The Negro: What is His Ethnological Status? 2nd Ed.

The difference between these higher orders of the monkey and the negro, is very slight, and consists mainly in this one thing: the negro can utter sounds that can be imitated; hence he could talk with Adam and Eve, for they could imitate his sounds. This is the foundation of language. The gorilla, ourang-outang, baboon, etc., have languages peculiar to themselves, and which they understand, because they can imitate each other's sounds. But man can not imitate them, and hence can not converse with them. The negro's main superiority over them is, that he utters sounds that could be imitated by Adam; hence, conversation ensued between them. Again, the baboon is thickly clothed with hair, and goes erect a part of his time. Advancing still higher in the scale, the ourang-outang is less thickly covered with hair, and goes erect most altogether. Still advancing higher in the scale, the gorilla has still less hair, and is of a black skin, and goes erect when moving about. A recent traveler in Africa states that the gorilla frequently steals the negro women and girls, and carry them off for wives. It is thus seen that the gradation, from the monkey up to the negro, is in philosophical juxtaposition, in God's order of creation. The step from the negro to Adam, is still progressive, and consists of change of color, hair, forehead, nose, lips, etc., and immortality. That the negro existed on earth before Adam was created, is so positively plain from the preceding facts, no intelligent, candid man can doubt; and that he so existed before Adam, and as a man (for he was so named by Adam), we now proceed to show.

We read in the Bible, and God said, let us make man in our own image and after our likeness; which is equivalent to saying, we have man already, but not in our image; for if the negro was already in God's image, God could not have said, now let us make man in our image. But God did say, after he had created every thing else on earth but Adam, that he then said, let us make man in our image, and after our likeness, and let him, so created now, have dominion. God so formed this man, out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul, and endowed with immortality. Now, it is indisputably plain, and so shown from the Bible in this paper, that this BEING, thus created by God, had long, straight hair, high forehead, high nose, thin lips, and white skin, and which the negro has not; and it is equally clearly shown that the negro is not the progeny of Adam. Therefore the negro must have existed before Adam. But another fact: Adam was to have dominion over all the earth. There must, of necessity, be an established boundary to that dominion, as betwixt God and himself, in order that Adam should rule only in his allotted dominion. In settling this domain, the Bible is full and exact. That which was to be, and to continue under God's dominion, rule and control, God named himself. He called the light, day; the darkness he called night; the dry land he called earth; and the gathering together of the waters, he called seas; and the firmament he called heaven, etc. And what was to be under Adam's dominion, rule and control, Adam named himself, but by God's direction and authority. But mark: Adam did not name himself– for no child ever names himself. But God named him and his race, but he did not call or name him man after he created him. Adam's dominion, starting from himself, went downward in the scale of creation; while God's dominion, starting with Adam, went upward. God, foreseeing that Adam would call the negro by the name man, when he said, let us make man, therefore so used the term; for by such name "man," the negro, was known by to the flood, but not the man.

Whenever Adam is personally spoken of in the Hebrew scriptures, invariably his name has the prefix, the man, to contradistinguish him from the negro, who is called man simply, and was so named by Adam. By inattention to this distinction, made by God himself, the world is indebted for the confusion that exists regarding Adam and his race, and the negro. Adam and his race were to be under God's dominion, rule and government, and was, therefore, named by God, "and he called their name Adam," in reference to his race, and the man, to contradistinguish him from the negro, whom Adam named "man." But God did not call Adam man after he created him– he called their name Adam – while Adam named the negro man. But some may say, again, as many have already said, that the negro might be the offspring of Adam by some other woman, or of Eve by some one other than Adam. Have such reasoners thought of the destruction, the certain destruction, to their own theory, this assumption would entail upon them? Can they not see that, in either case, by Adam or by Eve, the progeny would be a mulatto, and not a kinky-headed, flat nose, black negro, and that we should be at as much loss as before, to account for the negro as we now have him on earth, as ever. And if such miscegenating and crossing continued, that now we would have no kinky heads nor black skins among us. But this amalgamation of the whites and blacks was never consummated until a later day, and then we shall see what God thought of its practice. But while on this point, just here let us remark, that God in the creating of Adam, to be the head of creation, intended to distinguish, and did distinguish, him with eminent grandeur and notableness in his creation, over and above everything else that had preceded it. But when creating the negro and other beasts and animals, he made the male and female – each out of the ground. Not so with Adam and his female, for God expressly tells us that he made Adam's wife out of himself, thus securing the unity of immortality in his race alone, and hence he called their name Adam, not man. The black man was the back ground of the picture, to show the white man to the world, in his dominion over the earth, as the darkness was the back ground of the picture of creation, before and over which light, God's light, should forever be seen.

