The influ-
ence of all of these attitudes at various times can be traced in
the history of the American Negro, and in the evolution of his
successive leaders.
Before 1750, while the fire of African freedom still burned
in the veins of the slaves, there was in all leadership or
attempted leadership but the one motive of revolt and revenge,
--typified in the terrible Maroons, the Danish blacks, and Cato
of Stono, and veiling all the Americas in fear of insurrection.
The liberalizing tendencies of the latter half of the eighteenth
century brought, along with kindlier relations between black
and white, thoughts of ultimate adjustment and assimilation.
Such aspiration was especially voiced in the earnest songs of
Phyllis, in the martyrdom of Attucks, the fighting of Salem
and Poor, the intellectual accomplishments of Banneker and
Derham, and the political demands of the Cuffes.
Stern financial and social stress after the war cooled much
of the previous humanitarian ardor. The disappointment and
impatience of the Negroes at the persistence of slavery and
serfdom voiced itself in two movements. The slaves in the
South, aroused undoubtedly by vague rumors of the Haytian
revolt, made three fierce attempts at insurrection,--in 1800
under Gabriel in Virginia, in 1822 under Vesey in Carolina,
and in 1831 again in Virginia under the terrible Nat Turner.
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