TO THE
SAINTED MOTHER
WHO INSPIRED HIS LIFE AND WHOSE
PRAYERS HAVE FOLLOWED HIM,
AND TO HIS
BELOVED WIFE
WHOSE WISE COUNSELS AND UNWAVERING
DEVOTION IN TIMES OF TRIAL AND
DISCOURAGEMENT HAVE BEEN
THE SUPPORT AND
STRENGTH OF THE
HERO OF THIS
NARRATIVE
In this book is written the marvelous and inspiring life-story of a man of the Negro race who rose up from the most abject condition of birth and environment to dignity and honor, power and authority, before the snows of the winter age had whitened his head.
The descendant of ancestors who had been dragged from the jungles of Africa into the slavery of the American cotton field, himself born in slavery and sold as a human chattel on the block of the slave market of Henderson, Kentucky, this man fought his way with a dogged persistence and a sublime courage to a place of peerage in the affairs of the nation that had shackled himself and his fathers. Withal, he preserved throughout his life a nobility of character and a gentleness of soul which saved him to blithe and serene living, and which leaves him now, in the twilight of his days, at peace with the world, honored by the community where he lives, distinguished in the service he rendered the nation which had enslaved him, loved by all who know him without regard to race or creed--a man of deeds and Christian charity.
Colonel Allen Allensworth is my friend, and I am proud to call him such. All men would be the better for knowing him, and every man and woman, boy and girl, white or black, will receive both inspiration and a deep sense of pleasure for reading this his "Battles and Victories."
JOHN STEVEN MCGROARTY.
LOS ANGELES,
CALIFORNIA.
Herein the reader will find a story--an unvarnished tale--the faithful record of a busy, courageous, consecrated, useful life. The battles of this man were hard battles; but the victories have been complete. Colonel Allen Allensworth is one of the heroes of our generation--a strong link in the chain which binds the strenuous present to a fast fading past. While reaching forward to his seventy-third birthday, he is still possessed of a buoyant, youthful spirit, and is ever active in good works for the elevation of his race. Young men of the Negro race of the present generation need the stimulus of his example to support them in their hardships and difficulties.
Slavery had its baneful effects upon the white man as well as upon the black man. Both suffered by the institution. The slaveholder, as well as the slave, was the victim of the system. A man's character invariably takes its hue from the condition and color of the things about him. This is an inexorable law. In the peculiar relation of slave and master there was hardly room for the development of honorable character by either. In the case of the master, reason was imprisoned, and too often the passions of the idle master ran wild. His authority and power permitted excesses too despicable to mention. The system of slavery marred the master's social life; poisoned the spring of his domestic stream; robbed statesmen of their dignity (for they had to resort to low cunning and base methods and sophistries in order to harmonize the contending forces in the body politic); it distorted and fairly prostituted public opinion, stultifying and strangling the noblest sentiments of the human heart. In nearly every section of the country the system put to silence the conscience of the public press; forced pious churchmen,--professed men of God,--to bow low in the very dust before its unrelenting power; and even judges of the courts and governors of the states were subjugated to its compelling behests.
It is fortunate that there are still alive men of intelligence and high character of the ex-slave class who have vivid recollections of the terrible cruelties of slavery in the United States. Words from their quivering lips tell the story of the onward and upward march of the Negro. These men are furnishing the final chapters of the awful American drama. Their narratives contain the tragic elements in a marked degree.
While the struggling army of those who came up out of the seething vortex of degradation, with tattered garbs, bruised and bleeding backs, without land, or home, or property of any sort; with poverty facing them at every turn; while this army is rapidly thinning, yet the soft, weak, trembling voice, freighted with sorrow and grief, telling of man's inhumanity to man, is still distinctly audible to those who will hear. Though this thin army is reaching the vanishing point along the distant horizon, faint echoes of the pathetic sorrow-song can plainly be heard.
The experiences of those who lived under the system of slavery have not all been faithfully recorded. The battles for existence have been too engrossing. Few have had the time or inclination to set forth what they knew about the ante-bellum period. Those experiences were varied, no two of them were exactly the same; but each story brings back afresh to our memories the distressing pictures of an almost forgotten past. The faithful record compels our attention, our sympathetic interest. These thrilling chapters, among the last of the great American drama, reveal an ever unfolding scroll, full writ, telling of the cruelty, wickedness, iniquity, injustice, wrong, lasciviousness and the wanton criminality of the white man.
