Cass County, Missouri - Chapter 36: Negroes, 1917

INTRODUCTION OP SLAVERY - MASTER AND SLAVE MISREPRESENTED - FIDELITY OF THE NEGRO - SPECIFIC CASES - NOT A BEAST OF BURDEN - CO-OPERATION WITH HIS WHITE MASTER.

The Negro or African slaves were introduced into the United States in about 1916 by New England traders. This labor proved not to be profitable in the rigid climate of the North and he took his place as a laborer in the South of our country.

Philip Renault, a Frenchman, in about 1763, on his way to the Louisiana country, purchased at the then colony of France - San Domingo - five hundred Negroes to work his prospective mines in the West. He, like other adventurers, was looking for mines. They, however, proved unprofitable. From these most likely sprang the Negroes who partic¬ ipated in the early settlement of this country. It is true, some in later years were brought across the continent from Kentucky, Virginia and other eastern states.

As a general proposition, the early settlers of western Missouri were too poor to own slaves. What few there were, however, were useful in the development of western Missouri

The Negro has been much misrepresented and vilified. So has his former master. Much has been said of the ill-treatment by the master, and want of fidelity on the part of the old slave. The facts are that there was generally the strictest fidelity to the whites by the Negro, and kind¬ est treatment of the Negro by the master. They were one common family. All had one common interest and each performed his part well in the development of this country.

being imbued with the idea of the brutality of the master to the slave, writes home the results of his own observations in his travel in the South and West. He writes: "The inscription on another plain but respectable monument was to me affecting. It purports to be erected as a grateful, record of the long, faithful and affectionate services of a black slave. The whole inscription wears a delightful simplicity, and honors the master that erected it as much as the slave."

The writer could relate incidents of personal fidelity and gratitude of the Negro. A female slave, putting her own body between the master and danger, to protect the master to her own danger. Again, a young Negro man of seventeen years of age, being taken South from his people to work among strangers as a slave, was purchased by a white man and given a home. The Negro lived beyond his seventy years. No time did the Negro ever cease, not only to have gratitude in his heart, but never ceased to express on all occasions his profound gratitude to this mas¬ ter and to his descendants, after the old master's death. This Negro, in his old days, was absolutely free to ask for what he wanted from his benefactor's family. At the old Negro's death, the white family of his old master were the mourners at the funeral. The pall-bearers were all white men and he rests today with what he always called his own people - white and black. This is not an unusual case of the early settler and his Negro servant.

Before the day of banks in our county it was not unusual to send money, sometimes in the thousands of dollars, by a faithful negro to Lexington, Independence and Booneville, for deposit in the banks there. Don't get the idea the Negro was simply the beast of burden. Fre¬ quently he was called into the councils to determine the advisability of certain business enterprises. In an early day the whites and Negroes belonged to the same church, worshipped at the same altars. Master and servant labored side by side to upbuild His cause among all colors. Sun¬ day belonged to the Negro for worship. Saturday's profits belonged to himself.