The discussion and practice of the social and political equality of the white and black races, heretofore, have always carried along with them their kindred error of the equality of rights of the two sexes, in all things pertaining to human affairs and government. But both end in destruction, entire destruction and extermination, as we shall see in the further prosecution of our subject, and as the Bible plainly teaches. The conclusion, then, that the negro which we now have on earth was created before Adam, is inevitable, from the logic of facts, and the divine testimony of the Bible, and can not be resisted by all the reasonings of men on earth.

How is it that we say that the horse was created before Adam? The Bible does not tell us so in so many words, yet we know that it is true. How do we know it? Simply because we know that the Bible plainly tells us that Adam and Eve were the last of God's creation on earth, and by the fact that we have the horse now, and know that he must have been created, and Adam being the last created, that, consequently, by this logic of facts, we know that the horse was made before Adam. The horse has his distinctive characteristics, and by which he has been known in all ages of the world, and he has been described in all languages by those characteristics, so as to be recognized in all ages of the world. His characteristics are not more distinct from some other animals than that of the white race is distinct from that of the negro, or of the negro from the white. We can trace all the beasts, etc., now on earth, back to the flood, and from the flood back to the creation of the world, and just such animals as we find them now. Why not the negro? We know we can that of the white man. Then we ask, again, why not the negro as readily as the white man or the horse? Has any animal so changed from their creation that we can not recognize them now? Certainly not. Then, why say that the negro has? Has God ever changed any beings from the order in which he created them since he made the world? Most certainly he has not. Has he ever intimated in any way that he would do so? Certainly not. Has he created any beings since he made Adam? No. How, then, can any man assert that he did make or change a white man into a black negro, and say not one word about it? Such a position is untenable, it is preposterous.

But, to go on with our subject: We read in the Bible that it came to pass when men began to multiply, etc., that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and they took themselves wives of all which they chose. A word or two of criticism before we proceed. In this quotation the word men is correctly translated from the Hebrew, and as it applies to the negro, it is not in the original applied to Adam, for then it would be the men, Adam and his race being so distinguished by God himself, when Adam was created. Again, the daughters of men were fair. The word fair is not a correct rendering of the original, except as it covers simply the idea, captivating, enticing, seductive.

With this explanation we proceed, and in proceeding we will show these criticisms to be just and proper.

Who were these sons of God? Were they from heaven? If they were, then their morals were sadly out of order. Were they angels? Then it is very plain they never got back to heaven: nor are wicked angels ever sent to earth from heaven. And they are not on earth for the angels that sinned, are confined where there is certainly no water; and these were all drowned. And angels can not be drowned. Angels belong to heaven, and if they do anything wrong there, they are sent, not to earth, but to – tophet. They are not the sons of men from below, nor its angels; for these could not be called sons of God. Who were they then? We answer, without the fear of successful contradiction, that they were the sons of Adam and Eve, thus denominated by pre-eminence; and as they truly were, the sons of God, to show the horrible crime of their criminal association with beasts. Immortal beings allying themselves with the beasts of the earth. These daughters of men were negroes, and these sons of God, were the children of Adam and Eve, as we shall see presently, and beyond a shade of doubt.

God told Adam and Eve to multiply and replenish the earth. Then it is plain, God could have no objection to their taking themselves wives of whom they chose, of their own race, in obeying this injunction; for they could not do otherwise in obeying it. But God did object to their taking wives of these daughters of men. Then it is plain that these daughters of men, whatever else they may have been, could not be the daughters of Adam and Eve; for, had they been, God would certainly not have objected, as they would have been exactly fulfilling his command, to take them wives and multiply. But our Saviour settles these points beyond any doubt, when he taught his disciples how to pray – to say, Our Father, who art in heaven. His disciples were white, and the lineal and pure descendants of Adam and Eve. This being so, then, when he told such to say, "Our Father, who art in heaven," equally and at the same time told them that, as God was their father, they were the sons of God; and as God did object to the "sons of God" taking them wives of these daughters of men, that it is ipso facto God's testimony that these daughters of men were negroes, and not his children. This settles the question that it was Adam's pure descendants who are here called the sons of God, and that these daughters of men were negroes.

