Negro Self-Improvement
Efforts in Ante-Bellum
Cincinnati, 1836-1850
by Richard W. Pih
In recent years various historians,
particularly Leon F. Litwack in his
North of Slavery, have focused on the speciousness of the North Star
Legend
of Yankee tolerance and benevolence
toward the free Negro prior to the
Civil War. Numerous state studies on
this subject have been made, but
work on the local urban level appears
neglected. Even though Carter G.
Woodson admirably pioneered an
examination of antebellum race relations
in Cincinnati, further evidence and
research sheds new light on his initial
optimistic appraisal.1
Instead of "Yankee benevolence," especially after 1840
white Cincinnatians practiced social and
economic repression of the Negro,
and the city's black community was
forced to rely almost exclusively on its
own resources.
Between 1840 and 1850, the Negro
population of Cincinnati increased
rather slowly from 2240 to 3237 in a
total population of 46,338 and 115,434,
respectively.2 A small portion included
recently freed bondsmen, their
owners, relatives, or friends having
purchased their freedom. Also fugitive
slaves, once across the Ohio River,
found refuge in the city with assistance
from abolitionists, Quakers, and
especially their own black brethren. The
remainder of the influx consisted of
free Negro migrants who came in
search of greater economic opportunity
in a growing urban center.3
A majority of the black folk resided in
the First, Fourth, Sixth, and
Ninth Wards bordering the city's outer
perimeter. The largest proportion
of them lived near Deer Creek, an area
known as the "Swamp," in the
Ninth Ward. Others crowded into
"Bucktown"--a "noisome hollow"--in
the First Ward. Aside from the
unwholesome locations, Negro families
suffered also from terrible housing
conditions. A few sources refer to their
dwellings as mere "huts" and
"decayed shacks." In the open country to
the east, however, the more fortunate
escaped to "small farms" or to a
"few settlements or clusters of
homes."4
NOTES ON PAGE 223
180 OHIO HISTORY
One of the serious problems of the
Negroes who remained within the
core of the city was white hostility
over the issue of property rights.
In 1842, for example, organized white
citizens attempted to secure the
legalization of heretofore de facto segregation
barriers in housing. They
petitioned the city council for an
ordinance to "effectually prohibit negroes
and mulattoes from purchasing or holding
real estate" thereafter within
the city limits.5 The council, however,
did not record any action taken
on this proposal.
A more divisive issue centered on
economic opportunity. During the
1830's, Negroes, many of whom possessed
skills in a variety of trades, had
migrated to the city, but white
businessmen, German leaders of trade
associations, and Irishmen, who
dominated in the menial occupations,
excluded them from most jobs.6 The attitude of the white population
had not changed significantly by l850
if a public comment by Dr. Daniel
Drake, a prominent local physician, is
representative. He remarked that
"we do not need an African
population. That people . . . are a serving
people, parasitic to the white man in
propensity, and devoted to his menial
employments."7 Another commentator,
Charles R. Ramsay, anti-abolitionist
editor of The Daily Cincinnati
Republican, and Commercial Register also
saw little hope of advancement for the
Negro. Discussing the status of
free Negroes in Cincinnati, he stated:
In what does their freedom consist? Is
it in being permitted to earn
their bread by the sweat of the brow, or
if incompetent, as many of
them seem to be, to obtain a livelihood,
to be allowed to starve or
resort to crime? -- He is, and must
always be, disenfranchised. He can-
not vote nor hold an office, either
civil or military. He is constantly
subjected to the contumely and insults
of the white man, and must
ever be an object of jealousy and
persecution among those with
whom he comes in competition either as a
tradesman or laborer . . . .
The liberal and honorable professions
are to him forbidden fruit. He
cannot command Bank facilities. He
cannot even embark in business
of any kind other than upon a meagre
scale. His fate is to toll and
drudge for a subsistence, . . . .
Even though Ramsay granted that whites'
ill will toward the Negro kept
him back, he primarily argued that the
Negro's so-called inferiority rele-
gated him to his lowly status.
"Whether bondsman or freeman," the editor
continued, "he must be a hewer of
wood and a drawer of water." Why?
