USA > Pennsylvania > Progressive Pennsylvania; a record of the remarkable industrial development of the Keystone state, with some account of its early and its later transportation systems, its early settlers, and its prominent men > Part 7
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The following table gives the negro population of the United States in 1900 in cities having at least ten thou- sand negroes, according to the census of that year.
Cities.
Negroes.
Cities.
Negroes.
Washington, D. C.
86,702
Kansas City, Mo
17,567
Baltimore, Md.
79,258
Montgomery, Ala.
17,229
New Orleans, La.
77,714
Mobile, Ala.
17,045
Philadelphia, Pa.
62,613
Pittsburgh, Pa.
17,040
New York, N. Y
60,666
Birmingham, Ala.
16,575
Memphis, Tenn.
49,910
Jacksonville, Fla.
16,236
Louisville, Ky.
39,139
Indianapolis, Ind.
15,931
Atlanta, Ga.
35,727
Little Rock, Ark.
14,694
St. Louis, Mo.
35,516
Houston, Tex.
14,608
Richmond, Va.
32,230
Cincinnati, Ohio
14,482
Charleston, S. C.
31,522
Chattanooga, Tenn.
13,122
Chicago, Ill.
30,150
Boston, Mass.
11,591
Nashville, Tenn
30,044
Macon, Ga.
11,550
Savannah, Ga
28,090
Petersburg, Va.
10,751
Norfolk, Va.
20,230
Wilmington, N. C.
10,407
Augusta, Ga.
18,487
Lexington, Ky.
10,130
The total negro population of the United States in the census year 1900 was 8,840,789, of which large num- ber there were 156,845 in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh contained more than one-half of the total num-
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ber in Pennsylvania, and a large part of the remainder were in the suburbs of these cities. The total negro popu- lation of Allegheny county in 1900 was 27,753. Since the census of 1900 the negro population of Western Pennsyl- vania has greatly increased, as has also that of Philadel- phia. In 1900 Philadelphia had 62,613 negroes.
The claim has been frequently made that the first protest that was made in this country against negro sla- very originated with the Friends, or Quakers. This claim will bear examination. The clearest and also the latest account of this really important matter is contained in Pennypacker's Settlement of Germantown, published by the Pennsylvania German Society in 1899. Pennypacker says:
" On the 18th day of April, 1688, Gerhard Hendricks, Dirck Op den Graeff, Francis Daniel Pastorius, and Abra- ham Op den Graeff sent to the Friends Meeting the first public protest ever made on this continent against the holding of slaves. The protest is as follows :
"'This is to ye Monthly Meeting held at Rigert Wor- rells. These are the reasons why we are against the traf- fick of mens-body as followeth : Is there any that would be done or handled at this manner ? viz. to be sold or made a slave for all the time of his life ? . Now what is this better done as Turcks doe ? yea rather is it worse for them, wch say they are Christians, for we hear that ye most part of such Negers are brought heither against their will & consent, and that many of them are stollen. Now tho' they are black, we can not conceive there is more liberty to have them slaves, as it is to have other white ones. There is a saying, that we shall doe to all men licke as we will be done our selves: macking no difference of what generation, descent, or Colour they are. And those who steal or robb men, and those who buy or purchase them, are they not all alicke ? . . . In Europe there are many oppressed for Conscience sacke; and here there are those oppressed wch are of a black Colour. . Oh ! doe consider well this things, you who doe it, if you would be done at this manner ? and if it is done according Christianity ? you surpass Holland & Ger- many in this thing. This macks an ill report in all those
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Countries of Europe, where they hear off, that ye Quack- ers doe here handel men Licke they handel there ye Cat- tle; and for that reason some have no mind or inclina- tion to come hither. And we who profess that it is not lawfull to steal must lickewise avoid to purchase such things as are stolen, but rather help to stop this robbing and stealing if possibel and such men ought to be delivred out of ye hands of ye Robbers and set free as well as in Europe. Then is Pensilvania to have a good report, in stead it hath now a bad one for this sacke in other Countries. Especially whereas ye Europeans are de- sirous to know in what manner ye Quackers doe rule in their Province & most of them doe loock upon us with an envious eye. But if this is done well, what shall we say is don evil ? This was is from our meeting at Ger- mantown hold ye 18 of the 2 month 1688 to be delivred to the monthly meeting at Richard Warrels.'"
