In the Free States, on the other hand, a new and curious
attempt at self-development was made. In Philadelphia and
New York color-prescription led to a withdrawal of Negro
communicants from white churches and the formation of a
peculiar socio-religious institution among the Negroes known
as the African Church,--an organization still living and con-
trolling in its various branches over a million of men.
Walker's wild appeal against the trend of the times showed
how the world was changing after the coming of the cotton-
gin. By 1830 slavery seemed hopelessly fastened on the
South, and the slaves thoroughly cowed into submission. The
free Negroes of the North, inspired by the mulatto immigrants
from the West Indies, began to change the basis of their
demands; they recognized the slavery of slaves, but insisted
that they themselves were freemen, and sought assimilation
and amalgamation with the nation on the same terms with
other men. Thus, Forten and Purvis of Philadelphia, Shad of
Wilmington, Du Bois of New Haven, Barbadoes of Boston,
and others, strove singly and together as men, they said, not
as slaves; as "people of color," not as "Negroes.
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