THE HAMITE.

The Hamite has been a bone of contention from prehistoric times down to the present day. Even from the days of Noah, when he uttered those memorable words, "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." From that day to this, there has dwelt in the breasts of the other two branches of the sons of Noah, a deep-rooted hatred against the descendants of Ham; and if any one will follow the recorded facts of history, he will see that from that very period God began to bless them with name and fame, with power and influence, with civilization and religion; all of this, I say, may be seen by simply observing the facts of history. For it is a fact that the very first government the world had after the flood was formed by one of the sons of Ham, namely, Nimrod; for the sacred historian tells us that he began to be a mighty one in the earth, and that the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech, Accad and Calneh, four cities. The same writer tells us that this, the first kingdom which consisted of the four cities named above, was set up in the land of Shinar, and that Nimrod was its king. He tells us also, that this was only the beginning of his kingdom, so here in Shinar began the power of ruling among the Hamites, and they spread almost all over the then known world, as governors, kings and rulers of the earth; for instance, Nimrod and Cush first in Shinar and then in Arabia; and Mizraim in Egypt; and out of his seed came the Philistines, therefore the great giant Goliath, of Gath, was a Hamite, and also all that great Philistine host. Then Phut, the third son of Ham, went into Africa, and there settled the country called Libya; and Canaan, the youngest 000452son of Ham, settled the land of Canaan, and was the father and progenitor of the Canaanites, and all those "rites," "vites" and "ites," that multiplied and spread abroad, as it were, over all the face of the earth.

Canaan was also the father of the Phoenicians, of whom Cadmus was one, and he taught the Greeks to read and write. He was also founder of the city of Thebes.

It is sometimes made a question in history, whether the Phoenicians taught the Egyptians letters, or the Egyptians taught the Phoenicians, but to us as a race question that makes no difference, as both the Phoenicians and Egyptians were of the descendants of Ham--the Egyptians through Mizraim, the second son of Ham; the Phoenicians, through Canaan, the fourth son of Ham. They were therefore both Hamitic people; so the Greeks got their letters from a Hamite, whether Phoenician or Egyptian, and the Hamites not only taught the Greeks their letters, but the present governing and prevailing mother languages of the earth are Hamitic in their origin. I say they are Hamitic in their origin, and not Shemitic, as is most universally held, and one of my first proofs of that fact is the positions that the different races occupied after the flood.

No historian, who is a standard author of to-day, denies that the first kingdom the world ever knew was that one that was set up in the land of Shinar; and no one will deny that Nimrod was the founder of it, and was also its first king; and that he was a Hamite is not denied by any.

Now, these statements being true, and no one denying their truthfulness, what other legitimate and logical conclusion can be reached than that Nimrod and his coadjutors and descendents made and formulated the language that governed the people of his kingdom; and to suppose anything else is unreasonable, for it is an unalterable 000553fact that the race or people that first settle and civilize a country, also give to it its language, and in the case under consideration there can be found no exception to the rule. And that the different branches of civilization were for more than a thousand years developed along the line of Ham, no one can prove to the contrary.

One of the mother tongues is known to be what is wrongly and unjustly called the "Hebrew." Unjustly so called because it is properly of Canaanitish origin, and to call it Hebrew is to rob the Canaanites of the honor properly due them of being the rightful originators of one of the principal languages of the earth; and to rob the Canaanites of this honor is to rob the Hamites, and to rob the Hamites is to rob the colored race of the same honor, because the colored race is descended from Ham.

My first proof that what is now called Hebrew is a Canaanitish language, is to be found in the Bible itself: Isaiah calls it the "language of Canaan," see chap. 19, verse 18. Again, the language of the Hebrews was in its chief features identical with that of the Canaanites. and this came about by the Hebrews learning the language of the Canaanites, and to suppose anything else is unreasonable, because Abraham, who was by the Canaanites called the Hebrew, must have given the name to his descendants (see Gen. xiv: 13); and this is the first time that the word Hebrew is used as a name for Abraham, and it is now used by a Canaanite, and not by Abraham himself or any of his family, therefore we argue that the very word Hebrew is a Canaanitish word. And again, it is not reasonable to suppose that Abraham, who was only an immigrant into Canaan, which was at that time advanced to a very high state of civilization, should change the language of the people who had dwelt there for ages into that of his own, any more 000654than it would be to suppose that a French or a Dutch colony coming into this country at this late day, could change the language we now speak to that of their own. Another strong proof that the Jews learned and spoke the language of Canaan is to be seen in the fact that the term "Hebrew language" is not seen in the Old Testament at all, and neither Abraham nor Moses nor any of the Old Testament writers spoke of the language they used as being Hebrew.