Here follow literally the signatures, according to Penny- packer : "'gerret hendericks. derick op de graeff. Francis daniell Pastorius. Abraham op den graef.'"'
Following the text of the above protest Pennypacker adds the following information, which shows the fate of the effort of Pastorius and his three friends to put a check to slavery and the slave trade in Pennsylvania : "The Friends at Germantown, through William Kite, have re- cently had a fac simile copy of this protest made. Care has been taken to give it here exactly as it is in the orig- inal, as to language, orthography, and punctuation. The disposition which was made of it appears from these notes from the Friends' records :
""'At our monthly meeting at Dublin ye 30 2 mo. 1688, we having inspected ye matter above mentioned & con- sidered it we finde it so weighty that we think it not Ex- pedient for us to meddle with it here, but do Rather comitt it to ye consideration of ye Quarterly meeting, ye tennor of it being nearly Related to ye truth. On behalf of ye monthly meeting. signed, pr. Jo. Hart.' 'This above men- tioned was Read in our Quarterly meeting at Philadelphia the 4 of ye 4 mo. '88, and was from thence recommended to the Yearly Meeting, and the above-said Derick and the
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other two mentioned therein, to present the same to ye above-said meeting, it being a thing of too great a weight for this meeting to determine. Signed by order of ye Meeting, Anthony Morris.'" Pennypacker continues :
"At the yearly meeting held at Burlington the 5 day of 7 mo. 1688. 'A paper being here presented by some German Friends Concerning the Lawfulness and Unlawful- ness of buying and Keeping of Negroes, It was adjudged not to be so proper for this Meeting to give a Positive Judgment in the case, It having so General a Relation to many other Parts, and, therefore, at present they for- bear it.'"
Referring directly to the protest Pennypacker says : " The handwriting of the original appears to be that of Pastorius. An effort has been made to take from the Quakers the credit of this important document, but the evidence that those who sent and those who received it regarded each other as being members of the same relig- ious society seems to me conclusive."
It will be observed that the signers of the above pro- test were not English Quakers. All were doubtless known as German Quakers. Three of them were Hollanders and one was a German-the two Op den Graeffs, Gerhard Hendricks, and Pastorius. All but Pastorius were origi- nally Mennonites. It will be further observed that the protest was not favorably received by any of the meetings of English Friends to which it was submitted. To claim credit for the Friends for making the first protest against slavery, if by that phrase is meant the English Quakers, is therefore wholly inaccurate. The credit belongs to the three Hollanders and the one German above mentioned, of whom three were Mennonites before they were Quakers. That many of the English Quakers of Pennsylvania were slaveholders has already been shown in this chapter; and it has also been shown that the frequent efforts that were made at the Yearly Meetings of Friends to secure a decla- ration that Friends should not hold slaves were unsuccess- ful until 1758-seventy years after the Germantown pro- test ; and it has been further shown that it was not until 1776 that the Yearly Meeting declared that all negroes
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D'did not the colonies
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NEGRO SLAVERY IN PENNSYLVANIA.
held in slavery by Friends should be set at liberty. Eng- lish Quakers, therefore, as a class did not oppose slavery but permitted it among their own membership, even if they did not distinctly approve it. The credit of the first protest in this country against slavery rightfully belongs to Pastorius and his friends, and this protest was made against the practice of the English Quakers themselves in buying and holding slaves. It was written when the English and Welsh Quakers formed a large part of the population of the province, probably a majority.
In his Settlement of Germantown Pennypacker copies an incident from the journal of John Woolman in 1758 which illustrates the aversion of the Mennonites to negro slavery : "A friend gave me some account of a religious society among the Dutch, called Mennonists, and amongst other things related a passage in substance as follows : One of the Mennonists having acquaintance with a man of another society at a considerable distance, and being with his wagon on business near the house of his said ac- quaintance, and night coming on, he had thoughts of put- ting up with him, but passing by his fields, and observing the distressed appearance of his slaves, he kindled a fire. in the woods hard by and lay there that night. His said acquaintance hearing where he had lodged, and afterwards meeting the Mennonist, told him of it, adding he should have been heartily welcome at his house, and from their acquaintance in former times wondered at his conduct in that case. The Mennonist replied, 'Ever since I lodged by thy field I have wanted an opportunity to speak with thee. I had intended to come to thy house for entertainment, but seeing thy slaves at their work, and observing the manner of their dress, I had no liking to come and partake with thee.' He then admonished him to use them with more humanity, and added : 'As I lay by the fire that night I thought that, as I was a man of substance, thou wouldst have received me freely, but if I had been as poor as one of thy slaves, and had no power to help my- self, I should have received from thy hand no kinder usage than they.'" To which we may add that there is no evidence that a Mennonite ever owned a negro slave.
