Native American?
From The New-York Times February 13, 1862:
FRED. DOUGLASS ON THE WAR.; An Interesting Meeting at the Cooper Institute A Speech by Fred. Douglas Songs by the Hutchinsons.
A very large audience assembled at the Cooper Institute last evening, on the occasion of the lecture of FRED. DOUGLASS on “The War.” A somewhat unusually large number of policemen were visible in all portions of the house, although the necessity for their presence was not apparent.
Rev. H.H. GARNET, after a song by the HUTCHINSONS, which was well received, introduced the speaker, with an explanation of the necessity that existed for a change in the programme. He stated that a communication had been received which rendered it certain that it would not be consistent with the safety of white and colored citizens of the South for the deserter from the rebel ranks to appear, as was proposed, in the clothes in which he fought.
Fred as runaway on sheet music by Jesse Hutchinson, Jr
Mr. DOUGLAS, in commencing, said that at the time he proposed to speak, the victories of Fort Henry and Roanoke Island had not been fought, and even those victories had not removed the somewhat sombre view which he took of the war. This war had developed our patience. [Laughter.] He was not here to find fault with the Government; [t]hat was dangerous. [Laughter.] Such as it was, it was our only bulwark, and he was for standing by the Government. [Applause.] He would not find fault with Bull Run, Ball’s Bluff or Big Bethel, but he meant to call attention to the uncertainty, and vascillation and hesitation in grappling with the great question of the war — Slavery. The great question was, “What shall be done with the slaves after they are emancipated?” He appeared as one who had studied Slavery on both sides of Mason and Dixon’s line. He considered himself an American citizen. He was born on the most sacred part of the soil. [Laughter and applause.] There was nothing in the behavior of the colored race in the United States in this crisis, that should prevent him from being proud of being a colored citizen of the United States. [Ap- plause.] They had traitors of all other nations in Fort Lafayette as cold as Stone — [laughter] — but they had no black man charged with disloyalty during this war. Yet, black men were good enough to fight by the side of WASHINGTON and JACKSON, and were not good enough to fight beside MCCLELLAN and HALLECK. [Laughter.] But, he would not complain — he only threw out these hints. [Laughter.] The question was simply whether free institutions and liberty should stand or fall. Any peace without emancipation would be a hollow peace. Even that rhinoceros-hided place, Washington, had by a species of adumbration, come to realize this truth. [Laughter.] What had Slavery done for us, that it had any claim upon us that we should spare it? Tens of thousands of American citizens were now taking their first lessons in Anti-Slavery. He held up in a ludicrous vein the tenderness of many who, like the New-York Herald, would hang a rebel and confiscate all his property — except his slaves. Slavery had kept our army quiet for seven months, and displaced good and loyal men by incompetent and disloyal ones. The question was, What shall be done with the 4,000,000 slaves if emancipated? He might ask what shall be done with the 350,000 slaveholders? His plan was, after the slaves were emancipated to let them alone, do nothing with them. [Laughter.] Let them take care of themselves as others do. [Applause.] The other day a man approached him, evidently taking him for an Indian, and the following scene took place:
Train ride to immediate emancipation
STRANGER — Halloa, come from way back, eh?
FRED stood quiet and looked as much like an Indian as he could.
STRANGER — Come from way back. Indian, eh?
FRED — No, Nigger.
The stranger fell back as if he had been shot. [Laughter.]
Mr. DOUGLASS made an elaborate argument in support of the capacity of the black race for self-government. He thought that if the slave could take care of his master and mistress, he could take care of himself. MCDONOUGH’s slaves, eighty-four in number, had bought their own liberty in fourteen years, and their master made money enough out of them to buy a gang twice as large. [Applause and hisses.] But, should the freed slaves stay here? Yes. They wouldn’t take up more room than they do now. They had made the South, and were entitled to stay there. If Mr. BLAIR’s bill was passed it would be a dead letter. Even slaveholding Maryland had refused to send away her free colored population, because their toil was the wealth of the State. There were some 5,000,000 colored people on this continent and the adjacent islands, and it would take a great many ships to take them away. [Laughter.] Protestant America could at least do as. well by the negro as Catholic Brazil. But over the bleeding back of the negro, the American nation was to learn lessons of liberty that could be learned in no other way.
Hutchinsons perform at Cooper Institute
As the hour was late, he said he would take his seat without reading the very brilliant peroration which he had prepared.
The HUTCHINSONS then sang the song of JOHN G. WHITTIER, “pronounced incendiary by a Pro-Slavery General.” The audience applauded every verse as it was rendered with thrilling effect.
The audience then called for the John Brown song, which was rang amid much applause, after which the meeting separated.
The Hutchinson Family Singers were a popular American singing group that began performing in 1840. Apparently the family had a long association with Frederick Douglass:
At the urging of Jesse Hutchinson, the group took up various causes. Among these were abolitionism, temperance, and women’s rights. … They traveled with Frederick Douglass in England in 1845 and stayed for almost a year. Original songs such as “Get Off the Track!”, “Right over Wrong”, and “The Slave’s Appeal” addressed these issues. Abby Hutchinson wrote “Song of Our Mountain Home” in 1850. It includes the line, “Among our free hills are true hearts and brave, / The air of our mountains ne’er breathed on a slave.”
John Greenleaf Whittier
Poet, journalist, politician John Greenleaf Whittier was deeply involved with the abolitionist cause from 1833 until about 1845 when he had a nervous breakdown at least partially due to being “mobbed, stoned, and run out of town” for his abolitionist activities. In 1839 he helped found the Liberty Party, which eventually became the Free Soil Party.
I don’t know which Whittier work the Hutchinsons sang. It could have been “The Branded Hand” commemorating Sea Captain John Walker’s attempt to sail some slaves to freedom in the Bahamas in 1844.
A more current poem (published in the February 1862 edition of The Atlantic Monthlywould have been “At Port Royal 1861”, which included “Song of the Negro Boatmen” (see Whittier Wikipedia link).
Unlike George Ticknor and Jim Lane Frederick Douglass and the Hutchinsons favored immediate emancipation and thought the freed slaves would do just fine if left alone.
Whittier's 'Our Countrymen in Chains' 1837
