RE PORT
OF THE
PllOCEEDINGS OF A MEETING
HELD AT CONCERT HALL,
PHILADELPHIA,
On Tuesday Evening, Noveinber 3, 1863,
i: TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION THE CONDITION
OF THE
FREED PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH.
V H I L A D E L P H 1 A :
M E R R I II K W .t THOMPSON, PRINTERS,
No. 243 Arch Street.
1863.
pei«np^9iiR^pn99i
REPORT
OF THE
PEOCEEDINGS OF A MEETING
HELD AT CONCERT HALL.
PHILADELPHIA,
On Tuesday Evening, November 3, 1863,
TO TAKE IMTO COiSIDERATIOM THE COmiTlOH
OF THE
FREED PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH.
^ - . ..:-£,^J^^-^^
PHILADELPHIA:
MERRIHEW k THOMPSON, PRINTERS
No. 243 Arch Street.
1863.
HEI^ORT.
On motion of Stephen Col well, Esq., President of tlie " Penn-
sylvania Freedmen's Relief Association," the Right Rev. Bishop
Potter was called to the Chair, and Mr. J. Miller McKim and
Mr. Ellis Yarnall were appointed Secretaries.
At the request of the Chairman, the Proceedings were opened
by prayer, by the Rev. Dr. Spear.
Bishop Potter then said :
Ladies and Gentlemen :
I need not state the object for which we are assembled. Some eigh-
teen months since the first public meeting was held in this city to
consider the necessities of those people of African descent who, on the
coast of South Carolina, had been separated from their masters and from
their accustomed employments and support, by the fortunes of war.
That meeting was followed by systematic arrangements, and by generous
contributions for their physical wants and their moral and religious
training.
Since then this class of persons has greatly multiplied. Along our
whole Southern coast, from Fortress Monroe to St Augustine, at the
mouth and on both banks of the Mississippi, on the Tennessee and
Cumberland and over immense tracts of country, they have been
liberated and thrown, without guide or friend, upon the world. Under
circumstances most demoralizing and, in many respects, most discouragino-
this long suffering race have been on their trial ; their temper, their
capacity, their virtue, — all have been subjected to the severest strain.
And who shall say that, considering their past disabilities and their
sore temptations, they have not borne the trial nobly ? Who shall say that
they will not work, save when under the driver's lash? or that they are
insensible to kindness ? or that they can attain to no forecast and
frugality in their affairs? or that they are slaves of vindictiveness? or
that they are insensible to the value of rational freedom? In the
camp and the battlefi^'ld tUey are fast viudicatiug their capacity for
discipline, their unflinching courage, and their enthusiastic attachment
to their whole country and to liberty. Honor, then, to the gracious
Providence which has so wondrously opened to these people the path
not only to nominal freedom but to real manhood. Honor to the
readiness and the severe self-restraint and self control with which they
have accepted the oppirtuuity. Honor to the sympathy and generous
kindness with which they have been relieved by many Christian hearts,
and to the promptness with which cruel prejudice has, in numberless
instances, given way before their advance to a higher life. And
honor to you, my friends, that you do noi shrink from the magnitude of
their wants, but have come here prepared to consider and to help
relieve them.
I hold in my hand a letter from a man whom to know is to love and
whom wc all honor and admire — Admiral Dupont. For many months
he was in intimate relations, at Port lloyal and elsewhere, with these
people and with those who went to their relief. Let me read his
testimony :
Near Wilmington, Dklaavark ]
20th Ocr. 1S63. j
Kt. Rev. and Dear Sir :
I have your favor of this morning in reference to the operations of
the Relief Committee raised in your neighborhood to help the blacks
about Port Royal and the adjacent coasts.
It gives me pleasure to state that the relief sent to that region by
humane and philanthropic individuals, through the Freedmen's Society
and its committees, so far as it came under my observation, (and I had
some opportunity of forming an opinion,) was judiciously applied and
relieved most worthy objects from extreme want and destitution.
Supplies in food and raiment were followed by instruction in social
organization, improvement in personal habits, in moral and religious
teaching and the establishment of schools.
