m thee we claim
A sister's privilege and a sister's name."

Every barrier was now broken down inside of anti-slavery
organizations; and having conquered the prejudice that crippled their
work, they enjoyed greater freedom in the prosecution of their labors.

The Colored orators wrought a wonderful change in public sentiment. In
the inland white communities throughout the Northern States Negroes
were few, and the majority of them were servants; some of them
indolent and vicious. From these few the moral and intellectual
photograph of the entire race was taken. So it was meet that Negro
orators of refinement should go from town to town. The North needed
arousing and educating on the anti-slavery question, and no class did
more practical work in this direction than the little company of
orators, with the peerless Douglass at its head, that pleaded the
cause of their brethren in the flesh before the cultivated audiences
of New England, the Middle and Western States,--yea, even in the
capital cities of conservative Europe.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] The Minutes, in possession of the author.

CHAPTER VII.

NEGRO INSURRECTIONS.

THE NEGRO NOT SO DOCILE AS SUPPOSED.--THE REASON WHY HE WAS KEPT
IN BONDAGE.--NEGROES POSSESSED COURAGE BUT LACKED
LEADERS.--INSURRECTION OF SLAVES.--GEN. GABRIEL AS A
LEADER.--NEGRO INSURRECTION PLANNED IN SOUTH CAROLINA.--EVILS OF
SLAVERY REVEALED.--THE "NAT. TURNER" INSURRECTION IN SOUTH
HAMPTON COUNTY, VIRGINIA.--THE WHITES ARM THEMSELVES TO REPEL THE
INSURRECTIONISTS.--CAPTURE AND TRIAL OF "NAT. TURNER."--HIS
EXECUTION.--EFFECT OF THE INSURRECTION UPON SLAVES AND
SLAVE-HOLDERS.

The supposed docility of the American Negro was counted among the
reasons why it was thought he could never gain his freedom on this
continent. But this was a misinterpretation of his real character.
Besides, it was next to impossible to learn the history of the Negro
during the years of his enslavement at the South. The question was
often asked: Why don't the Negroes rise at the South and exterminate
their enslavers? Negatively, not because they lacked the courage, but
because they lacked leaders [as has been stated already, they sought
the North and their freedom through the Underground R. R.] to organize
them. But notwithstanding this great disadvantage the Negroes _did_
rise on several different occasions, and did effective work.

"Three tim