Читать книгу: «The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, April, 1862», страница 3
In perusing the history and progress of any portion of our country, the statistics of population become an interesting study. Let us glance over a brief table, showing what the increase has been in this district for the past forty years, and its miserable deficiency in physical means of strength and defense. In 1820 the district contained 32,000 souls, of which there were 4,679 whites and 27,339 slaves, and 141 free blacks. In 1860 there were 6,714 whites and 32,500 slaves, and 800 free blacks, making a total of 40,014,—an increase of whites of 2,035, of slaves 5,161, of free blacks 650:—total increase 7,855 in forty years. Here we have nearly the largest disproportion of whites to slaves in any part of the South. Of the 6,714 whites, about 1,000 are probably men over twenty-one years of age, and it is not to be presumed that an equal number are capable of bearing arms. Is it possible to find anywhere a community more helpless for its own protection or defense? It is one of the truths of science and philosophy that nature, when forced beyond its own powers and laws, will react, and again restore its own supremacy. So we here find a magnificent space of country, rich in all natural requisites, and unsurpassed in its capabilities of producing not only the necessaries of life, but its luxuries, having an exclusive right to some of the most valuable staples of the world, which has been for a century and a half the abode of an imperious few, who have, by tyrannical power, wrung from the bones and muscles of generations of poor Africans the means to sustain their luxury, power, and pride. They have also robbed from the mother earth the fertility of its soil to its utmost extent, leaving much of it completely exhausted. This state of things has reacted on them; it has made them proud, domineering, ambitious, and revengeful of fancied injuries. It has hurried them into rebellion against the best government the world ever saw,—and this has at last brought with it its own punishment and retribution. It has placed their soil, their mansions, their crops and poor slaves in the possession of the hated men of the North, and under the laws and control of the government they affected to despise. When the last gun had sounded from the ramparts at Port Royal, and the Stars and Stripes again resumed their supremacy on the soil of South Carolina, a new era dawned over these beautiful islands and waters, and the day that witnessed the retreat of the rebel forces should hereafter mark, like the flight of Mahomet, the inauguration of a new dispensation for this land and its people. Let us, therefore, in continuing our chronicles, cast the horoscope, and, without claiming any spirit of prophecy, show the duties of our nation in this contingency, and the beneficial results that must flow from it, if carried out with the energy, perseverance, and practical Christianity due to our country and the age in which we live.
The accession to any government of new territory brings with it new duties, which it is always important should be performed with energy and decision, so that the greatest good, to the greatest number, may be the result. A good Providence has placed the domain under consideration in our possession. Its political condition is to us unique, and almost embarrassing. If the question is asked, 'Can we hold and dispose of a part, or whole, of a sovereign State as a conquered province?' the answer must be in the affirmative. Government is supreme, and must be exercised, particularly to protect the weak, and for the general good of the whole nation. Here is a region, as fair as the sun shines upon, now in a great measure deserted and lying waste. What is to be done with it? and what is our duty in this exigency? The first want is a government, for without a proper one no progress can be made. Let Congress then at once establish a territorial government over so much of the State as we now have in our possession, and over what we may in future obtain;—not a government to exhibit pomp, and show, but one practical and useful, with a court and its proper officers. Let every large unrepresented estate be placed in the hands of a temporary administrator, who should be a practical and honest man, and held to a strict account for all properties entrusted to his keeping, and who should act also as guardian to the slaves belonging to the estate. Then enforce the collection of a tax; and if the owner comes forward within sixty days, pays the tax, takes the oath of allegiance, and agrees to remain in the territory and assist in enforcing and executing the laws, during that and the succeeding year, let him resume his property, and be protected in all his rights. But in default of any loyal response from the proprietor, the property should be disposed of, in moderate quantities, to actual settlers, who should be bound to do duty for its defense, whenever called upon.
But then comes the great difficulty, the disposition of the slaves,—the great question which has so long been discussed as a theory, and which now has to be met as a practical measure. Let us meet it as men and patriots, and, rising above the clamor of fanatics, or the proclamations of new-fangled and demagoguing brigadiers, look at the permanent result to our whole country, and the real good of the African race.
