We Negroes, on the other hand,
after a lapse of time extending over nearly two generations, could be
indebted only to precarious tradition or scarcely accessible
documents for any knowledge we might chance upon of the sufferings
endured in these Islands of the West by those of our race who have
gone before us. Death, with undiscriminating hand, had gathered [10]
in the human harvest of masters and slaves alike, according to or out
of the normal laws of nature; while Time had been letting down on the
stage of our existence drop-scene after drop-scene of years, to the
number of something like fifty, which had been curtaining off the
tragic incidents of the past from the peaceful activities of the
present. Being thus circumstanced, thought we, what rational
elements of mutual hatred should now continue to exist in the bosoms
of the two races?
With regard to the perpetual reference to Hayti, because of our
oneness with its inhabitants in origin and complexion, as a criterion
for the exact forecast of our future conduct under given
circumstances, this appeared to us, looking at actual facts,
perversity gone wild in the manufacture of analogies.
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