The Greek was also Hamitic, because this language was taught the Greeks by Cadmus, who was a Hamite, being, as he was, a descendant of Canaan, and Canaan was the fourth son of Ham.

The basis of the Latin language is also of Hamitic origin, because the Greek is the basis of the Latin, and they depend the one upon the other, on into the French, German, Saxon, English; but all, all derived from a Hamitic root, which was first planted in the land of Shinar, under Nimrod, the first king of the world, who was the grandson of Ham.

Yes, the Hamite has ever been active; he founded the first government; built cities; established kingdoms, built the first monuments and pyramids; and reared the first temples to the gods that men served. So not only did civilization develope along the line of Ham, but religion, and the religion of the true God at that. This I draw from where it is first found, and it is first found in its most advanced stages, where? Showing itself along the line of Shem? Not at all, but along the line of Ham; for you look in vain in the word of God for signs of the worship of the one only true God among the descendants of Shem, or himself, until the days of Abraham, and in his day the worship of the true God had dwelt so long with the descendants of Ham, that it had become corrupt among them, and Abraham was raised 000755up for the express purpose of its re-establishment, and so God called him out of the midst of idolatry, and sent him into the land of Canaan, to re-establish by him the worship of the true God, that had then become corrupt with Ham. I repeat, that Abraham was raised up to become the new custodian of true religion; and thus, when the Hamite failed to serve God aright, He took away the privilege, and gave it to the Shemites or Jews; and when they failed to serve him aright, he took it away from the Jews, and gave it to the Japhethites, or what is known as the Gentiles.

Now, let us prove that the worship of the true God was first with the posterity of Ham: You have only to ask where it is found in its purest form, and the answer will be: in the land of Canaan, and Melchisedek is found to be in possession of it, for he is priest of the Most High God, and I might say here that Melchisedek is the first to apply that title; others worshipped God as a god; and Melchisedek was a Canaanite, and the Canaanites were Hamites, and Melchisedek was God's first high priest; and so pure had he preserved the word of God, that Abraham sacrifices to him, and he is also the similitude after which the Son of God is made. Then it was not only after Adam Christ was formed, but also after the order of Melchisedek, that is, in his priesthood; and Melchisedek was a Canaanite, and the Canaanites were Hamites, therefore Christ was made a priest after the order of a descendant of Ham.

If I am asked, were not the posterity of Ham cursed in the person of Canaan, thereby causing the past and present degradation of the race of Ham? in the first place I would say that I do not see that the race of Ham, as such, has ever had, nor has it now, a degradation. There are individual persons of the race, who have in different ages of the world, as there are in all other races, 000856those who have been mistreated and dragged down to a very low level, but the race, as such, never. I should be more than glad to have any one living point out to me in what the degradation of the race of Ham has ever, in any stage of the world's history, consisted. Was it, and is it to be found in the words of Noah, "Curse be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren?" In what sense, I would like to know, could this curse of Noah on Canaan have any application to Cush, Mizraim and Phut, the three older sons of Ham? You will remember it was not Ham himself, nor either of the other three of his sons who was cursed, but Canaan only. Now I ask, therefore, could the curse of Noah have fallen upon the whole race of Ham, when only one-fourth part of that great and world-renowned race had received a curse, namely Canaan? And then again, if Noah had intended the curse for the whole posterity of Ham, would he not have begun with Ham himself, so that the curse might pass from father to son, down through the third and fourth generations? But here the curse is at the last end of Ham's posterity, and to say that this is the curse of the race is like saying that a man who wishes to destroy a tree cuts off one of the last branches instead of cutting the root; for Canaan was the last branch in the Hamitic family, being the youngest son.

Now, in as much as we see it to be unreasonable to suppose that Noah meant the curse to apply to all of the family of Ham, let us then notice the curse itself as it rested upon Canaan: What is it? It is an assignment of Canaan to the servitude of Shem and Japheth. Now, Canaan may have served both Shem and Japheth during their lifetime, but if he did do so, it does not appear, either in sacred or profane history, and not only is there no Scripture bearing directly on its fulfillment, but there is not even a passage that I can find that has 000957the remotest reference to its fulfillment; and not only is there no proof of Canaan having ever served Shem and Japheth as an individual, but there is no proof that his descendants served them as slaves. It cannot be said that they of Africa did so, for the Africans are not the descendants of Canaan, but of Phut, the third son of Ham, and they were not cursed, yet Matthew Henry, in his Commentary, says the curse was fulfilled with the inhabitants of Gibeon, when the children of Israel entered the Land of Canaan.

