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The Negro, as he lives in Texas, is a savage, but without the virtues of a Cherokee.
Unbroken to the yoke, he hardly understands the meaning of a moral code, a social compact, or a family law. To him domestic arts are figments of the brain, and family order is a vision in the clouds.
In moral sense he rises no higher than a Kickapoo; in personal rectitude he sinks below the Kickapoo.
In Texas, three races are in contact and conflict; each race against the other two races; Red men against White and Black; Black men against Red and White; White men against Black and Red. The calendar of crime in Texas is a fearful record, and the darkest portion of that record is the list of Negro crime.
At every ranch we hear of Negro frays and fights, beginning for the greater part in drink, and ending for the greater part in bloodshed.
Since the Negro became a citizen he has acquired the faculty of buying whisky and getting drunk, a gift of liberty denied to his Red brother; and one more precious in his sight than that of voting for a village justice or even for a member of Congress.
White people, as a rule, pay no attention to these Negro quarrels, White people caring no more
1875.
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