By this logic of facts we see, then, who these sons of God were, and who these daughters of men were; and that the crime they were committing, could not be, or ever will be, propitiated; for God neither could or would forgive it, as we shall see. He determined to destroy them, and with them the world, by a flood, and for the crime of amalgamation or miscegenation of the white race with that of the black – mere beasts of the earth. We can now form an opinion of the awful nature of this crime, in the eyes of God, when we know that he destroyed the world by a flood, on account of its perpetration. But it is probable that we should not, in this our day, have been so long in the dark in regard to the sin, the particular sin, that brought the flood upon the earth, had not our translators rejected the rendering of some of the oldest manuscripts – the Chaldean, Ethiopic, Arabic, et al.– of the Jewish or Hebrew scriptures, in which that sin is plainly set forth; our translators believing it impossible that brute beasts could corrupt themselves with mankind, and then, not thinking, or regarding, that the negro was the very beast referred to. But even after this rejection, such were the number and authenticity of manuscripts in which that idea was still presented, that they felt constrained to admit it, covertly as it were, as may be seen on reading Gen. vi: 12-13, in our common version.

It will be admitted by all Biblical scholars, and doubted by none, that immediately after the fall of Adam in the garden of Eden, God then (perhaps on the same day), instituted and ordained sacrifices and offerings, as the media through which Adam and his race should approach God and call upon his name. That Adam did so – that Cain and Abel did so; and that Seth, through whom our Saviour descended after the flesh, did so, none can or will doubt, who believe in the Bible. Now, Seth's first-born son, Enos (Adam's first grandson), was born when Adam was two hundred and thirty-five years old. Upon the happening of the birth of this grandson, the sacred historian fixes the time, the particular time, immediately after the birth of Enos, as the period when a certain important matter then first took place; that important event was: that "Then men began to call on the name of the Lord," as translated in our Bible. Who are these men that then began to call on the Lord? It was not Adam; it was not Cain; it was not Abel; it was not Seth; And these were all the men that were of Adam's race that were upon the earth at that time, or that had been, up to the birth of Enos; and these had been calling on the name of the Lord ever since the fall in the garden. Who were they, then? What men were they, then on earth, that then began to call on the name of the Lord? There is but one answer between earth and skies, that can be given in truth to this question. This logic of facts, this logic of Bible facts, plainly tells us that these men who then began (A.M. 235) to call upon the name of the Lord, were negroes – the men so named by Adam when he named the other beasts and cattle. This can not be questioned. Any other view would make the Bible statements false, and we know the Bible to be true. If our translators (indeed all translators whose works we have examined), had not had their minds confused by the idea that all who are, in the Bible, called men were Adam's progeny; or had they recognized the simple fact, that the term man was the name bestowed on the negro by Adam, and that this name was never applied to Adam and his race till long after the flood, they would have made a very different translation of this sentence from the original Hebrew. The logic of facts existing before and at the time the sacred historian said that "Then men began to call," would, in conjunction with the original Hebrew text, have compelled them to a different rendering from the one they adopted. But, believing as they did, that it was some of Adam's race, then called men, they stumbled on a translation that not one of them has been satisfied with since they made it. The propriety of this assertion in regard to antecedents controlling the proper rendering, will be readily admitted by all scholars. The rendering, therefore, of the exact idea of the sacred historian, would be this: "Then men began to profane the Lord by calling on his name." This is required by the Hebrew, and the antecedent facts certainly demand it; otherwise we would falsify the Bible, as Adam and his sons had been calling on the Lord ever since the fall; therefore, the men referred to, that then began to call, could not be Adam, nor any of his sons. This logic of facts compels us to say that it was the negro, created before Adam and by him named man, for there were no other men on the earth. That the calling was profane, is admitted by all of our ablest commentators and Biblical scholars, as may be seen by reference to their works. See Adam Clark, et al. The Jews translate it thus: "Then men began to profane the name of the Lord."

But we have this singular expression in the Bible, occurring about the flood: That it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and that it grieved him at his heart. Now, it is clear that God could not refer, in these expressions, to Adam as the man whom it repented and grieved him that he had made; for Adam was a part of himself, and became so when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living soul, immortal, and must exist, ex consequentia, as long as God exists. God can not hate any part of himself, for that would be perfection hating perfection, and Adam did partake of the divine nature to some extent; and therefore the man here referred to could not have been Adam's posterity; and must have been, from the same logic of facts, the man, negro, the beast, called by God, man before he created Adam. Now, it must have been some awful crime, some terrible corruption, that could and did cause God to repent, to be grieved at his heart, that he had made man. What was this crime? what this corruption? Was it moral crimes confined to Adam's race? Let us see. It was not the eating of the forbidden fruit; for that had been done long before. It was not murder; for Cain had murdered his brother. It was not drunkenness; for Noah, though a preacher of righteousness, did get drunk. It was not incest; for Lot, another preacher of righteousness, committed that. It was not that of one brother selling his own brother as a slave, to be taken to a strange land; for Joseph's brethren did that, and lied about it, too. It was not – , but we may go through the whole catalogue of moral sins and crimes of human turpitude, and take them up separately, and then compound them together, until the whole catalogue of human iniquity and infamy is exhausted, and then suppose them all to be perpetrated every day by Adam's race, and as they have been before and since the flood, still we would have but one answer, and that answer would be, It is none of these, nor all of them combined, that thus caused God to repent and be grieved at his heart, that he had made man; but add one more – nay not add, but take one crime alone and by itself – one only, and that crime Adam's children, the sons of God, amalgamating, miscegenating, with the negro – man – beast, without soul – without the endowment of immortality, and you have the reason, why God repented and drowned the world, because of its commission. It is a crime, in the sight of God, that can not be propitiated by any sacrifice, or by any oblation, and can not be forgiven by God —never has been forgiven on earth, and never will be. Death – death inexorable, is declared by God's judgments on the world and on nations; and he has declared death as its punishment by his law – death to both male and female, without pardon or reprieve, and beyond the power of any sacrifice to expiate.