Now, let us see: The Gibeonites were Canaanites, and were therefore a part of the nation which God had commanded Joshua to utterly destroy. What I want Mr. Henry and others who take his view of the matter, to do, is to harmonize these two purposes of God: one was, they tell us, to make the Canaanites perpetual bonds-men and slaves, because Ham told Shem and Japheth that he had seen his father in the tent in an intoxicated condition; and the other purpose we know to be their utter destruction, because God so commanded Moses. I therefore ask, how could God design the Canaanites by the curse of Noah, to be condemned to perpetual slavery under Shem and Japheth, and at the same time design them to be utterly destroyed from the face of the earth? And we know that had Joshua done what the Lord commanded him to do, that is, destroy all the Canaanites, there would not have been one on the earth.

And again, I do not see how the making of the Gibeonites to hew wood and draw water can be construed into a fulfillment of the perpetual bondage of the Canaanites to Shem and Japheth, because the Gibeonites were but a handful of the Canaanites, comparatively speaking, when there were millions upon millions of the Canaanites, where the Gibeonites were only four cities; and indeed, 001058if you will only take the trouble to examine the matter a little closely, you will find that the curse was entirely gratuitous on the part of Joshua, he not having enquired of the Lord about the matter. (See Joshua ix: 14, 15.

Again, the servitude was partly self-imposed, for the Gibeonites came a day's journey to the camp of Israel, and said to the Israelites: "We will be your servants," preferring service to death, and indeed, service is to be preferred to idleness, much less death. And then, again, the service itself was honorable, for it was none other than to prepare material for the house and alter of God. And if the servitude was to be perpetual, it was simply to be perpetually in the service of the Lord, and my daily prayer is: "Lord give us more and more of this kind of servitude." This was the same kind of service that the Jews themselves had performed from the time that the tabernacle was set up in the camp of Israel, until now, which was over forty years; so if the same work in and of itself was a disgrace to the Gibeonites, was it not also to the Israelites, who had performed it for forty years? If not, why?

Once more I ask, how could the enslavement of the inhabitants of Gibeon be construed into the enslavement of the whole of the Canaanites, much less the race of Ham, which consisted of four great branches of the human family? And this is the only passage that is ever quoted as a proof of the fulfillment of the curse of Noah, and it had been nearly a thousand years since its utterance, and Noah by his curse condemned one branch of the posterity of Ham to servitude under Shem and Japheth, and yet the first servants we read of are Shemites, and they were Abraham's. (See Gen. xi: 5).

Dr. Gill says the persons spoken of in that passage were Abraham's servants; and not only that, but the 001159very first persons we read of suffering in slavery were the Shemites, who were four hundred years in bondage under the Hamites in Egypt. You read of others being subdued and conquered in war, before this, but not enslaved. Greek and Roman slavery did not have an existence for many generations after, because the Greeks and Romans did not exist: But it was among them that the most cruel system of slavery and the most extensive that the world ever knew, was carried on. They were the descendants of Japheth, both the slaves themselves and the enslavers. I repeat that the descendants of Japheth, or the white men, were the very first to enslave their own brethren; so the race degradation is on the other side, for slavery existed among the Greeks and Romans before the days of Homer, and he lived a thousand years before Christ.

African slavery--so called--did not begin for more than a thousand years after Christ; and therefore white slavery is over two thousand years older than black slavery; or in other words, the white race were slaves for more than two thousand years before the colored race, (see Chamber's Encyclopaedia, also Encyclopaedia-Brittanica); and it is among this same people you will find all of the cruelties and barbarities that human savagery can invent. And as to the numbers of the colored and white slaves that have existed, I wish to say, right here, that so far as records show, the colored slaves are as nothing in comparison. Then, if to be enslaved is a degradation--and it is a very great one--which of the races have been the most degraded, I would ask, Shem, Ham, or Japheth?