Humanity, society, and property, all have claims and acknowledged rights; let them all be considered. It is well known that the slaves on these islands have always been kept in a state of greater ignorance of the world and all practical matters than those inhabiting the border States, or where there is a larger proportion of whites, with whom they often labor and associate. To emancipate them at once would be to do a great wrong to the white man, to the property, in whatever hands it might be, and a still greater injury to the slave. There can be but one way of disposing of this question which will satisfy the nation, and quiet the fears of the conservative, and preserve the hopes of the radical, which is, to pursue a middle course—a policy which shall as nearly as possible equalize the question to all parties. Let the slave be retained on the plantation where he is found; and, as no race are so much attached to their own locality, so let them remain, place them under a proper system of APPRENTICESHIP, with a mild code of laws, where every right shall be protected, where suitable instruction, civil and religious, shall be given, and where the marriage rite shall be administered and respected. Under such laws and beneficent institutions, this territory would soon be settled by men from the West, the North, and from Europe, intelligent, enterprising, and industrious, who would retrieve its worn-out fields, and introduce new systems of culture, with all the modern labor-saving utensils. With kind treatment and new hopes, the simple sons of Africa would have inducements to labor and to await with patient hope the future and its rewards. Then would Beaufort District become what the Giver of all good designed it to be—the abode of an industrious, peaceful, and prosperous community. The production of its great staple, 'Sea-Island cotton,' would be immensely increased, and its quality improved, till it rivaled the silks of the Old World. The yield of rice would be doubled, and its gardens and orchards would supply the North with fruits now known only to the tropics.
So soon as the new government was fairly inaugurated, and the condition of the land and its future cultivation settled, a movement would of necessity be made to found here a city which would be the great commercial metropolis of the South.
Charleston was 'located' at the wrong place, simply with the object of being as distant as possible from the Spanish settlements, and has always suffered from an insufficient depth of water on its bars to accommodate the largest class of merchant ships. It has barely sixteen feet of water at high tide, and ships loaded as lightly as possible have often been obliged to wait for weeks to enter or leave the port. A decrease of one or two feet in its main channel would, in its palmiest days, have been fatal to its prosperity. The sinking of a dozen ships loaded with stone has no doubt placed a permanent barrier to the entrance of all but a small class of vessels. The ships themselves may soon be displaced or destroyed by the sea-worm, but the New England granite will prove a lasting monument to the folly and madness of the rebellion. The destruction of the best part of the city by fire seems also to show that Providence has designed it to be ranked only with the cities of the past.
The productions of South Carolina have always been large and valuable, and since the completion of their system of railroad facilities they have greatly increased; therefore a commercial city is a necessity, and Port Royal must be its locality. Here is the noblest harbor south of the Chesapeake, with a draught of water of from twenty-five to thirty feet, enough for the largest-sized ships, and sufficient anchorage room for all the navies of the world. Our government should here have a naval depot to take the place of Norfolk, since there is no more suitable place on the whole coast. In this connection the name, Royal Port, is truly significant.
The precise locality for the new city can not now be indicated, but we would suggest the point some two miles south-west of Beaufort, which would give it a position not unlike New York. It would have the straight Broad River for its Hudson, with a fine channel on the south and east communicating with numerous sounds and rivers. Its situation on an island of about the same length as Manhattan completes the parallel.
The value of the produce conveyed over the sounds and rivers connecting with Port Royal, by sloops and steamers, must be counted by millions of dollars. We may estimate the crop of Sea-Island cotton at about fifteen thousand bales, or six millions of pounds, and of rice about fifty million pounds. Yankee enterprise would soon double the amount, and add to it an immense bulk of naval stores and lumber.
But this is but a moiety of what the exports would be. A branch railroad only ten miles long would connect this port with all the railroads of South Carolina and Georgia, which, diverging from Charleston and Savannah, spread themselves over a large part of five States. This road would make tributary to this place a vast district of country.
Savannah, which has for the last few years competed with Charleston for this trade, will soon feel the power of the government, and it must yield up a large part of its business to the more favorable location of the new city.