That Adam was especially endowed by his Creator, and by him commissioned with authority to rule and have dominion over everything created on earth, is unquestioned; that to mark the extent of his dominion, everything named by him was included in his right to rule them. His wife was the last thing named by him, and consequently under his rule, government and dominion. But a being called man existed before Adam was created, and was named man by Adam, and was to be under his rule and dominion, as all other beasts and animals. But did God call Adam man, after he had created him? Most certainly he did not. This fact relieves us of all doubt as to who was meant as the men of whose daughters the sons of God took their wives, independent of the preceding irrefragable proofs, that it was the negro; and the crime of amalgamation thus committed, brought the flood upon the earth. There is no possibility of avoiding this conviction.

But this will be fully sustained as we advance. Cush was Ham's oldest son, and the father of Nimrod. It appears from the Bible, that this Nimrod was not entirely cured, by the flood, of this antediluvian love for and miscegenation with negroes. Nimrod was the first on earth who began to monopolize power and play the despot: its objects we will see presently. Kingly power had its origin in love for and association with the negro. Beware! Nimrod's hunting was not only of wild animals, but also of men– the negro – to subdue them under his power and dominion; and for the purposes of rebellion against God, and in defiance of his power and judgment in destroying the world, and for the same sin. This view of Nimrod as a mighty hunter, will be sustained, not only by the facts narrated in our Bible, of what he did, but to the mind of every Hebrew scholar, it will appear doubly strong by the sense of the original. We see that God, by his prophets, gives the name hunter to all tyrants, with manifest reference to Nimrod as its originator. In the Latin Vulgate, Ezekiel xxxii: 30, plainly shows it. It was Nimrod that directed and managed – ruled, if you please – the great multitude that assembled on the Plain of Shinar. This multitude, thus assembled by his arbitrary power, and other inducements, we shall see presently, were mostly negroes; and with them he undertook the building of the tower of Babel – a building vainly intended, by him and them, should reach heaven, and thereby they would escape such a flood as had so recently destroyed the earth; and for the same sin. Else why build such a tower? They knew the sin that had caused the flood, for Noah was yet living; and unless they were again committing the same offense, there would be no necessity for such a tower. That the great multitude, gathered thus by Nimrod, were mostly negroes, appears from the facts stated in the Bible. God told Noah, after the flood, to subdue the earth "for all beasts, cattle," etc., "are delivered into thy hands." The negro, as already shown, was put into the ark with the beasts, and came out of it along with them, as one. If they went into the ark by sevens, as is probable they did, from being the head of the beasts, cattle, etc., then their populating power would be in proportion to the whites – as seven is to three, or as fourteen is to six; and Nimrod must have resorted to them to get the multitude that he assembled on the Plain of Shinar; for the Bible plainly tells us where the other descendants of Noah's children went, including those of Nimrod's immediate relations; and from the Bible account where they did go to, it is evident that they did not go with Nimrod to Shinar. This logic of facts, therefore, proves that they were negroes, and explains why Nimrod is called the mighty hunter before, or against the Lord, as it should have been translated in this place. David stood before Goliah; but evidently against him. The whole tenor of the Bible account shows these views to be correct, whether the negro entered the ark by sevens or only a pair. For, when we read further, that they now were all of one speech and one language, they proposed, besides the tower, to build them a city, where their power could be concentrated; and if this were accomplished, and they kept together, and acting in concert, under such a man as the Bible shows Nimrod to have been, it would be impossible for Noah's descendants to subdue the earth, as God had charged they should do. It was, therefore, to prevent this concentration of power and numbers, that God confounded their language, broke them into bands, overthrew their tower, stopped the building of their city, and scattered or dispersed them over the earth.