But the fact is, that the colored race in this and all other slave-holding countries, have been made to feel that it is the colored race alone that has been enslaved, whereas they have been so both last and least. I mean 001260to say that the bondage of the white man began first, lasted longer, and that he was enslaved in far greater numbers than the colored man ever was.

We have been preached to by the white ministers of this country, from those passages in Paul's Epistles where the word "master" and "servant" are mentioned. Nearly all the time the rule has been to make them apply to us as a people, as though in those passages the "master" was white and the "servant" colored, when the fact is that in every case both "master" and "servant" were white. And that man whom Paul sent back to Philemon, whose name was Onesimus, was also a white slave. Now, while the passages in question would apply to the colored race while in slavery, a just and fair interpretation of them would have enabled that race to know that they were designed for and written to white men, but could also be made to apply to the colored. I tell you such would have had a great tendency to encourage the race to bear their afflictions and hope for a better day; and it would at the same time have made the white man a fair and truthful interpreter of the Scriptures, for no one knows what a depressing effect the application of the words "a servant of servants shall he be" have had on us as a race, because the white man construed them to mean our perpetual bondage; but we see now that the passage did not mean that, because we are free and are in bondage to no man; and so, after the same shallow way of reasoning has the white man brought himself to feel his superiority; and the colored man to falsely and foolishly acknowledge his inferiority. This is done, of course, by confounding facts with fiction, and condition with character. There is a vast difference between race conditions and race characteristics, because one enters into the state into which the race is brought, and as to how they got there; and the other enters into the qualities that make up a 001361race, not what is their present and past condition, but what are they per se and inherently as a people? What are they capable of being made? Can they be civilized and christianized? Can they be brought to a high state of culture and refinement? My answer: Search history and compare facts with facts both past and present, and you have the solution of the problem.

I desire to say, at this point, that there is no one thing within my knowledge and to the best of my belief, that is better calculated to lower the colored man in the estimation of the white man, than the term "negro," because it is nothing more than an objectionable misnomer; first, because of its origin, in that it is neither ethnographical, ethnological nor anthropological, but is purely conventional in its origin, standing as it does in the Spanish and Portuguese languages, as an adjective and is only a noun by application, and can only be properly applied when the object or objects referred to are black and only black. A brown, gray, blue or white object cannot be designated by the term, because it means black, and only black; therefore it is a misnomer when designed to designate the colored race, because it can described only one complexion, and that black, whereas the shades of the race are varied and many; for instance, mulatto, quadroon and octoroon. The word "negro" does not described either of these for the the simple reason that the term "negro" means black, and only black.

Now you need only consider how many of the race belong to the three classes just named, to see how inappropriate the name is, because so very inadequate to embrace the whole colored race in all lands.

The term is not only a misnomer, and therefore objectionable, but it is too recent of origin to have any race honor about it. It is therefore not calculated to inspire 001462race pride in us. Who are the Spanish people? Why, they did not have a national existence until the other day, comparatively speaking. They were the subjects of the Moors, in the northern part of Africa, and they remained in a very mixed and tangled condition, subject first to one power and then another, until 1492, only 400 years ago; and again, it was not until the twelfth century that they had a formulated language of their own, they having all before this time spoken a mixture of languages, composed of African, Arabic, Roman and others. I repeat, that their language, as a distinctive feature of their nationality, is but of yesterday, whereas the colored race in its Hamitic descent through Phut, the third son of Ham, can trace itself back to the days of Noah and the ark. But if you do not want to go back so far, let us trace this same Phut into the country now called Africa, and there you will find him founding the country called Libya, the name by which it it was called until after the Carthagenian war with the Romans, and the Romans gave the name of Africa to the part that they conquered, which was round about Carthage. But Libya was inhabited by the descendants of Phut, long before the days of Abraham, Moses, Herodotus or Manetho; or in other words, between three and four thousand years ago, and the race in its different branches has had many names, but its great generic term is Hamitic. The best local term, however, for a race name, is "colored," because it is sufficiently comprehensive in its definition to embrace the whole race, wherever found and of whatever shading of color.

We often hear it said, "why not be proud of the term "Negro" as a race name? Are not the English, Scotch, Irish, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italians proud of their national names?" But where do they lead them? 001563The English to England, the Scotch to Scotland, the Irish to Ireland, the French to France, the Spanish to Spain, the Portuguese to Portugal, the Italians to Italy. But where does the term Negro lead? To whatever is black, whether cat, dog, horse, or what not, just so it is black. Any one can readily see that the term is not national, as are the ones enumerated above, and therefore there is nothing in it of which to be proud. Now, the term "Hamitic" leads one to all the countries where the descendants of Ham have in the past and do at present reside, therefore there is all that we need in the name "Hamitic" of which to be proud, as I have shown in speaking of the Hamite. Why not then adopt this as a general race name?