The conduct of the blacks as a whole was excellent. They appeared
to appreciate all that was doing for them, and, with their first necessities
relieved, I consider them quite capable of self support. They arc not
without industry ; the spirit of freedom is very strong in them, the
love of locality nearly as great, and they are extremely alive to the ties
of relationship ; they are, moreover, emotional and open to religious
impressions, and very free from feelings of viudictiveness in reference
to their past servitude.
I received yesterday a letter from a gentleman in Beaufort. S. C, who
has been earnestly engaged in promoting the spiritual and physical welfare
of this race; he tells mc, " The people ,are improving; the crops are
coming on well. If the tax commissioners get the lands into market in
season, most of them will be bought by the Freedmeu."
Believe me Rt. Rev. and dear Sir,
With the highest respect,
Your friend and humble servant,
S. T. DuPoNT.
Rt. Eev. Alonzo Potter, &c. &c.
Philadelphia,
I will detain you no longer. The case is assuming an extent and
grandeur which demand immediate and organized treatment. The
suffering of women and children especially require instant succour.
We are fortunate in having with us a gentleman (Rev. Mr. Fiskc) who
has passed a long time in ministering to these people near Memphis,
Tenn., and who will present you with the results of his experience.
Tlie Chairman tlien introduced tlie Rev, A. S. Fiske, Chap-
lain of the Fourth Minnesota Eegiment, who, for the last ten
months, has been in charge of the "Contraband Camp" at
Memphis, Tenn,, and who now visits tlie North at the sug-
gestion of Major-General Grant, and by order of the Superin-
tendent in Chief of Contrabands in the Southwest, to make
known the condition of the freed people of that region. Mr.
Fiske spoke substantially as follows :
Having alluded to the patriotism and liberality of our people,
explained his own position and the authority by which he was
sent North upon his present mission, the duty enjoined upon him was
to make known, as widely as possible, the necessities of the freedmen
of the Southwest.
The care of these people was ours inevitably, from the moment we
accepted the sword as the defenders of the Constitution. Prejudice
and hate might repel for a time loyal men, with a mighty motive in
their loyalty, from our lines. Or pride might reject aid from a de-
spi-sed race, though familiar with the field of conflict, and reared in the
climate to which our sons and brothers too succumbed. But when the
conflict grew hot and heavy, and the sacrifice was slain upon every
household altar, common sense was soon to assume the sway. Before
6
we accepted them, they were, as servants, bearing the army's burdens
and doiug much of its work, as guides leading our scouts and recon-
noissaiici-'s, as spies bringing .otherwise impossible information to our
Generals, and gathering into camps all along our lines. In the course
of Divine Providence, the care was on us, and could not be turned off,
save by turning these people at wholesale, by starvation and nakedness,
into graves.
Three-fourths of all the people who are now a burden upon tbe coun-
try would have been so under any conceivable war policy. They are
the iutirm and helpless, the women and children, abandoned upon plan-
tations which had been stripped of everything that could sustain life.
The effect of the Proclamation has been to induce many able-bodied
men to effect their escape to our lines, who else would have been taken
to the interior by their masters. It has not much increased our bur-
dens, while it has vastly swelled the numbers of those who will do
good service in arms.
There will be fifty thousand black soldiers in the field during the
present winter, and at least as many more employed in the various
fatigue duties of the service.
But there is another army equal to that in the Southwest, greater
far than that, including the whole country, which we are to consider
to-night. There rest this night in crowded camps from Helena to
Natchez, on the Mississippi, not less than thirty-five thousand blacks,
from whom all the able-bodied men have been assorted. Their shelter
is old tents. A cheap ration is furnished by the government, which
aleo turns over unserviceable military clothing for the infirm men.
Officers — till recently chaplains — are detailed from the army to take
charge of them, and to organize them for labor, when it can be found
for them.
The speaker said : '• I shall have .some hard things to say of some of
our officers and army, but in the midst of them all, let him, the modest,
unpretending hero of Vicksburg, stand spotless. Overcoming early
all prejudices of education and political training, he has stood the
black man's friend. All that he could do he has done liberally, nobly.