"Nature has decreed it and her laws
cannot be changed."8
As further evidence of the correctness
of their pronouncements on the
black man, whites offered vividly
stereotyped descriptions of the Negro's
character and behavior. Basically, they
found him "worthless," "dissolute,"
"extremely lazy,"
"stupid," and "incompetent."9 Although Dr. Drake
candidly admitted that "color"
and lack of skills held the Negro back,
he chiefly emphasized his lack of
"ambition; his intrinsic servility; his im-
mitativeness; his love of ease and
conviviality" as major impediments to
equality of economic opportunity.10
NEGRO SELF-IMPROVEMENT 181
While respectable white citizens covered
up their economic exploitation
of the black folk with a cloak of racial
superiority, Negroes challenged the
whites' droll proclamations. By the
summer of 1840, black artisans ap-
parently had made some inroads into the
skilled trades. "Colored mechan-
ics," reported an observer,
"now get as much labor as they can perform."11
In late May 1841, however, Gamaliel Bailey,
then editor of the abolitionist
organ, The Philanthropist, noted
that "colored mechanics" received far too
little business except from their own
people or from white friends. Even
their children were denied opportunities
for apprenticeship training.12
At the time of the anti-abolitionist
race riots in July and August of
1841, mobs of poor white laborers, both
native and foreign, invaded
Negro homes and businesses. Acting
"in a savage spirit of rivalry for em-
ployment, or under a feeling of
antipathy to all association with the negro
in their daily occupations," these
unruly whites resorted to physical repres-
sion in order to secure their economic
dominance in the city.13
The heightened racial animosity aroused
by these events depressed the
black folk's economic strivings in yet
another, more unexpected area.
As a recent study of the free Negro in
the North clearly demonstrates,
many white abolitionists often revealed
a reluctance to hire Negroes or
patronize their shops.14 In
November 1841 "A Virginian" opened a similar
controversy in Cincinnati. Despite the
presence of "good mechanics" among
the Negroes, "I am told, by the
colored people, that few abolitionists ever
call upon them." A year later the Philanthropist
editor reminded his readers
that "it is the great duty of
Abolitionists to encourage their industry." He
could readily understand the pro-slavery
advocates' reluctance in this matter,
but he decried a similar response from
those who professed to be the black
man's friend. Describing the bleak
situation, "A Colored Man" wrote in the
Philanthropist:
We have among us, carpenters,
plaisterers [sic], masons, etc., whose
skill as workmen, is confessed--and yet
they find no encouragement-
not even among friends. True, they are
sometimes favored with a call
to take an old door off its hinges, or
some other petty job, that no
white carpenter will do unless well paid
for . . . .15
The actual extent of abolitionist
abandonment of the blacks in economic
terms remains difficult to judge. But
the cumulative impact of the riots
between Negroes and immigrant whites and
against the work of the
abolitionists probably furthered the
Negroes' subjugation, relegating many
of them to the bottom of the economic
ladder. As a result, most worked
as common laborers in commerce and
construction, while others served
as waiters, cooks, stewards, bellhops,
barbers, and shoe blacks in hotels and
boarding houses.16 Even
domestic service jobs became hard to find. "In
former times free negroes were in demand
as servants," explained Dr.
Drake in 1850, "but that demand has
greatly diminished, under the deep
and swelling tide of European
emigration." Moreover, slaves hired or
purchased from the South by white
Cincinnatians competed for these
positions.17
182 OHIO HISTORY
Even while engaging in economic
discrimination against the Negro,
whites bitterly assailed the growth of
pauperism in the black community
and excluded Negroes from the benefits
of the Hamilton County Poor
House. When a Quaker superintendent
allowed a few of them to secure
segregated refuge in the institution, he
lost his job and the blacks, their
haven.18 By late 1848, left
with few options, those who simply remained
idle or else resorted to theft in order
to eat bore the brunt of the racist
commentaries in the local press.19
Northern white society generally
practised what Litwack calls the
"economics of repression,"20
and Cincinnatians by the 1840's had evolved
their own harsh system. Only the most
resourceful Negroes were able to
survive by their own efforts. Among
these were a few shoemakers, silver-
smiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, and
plasterers. Attempts at cooperative,
self-help enterprises led them to form a
steamboat company. In September
1838 they also established the Iron
Chest Company which thrived as an
investment firm.21 The remainder of the
Negro businesses were successful
largely through a combination of
individual entrepreneurial skills and
patronage, though often begrudged, from
the white community. A few
Negroes owned and operated hotels and
boarding houses, and of these
the Dumas House ranked with the best
local establishments.22 Two Negro
entrepreneurs were extremely successful.