Not only does the term "negro" signify nothing honorable from an etymological point of view, but it has always been used to degrade our race. And to confirm the truthfulness of this statement you have only to read some of the definitions the white man gives of it. Webster says "it is the Spanish word for black, and is from the Latin word Niger, or a descendant of the black race of men in Africa;" and he says: "the word is never applied to the tawny or olive-colored inhabitant of the northern coast of Africa, but to the more southern race of men who are quite black." This is Webster's definition of the term; he says that the tawny colored race in Africa itself are not covered by it; then how can we, over here, use it with any sense of propriety?

Now let us look at Worcester's definition: He says "the word "negro" is Italian, Spanish and Portuguese,and is from the Latin word Niger." That it is "one of the black, woolly-headed, flat-nosed and thick-lipped race of men inhabiting Africa." That is what Worcester has to say about it. Is there anything very race-inspiring in that 001664definition, think you?--and he takes it from the English Encyclopaedia. The American Standard Dictionary says it is "a black man of Africa or his descendants." You can turn to Chambers' Encyclopedia and read his description of the negro; he says the word "is Spanish, and is the name given to a considerable branch of the human family, possessing certain physical characteristics which distinguish it in a marked degree from the other branches or varieties of mankind;" he says further: "the true negro has black skin, thick lips, woolly hair, depressed nose, and is exceedingly small;" again: "the lower part of the face is projecting, like a muzzle, with the skull long and narrow, and a low, retreating forehead." Now, this may be true of the white man's "negro," but it is not true of the Colored Race, of which we are a very small part.

You can also see Blumenbach's Five-fold Division of Mankind; also Pritchard and Latham; and Pickering on the "Races of Man."

I repeat that the term "Negro" when applied to a race is a misnomer, in which there is nothing whatever of which to be proud.

There is another thought to which I would like to call attention; and that is the much-boasted superiority of the--so call--Caucasian race, for it, like the term "negro," is purely a misnomer, from the very fact that no such race has ever lived on the globe; and so far as I have been able to find out, there has lived only one man that has tried to establish the fact of the existence of such a race, and he has utterly failed. But there are others who have eagerly seized and adopted that theoretical idea, and have built up a wide-spread belief in said theory--for it is only a theory, and a flimsy, weak one at that. In order to see this, one has but to look at the theory itself; what is it? Why, it is nothing more 001765nor less than an attempt to establish the superiority of one branch of the human race over the other, which is an impossibility, for the reason that God has declared that he has "made of one blood, all nations of men."

If all the nations of men are made of one blood, then are all nations as one man, and we all know that it is an impossibility that the same man be superior or inferior to himself; he certainly can only be equal to himself, so the race of mankind being only one, but existing in different branches, cannot be superior the one branch to the other.

Blumenbach, who is the author of the Caucasian race theory, was a German phrenologist, born in 1752, died in 1840; and these dates, so very modern as they are, make an additional reason why the claim and theory of Blumenbach are absurd. The idea of a race who claims a history as old as the ark of Noah itself, to be proud of just having its race, name and affinity settled here in the very last century in the world's history! What were they in all those ages before they became Caucasian? What element of character does the Caucasian theory infuse into this same people that they did not possess before?

Further objection may be urged against the existence of such a race from the claim that Blumenbach makes, that Mount Caucasus was the radiating point out from which the human family went to re-people the earth, and that the elevating influence of an habitation round about the mount, had the tendency, and did produce that race quality of manhood out of which he forms his great Caucasian race. In the first place, we know according to history and all trustworthy historians, Caucasus never was a dispersing point of the races of men. We find some of the races of mankind early inhabiting those regions, but as a point from which the earth was peopled, 001866by no means. Nor do we find this or any other mountain to be the place where the evidences of manhood and of character began to develop, but rather in the valleys, and along the river banks, such as the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile; and the great Shinar valley, where the first kingdom was formed, and the first king, Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, reigned. Yes, it was here that man began to distinguish himself in the arts and sciences of government and architecture, by the building of the city and tower of Babel; this is admitted by all.