By his authority every measure for their care, protection and supply
haa been taken. Tbe honor of his action in these affairs shall brighten
forever the lustre of his enviable fame. This patriot hero shall be
greeted as ho lives on through the ages of the world's history as not
only great but good."
He described the shameful abandonment of black men — too sick to
move — in deserted camps, by our army, to perish alone in storm and
mid-winter, stating that in one of its marches it left behind as many as
forty of them to perish hopelessly. He described their suffering in a
heavy snowstorm last winter, which resulted in the miserable death?
of many.
The key to all their dreadful destitution would be found in the
manner of their coming in. They were abandoned by their masters
on the approach of the Union army, refusing to follow them to the
interior. The army living upon the country stripped their plantations
of all eatable things, and left them no alternative but to go with the
army or starve. There was nothing to be done but the able-bodied
men must carry soldiers' loads ; the women must gather up their
children; tlie old men and women gather a little of their poor "dun-
nage," as they call it, and tramp on with the moving army. There is
no help. Life thus — starvation else. Or, finding that the master pro-
poses to take to the interior his able-bodied hands, leaving behind the
women, who are for the present worthless, the able-bodied anticipate
him, and gather the whole kindred, and try flight to the Union lines,
pursued often by men and dogs. Happy if they can come in with
their heart treasures safe, though destitute of winter supplies. Often,
alas ! the father comes alone, with the cry of wife and children ringing
in his ears as they were taken back to bonds. What of them ? (Jod
knows ! Ey and by, he — tliis thing, wonderfully imitative, but no
man — will go back to try again with and for them that fearful flight —
this thing, that is no man, and has no heart, but is fit only to be owned
and bought and sold and damned to his master's greed or lust !
The blacks of Jeff, and Joe Davis came in near Vicksburg in June
last, and were supplied in their destitution with comfortables and the
like, procured by the speaker from the agent of the Sanitary Commis-
sion. In this ease they left their plantations with teams and plenty,
but were stripped of all at the outposts of our army, and sent ou to
their camp as destitute as if they had started with nothing.
At Memphis alone, during the months of February, March and
April, not less than twelve hundred colored people were buried in great
pits, ten to twenty together, without coffin or shroud, and with scarcely
clothing enough for decency. During this time there were in the
vicinity about an average of four thousand of these people. They
were in extreme destitution, many of them having but a single garment
between them and nakedness. Few of them had bedding; they were
sheltered in leaky tents, had no floors, and were but poorly supplied
8
with cooking utcnsilp, and had no arrangements for fires except outside
their tents. The mortality among tliom was mainly the result of
exposure in insufficient clothing.
The speaker dwelt at some length u{ion the prejudice existing against
this people among Northern men, as illustrated in the conduct of our
army toward them, giving many instances of extreme cruelty on the
part of both oflBcers and men. This spirit is, however, much changed,
during the last six months, for the better, mainly through the arming
of the blacks, and their great usefulness, beside, in fatigue duty.
Will these people work ? Let facts reply. The Memphis camps
have averaged about twenty-two hundred people. For the past five
mouths the able-bodied men have been mainly on guard duty, main-
taining themselves by wood-cutting the days they are off duty. Yet
about four hundred comfortable log cabins have been built by them.
Many thousand days' work for the government has been performed ;
two hundred and fifty acres of land cultivated, and three thousand
ci'irds of wood cur anil that for the most part with neither wages paid
or promised.
They are checrtu!. contented, industrious, and less improvident than
could be expected.
But these abandoned people are unable to support themselves by
regular cultivation of the soil. The wide belt of territory, lately
devastated by the war. is still constantly overrun by guerrilla bands,
who drive off or kill every negro who attempts to work upon it. Not a
week passes but th:it parties of these maurauders sweep in within three
miles of Memphis.
An interesting account was given of the grand marriage of the people,
on the day of Thanksgiving for the victories of the summer. One
hundred and fifteen couples were lawfully married that day in the
camp.9, some of whom had lived together forty years, and had sons
married, besides, the same day.
Their religion is rather one of feeling and passion, of extacies and
viijions than of holy living, as might be expected when it was taught
them by those who could not apply it against any one of the practical
vices of slavery. They learn eagerly and easily.
