A Peculiar Condition
April 17, 1897
Summary
The Richmond Times discussed the “Old Time Negro” and the problems in the present day as it looks longingly back on the days during and immediately after slavery.
Transcription
The Richmond, Va., Times, in its issue of the 11th inst., discusses the passing of the Old Time Negro.”
It says:
The old time “fore de war” Negro is spindly passing away, and it will not be many years before he will be extinct. He is not by any means confounded with the modern product for he is a distinct genus. We have the highest regard for him, and see him passing away with profound sorrow. He is inseparably associated with Southern society of ante-bellium days, and the history of the South is by no means complete with the Negro and his characteristics, and especially his relationship with the family to which he belonged omitted.
And again:
These things are little understood by the people of the North, and not much better by the young folks of the South who hear the Negro called “mister,” instead of “uncle.” Tom Page and Polk Miller and others of that school who, as they say, were “raised with niggers,” have preserved to us the Negro dialect and many of his ways, but there is one phase of the subject that has not been committed to print. We refer to the religious teaching of the Negro by their mistresses the wives and daughters of the men who owned them.
It speaks of Rev. Edward L. Pell’s effort to secure data for a history of the South for the moral elevation of the Negro before the war, and says:
Not only did the churches of the South spend large sums of money is missionary work among the blacks, but it was not uncommon for those who owned a large body of slaves to have a preacher employed for their special ministry. Moreover, every white church had its contingent of colored members, who had a voice in the management of church affairs, and so sacred was this tie that many of the colored people continued their membership in the white churches, even after they were emancipated.
The South has need to show up this side of the question, for the immortality practiced by colored people during the two hundred and fifty years of their bondage was due to the outrageous teachings and practices of the white man. Herded like cattle, they were told “to replenish and multiply the earth.”
That there is a bright side to this question is as gratifying to the Negro as it is to the white man. One thing we know– there are thousands; yea tens of thousands of cases where colored women placed virtue above all else and refused to yield to the brutish lusts of those who owned them. Why not someone follow Rev. Pell’s example and tell of the moral side of the colored women, even though it was cultivated and encourage by the patriotic, God-fearing white women of the South?
The Times says:
All this is nothing, however, as compared with the work done for the Negro, bu the women of the South. The idea that the Southern women were made heroines by the late war is far from the fact. They were heroines from the beginning, and they had been training from the time that the slaves came into our possession. Instead of the many public charities in which they are engaged today, they devoted their time to the instruction of the slaves, and the amelioration of their condition. Seek any old Negro and ask him where he got his religious instruction, and he will almost invariably tell you that he owes it all to “Ole Miss,” who had hum at the “Gre’t House” on Sunday morning, read to him and his companions selection from the Scriptures, and expounded their meaning.
We make no denial of this, sir, but a far greater service was rendered to the “blacks” by “ole Miss” children who taught the colored girls to read and did what they could to improve the condition of the “ole black Mammy’s” children.
These are instances of sublime devotion, sir, on part of the whites of the South, the white men and women of today, and this constituted and still constitutes the “bond of union,” between the white person and the black one of the Southland.
This too was the cause of the remarkable condition which brought about that love and adoration between these people even when southern white men slave owners were as mean as “you make-em” and would do what they could towards the discomfiture of the black servants.
When the white men went to war, the black ones took care of their wives and their children. No instance of rapine or murder is recorded. The Negro is grateful, where there should be no gratitude. He is friendly where there should be no friendship. He is loving where there should be no affection.
How much more then would he be in favor of the southern families when notable instances existed where the white children and their mothers had befriended him.
Let Rec. Pell write it all. Let him tell the story as it is. Let him explain how thousands of colored people wrote their own passes under the instruction of “Miss Anne’s children,” and enjoyed confidences which the parents to this day have never ascertained.
On with the persecuting of us, but forget not that in a war of races, if ever such a calamity should take place, colored folks will stand up for white ones, and white ones for colored ones to the discomfiture of the rabid, uncompromising elements on both side
Then, sir, is the cause of the “bond of union” between the races in the Southland.
