her negro babe, she espied us and looked straightforwardly into our faces. There was no shame upon her cheeks.  She seemed to clasp her child still closer, and as we passed out of view we heard her singing.

‘After all,’ said the officer, ‘these children are better off than those miserable mulattoes who have no recognised fathers. If amalgamation is to become an institution, I prefer it sanctioned by marriage.’

We looked forward to that woman’s career. With the existing feelings of society, thrift and integrity will benefit her little; for the life she has chosen will ever cling to her, and every social advance she may make with her dusky husband will make her more opprobrious and abhorred. It is a hard case.