The slenderness of Blumenbach's claim as a basis for his Caucasian race theory forms the ground for further objection to it, whether viewed geographically or ethnologically. Every one knows that Caucasus and its surroundings form but a speck of the habitable part of the earth, and the ethnological basis is still weaker from the fact it rests upon a single skull of a Georgian woman; that is to say, that Blumenbach, in the founding of his great Caucasian race theory, selected from a number of human skulls he had collected in his travels, one of the many, and just simply declared that this was the type of the great race he had in his mind; and in his mind it remained, and it has never shown itself to this day.

And it will be remembered that this investigation is the work, not of a council of ethnologists and philologists, but that of one man; and who knows the faithfulness of his experiments or truthfulness of his statements? Men generally, when they think that they are right, are glad to know that their work is tested by others.

Now, I wish to say, just here, that the strongest and most commendable thing about the whole theory is that it has a woman's skull for a basis; then the great Caucasian race rests upon a single skull, does it? Slender foundation indeed!

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And one can here see the unfairness of Blumenbach's tests; he does not put his tests on a comparative or average basis, but chooses the most beautiful specimen in his collection. Now, who, except on the average system, can tell what the whole of a thing is likely to be? Does not his system rather argue against the superiority which he aims to establish, than for it? For if he has to take the very best skull for his type, in order to reach an average, his scale must go downward; that, at any rate, is the way it appears to me.

Another thing that tends greatly to weaken Blumenbach's theory of a great Caucasian race is, that the material with which he would construct it has no common source of origin, whereas all of the great races of the earth have a common source, and can trace their origin back to a common root; but Blumenbach gets his material from everywhere in general and nowhere in particular, for it includes all of the inhabitants of ancient and modern Europe; the Huns of Asia; the Assyrians, Arabians, Jews, Phoenicians of Asia Minor, and the inhabitants of Cancasus. And he even steps across the line and goes into Africa; there he gets the Egyptians, Abyssinians and Moors. In a word, he claims that whoever has beauty of head and features and symmetry of form in body and limbs, belongs to his great Caucasian race. Then he comes back to Georgia or Caucasus, after this long ramble and wide range; there he picks up a woman's skull and begins to rear his structure, the future superior race of the world.

Now, let us see who were the Georgians as a people, that even their very name should be considered sufficient to make all the world besides stand in awe of them.

I quote from Chambers' Encyclopaedia: "That the different tribes inhabiting the Caucasus, long believed to be the purest type of the Indo-European family, are now 002068considered not to belong to it at all, but to have more affinity with the Mongolian races. * * * The present Christianity of the nominally Christian tribes, is more akin to heathenism than true Christianity. In character they are distinguished for their valor and love of freedom, but cruelty and treachery are also amongst their marked traits. They carry on a little agriculture, but live more by the care of herds and flocks, and by hunting, and they are not averse to robbery. The only manufacture that is carried on by them is that of arms." The forgoing is the description given of the Georgians by Chambers. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, in giving the history of the same, says that they were subjected by Alexander the Great, until 324, B.C., and that they afterwards became a province of the Arabs. They were then ruled by the Persians, and they are at the present time in a subjected state to Russia. Not only so, but as one examines into the history of this people among whom Blumenbach found his ideal skull, from which he argues the past and future greatness of his greatly superior race, he will find the same defects, failures and weaknesses that are found with all other branches of mankind, whether of body or mind, character or condition; for, as one reads their sketch, he will see that they have had their times of prosperity and adversity; of peace and war; of freedom and bondage; of elevation and degradation; of light and darkness; of learning and ignorance; of savagery and civilization; of heathenism and Christianity. And history tells us that at the present day their Christianity is little better than heathenism: so at the very time when Blumenbach's superior people, from whom he got his type of what he and others are pleased to style the greatest race on earth, should be showing themselves as such, we find them in partial heathenism, without the ability to establish and maintain 002169themselves in a separate government, but are a subjected province of Russia, whose name is derived from it is not known what; whose real and true history begins it is not known when; the origin of whose people is from it is not known where, and whose religion is almost anything and any kind, or in other words, it is like their origin--it cannot be told what it is.

And indeed I would like to know, and I have been trying hard to find out in what has this Caucasian type of man so distinguished itself that it should be laying claim to such high honors. Was it in war? It is true that they did maintain themselves for quite a time against the Russians, but then they had been in subjection under three governments before that, viz.: the Romans, in the time of Alexander the Great; then the Persians and Arabians; and as I before said, are now under the Russians.

