ence in
the choosing of group leaders, founding thus a peculiar dynasty which
in the light of present conditions is worth while studying. When
sticks and stones and beasts form the sole environment of a people,
their attitude is largely one of determined opposition to and conquest
of natural forces. But when to earth and brute is added an environment
of men and ideas, then the attitude of the imprisoned group may take
three main forms,--a feeling of revolt and revenge; an attempt to
adjust all thought and action to the will of the greater group; or,
finally, a determined effort at self-realization and self-development
despite environing opinion. The influence of all of these attitudes at
various times can be traced in the history of the American Negro, and
in the evolution of his successive leaders.

Before 1750, while the fire of African freedom still burned in the
veins of the slaves, there was in all leadership or attempted
leadership but the one motive of revolt and revenge,--typified in the
terrible Maroons, the Danish blacks, and Cato of Stono, and veiling all
the Americas in fear of insurrection. The liberalizing tendencies of
the latter half of the eighteenth century brought, along with kindlier
relations between black and white, thoughts of ultimate adjustment and
assimilation. Such aspiration was especially voiced in the earnest
songs of Phyllis, in the martyrdom of Attucks, the fighting of Salem
and Poor, the intellectual accomplishments of Banneker and Derham, and
the political demands of the Cuffes.

Stern financial and social stress after the war cooled much of the
previous humanitarian ardor. The disappointment and impatience of the
Negroes at the persistence of slavery and serfdom voiced itself in two
movements. The slaves in the South, aroused undoubtedly by vague
rumors of the Haytian revolt, made three fierce attempts at
insurrection,--in 1800 under Gabriel in Virginia, in 1822 under Vesey
in Carolina, and in 1831 again in Virginia under the terrible Nat
Turner. In the Free States, on the other hand, a new and curious
attempt at self-development was made. In Philadelphia and New York
color-prescription led to a withdrawal of Negro communicants from white
churches and the formation of a peculiar socio-religious institution
among the Negroes known as the African Church,--an organization still
living and controlling in its various branches over a million of men.

Walker's wild appeal against