A few short years, and what a change may come over these beautiful islands and the waters that hold them in its embrace! A fair city, active with its commerce and manufactures, wharves and streets lined with stores and dwellings, interspersed with churches and schools, inhabited by people from every section of our country, and from every part of Europe, all interested to improve their own condition, and all combining to add strength and wealth to the Union which they agree to respect, love, honor, and defend!
The Ante-Norse Discoverers Of America
I. The Mythical Era
Who were the first settlers in America?
Within a few years our school-books pointed to Cristoval Colon, or Columbus, and his crew, as the first within the range of history who 'passed far o'er the ocean blue' to this hemisphere. Now, however, even the school-books—generally the last to announce novel truths—say something of the Norsemen in America, though they frequently do it in a discrediting and discreditable way. However, the old Vikings have triumphed once more, even in their graves, and Professor Rafn can prove as conclusively that his fierce ancestry trod the soil of Boston as that the Mayflower Puritans followed in their footsteps. It is a dim old story, laid away in Icelandic manuscripts, and confirmed by but few relics on our soil; yet it is strong enough to give New England a link to the Middle Ages of Europe, with their wildest romance and strangest elements. It is pleasant to think that far back in the night there walked for a short season on these shores great men of that hearty Norse-Teuton race which in after times flowed through France into England, and from England through the long course of ages hitherward. Among the old Puritan names of New England there is more than one which may be found in the roll of Battle Abbey, and through the Norse-Norman spelling of which we trace the family origin of fierce sea-kings in their lowland isles or rocky lairs on the Baltic.
But there are older links existing between America and Europe than this of the Norseman. Of these the first is indeed buried in mystery—leading us back into that sombre twilight of 'symbolism,' as the Germans somewhat obscurely call the study of the early ages whose records are lost, and which can only be traced by reflection in the resemblances between mythologies which argue a common origin, and the monuments remaining, which seem to establish it. Yes, America has this in common with every country of Asia, Europe, and Africa: she has relics which indicate that at one time she was inhabited by a race which had perhaps the same faith, the same stupendous nature-worship, with that of the Old World, and which was, to reason by analogy, possibly identified by the same language and customs. What was this race, this religion, this language? Who shall answer? Men like Faber, and Higgins, and Lajard, with scores of others, have unweariedly gathered together all the points of resemblance between the religions and mythologies of the Hindus and Egyptians and Chinese, the Druids and the Phenicians, the Etruscans and the Scandinavians, and old Sclavonic heathen, and found in and between and through them all a startling identity: everywhere the Serpent, everywhere the Queen of Heaven with her child, everywhere the cup of life and the bread and honey of the mysteries, with the salt of the orgie, everywhere a thousand fibres twining and trailing into each other in bewildering confusion, indicating a common origin, yet puzzling beyond all hope those who seek to find it. So vast is the wealth of material which opens on the scholar who seeks to investigate this common origin of mythologies, and with them the possible early identity of races and of languages, that he is almost certain to soon bury himself in a hypothesis and become lost in some blind alley of the great labyrinth.
Certain points appear to have once existed in common to nations on every part of the earth previous to authentic history, and in these America had probably more or less her share, as appears from certain monuments and relics of her early races. They are as follows:—
1. A worship of nature, based on the inscrutable mystery of generation with birth and death. As these two extremes caused each other, they were continually identified in the religious myth or symbol employed to represent either.
2. This great principle of action, developing itself into birth and death, was regarded as being symbolized in every natural object, and corresponding with these there were created myths, or 'stories,' setting forth the principal mystery of nature in a thousand poetic forms.
3. The formula according to which all myths were shaped was that of transition, or the passing through. The germ, in the mother or in the plant, which after its sleep reappeared in life, was also recognized in Spring, or Adonis, coming to light and warmth after the long death of winter in the womb of the earth. The ark, which floats on the waters, bearing within it the regenerator, signified the same; so did the cup or horn into which the wine of life was poured and from which it was drunk; so too did nuts, or any object capable of representing latent existence. The passing into a cavern through a door between pillars or rocky passes, or even the wearing of rings, all intimated the same mystery—the going into and the coming forth into renewed life.