The brief glimpse of slavery given in connection with the story of a single human life is intended to refresh the memory of the reader that he may better understand the enthralled condition of the humble slaves during the dark period in which the institution of slavery flourished; and it is intended also to draw the reader's attention to the moral force largely responsible for the extinction of the institution. There is no wish on the part of the writer to ignore any noble character worthy of mention with Frederick Douglass and John Brown; these names are given place in the book because they furnished Allen Allensworth with ideals of courage, perseverance and sacrifice, rare in any race, and they have aided the writer to a more enthusiastic appreciation of the constructive work of his hero, and his splendid moral and intellectual attainments.
The present generation may tire of the sad and sometimes bitter plaint of those who have come up from slavery; their recognition is not yet full and free; strict limitations are still hedging them about. But the future race must know of the splendid battles,--the battles of industry, economy, thrift, enterprise, truth-telling, high moral living, distinguished service to others, our hero has fought and so gloriously won. The slow, steady climb up from the lowly estate of slavery to one of the most honorable positions in the gift of a great nation, the reward of merit, required something more than mere physical effort. This climb required, first of all, character. Colonel Allen Allensworth has won his victories; and the future generations must know about them. They will afford inspiration to the ambitious. And so, we lay this, our story of the trials and tribulations, joys and triumphs of a true, good man before you. Read it and think of the marvelous possibilities of your life, if you, like Colonel Allensworth, will live up to the highest light in your soul; if you, cherishing lofty ideals, keeping your mind pure and without bitterness of spirit, hatred or malice, will forge your way to the front in the battle of life and make sure of certain and uncontested victories.
CHARLES ALEXANDER.
LOS ANGELES,
CALIFORNIA.
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THE FOUNDING OF THE NEGRO TOWN IN CALIFORNIA--HOME OF THE FOUNDER--THE ATTITUDE OF COLONEL ALLENSWORTH TOWARD ALL GOOD CAUSES--HE WAS BORN IN KENTUCKY--WORTH OF HIS EXAMPLE TO THE NEGRO--HIS MOTHER--UNLAWFUL FOR NEGROES TO BE CAUGHT READING A BOOK.
In Southern California, in a small Negro community named in his honor, lives Colonel Allen Allensworth, a retired Army Chaplain, and his devoted wife. This community is located in the San Joaquin Valley, between Bakersfield, which is at the south, and Fresno, which is at the north, on the Santa Fé Railroad. The town is a little more than six years old. The people at Allensworth belong chiefly to an aspiring, self-respecting, self-supporting middle class--a class largely moved by the independent spirit to break away from the servant class and try their hand at agriculture and trade on their own responsibility.
In all there are about 160 souls at Allensworth. They are all farmers, dairymen and traders. There is a hotel, with good accommodations and low rates; plenty of cool, refreshing water; several good country stores, a post-office, a railroad station with telephone and telegraph offices, and a large grain storage warehouse for the farmers of the district. The Negroes of this town are hard workers. They are prosperous, happy and contented.
The beautiful home in which the founder of the colony lives is simple in construction, but commodious. Its furnishings reflect the ideals and the character of the dwellers therein. Taste and culture are the outward expressions of the inner life; and they are exhibited here in a marked degree. For both Colonel Allensworth and his wife are educated and cultured people, who have seen life in its various phases and have agreed that the simple, pastoral life is the best for genuine happiness. That mysterious faculty called taste, which every man and woman must inevitably manifest at some time and in some degree, is quietly and beautifully developed and exhibited in this peaceful and altogether delightful home. While the rooms are not lavishly furnished with costly bric-a-brac, or expensive paintings, good taste is shown in every detail. There is a harmonious blending of colors in the pictures and paper on the walls and the furniture. There is nothing in the house which is not indispensable to the comfort of those living therein. On every hand are evidences of sound Christian training. The love of the Bible is manifested. Here is the home life of a man of true character. Colonel Allensworth is a clergyman, a man of God. He has walked among his fellows, a modest, humble, unobtrusive, God-fearing man, and with no aid save an indomitable courage he has made his way to the front at a time when getting to the front was most difficult.
Every true mother, whatever her station in life, wants her son to live a clean, pure, useful life, and is anxious that when he becomes a man he shall fill an honorable place among his people. So, though born in slavery, and handicapped by all the tricks of that awful institution, the humble mother of Allensworth prayed that God would keep her son clean; that He would give him courage, and will power and self-control to persevere in good works; that he should bear himself so as not to incur abuse or vilification, carrying his share of the responsibility of life with intelligence; and that in every relation of life, as brother, husband, and father, in spirit and letter he should endeavor to prove himself true and faithful.