Robert Gordon, a former slave
from Virginia, built up a profitable
coal business worth $15,000 by 1847,
and his subsequent earnings allowed him
to retire in 1865. While Gordon
made his original stake in Virginia and
in the East, Henry Boyd represented
the Cincinnati Negro community's own
Horatio Alger. From humble begin-
nings as a skilled carpenter, he saved
$9000 by 1835. Within six years,
he founded a business and began
manufacturing his own patented corded
bedstead.23 Many prominent
white citizens, even the bitter anti-abolitionist
Jacob Burnett, endorsed his product in
the local newspapers. In 1844 the
Cincinnati Daily Atlas glowingly
reported that his firm,
Turns out from 1,000 to 1,200 Bedsteads
per annum. This kind is
extensively used in this quarter, and is
sold at prices varying from
$3.25 to $30.00. They possess many
advantages and some are finished
off in Black Walnut and Maple, in a very
rich style.24
Almost as quickly as Boyd rose to the
top, he suffered financial reversals,
the reasons for which appear unclear. A
series of fires apparently did the
most damage, for insurance companies
thereafter refused to cover him.25
As the black folk waged a constant
uphill battle for economic security,
they also campaigned for better
educational opportunities. In the local
newspapers racist rhetoric often focused
on Negro intellectual inferiority:
History informs us that the white skin,
from time immemorial, has
been of superior order. Civilization and
all the arts and sciences have
originated with the white race, whilst
the blacks have made scarcely
any advance from the state of nature . .
. . The darker the various
shades of color, descending down to the
jet black, the lower they
NEGRO SELF-IMPROVEMENT
183
descend in the scale of intellect and
enterprise. This is an obvious truth
to every reader.26
Most Negroes, however, viewed their
backwardness as a result of
inadequate opportunity. For years they
had paid taxes into the public
school fund, but their children were
refused admittance into the common
school system, even though the 1834 city
charter stated that school taxes
on Negroes were to be appropriated as
"trustees and visitors" see fit "for
the education of black or mulatto
persons . . . and for no other purpose
whatever."27 In
practice, the Negroes were left to shift for themselves
except for brief tutorial assistance
from the Lane Seminary "Rebels." When
the council refused their request for a
share of the common school fund,
the explanation was: 'We take into view
that the security of our govern-
ment rests and remains in the morality,
virtue, and wisdom of our free
white citizens . . . . that the common
school fund is not the offspring
of the offices of charity . . . .'28
In 1835-36 the black community, with the
help of friends, secured
pledges of about $3000. With these funds
they hoped to start construction
on a new school building, pending the
outcome of a proposed grant of
land from the city council.29 It
appears, however, that the council failed
to act favorably on the proposal, and
black leaders next organized an
Education Society and mobilized support
for their cause in the city's
churches. Further aid came from
Professor Calvin Stowe, husband of
Harriet Beecher, who lent assistance in
the academic and technical aspects
of curriculum and administration. In
addition, the Lane Seminary board
of trustees seems to have encouraged
several of its white students to instruct
in the Negro schools.30 Another,
but still unsuccessful, petition for a share
of the public school funds was made in
December 1842 by the Ohio
Ladies Educational Society, a benevolent
white lobby, on behalf of Cin-
cinnati's black community.31 By December
1843 local black leaders had
established another committee, hoping to
meet with public school officials
to discuss their children's integration
into the common school system. A
vigorous petition campaign to the city
council followed.32 This attempt
at integration may have stemmed from a
misinterpretation of an Ohio
State Supreme Court decision that month.
In Lane v. Baker et al., a Negro
plaintiff had brought suit against
school officials, successfully pleading
for a readmittance of his three children
to the public schools. Even though
the youths were of mixed parentage, the
majority on the bench ruled
them acceptable for admission only
because they had "more than half
white blood." As a result of this
technicality, Negro petitions for integra-
tion failed.33
Despite the failure of their petitions
to the city council and the school
board, the black folk regrouped and
founded five small elementary schools
on their own intiative. In 1844 Hiram S.
