that our intellects can do in the case of a racial problem—to help us to understand. The actual work of adjustment must be fought out or worked out; becomes, that is to say, a struggle to be settled by the contending races with forces more complex than the purely intellectual ones of argument and proof. Let us first consider, then, the conditions under which the relations between the black and white races were established in America. During the period of colonization the land of America was granted by European kings to certain gentlemen who had no intention of working with the hands. Nevertheless working with the hands was the only method of extracting that wealth which was the object of their ownership, it was necessary, then, to obtain a supply of those persons who could do this work for them; and to [32] insure this, it was imperative that these persons should not own land themselves: they must be a permanently landless class; since it was unthinkable then as now that one should work the land of others for a part of the fruits if he could work his own land for all of the fruits. So there was begun in America the process of establishing such a class. Confining ourselves to the territory which became the United States, we may say that the first attempt was made to enslave the Indians, and when this failed to work, white people were imported from Europe as chattel slaves. All through the colonial period this importation continued with its consequent effects on the social and political life of the colonies. Most people will be surprised to learn that the first Fugitive Slave Law was framed, not in the south, but in the north, and was made not for black but for white laborers. This was the Massachusetts act of 1630 “Respecting Masters, Servants and Laborers”. A reading of this one act would destroy all those pretty illusions about “our fathers and Freedom” which we get from the official fairy tales—I mean the school histories. [32] Side by side with the economic subjection of white men there grew up the economic subjection of black men, and for the same reason. These were of alien blood—and cheaper. Therefore, the African slave trade outgrew the European slave trade, although the latter continued, in a lessening degree, down to the third or fourth decade of the [33] 19th century. Negroes were brought here to work, to be exploited; and they were allowed no illusions as to the reason for their being here. Those white men who owned the land brought them here to extract the wealth which was in the land. The white aristocrat did not buy black slaves because he had a special hatred or contempt for anything black, nor because
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