r as he struggles with this
difficult task.

Norman Coombs
September, 1971

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deep appreciation to the National Endowment
for the Arts and Humanities and to the Rochester Institute of Technology
for providing me with much of the time which made this research possible.
I am also indebted to Professors Benjamin Quarles and Merle Curti for
kindly reading and commenting on the manuscript. My thanks are also
extended to my father, Earl Coombs, for his invaluable assistance in
helping with the hours of painstaking research demanded by such a
project. Miss Dorothy Ruhl provided the detailed, careful labor necessary
to help prepare the manuscript for the printer, and Mrs. Doris Kist
performed the demanding task of proofreading it. I also want to thank
Cecyle S. Neidle, the editor of the Immigrant Heritage of America series,
for her helpful supervision and advice. Finally, I owe a deep debt of
gratitude to my wife, Jean, for typing the manuscript, for a host of
other miscellaneous tasks and, above all, for her forbearance and
encouragement.

N. C.

PART ONE From Freedom to Slavery

CHAPTER 1

African Origins

The Human Cradle

THREE and a half centuries of immigration have injected ever-fresh doses
of energy and tension into the American bloodstream. As diverse peoples
learned to live together, they became a dynamo generating both creativity
and conflict. One of the most diverse elements in American life was
introduced when Africans were forcibly brought to the American colonies.
The American experiment had begun and consisted mainly of white men with
a European heritage. The African was of a different color, had a
different language, a different religion, and had an entirely different
world view. But perhaps the most striking contrast was that, while the
European came voluntarily in search of greater individual opportunity,
the African came in chains. Because the European was the master and
thereby the superior in the relationship, he assumed that his heritage
was also superior. However, he was mistaken, because the African had a
rich heritage of importance both to himself and to mankind. When people
interact intimately over a long period of time, the influences are
reciprocal. This is true even when their relationship is that of master
and slave.

To trace the importance of the African heritage one must go back millions
of years. Evidence is accumula