It says:
The old time “fore de war” Negro is spindly passing away, and it will not be many years before he will be extinct. He is not by any means confounded with the modern product for he is a distinct genus. We have the highest regard for him, and see him passing away with profound sorrow. He is inseparably associated with Southern society of ante-bellium days, and the history of the South is by no means complete with the Negro and his characteristics, and especially his relationship with the family to which he belonged omitted.
And again:
These things are little understood by the people of the North, and not much better by the young folks of the South who hear the Negro called “mister,” instead of “uncle.” Tom Page and Polk Miller and others of that school who, as they say, were “raised with niggers,” have preserved to us the Negro dialect and many of his ways, but there is one phase of the subject that has not been committed to print. We refer to the religious teaching of the Negro by their mistresses the wives and daughters of the men who owned them.
It speaks of Rev. Edward L. Pell’s effort to secure data for a history of the South for the moral elevation of the Negro before the war, and says:
Not only did the churches of the South spend large sums of money is missionary work among the blacks, but it was not uncommon for those who owned a large body of slaves to have a preacher employed for their special ministry. Moreover, every white church had its contingent of colored members, who had a voice in the management of church affairs, and so sacred was this tie that many of the colored people continued their membership in the white churches, even after they were emancipated.
The South has need to show up this side of the question, for the immortality practiced by colored people during the two hundred and fifty years of their bondage was due to the outrageous teachings and practices of the white man. Herded like cattle, they were told “to replenish and multiply the earth.”
That there is a bright side to this question is as gratifying to the Negro as it is to the white man. One thing we know– there are thousands; yea tens of thousands of cases where colored women placed virtue above all else and refused to yield to the brutish lusts of those who owned them. Why not someone follow Rev. Pell’s example and tell of the moral side of the colored women, even though it was cultivated and encourage by the patriotic, God-fearing white women of the South?
The Times says:
All this is nothing, however, as compared with the work done for the Negro, bu the women of the South. The idea that the Southern women were made heroines by the late war is far from the fact. They were heroines from the beginning, and they had been training from the time that the slaves came into our possession. Instead of the many public charities in which they are engaged today, they devoted their time to the instruction of the slaves, and the amelioration of their condition. Seek any old Negro and ask him where he got his religious instruction, and he will almost invariably tell you that he owes it all to “Ole Miss,” who had hum at the “Gre’t House” on Sunday morning, read to him and his companions selection from the Scriptures, and expounded their meaning.
We make no denial of this, sir, but a far greater service was rendered to the “blacks” by “ole Miss” children who taught the colored girls to read and did what they could to improve the condition of the “ole black Mammy’s” children.
These are instances of sublime devotion, sir, on part of the whites of the South, the white men and women of today, and this constituted and still constitutes the “bond of union,” between the white person and the black one of the Southland.
This too was the cause of the remarkable condition which brought about that love and adoration between these people even when southern white men slave owners were as mean as “you make-em” and would do what they could towards the discomfiture of the black servants.
When the white men went to war, the black ones took care of their wives and their children. No instance of rapine or murder is recorded. The Negro is grateful, where there should be no gratitude. He is friendly where there should be no friendship. He is loving where there should be no affection.
How much more then would he be in favor of the southern families when notable instances existed where the white children and their mothers had befriended him.
Let Rec. Pell write it all. Let him tell the story as it is. Let him explain how thousands of colored people wrote their own passes under the instruction of “Miss Anne’s children,” and enjoyed confidences which the parents to this day have never ascertained.
On with the persecuting of us, but forget not that in a war of races, if ever such a calamity should take place, colored folks will stand up for white ones, and white ones for colored ones to the discomfiture of the rabid, uncompromising elements on both side
Then, sir, is the cause of the “bond of union” between the races in the Southland.
About this article
Source
Location on Page
Upper Left Quadrant
Topic
Contributed By
Brian Schrott
Citation
“A Peculiar Condition,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed February 14, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1151.