What is to be done with them ? The speaker declared that they
could not be sent north. They wouldn't concur. They would not
leave the country They could not be remanded to their masters.
The work to be done is in the South. They are accustomed and willing
to do it. Only let the government protect them as free men — give
9
them the right to sell their labor in the best market — the right to
learn; the right to own and inherit; the right to Tvife and children,
and to do what they are able to do, and you need not trouble statesmen
or politicians about their future. Reports of their suflferings have gone
back through the confederacy and prevent them from coming in as they
did six months ago. If it prove by and by that the rebels are able to
arm the blacks against us, these reports alone will enable them to do it.
The speaker closed with an earnest appeal for a great national
movement for the relief of the freed women and children in all
departments.
Mr. Fiske was followed by Mr. J. Miller McKim, wlio said :
Mr. Chairman, I hold in my hands some resolutions, which, on be-
half of the parties vfho have convoked this meeting, I desire to offer.
Before reading thorn, I beg leave to make a few remarks :
About eighteen months ago, as you have intimated, sir, a meeting was
held in this city similar in character and purpose to this. It was
called to meet a pressing necessity. Our victorious arms in South
Carolina had given us our first instalment of freedom, in the way of
liberated slaves. Ten thousand human chattels, deserted by there fu-
gacious masters, were thrown upon the country for maintenance and pro-
tection. They were in a most destitute condition, perishing for want
of food and lack of needful clothing. An appeal in their behalf was
made to Northern philanthropy by officers in command of the army and
navy of the Southern Department. That appeal was responded to with
promptness and liberality ; and nowhere, I am proud to say, with more
promptness and liberality than here in Philadelphia. The meeting
referred to was called to consider the subject. You will well remember
the occasion sir, for it was our good fortune then, as it is now, to have
you for our presiding officer. Earnest addresses were delivered by
speakers who set forth fully the whole subject. The people were
moved. They adopted a resolution that these suffering blacks of the
sea islands should have the relief — physical, mental and moral — which
their necessities called for, and appointed a Committee to reduce this
resolution to practice. That Committee — known afterwards as the
" Port Royal Relief Committee," now styled, from its enlarged sphere,
the " Pennsylvania Freedmen'a Relief Association " — cheerfully un-
dertook the task assigned it. How that task was executed, it is not for
one speaking on its behalf to say. Its reports are before the public.
They have been circulated extensively in this country, and republished
abroad.
10
It is due, however, to the people of Philadelphia, — to those who gave
character and shape to the meeting, — to say that the resolution adopted
was no mere idle flourish. It was the expression of a fixed purpose ;
a purpose that was to be followed by corresponding action. At once
contributions began to flow into the treasury of the Committee. With
these, food and raiment were purchased and forwarded to the objects
to be relieved. These again were followed by teachers and superin-
tendents, — high-toned and devoted men and women, — whose labors from
that time to this have been the admiration of the country. — have eli-
cited grateful acknowledgments from the heads of the (lovernment,
and have reflected honor upon our national character amoug the people
of foreign lands.
For, Mr. Chairman, this Port Royal business, though in itself con-
sidered a mere incident in the progress of the war — a more episode in
the history of our national struggle, is, nevertheless, in its bearings and
relations, a matter of the very greatest moral and political signifi-
cance. The Port Royal Experiment, as it has been called, has been
a beacon light on the dark coast of our tempest-tossed political sea. It
has revealed the only safe channel through which our imperilled ship
of State could make its destined port. It has been one of the most
beautiful of all that series of beautiful providences, by which the
Good (jod has been leading us along, — saving us, as a nation, in spite
of ourselves, from the rocks and reefs on which our sin-begotten preju-
dices against a race, and an insane and sorcerous attachment to slavery,
were continually threatening to wreck us.
Port Koyul, sir, has been to this country, and not to this country
alone, a great and beneficent revelator. It has disclosed a wealth of
virtue on the part of the people, — a latent mine of benevolence and
love of impartial justice — previously unknown, and by many not even
suspected. When, Mr. Chairman, at that meeting eighteen months
ago, you, as its organ said, " the blacks of the sea-islands are perishing.
and need immediate relief," the instant and emphatic reply was, " thy
shaU Jiavi; it." The next day, in the Corn Exchange, gentlemen raised,
for this object, a thousand dollars. This was followed by other thou-
sands from other sources. Men and women, more than could be em-
ployed, volunteered as teachers and helpers.