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CHAPTER VI.
THE DELAWARE INDIANS.
IT does not fall within the scope of this volume to consider in detail the relations of the early settlers of Pennsylvania to the native inhabitants of the province or to attempt any description of the Indians themselves. This has been done by the historians of Pennsylvania, and the record they have written is full of massacres, burned homes, and proofs of bad faith on both sides. Away from the Delaware the pioneers in the settlement of Pennsylva- nia were in almost constant conflict with the Indians from about 1750 until after the close of the Revolutionary war. Having mentioned, however, in previous chapters the friendship of the Delawares for the first settlers of Penn- sylvania, and particularly for William Penn, it is proper that the sequel of these pleasant relations should be given. It forms a disgraceful chapter in our provincial history.
William Penn's policy of dealing fairly with the In- dians was not followed by his sons. Hannah Penn had managed the affairs of the province with great shrewd- ness and ability after 1712, during Penn's long illness, and after his death until her own death in 1727, when she was succeeded in the proprietorship by her three sons, John, Thomas, and Richard Penn. It was during their proprietorship that an event occurred in 1737 that could not have happened in the lifetime of William Penn, and which has gone into history as "the walking purchase." The historians, particularly Fisher and Sharpless, deal with this episode with great frankness and with much severity. Fisher describes it as follows :
"'The walking purchase' purported to be a confirma- tion of an old deed made in 1686, and provided for a line starting at Wrightstown, a few miles back from the Dela- ware, and a little way above Trenton, and running north- west about parallel with the Delaware as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. At the end of the walk
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THE DELAWARE INDIANS.
a line was to be drawn to the Delaware, and the land be- tween these lines and the river was 'the walking purchase.' Long before the walk was to be made the proprietors prepared the ground by having the line of walk surveyed and the trees marked so that the walkers should go in as straight a line as possible and lose no time. On the day appointed the walkers, in charge of the sheriff, started promptly at sunrise and were accompanied by men with horses carrying their provisions and blankets, also by some who went as mere spectators and by some Indians who went as representatives of their nation and to see fair play. The men selected to do the walking were the strongest and most active woodsmen that could be found. The Indians soon complained that they could not keep up with them and repeatedly called to them not to run. Finally, toward the end of the first day, being unable to stop the running, the Indians retired and left the white men to conduct the walk as they pleased. It had been generally understood by the Indians that 'the walking purchase' extended only to the Lehigh river, and it was their opinion that a walk of a day and a half would reach only that far. But the walkers passed beyond the river on the first day. They traveled for twelve hours by the sheriff's watch, and when at twilight he suddenly gave the signal that the time was up Edward Marshall, one of the walkers, fell against a tree, to which he clung for sup- port, saying that a few rods more would have finished him. The next half day the walkers reached a point thirty miles beyond the Lehigh, and, when the line was drawn from this point to the river, instead of taking it directly to the river, it was slanted upward for a long distance so as to include the whole of the valuable Minisink country. That this 'walking purchase' was a fraud on the Indians no one has ever doubted. It sank deep into the Indian heart and was never forgotten. As they never forgot the kindness and justice of Penn so they never forgot this treachery of his sons, and in a few years the mutilated bodies and scalps of hundreds of women and children throughout the whole Pennsylvania frontier told the tale of wrong.
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" The alienation of the Indians was of course largely the inevitable result of the ambitious designs of France and of the progress of our own race, which is very apt to crush inferior people in its course, but a great deal of the blame rests with Thomas Penn, who was in the province at the time of 'the walking purchase' and directly respon- sible for it. He was also, through his agents, responsible for the grasping Albany deed of 1754, which sent pretty much all the Pennsylvania Indians over to the French."
