The American Prejudice Against Color

The American Prejudice Against
Color

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Title: The American Prejudice Against Color An Authentic Narrative,
Showing How Easily The Nation Got Into An Uproar.
Author: William G. Allen
Release Date: February 27, 2006 [EBook #17875]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE AMERICAN
Prejudice Against Color.

* * * * *
AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE,
SHOWING HOW EASILY THE NATION GOT
INTO AN UPROAR.
* * * * *
BY WILLIAM G. ALLEN,
A REFUGEE FROM AMERICAN DESPOTISM.
* * * * *
LONDON: W. AND F. G. CASH, 5,
BISHOPSGATE-STREET-WITHOUT. EDINBURGH: JOHN
MENZIES. DUBLIN: JAMES MC. GLASHAN AND J. B. GILPIN
* * * * *
1853

PREFACE.
Extract of a letter from Hon. Gerrit Smith, of New York, Member of
Congress, to Joseph Sturge, Esq., of Birmingham, England. (By
permission of Mr. Sturge.)
"Peterboro', New York, March 23rd, 1853.
"I take great pleasure in introducing to you my much esteemed friend,
Professor Wm. G. Allen. I know him well, and know him to be a man
of great mental and moral worth. I trust, in his visit to England, he will
be both useful and happy.
"Very truly, your friend and brother, "GERRIT SMITH."

* * * * *
"Commending Professor Allen to the friends of the colored American
citizens who are denied their rights in their own country, and wishing
him every success in the object before him,
"I am, respectfully, "Birmingham, 6mo., 28d., 1853. "JOSEPH
STURGE."
* * * * *
"Clapham, August 25th, 1853.
"My dear Sir:--
"Your determination to spend some time in Great Britain, and to
employ yourself, as opportunities occur, in giving lectures and
delivering addresses upon American topics, including the social
position of the free colored population--for which your education and
personal experience eminently fit you--has given me sincere pleasure. I
trust you will meet with ample encouragement from the friends of
Abolition throughout the United Kingdom, to whose sympathy and
kindness I would earnestly recommend you, and still more your heroic
and most estimable lady.
"Believe me, most truly yours, "Professor W. G. Allen "GEORGE
THOMPSON."

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
--Introduction 41
II.--Personalities 42
III.--Nobility and Servility 48

IV.--The Mob 54
V.--Dark Days 63
VI.--Brightening up,--Grand Result 79
VII.--Conclusion 91
A Short Personal Narrative by William G Allen 95
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION
Many persons having suggested that it would greatly subserve the
Anti-slavery Cause in this country, to present to the public a concise
narrative of my recent narrow escape from death, at the hands of an
armed mob in America, a mob armed with tar, feathers, poles, and an
empty barrel spiked with shingle nails, together with the reasons which
induced that mob, I propose to give it. I cannot promise however, to
write such a book as ought to be written to illustrate fully the bitterness,
malignity, and cruelty, of American prejudice against color, and to
show its terrible power in grinding into the dust of social and political
bondage, the hundreds of thousands of so-called free men and women
of color of the North. This bondage is, in many of its aspects, far more
dreadful than that of the bona fide Southern Slavery, since its
victims--many of them having emerged out of, and some of them never
having been into, the darkness of personal slavery--have acquired a
development of mind, heart, and character, not at all inferior to the
foremost of their oppressors.
The book that ought to be written, I ought not to attempt; but if no one
precedes me, I shall consider myself bound by necessity, and making
the attempt, lay on, with all the strength I can possibly summon, to
American Caste and skin-deep Democracy.
The mob occurred on Sabbath (!) evening, January the 30th, 1853, in
the village of Phillipsville, near Fulton, Oswego County, New York.

The cause,--the intention, on my part, of marrying a white young lady
of Fulton,--at least so the public surmised.
CHAPTER II.
PERSONALITIES.
I am a quadroon, that is, I am of one-fourth African blood, and
three-fourths Anglo-Saxon. I graduated at Oneida Institute, in
Whitesboro', New York, in 1844; subsequently studied Law with Ellis
Gray Loring, Esq., of Boston, Massachusetts; and was thence called to
the Professorship of the Greek and German languages, and of Rhetoric
and Belles-Lettres of New York Central College, situated in Mc.
Grawville, Cortland County,--the only