CHAPTER I

THE BLOOD OF HAM AND JAPHETH

INTRODUCTORY

OUR POSITION.-In the following chapters we will endeavor to present to the reader in our homely, practical manner, some of the real and imaginary difficulties existing between the white and colored branch of the human family in America. We do not aim to escape the eye of the critic of this mixed family. We think and reason independent of and regardless of criticism and prejudice, and present the truth as we have found it, plain enough and practical enough to be understood by our readers.

While we unhesitatingly condemn the prevalent wrongs, we do not try to minimize or obscure the grievances of the white people, and especially magnify the grievances of the black man, or the colored offspring of the white man. We wish our readers to bear in mind, in reading this book, that all the wrongs which the Caucasian has done the Negro would have been reversed, if that race had been on top and the white man underneath.

ANCIENT HISTORY records the fact that when the dark-skinned people were on top, that is, the most enlightened and civilized, they treated inferior races, or rather those less powerful, with as much and even more cruelty than the Negro has ever suffered under the domination of his white brother. The cruelties which the coffee-skinned Egyptian perpetrated toward the inoffensive Hebrews, is but one striking example of what other races suffered, in ancient times, as subjects and slaves of the dark-skinned or black races, when they ruled the world. On the other hand, the cruelties the Ethiopian has from time to time practiced on his own race undoubtedly exceeds all wrongs he has ever endured at the hands of other peoples.

Slavery existed among the kinky-haired people from the earliest history; in fact, slavery originated with the Ethiopian or so-called Hamitic branch of the human family. The dark people were the first who attained any degree of civilization, and through warfare came in possession of inferior tribes of various kinds, whom they enslaved. The pink-skinned man was undoubtedly among these, to serve his apprenticeship in the arts of civilization as a slave.

We have not the least doubt but that the first prehistoric race of man was black complexioned.

Ridpath shows in his history of the world, on Race Chart No. 1 (showing the distribution of mankind on the hypothesis of a common origin) that the original stock was black, from which sprang the prehistoric brown or Mongoloid, from which sprang the prehistoric ruddy or white.

NOAH AND THE FLOOD.-We have no reasons to doubt the authenticity of the Jewish Bible, which records the flood and the history of Noah and his sons. Science has never successfully proven to the contrary, but often affirms the fact that there was a universal inundation at some prehistoric period; and, if there was, it is just as reasonable to believe that there was a Noah to battle the floods and preserve our species. And if there was a Noah, it is a scientific certainty that his skin was black. No whiteskinned people could exist in the prehistoric climate of Noah's time. Prior to the flood the earth was enveloped in a sheath of vapor, rendering the atmosphere very humid and hot. To make ourselves understood by our readers we will take an egg as an illustration: The yolk represents the earth; the white, the atmosphere, and the shell, the sheath of water that surrounded the earth in prehistoric times, or, more correctly, before the flood. The flood was simply the breaking up of the envelopment of this sheath of

water which surrounded the earth, and the settling of it upon the same, much as we see it at the present time. We have no space to devote to the exposition of this theory in this book. Others have devoted much time and study to this subject. We believe that the sudden change in animal life and vegetation, and also in climate upon the earth, as geology reveals, is one of the strongest proofs as to the correctness of this theory of the flood. The antediluvians were aware of the existence of this water envelopment of the earth, so also was the writer of Genesis. He speaks of it in the following manner: "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. and it was so. And God called the firmament heaven." Then the writer speaks of the water and land division of the earth as follows: "And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas." The condition of the atmosphere, the writer describes in the following language: "But (there being no rain in that early day) there went up a mist from