Alexander Crummell

“ Its insidious influence relaxes the missionary zeal of even many pious persons, who can see no hope for Africa, nor discover any end to the slavery of its sons. It is found in books written by learned men; and it is repeated in lectures, speeches, sermons, and common conversation. So strong and tenacious is the hold which it has taken upon the mind of Christendom, that it seems almost impossible to uproot it. Indeed, it is an almost foregone conclusion, that the Negro race is an accursed race, weighed down, even to the present, beneath the burden of an ancestral malediction. ”

“ It had its origin in the rise and influence of the system of slavery; and this system has appropriated for itself no stronger support than this, and those other staple arguments, wrenched from the Scripture to vindicate and sustain the whole fabric of Negro slavery.
Christianity, in the abstract, is a pure and perfect gift from God to man. But Christianity is a deposit from heaven, in the hands of sinful men; and consequently, in all its ages, Christianity has suffered the loss which is the natural result of being entrusted to this agency, and of being transmitted through this medium. ”

“ That while it is true that servitude and slavery have existed in some form throughout Africa, in every stage of its history, it is also true that servitude and slavery have teen the general condition of society, in all nations, in all countries, at all periods of time, and are not in any manner peculiar to the black man, or the Negro race. ”

“ In an age of luxury, its rigid tone has been relaxed by the enervating influence of wealth, and ease, and refinement. That Christianity has suffered in a like manner, in a slave-trading and a slave-holding age, no one need wonder who looks at the wide and withering influence which the slave trade and slavery have exerted, in all the countries of Christendom, during the last three hundred years. During this period, nearly all the literature of the chief European nations was a Negro-hating and a pro-slavery literature. ”

“ That if the general existence of slavery in a race, or among a people, is to be taken as an indication that a curse has descended upon them, then the mass of the Turks, Poles, Russians, Circassians, are lineal descendants of Canaan, and therefore "doomed races." ”

“ In more recent times, we see the same prevalence of slavery among the nations. The whole western part of Europe, not long since, was in a state of abject vassalage. In Russia, twenty millions of serfs, even now, in wretchedness and poverty, suffer the infliction of the knout, and are subject to irresponsible power and unrestrained tyranny. And if all the truth were known, it would, no doubt, be seen, that some of the convulsions which have recently occurred on the continent, were, in fact, insurrections of slaves battling for personal freedom. ”

“ The curse of Noah did not rob Canaan and his descendants of their brains. The history of the Phoenicians gives evidence of as great creative faculty, and of as much mental force and energy, as that of any other people in the world. It would seem that they, of all the ancient world, were only second to the Eomans in that commanding national influence which begets life in distant quarters, starts enterprise in new regions, and reproduces its own force and energy among other peoples. ”

“ The unnatural conduct of Ham, and the dutiful and respectful behavior of Shem and Japheth toward their aged father, gave rise to the prediction of the future fate of their posterity, without being at all assigned as the cause of that fate Though long banished from almost all Europe, slavery still lingers in Africa. That country is distinguished, above every other, as the land of slavery. Slaves at home, and transported for slavery, the poor Africans, the descendants of Ham, are the servants of servants, or slaves to others. ”

“ But while God is not the author of sin, nor man irresponsible for his crimes, slavery has grown under all the attempts to extinguish it, and shot up in spite of the power of Britain and the piercing protest of outraged humanity, the hour of its extinction not having yet come ”

“ If, therefore, Cush, the eldest of the sons of Ham, had been the person cursed, then there would have been some strength and plausibility in the plea, that, according to this principle, a curse upon him, that is, Cush, as the head and representative of the family, involved a curse upon his three younger brothers. But the curse was upon the youngest, Canaan. And there is no received rule among men, the reverse of that here quoted, that is, that "the less includes the greater." ”

“ Africa was originally settled by the descendants of Ham, excepting his son Canaan. Ham himself is supposed to have emigrated to Egypt; and Egypt, in Scripture, is called the "land of Ham." [20] There he attained to state and eminence; and after his death, it is said, was deified by his descendants. The supreme deity Am of the Egyptians, it is stated, signifies his name: e.g., (H) am; and the Jupiter Ammon, in honor of whom a temple was erected, is supposed to indicate Ham.
Africa was peopled by Ham in the line of his three sons, Cush, Mizraim, and Phut. ”