After his emancipation, Allensworth gave himself to the support of every good cause, and his usefulness in the communities where he lived won for him that recognition which called him finally to the service of his country as a chaplain in the Army. His spirit was touched by the lowly condition of his people, with whom he was surrounded, and his pity, his indignation at the injustices they had to endure, his zeal for their relief and improvement, and his remarkable self-control under many provocations made him a valuable citizen. The simplicity of his life and the splendid toleration of his spirit made him a good counselor and a wise leader. It is difficult fully to estimate the variety and value of his services both in civil and military life, for he has not only been a forceful and eloquent preacher, an indefatigable and successful school-teacher, but a gallant soldier and now the founder of a flourishing Negro town.
Colonel Allensworth has lived through the most interesting and thrilling period of American history. When his prayers and the prayers of thousands of others were ascending to God that in some way He might bring deliverance to the slaves from their terrible thraldom, he did not dream, nor did anybody dream what the firing on Fort Sumter meant. Nobody thought that four long years of the bitterest war in history would follow; that fathers and brothers would be slain by the thousand; that families would be separated, divided forever; that business throughout the land would be paralyzed; that factories would be closed indefinitely; commerce blocked; traffic cut off; the best of friends made, in a brief period, the bitterest of enemies; but out of it all, after the fires had gone out, the smoke vanished from the distant horizon, freedom, blessed freedom was to come to the oppressed Negroes and the stern responsibilities of citizenship were to be imposed upon them. Having lived through this, he has striven to justify it all by his upright living and his manly attitude on all important public questions.
Colonel Allensworth was born in Kentucky. He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, though he has lived to use many. He was born in slavery, and those familiar with the history of that institution, know what that means. He was determined, even in his youth, to make his way in life and by his indomitable courage he has succeeded. He realized after the Civil War that to live in the United States is a fine thing after all. In his youth the world was to him, as it is to most boys, a great big, mysterious place, which he could not and did not try to comprehend. The grandeur of the innumerable stars studding the heavens, the everlasting puzzle of the great, silent, towering mountain peaks, the soft, curling mists reflecting the effulgent rays of the morning sun, that roll gently and quietly over the hill-tops from the deep luxuriant valleys, the flowers of the fields in their beauty, the sparkling dewdrops in their mellow splendor, were all objects of wonder and admiration to him, and as he grew older and saw and felt and experienced life's strange variabilities, the world became more mysterious to him. He looked out upon life, as a great ocean and in a vague way imagined great ships sailing by in their calm, steady, majestic movements; their curious air of travel; their great white spreading sails; their complicated riggings and towering masts, creating the feeling that they must have come from some distant land, where strange people live, and were bound for unknown shores. The vision charmed and fascinated him. He wanted to see the world. He wanted to understand more of life and its purposes. Like the curious boy at the circus, he longed to see it all, and hence his striving, even to this day. Although he has played an important part in the tragedy of color and the drama of prejudice in this country, his activities have not ceased. He is still doing a large share in solving a problem of which he is a conspicuous part. How well he has done and is doing his part succeeding chapters of this book will tell.
Colonel Allensworth has long since learned that the individual man cannot see all of life--this is only done by the larger groups and they must be scattered over the world. Each life is circumscribed or travels in a circle. Some men live to cultivate the soil that others may engage in other equally useful pursuits; some stand at the spindles and the looms that others may be clothed; some hammer the rough metals into useful tools and implements that others may have no excuse to shirk labor; some fashion wood into needed forms that others may enjoy comfort; some cook and wash and build, while others enjoy the pleasures of travel or repose in luxury. Only a few may travel and study and impart wisdom. Some lives are dull and grey and uneventful, others, impelled by a strong wandering instinct, are filled with the knowledge gained by travel, and reflect an inspiring light to those with whom they come in contact. And so it is with Colonel Allensworth. Considering the space of time over which he has passed, considering his early handicaps of slavery, ignorance, superstition, enforced degradation; considering the uncertain outlook of his youth, and the heroic manner in which he has overcome some of his handicaps such as hereditary weaknesses, ignorance and superstition, and the remarkable progress he has made in the world, we think it worth while, for the benefit of the future generations of his race, to chronicle Colonel Allensworth's achievements; for this race still requires the stimulus of success if it would hold its courage.