Here was a revelation. As, in the beginning of the war, strong men,
by thousands and tens of thousands, volunteered to fight, — to do the
work of dtj.-*truction made necessary by the rebellion, — so now it wag
seen that a noble army of men and women, stood ready to volunteer to
11
do the moral work — the work of construction made necessary by the
cause of the rebellion.
Port Royal has also brought to light a great wealth of resource
possessed by the country, in the character and capabilities of the black
man. That the blacks will work, without the whip, quietly, indus-
triously, and that for the mei'est modicum of wages, the most reluc-
tant are now compelled to admit. That they will fight, with the same
bravery and the same skill as white men, and that tliey may be relied
upon as defenders of our common country in time of war, has been
made equally patent. Gen. Hunter's black regiment of South Carolina,
were the first to put this fact beyond a peradventure. That they are
susceptible to educational influences, the Port Royal enterprize has
also placed beyond the possibility of cavil. Read the published testi-
mony of teachers who have gone out from this city. Read the letters
of that most accomplished and devoted lady, Miss Laura Towne ; or
those of the equally accomplished and devoted Miss Charlotte For-
ten, granddaughter of the late James Forten, of this city ; or those of
the estimable Mrs. General Saxton, formerly Miss Matilda Thompson,
who went to South Carolina under the auspices of our Philadelphia
Relief Committee.
But I need not multiply illustrations of what has been developed by
this great Port Royal movement. Suffice it to say, its history consti-
tutes one of the most instructive chapters in the annals of our country.
It is a chapter that has been read, studied and reproduced in Eng-
land and France, and that with the greatest advantage to our national
cause, and to the cause of popular liberty everywhere.
Now, Mr. Chairman, for the moral of these statements: What ha«
been done at Port Royal, can be done at Memphis. What can be done
for South Carolina, can be done for Tennessee ; and what can be done
for both these States, can and ought to be done for all the other States
of the South similarly situated.
What if there be " 35,000 freed people on the banks of the Missis-
sippi" looking to us for aid ? What if there, and elsewhere, this num-
ber be increased, as it soon necessarily will be, tenfold ? The more of
them the better. The sooner they are all free, the sooner will the wur
be over; the sooner will the rebellion be suppressed, permanent peace
restored, and the work of our national regeneration complete.
The resolutions I proposed to offer are as follows :
Whereas, We have heard with deep and painful interest the recitals
which have been made to us of the condition of the freed blacks in
12
Tennessee, on the banks of the Mississippi, and elsewhere ; and
whereas, the destitution thus disclosed is of the most pressing exi-
gency, niakincc appeals which admit of no postponement ; and whereas,
it would be plainly unreasonable to demand of the Government — with
a colossal war on its hands, and difficulties to contend with of unpre-
cedented magnitude — that it should assume the entire burden of the
support and management of this hapless people : therefore,
Resohrd, That all citizens of the United States, and especially the
loyal and humane of the North, owe a duty to the freed blacks of the
South in their present distress, which demands immediate practical
acknowledgement.
Jitso/icil, That the necessities of these people, being inevitably inci-
dent to their transition from slavery to freedom, and the result of cir-
cumstances for which they are in nowise responsible, ought to be, and
must be, provided for by those on whom, by their own assumption,
this responsibility rests.
litsolreil, That the extent and probable duration of the state of
things which now makes its appeal to us, forbid the idea of meeting it
by any mere local, extemporaneous, or impulsive effort; but that, on
the contrary, they demand that it should be provided for by a well
digested and carefully organized system of general operations ; and that
we recommend that immediate steps be taken by parties interested in
the subject in this city, to put on foot a plan of concerted action, the
scope of which shall be coextensive with the country; and the results,
a proper provision for the necessities, mental, moral, and physical, of
all who may justly claim its benefits.
Resolved, That in the meantime the people of Philadelphia and of
the State of Pennsylvania should come forward with their accustomed
liberality to meet the present exigency, and that, besides contributions