“ The establishment of a Canaanitish colony on the coast of Africa is no more evidence that the African race proceeded from Canaan, than the similar fact in Ireland and Spain is evidence that Europeans had such an origin. ”

“ The Canaanites of old were Asiatics, that is, so far as residence is concerned; and the mass of their descendants, if existing anywhere, are the modern Syrians.
Again, the above facts and arguments may be opposed by some, by the fact that some of the Canaanites established themselves on the north coast of Africa, in a colony. Cut it is quite evident that the Negro race, which mostly peoples that vast continent, could not have proceeded from them:—
1. Because the establishment of Carthage, the great Phoenician (Canaanitish) colony, was at a late period in the history of the world ”

“ The argument of an American writer upon this point is of great force, and deserves notice. He adduces "two rules of law and logic, viz.: enumeration weakens, in cases not enumerated; exceptions strengthen, in cases not excepted. In the curse Canaan is enumerated, and therefore the probability of its application to his brothers is weakened by this enumeration, and in the blessings bestowed upon Shem and Japheth, in the next two verses, Canaan, and not Ham and his posterity, is excepted ”

“ And of the poor Negroes, how many hundreds every year are sold and bought like beasts in the market, and are conveyed from one quarter of the world to do the work of beasts in another! Nothing can be more complete than the execution of the sentence upon Ham, as well as upon Canaan. ”

“ And he said, Cursed be Ham, the father of Canaan, &c.?" He then goes on to remark: "By this reading all the three sons of Noah are included in the prophecy, whereas otherwise Ham, who was the offender, is excluded, or is only punished in one of his children The whole continent of Africa was peopled principally by the children of Ham; and for how many ages have the better parts of that country lain under the dominion of the Romans, and then of the Saracens, and now of the Turks! In what wickedness, ignorance, barbarity, slavery, misery, live most of the inhabitants! ”

“ Although subjugated and humbled, yet their personal and family rights were preserved intact, and none of the aggravations of slavery were permitted to reach themselves or their children. When set upon, at times, by lawless and ruthless men, both Divine and human power interposed for their protection and preservation.
3. This examination nullifies the foolish notion that the curse of Canaan carried with it the sable dye which marks the Negro races of the world. The descendants of Canaan in Palestine, Phoenicia, Carthage, and in their various colonies, were not black. ”

“ That neither Ham, nor any of his three sons, was involved in this curse.
4. That the Negro race have not descended from Canaan; were never involved in the curse pronounced upon him; and their peculiar sufferings, during the last three centuries, are not the results or evidences of any specific curse upon them.
5. That the fact of slavery in the Negro race is not peculiar to them as a people; but a general evil existing in the whole human family; in which, in God's providence, the Negro family have latterly been called to suffer greatly, and doubtless for some high and important ends. ”

“ History proves this; for no one need be told that Christianity, in every age, has partaken of the prevailing spirit of that age, whatever it might be. In a philosophical age, it has been influenced by the philosophical spirit and dogmas of that age. In the middle ages, Christianity was influenced by scholasticism. ”

“ And then, when the Indian was exterminated, the Negro was torn from his native land, brought across the water, and made to supply the red man's place. It is difficult to tell which has suffered the more from the discovery, and the slaverv which has grown out of it—the Indian or the African. ”

“ To this prevailing sentiment we owe the fact that nearly all interpretations of Scripture, commentaries, works on prophecy, dissertations on Jewish servitude, sermons and theological treatises elicited by the anti-slavery struggle in England and America, nearly all are pervaded by a pro-slavery tone. In legal matters it is an assumed principle "that in doubtful cases the advantage of the law shall be in favor of the prisoner;" ”

“ The period has but recently passed since distinguished men in England and France exercised the keenest wit and the subtlest genius to prove that the Negro differed physically from the rest of the human species, and had a distinct organization. ”

“ The writer of this paper diners from the distinguished persons here referred to. He regards the prevalent opinions upon this subject a sad perversion of Biblical history on the part of the intelligent minds that have stereotyped them, during the last century and a half, in the literature and theology of the English language. ”