Colonel Allensworth has lived long enough to appreciate the wonders of civilization. He also appreciates the glory of nature, her varied forms, colors and voices. His personality has won for him an enviable, place in whatever society his life has led him. He has witnessed some of the most marvelous strides made by the human race in civilization. He has seen the steam engine developed and perfected in his day from a crude thing, to the most useful, indispensable and faithful servant of man. He has seen it become the mainspring of civilization, bringing valuable material from the depths of the mines; turning the dynamo that lights our cities, and propelling our street cars; turning the powerful propeller which sends the monster steamship through the waters, as well as furnishing the power to make the most delicate parts of a watch. He has seen it annihilate distance and make all men of this globe commercially brothers. And, too, he has witnessed the successful experiment of the flying machine, wireless telegraphy, moving pictures, color photography, the X-ray, talking machine, the steam-plough throwing sixteen furrows at one time; the fifty-story office building constructed of cement, steel and stone; the marvelous suspension bridge, six thousand five hundred thirty-seven feet long, with a single span of one thousand five hundred ninety-five feet; the powerful search-light that blazes the way for the enormous steel gunboat; the automobile or horseless carriage, and smokeless powder. He has seen what were waste materials converted into valuable articles of utility.
Allen, the son of Phyllis and Levi Allensworth, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, April 7, 1842. His mother was the slave of Mrs. A. P. Starbird of Louisville, and as soon as Allen was old enough to be of any service, he was given to Mrs. Starbird's son, Thomas, to be his little "nigger," as was the prevailing custom among such people at that time. Thus he began his battle of life.
We are too far removed in time from the appalling scenes of horror to appreciate now the awful system under which Allen spent the first years of his life. It would be very difficult for the men and women born since the days of American slavery fully to realize the dark and bewildering reign of terror which characterized the period in which he came into the world.
The spectacle of millions of human beings doomed, apparently forever, to incessant and unrequited toil, absolutely shut out from the protection of the law of the land, imprisoned in the grossest ignorance and superstition brutalized, driven by the cruel lash, branded with hot iron and degraded by inhuman practices, is a terrible and fearful picture to contemplate. So it will be seen that Allen Allensworth was born at the bottom of the pit of the most revolting system of degradation that can be conceived.
His mother was a kind-hearted, gentle-spirited woman, sympathizing with her son's trials and handicaps from the start. She was anxious to have him form habits of strict integrity, honor and usefulness. She, though a slave, was intelligent enough to appreciate the responsibilities of life. She was conscientious in the discharge of her duties, a consistent Christian, enduring hardships and sorrow with calmness. She had her ideals. They were given her by that invisible Spirit who inspires each willing soul with kindness, and an abhorrence of cruelty, unkindness, injustice and wrong. Her simplicity and sincerity of character won for her the confidence of her owners and all who knew her.
Instinctively his mother knew the advantages of education, so she said to Allen one day, "My son, Miss Bett is sending 'Little Marse' Tommy to school to get a learning; now, my son, what is good for 'Little Marse' Tommy is good for you. Your mother can't send you to no school, where you can learn to read and write and figure, so you must ask your 'Marse' Tom to play school with you every day when he comes home; then you can learn to read and write like him." She told him that his "Marse" Tom would be a great man some day and have a big store like his father. Tom's father was a member of the large wholesale drug company of Wilson, Starbird & Smith in Louisville. Deep down in her heart she felt that in some way God would redeem her son from the thraldom of slavery; that, somehow, he would, if even partly educated, win his freedom. She told him that she had named him after the great preacher of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Bishop Allen, and that she wanted him to grow up to be a great and good man like the bishop. In substance she said, "To be a great and good man, and a useful man to others, you must know how to read the Bible and fit yourself to live up to its teachings. No man can be truly great and good who does not believe in the good Book and follow its teachings. The only way to learn is to play schoolboy with your 'Marse' Tom and have him learn you. Now don't let on to him that I told you to ask him to play school, for if you do, he won't teach you. Now may God help you, my son, may God help you." With this suggestion, she allowed her son to exercise his own diplomacy in working out this problem.
She knew that it was a crime before the laws of man (the white man of the South) for a Negro to learn to read. The white man had said that the black man could not learn to read or write, that he was too thick-headed, and he made it a crime for any one to attempt the experiment on the black man. This dear soul felt keenly the vital power involved in the words "read" and "write," and while she was not able to teach her boy herself, she could show him the way. It is surprising to what extent the slaves regarded the ability of one to read and write as a great mystery. They everywhere whispered the words, "read and write."
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Battles and Victories of Allen Allensworth, A.M., Ph.D.
Charles Alexander
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