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men accustomed to the fight for life.
Brought up with squaws, they had the ways of squaws.
Set to dig roots, to cut wood, to pitch and pack tents, to dry and cure skins, they might dawdle through the day, sulking at their toil and muttering oaths below their breath.
But with the task imposed on them they stopped.
From labour of a larger kind, and from adventure with a dash of peril, they recoiled in laziness and fright.
A Negro seldom rode a horse.
Not many Negroes knew the use of firearms.
Slaves were never trained by Indians to the chase; for hunting was the trade of freeborn braves, the pastime of warriors, seers and chiefs.
A Negro rarely marched with the young braves, and never learnt to lie in wait for scalps.
In Creek and Seminole creeds, a Negro was a squaw, and not a brave.
A life of servitude unfits a man for independent arts.
Helpless as a pony or a papoose, the Negro was now cut adrift.
While he remained a slave he had a place in tent and tribe, as part of a chiefs family; having ceased to be a slave, he lost his right of counting in the lodge, and sank into the grade of outcast.
He belonged to no one.
As an
1875.
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