The American Prejudice Against Color An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got Into An Uproar.   By: William G. Allen (fl. 1849-1853)

Prejudice Against Color.

AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE,

SHOWING HOW EASILY THE NATION GOT

INTO AN UPROAR.

BY WILLIAM G. ALLEN,

A REFUGEE FROM AMERICAN DESPOTISM.

LONDON: W. AND F. G. CASH, 5, BISHOPSGATE STREET WITHOUT. EDINBURGH: JOHN MENZIES. DUBLIN: JAMES MC. GLASHAN AND J. B. GILPIN

1853

PREFACE.

Extract of a letter from Hon. Gerrit Smith, of New York, Member of Congress, to Joseph Sturge, Esq., of Birmingham, England. (By permission of Mr. Sturge.)

"Peterboro', New York, March 23rd , 1853.

"I take great pleasure in introducing to you my much esteemed friend, Professor Wm. G. Allen. I know him well, and know him to be a man of great mental and moral worth. I trust, in his visit to England, he will be both useful and happy.

"Very truly, your friend and brother, "GERRIT SMITH."

"Commending Professor Allen to the friends of the colored American citizens who are denied their rights in their own country, and wishing him every success in the object before him,

"I am, respectfully, " Birmingham, 6mo., 28d. , 1853. "JOSEPH STURGE."

" Clapham, August 25th , 1853.

"My dear Sir:

"Your determination to spend some time in Great Britain, and to employ yourself, as opportunities occur, in giving lectures and delivering addresses upon American topics, including the social position of the free colored population for which your education and personal experience eminently fit you has given me sincere pleasure. I trust you will meet with ample encouragement from the friends of Abolition throughout the United Kingdom, to whose sympathy and kindness I would earnestly recommend you, and still more your heroic and most estimable lady.

"Believe me, most truly yours, "Professor W. G. Allen "GEORGE THOMPSON."

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. Introduction 41

II. Personalities 42

III. Nobility and Servility 48

IV. The Mob 54

V. Dark Days 63

VI. Brightening up, Grand Result 79

VII. Conclusion 91

A Short Personal Narrative by William G Allen 95

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION

Many persons having suggested that it would greatly subserve the Anti slavery Cause in this country, to present to the public a concise narrative of my recent narrow escape from death, at the hands of an armed mob in America, a mob armed with tar, feathers, poles, and an empty barrel spiked with shingle nails, together with the reasons which induced that mob, I propose to give it. I cannot promise however, to write such a book as ought to be written to illustrate fully the bitterness, malignity, and cruelty, of American prejudice against color, and to show its terrible power in grinding into the dust of social and political bondage, the hundreds of thousands of so called free men and women of color of the North. This bondage is, in many of its aspects, far more dreadful than that of the bona fide Southern Slavery, since its victims many of them having emerged out of, and some of them never having been into, the darkness of personal slavery have acquired a development of mind, heart, and character, not at all inferior to the foremost of their oppressors.