4. But the great active principle which lay at the foundation of the mystery of birth and death, or of action, was set forth by the serpent—the type of good and evil, of life and destruction—the first intelligence. It is the constant recurrence of this symbol among the early monuments of America, as of the Old World, which proves most conclusively the existence at one time of a common religion, or 'cultus.' It was probably meant to signify water from its wavy curves, and the snake-like course of rivers, as inundation seems to have been, according to early faith, the most prolific source of the destruction of nature, and yet the most active in its revival.
There are in Brittany vast lines of massy Druidic stones, piled sometimes for leagues in regular order, in such a manner as to represent colossal serpents. Those who will consult the French Dracontia will be astonished at the labor expended on these strange temples. Squier has shown that the earth-works of the West represent precisely the same symbol. Mexico and South America abound, like Europe and the East, in serpent emblems; they twine around the gods; they are gods themselves; they destroy as Typhon, and give life in the hands of Esculapius.
In the United States, as in Europe and in the East, there are found in steep places, by difficult paths, always near the banks of streams, narrow, much-worn passages in rocks, through which one person10 can barely squeeze, and which were evidently not intended for ordinary travel. The passing through these places was enjoined on religious votaries, as indicating respect for the great principle of regeneration. The peasants of Europe, here and there, at the present day, continue to pass through these rock or cave doors, 'for luck.' It was usual, after the transition, whether into a cave, where mysteries, feasts, and orgies were held, significant of 'the revival,' or merely through a narrow way,—to bathe in the invariably neighboring river; the serpent-river or water which drowns organic life, yet without which it dies.
In England, at a comparatively recent period, and even yet occasionally in Scandinavia, the peasantry plighted their troth by passing their hands through the hole in the 'Odin-stones,' and clasping them. Beads and wedding rings and 'fairy-stones,' or those found with holes in them, were all linked to the same faith which rendered sacred every resemblance to the 'passing through.' The graves of both North and South America contain abundant evidence of the sacredness in which the same objects were held. I have a singularly-shaped soapstone ornament, taken from an Indian grave, whose perforation indicates the 'fairy-stone.' The religious legends of Mexico and of Peru are too identical with many of the Old World to be passed over as coincidences; the gold images of Chiriqui, with their Baal bell-ringing figures, and serpent-girt, pot-bellied phallic idols, are too strikingly like those of Old Ireland and of the East not to suggest some far-away common origin. I have good authority for saying that almost every symbol, whether of cup or dove, serpent or horn, flower or new moon, boat or egg, common to Old World mythology, may be found set forth or preserved with the emphasis of religious emblems in the graves or ruined temples of ancient North America.
The mass of evidence which has been accumulated by scholars illustrative of a common origin of mythologies and a centralization of them around the serpent; or, as G.S. Faber will have it, the Ark; or, as some think, the heavenly bodies; or, as others claim, simply a worship of paternity and maternity,—is immense. Why they should claim separate precedence for symbols, all of which set forth the one great mystery how GOD 'weaves and works in action's storm,' is only explicable on the ground that 'every scholar likes to have his own private little pet hypothesis.' Enough, however, may be found to show that this stupendous nature-worship was held the world over,—possibly in the days of a single language,—in America as in ancient Italy, or around the sacred mountain-crags of India; in Lebanon as in Ireland, in the garden-lands of Assyria, and in the isles of the South.
Yet all this is as yet, for the truly scientific ethnologist, only half-fact, indefinite, belonging to the cloud-land of fable. The poet or the thinker, yearning for a new basis of art, may find in the immense mass of legends and symbols an identification between all the forms of nature in a vast harmony and mutual reflection of every beautiful object; but for the man of facts it is unformed, not arranged, useless. We know not the color of the race or races which piled the Western mounds; their languages are lost; they are vague mist-gods, living in a dimmer medium than that of mere tradition. So ends the first period of intercommunication between Asia—the probable birthplace of the old mythology—and America.