Again, I ask, what were the great distinguishing characteristics of people, that there should be claimed for them so much? Of their architecture it simply is said in history that there are a few ruins of their former buildings and temples left visible, which only go to show that they had attained some degree of knowledge of the fine arts, but there is nothing mentioned among them as very striking or rare; and we know that whatever of this knowledge they possessed was not original with them, but was derived; and was derived from the descendants of Ham. Yes, was derived from that dreadfully cursed and doomed race of Ham, because his descendants are fully admitted by scholars of the present day to have been the authors of the arts and sciences of architecture, sculpture, agriculture and literature all having their foundation and beginning with Ham, for there is no true historical record of any people preceding them in any of these things. Then even Blumenbach's 002270great Caucasian type derived their civilization and culture, what of it they had, from the the Hamites. Of necessity, then, the ones from whom they got their civilization were higher up in the scale of improvement than they themselves. But shall I argue from this fact the race superiority of the Hamite to that of the Shemite, Japhethite or the Caucasian? No, not by any means, but simply see that they (the Hamites), were leaders and pioneers in that which all of the human family were fully capable according to conditions and circumstances, locations and situations in life, just as these were favorable or unfavorable; and these are what have in all ages of the world, and always will be, the formers and moulders of the life and character of a people. Just as according to the state and condition of the soil, so the grain will be, for you may take the very finest of grain, and no matter what average, either in size, quality or quantity, and place it in an unfavorable situation, and in poor, barren soil, I defy the man to produce the same results. You observe that the grain in both cases is just the same. No, the fault was not in the grain, but in the conditions in which it was placed, and it would be unfair and unjust to charge the grain in the latter case with inferiority, because it is the same grain, but is planted under different conditions. What I wish to say is, change the conditions, and the grain will be the same as it formerly was, because the grain of which we speak is from the same seed, and therefore cannot be superior or inferior as to its nature, but may appear so because of conditions and circumstances; and so it is with the race of man; they are founded in different places on the globe, and in different stages of progress, developement and improvement, according to the many conditions with which they are surrounded. If they are backward in improvement, change the 002371conditions, and you will have a changed people, in manuers, life, customs and appearances.

Allow me, now, to give another reason why the Caucasian race theory is false, and therefore a mis-name: It is the large number of tribes of the different nations and peoples that have from the very earliest times dwelt about Caucasus. They seem to have migrated into that region from all parts, until, as we are informed by historians, that the number of different dialects there spoken ranged from one to three hundred; so we can readily see that Blumenbach, in selecting his single female skull, would be as likely to get hold of the head of one woman as another; and Chambers says it was the "skull of a woman."

O how bewildered one gets when he sets out to find the true name and real origin of this many-named, world-renowned race, for it is at one time styled the great Indo-European family; and then again, the great Aryan race; again you will hear them boasting of their Syro-Arabian origin; and then the great Caucasian claim is made again; but most of all you hear the cry of "Anglo-Saxon blood" and "Anglo-Saxon civilization," which was little better than barbarism (see Hume's History of England;) and it remained so until the period when the name ceased to be Anglo-Saxon, and became that of England. Then, and not until then, does the true state of civilization begin. And as to the Anglo-Saxon blood idea, it is as if you were to mix up the blood of bulls, goats, wolves, tigers and bears; and as many other different bloods as there are animals in the forest, and then call this mixture lamb's blood; you then have the true idea of what is "Anglo-Saxon blood."

The term "Anglo-Saxon" is compounded from the names of the Angels and the Saxons, two peoples who migrated into the Island of Britain. Then, in order to 002472learn whether the preceding is an overdrawn picture, or not, we have only to ask who the Anglo-Saxons were, and the answer will be that they were made up of the inhabitants of the Island of Britain. And who were these? Why, they were the Moors from Africa, the Arabs of Arabia, the original Britons, the Angles, Picts and Scots, the Saxons or Germans, and many others which time and space fail me to name. So out of these came the Anglo-Saxons, hence the source of the much boasted Anglo-Saxon blood.

But the Hamites or the Colored Race claim but one origin, and there is but one claimed for them; and there are some who have at times tried to rule them out of that one, because they have endeavored to make them believe that they had no origin at all. But the Hamite is here, and here to stay; and will stand the tests of time, whether Blumenbach's theories of a "great Caucasian race" will, or not.