Sharpless uses equally plain words of denunciation of Thomas Penn's conduct in connection with "the walking purchase." He says : "In a treaty in 1728 James Logan said that William Penn never allowed lands to be settled till purchased of the Indians. Ten years before he had shown to their chiefs deeds covering all the lands from Duck creek, in Delaware, to the 'Forks of the Delaware,' between the Delaware and Lehigh rivers where Easton now stands, and extending back along the 'Leehoy hills' to the Susquehanna. The Indians admitted this and con- firmed the deeds, but. objected to the settlers crowding into the fertile lands within the forks occupied by the Minisink tribe of the Delaware Indians. Logan accordingly forbade any surveying in the Minisink country. White settlers, however, were not restrained, and the Indians be- came still more uneasy. A tract of 10,000 acres sold by the Penns to be taken up anywhere in the unoccupied lands of the province was chosen here and opened for set- tlement. A lottery was established by the proprietors, the successful tickets calling for amounts of land down to 200 acres, and many of these were assigned in the forks, without Indian consent.
" In order to secure undisputed possession and drive out the Delawares, who it must be remembered had al- ways been more than friendly, a despicable artifice was re- sorted to, which will always disgrace the name of Thomas Penn. The route was surveyed, underbrush clear- ed away, horses stationed to convey the walkers across the rivers, two athletic young men trained for the pur- pose, and conveyances provided for their baggage and provisions. Indians attended at the beginning, but after
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THE DELAWARE INDIANS.
repeatedly calling to the men to walk, not run, retired in disgust. Far from stopping at the Leehoy hills they cov- ered about sixty miles and extended the line thirty miles beyond the Lehigh river. Then, to crown the infamy, in- stead of running the northern line by any reasonable course they slanted it to the northeast and included all the Minisink country. It was a gross travesty on the origi- nal purchase, an outrageous fraud on the Indians, which they very properly refused to submit to. They remained in their ancestral homes and sent notice they would resist removal by force. There unfortunately seems to be no doubt of the iniquity of the transaction. There is the tes- timony of at least two witnesses to the walk. It appears to have been a common subject of remark. Indifferent men treated it as sharp practice, and honest men were ashamed." But, says Sharpless, " the outrage did not stop here." The proprietaries, having determined to eject the Delaware Indians from the lands included in "the walking purchase," "applied to the Six Nations, who claimed all the Pennsylvania Indians as their subjects," with the result that the peaceful and the greatly injured Delawares were driven by the Iroquois from their homes along the Delaware river to Wyoming, Shamokin, and other interior places. In a little while they became im- placable enemies of the white settlers, and with the torch and the tomahawk wreaked their vengeance upon the race that had not only supplanted them but had treated them with flagrant injustice and base ingratitude. This was the end of Penn's peaceful policy toward the Delawares.
On July 7, 1764, it was thought to be necessary for the professedly Christian government of Pennsylvania, repre- sented by John Penn as governor, a grandson of William Penn, to issue a proclamation offering the following boun- ties for the capture, or scalp, in proof of the death, of an Indian : for every male above the age of ten years cap- tured, $150; scalped, being killed, $134; and for every female Indian enemy, and every male under the age of ten years, captured, $130; for every female above the age of ten years scalped, being killed, $50." (See Gordon's History of Pennsylvania.)
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Until after "the walking purchase" there was never any serious trouble between the settlers on the Delaware and any Indian tribe, except the massacre at Swanandael, which seems not to have been the work of the Delawares. In 1728 there was some trouble in the Schuylkill valley with a small band of Shawnese, but no lives were lost on either side. Pennypacker, in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography for January, 1907, after describ- ing the affair, says : "Altogether five of the settlers and several of the Indians had been wounded more or less seriously, but notwithstanding the wild rumors none were killed. It is interesting as the only engagement with the savages which ever occurred in the vicinity of Philadel- phia."
