The American Missionary. Volume 52, No. 02, June, 1898. Various
printing department of Straight University, New Orleans, La. This also is a pamphlet, of 20 pages. Price, 25 cts. a year.
Talladega College Record, published by the printing department of Talladega College, Talladega, Ala., is a four page sheet well printed, edited by students appointed for the purpose.
Tougaloo News. A well-printed sheet, 8 pages, issued quarterly at Tougaloo University, Tougaloo, Miss.
Head and Hand. Issued monthly from the Normal Training Department of Le Moyne Institute, Memphis, Tenn., a four page sheet, 25 cts. a year. It is now in its 12th volume.
The Word Carrier, published by the Normal Training School press at Santee Agency, Neb., is a four page paper edited and published by Rev. A. L. Riggs, D.D. This sheet, well printed and well edited, is now in its 27th volume, and presents many important phases of the Indian life and work. 50 cts. a year.
The Gloucester Letter, devoted to education and industry, published monthly at Cappahosic, Gloucester Co., Va., Prof. W. B. Weaver, editor; a four page publication in its tenth year, price, 50 cts. a year.
The Parish Visitor, the official organ of the First Congregational Church, Atlanta, Ga., a church paper edited by Rev. H. H. Proctor, with several assistants. 25 cts. a year.
The South
SAMPLES AND EXAMPLES
It is my lot on the routes of less frequented travel to fall in with a class of my fellowmen distinctively known as "Commercial men." It is their business to be both inquisitive and communicative. While waiting at some little tavern or railroad station often the right hand of fellowship has been extended to me with the question "What is your line?" or "I see you have no trunks, how do you carry your samples?" They do not always quite understand "our line" when I tell them that our samples have learned to carry themselves and even to carry others. Then I am called to explain how they began their intelligent life with us, how we took the raw material and in process of time sent out our products from our schools and institutions with their thought of life widened, with enlarged mental vision and the great majority of them with hopeful religious characters and purposes. Sometimes these fellow travelers hear, and sometimes I marvel because of their unbelief. If our readers could see our samples as we see them in their varied vocations and places they would not soon forget them.
Not long since in Alabama I came across certain ones which are types; and as types I present them. The environment which conditions their work and gives the color of it must needs be included. Situated among the hills of Eastern Alabama is a thickly settled community of people about two-thirds of whom are colored. It is in the County of Elmore, and bears the Indian name of Kowaliga. Being near the corner of two adjoining counties, it is a rural centre from which large numbers of children can be reached who ought to be educated, and who are anxious to "get an education" as their one chance in life, a chance which so far has been beyond them.
Kowaliga settlement is remote from any railroad and consists wholly of plantations. These plantations were formerly tilled by slaves, but since freedom came to those who gave their unrequited labor, the rich white planters have become poor and many of their sons now may be seen themselves following their plows, tilling the fields and driving mules instead of men. The country is fertile and repays intelligent tillage.
The American Missionary Association has been applied to repeatedly for help in this settlement of Kowaliga. Under the lead of two young college graduates, both of whom I had met while they were students at Fisk University, the colored people with great sacrifice had contributed building material and labor in the construction of a very substantial two-story building with attic and basement, which, however, is yet incomplete and unfurnished. The people with few exceptions, are extremely poor and very ignorant, and have an imperfect idea of what a school means with its proper appointments and teachers.
Kowaliga Industrial School.
In answer to the most urgent appeals of the two young educators, I arranged in my recent journeying in the South for a personal investigation. One of the former student acquaintances came for me in his "one horse shay" and with him as my courier and companion I rode through this rural district. I found that the white farmers are gradually leaving their plantations while the colored people are as gradually becoming land owners. Abandoned farms, which through poor culture have not paid the farmers for cultivation, can easily be secured by industrious colored people who are willing to deny themselves and work hard for an independent start in life.
The father of the young man whom I accompanied on my long ride through the country is one of these who has already won his success. His experience and achievement are typical in illustrating the trends and the probabilities.
Mr. J. A. Benson—at this present time forty-six years of age—was born a slave three miles from the great plantation which he now owns. When his owner's estate was divided he was a part of the property which fell to an heir in Talladega, Alabama. There as property he was sent, and there he worked as a slave until emancipation came. At the age of nineteen years, with a hundred dollars saved from his earnings as a free man he returned to his birthplace and purchased on credit 160 acres of land. His first year of crops gave him a handsome profit and soon he was able to pay for this land. Again he bought land, and again more year by year. Now I found him with his new house of twelve rooms nearly completed on the site of his old one, the construction of which was under the direction of a Negro contractor whose leading workman was a white man; a native of that same community. The mason who did the masonry was also a Southern white man. While engaged on this "job" both white men ate at the same table with the owner. In the "Merchant of Venice" we read of one who said, "I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you and so following, but I will not eat with you." Nevertheless there are times when "Necessity knows no law" and this was one of the times. It was the common opinion, however, that the excellent mason was much more expeditious than is common about his job, though he was working by the day. His work was completed in about one-half the usual time allowed for it. He stayed, not upon the order of his going. Doubtless a second experience would come with less self conquest than the first.
Mr. Benson began his independent life with his unpaid farm of 160 acres. Now he owns 3,000 acres of land paid for and without encumbrance, with the virtual ownership of a fine stream, at some points 500 feet wide, which for five miles runs through his extensive plantations. On this stream he has a brick yard, a saw mill, a grist mill and a cotton gin and compressing mill combined in one and operated by the water of this stream. The farm is worked on shares chiefly, the owner furnishing the land and the stock, the laborers dividing the products half and half.
Kowaliga Creek—through Mr. Benson's Plantations.
The leases are taken by a dozen responsible and experienced farmers, who sub-contract with the laborers under their immediate supervision. Of the 3,000 acres, one-half is devoted to corn, cotton, cane, etc.; 500 are used for pasturage and 1,000 furnish ample supply of pine, oak and hickory timber for the greedy teeth of his saw mill and the willing embrace of his planing mill. He has cows, cattle, mules, horses, barns and farm implements to meet all necessities. His teams go regularly to Montgomery markets and return with stores for the forty families who live upon his lands and work them, and for the community who purchase of him what things they have. Besides his possessions in land, Mr. Benson has been able to loan to his white neighbors some $6,000, which are secured by mortgages upon their farms. They are running behind and he is running ahead. While I was the guest of this man, opposite me at the table dined a white man who was engaged on the carpentry of the new house. He was a native Southerner but he showed no evidence of social injury, and if he did his carpentry work as thoroughly as he did that of the table he certainly earned his wages.
Mr. Benson has managed with his uncommon ability to pick up education enough to achieve and handle successfully and shrewdly these large interests; not only to know their details but also to realize their significance and somewhat of the larger world beyond his own dominions. The success of this self-made colored man may be somewhat exceptional in degree, but it is not at all phenomenal. The story with the variations