ere
were millions of slaves in our own country, and now there is not one in
all the land. Is not that a great gain to mankind? But it is sad to
think that this slavery gave rise to a terrible war. I shall have to
tell you about this war, after I have told you how slavery brought it
on.

In the early part of this book you read of how white men first came to
this country. I have now to tell you that black men were brought here
almost as soon. In 1619, just twelve years after Captain John Smith and
the English colonists landed at Jamestown, a Dutch ship sailed up the
James River and sold them some negroes to be held as slaves.

You remember about Pocahontas, the Indian girl who saved the life of
Captain John Smith. She was afterwards married to John Rolfe, the man
who first planted tobacco in Virginia. John Rolfe wrote down what was
going on in Virginia, and it was he who told us about these negroes
brought in as slaves. This is what he wrote:

"About the last of August came in, a Dutch marine-of-war, that sold us
20 Negars."

These twenty "Negars," as he called them, grew in numbers until there
were four million negro slaves in our country in 1860, when the war
began. There are twice that many black people in the country to-day, but
I am glad to be able to say that none of them are slaves. Yet how sad it
is to think that it cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, and
misery to multitudes of families, to set them free.

"Where did all these black men come from?" I am sure I hear some young
voice asking that question. Well, they came from Africa, the land of the
negroes. In our time merchant ships are used to carry goods from one
country to another. In old times many of these ships were used in
carrying negroes to be sold as slaves. The wicked captains would steal
the poor black men in Africa, or buy them from the chiefs, who had taken
them prisoners in war. Some of them filled their ships so full of these
miserable victims that hundreds of them died and were thrown overboard.
Then, when they got to the West Indies or to the shores of our country,
they would sell all that were left alive to the planters, to spend the
rest of their lives like oxen chained to the yoke.

It was a very sad and cruel business, but people then thought it right,
and some of the best men took part in it. That is why I say the world
has grown better. We have a higher idea of right and wrong in regard to
such things than our forefather