Driven to Western Pennsylvania by influences that they could not resist, the Delawares and the Shawnese were almost constantly at war with the whites until both tribes and other Indians were driven out of Pennsylvania. Practically all the Indians disappeared from Pennsylva- nia after the treaty of Fort Stanwix in October, 1784, by which the Iroquois surrendered to Pennsylvania all the northwestern part of the State. Incursions of Indians in- to the settled parts of Western Pennsylvania continued, however, for several years. The burning of Hannastown, the county-seat of Westmoreland county, had occurred in 1782. In the same county Mrs. Massey Harbison and her three children were captured by the Indians in 1792 and two of the children were massacred. In 1794 Captain Andrew Sharp, of Indiana county, was shot and killed by "seven Indians" while descending the Kiskiminitas river in a boat with his family and others. In the same year James Dickson was fired upon by Indians while hunt- ing his cows in Crawford county and seriously wounded. Half-breed Indians and some of full blood who were peace- ably disposed were permitted to remain in Warren county, on the Allegheny river, just below the New York State line. Mr. Rhoads says : "Of the existing Indians which represent the ancient occupants or claimants of Central Pennsylvania there were 98 Senecas and Onondagas living in 1890 on the Cornplanter Reservation in Warren county."
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PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
.
CHAPTER VII.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PENNSYLVANIA.
IN Cæsar's Commentaries on his Wars in Gaul, with which all historical students are familiar, it is stated that " the whole country of Gaul is divided into three parts," and that these parts are separated only by boundaries which are formed by rivers. Pennsylvania is also divided into three parts, which may be described as the east- ern, central, and western sections. Their boundaries are strongly marked and they are distinctly defined in every good map of the State. They are more marked and im- pressive than the boundaries which divided Gaul into three parts. It is of interest to add that these sections were occupied by white settlers at three different periods and in the order above mentioned. The eastern part extends from the Delaware river to the eastern branch and the main stem of the Susquehanna river; the central part ex- tends westward from the Susquehanna to the summit of the Alleghenies at Cresson and corresponding points; and the western part extends from the crest of the Alleghenies to the western limits of the State. Bedford and Altoona, at the eastern base of the Alleghenies, are in the central division of Pennsylvania as we have above described it.
An examination of a good map of Pennsylvania will show that the State forms almost an exact parallelogram, touching the waters of the Delaware on its eastern bound- ary and extending to Ohio and West Virginia on the west and to Lake Erie on the northwest, with straight lines forming its northern and southern and western bounda- ries; that throughout nearly its whole extent it is trav- ersed by numerous mountain ranges of the Appalachian system, all having the same general direction from north- east to southwest; that it is remarkably well watered by large rivers and their mountain tributaries ; that it has very few lakes, most of which are but little larger than ponds; and that between its mountain ranges are many
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valleys of considerable extent, the most noted being the Schuylkill, Wyoming, Chester, Lebanon, Cumberland, Ju- niata, Ligonier, Monongahela, Allegheny, Shenango, and Ohio valleys. Many of the mountain ranges of Pennsyl- vania lead up to extensive and fertile plateaus upon which may be found well-tilled farms and attractive and prosperous towns and villages.
In natural resources Pennsylvania is the richest State in the Union. It is a great agricultural State as well as the leading producer of anthracite and bituminous coal, natural gas, and other natural products. A large part of the State is underlaid with limestone, and its influence upon the fertility of the soil was recognized by the early settlers. It was long the principal producer of iron ore.
Most of our country is rich in magnificent scenery of hill and dale, mountain and valley, forest and lake and river, but nowhere is there to be found a greater or more pleasing variety of scenery than in Pennsylvania. Espe- cially may this be said in those seasons of the year when the primeval forests which have not been seriously invad- ed by the woodman's axe and the lumberman's saw-mill present to the eye long stretches of the densest and green- est foliage. And, then, if we keep away from the smoke of the mill and the factory and the coke oven, there will be added the necessary accompaniment of all beautiful scenery, a clear sky overhead, which William Penn found in 1683 and described in a letter written in that year to the Duke of Ormonde, to which we will presently refer.
Pennsylvania has hundreds of scenes of varied beauty that would well repay a visit from any American or Eu- ropean tourist-some rugged and grand, others quiet and restful, but all supremely beautiful, especially in the sum- mer and autumn seasons of the year. The wonder is that the lines of railroad which run through the most pictur- esque sections of the State are not more patronized by American tourists in these seasons than they are. Many of our tourists go to Europe knowing very little of the unsurpassed scenery of their own country. And yet, when American men and women of intelligence and artistic taste have the good judgment to travel through any part
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