Gilmore, an English clergyman,
established Cincinnati High School for
Negro students, later known as
Gilmore. It was located in a renovated carpenter
shop on Deer Creek Bluff
on the east end of Harrison Street. The
staff consisted of four instructors.
184 OHIO HISTORY
Eighty pupils attended class on a
full-time basis while studying the "3-R's,"
geography, classical languages, music,
and drawing. Their first-term exams
showed arithmetic to be the weakest
subject and music the strongest.34
The following year, eighty additional
students enrolled at the high
school. Eager to raise needed funds,
especially for the support of their poorer
classmates, the Negro students decided
to hold a public exhibition of poetry
readings and choral singing, as was the
custom in white Sabbath schools. On
August 8, the Cincinnati Morning
Herald, a Liberty party newspaper,
announced that their first performance
was set for that evening in the
Union Baptist Church on Baker Street.
Adding that those who "doubt
their capacity will be greatly
surprised," the paper focused on two key issues
at stake: the black students' financial
needs and their desire to destroy the
myth of their racial inferiority. One
hundred fifty students performed
before an "overflowing"
audience of both races. In January 1846, three
other similar exhibitions by the
students for the benefit of their library
were equally successful. During the summer
vacation, the children toured
the North, stopping at Springboro,
Dayton, Columbus, Wooster, and Cleve-
land, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; and even
Toronto, Canada.35
In the spring of 1847, though, several
incidents temporarily marred the
Negro students' plans for future
exhibitions. When the proprietor of
Melodeon Hall refused to grant them the
use of his building, the Morning
Herald editor interpreted his action as being motivated by
race prejudice.
"If such be the fact," he
angrily declared, "we have only to say he is
actuated by a motive most miserably
mean."36 An open letter from the
Negro auditorium committee further
exposed the owner's real predilec-
tions:
The Sable Harmonists, with painted and
disfigured faces, are ad-
mitted for the purpose of caricaturing
and ridiculing the colored race:
but when a noble-hearted philanthropist
[Hiram Gilmore] . . . seeks
admission with the view of proving to
the public, what good can be
done in the way of education among this
trodden class, the door of
that Hall . . . is closed in his face.37
Gilmore High School's agents next
approached an official in charge of
Cincinnati College Hall, received his
consent for use of the building, but
then were rebuffed by the college's
board of trustees. After several days
of negotiations and failures, the agents
turned to Renselaer W. Lee, a local
businessman, who gave them free of
charge the use of a "spacious Hall,"
and on April 21, the black children
finally performed before an audience
estimated at "near a thousand
persons."38
From 1847 to 1850 lack of money,
teachers, and adequate facilities con-
tinued to plague the Negroes'
educational efforts. When their leadership
finally recognized the limits of
self-help tactics, they again agitated for
a rightful share of the common school
allocations and for the incorpora-
tion of their black schools into the
city school system. The blacks achieved
both objectives by 1850, but they had to
accept segregation as a com-
promise.39
NEGRO SELF-IMPROVEMENT 185
In their dismal situation the black
people found little solace in the city's
churches, where they were further set
apart from the whites in "Negro
pews" or in the
"gallery."40 A lively exchange of heated words in two city
newspapers illustrates the explosiveness
of this social issue. With an opening
salvo, the Cincinnati Republican editor
charged that in an abolitionist
lecture at the Sixth Presbyterian
Church, the Reverend John Blanchard
spoke to a mixed audience on
"amalgamation."41 In reply, a writer in
the Cincinnati Journal explained
that the Negroes sat in the upper
"gallery," while the whites
occupied the lower floor. He then queried:
I know full well, that upon no other
subject is a portion of this
community so sensitive and excitable as
upon that of amalgamation,
and that there is no more certain way of
producing a popular ferment,
and raising an infuriated mob, than by
charging that blacks are ad-
mitted by whites upon terms of equality
in social relations. Does he
wish to see the scenes of 1836 [the July
riots] re-enacted in Cincinnati?
By way of conclusion, the correspondent
denied that the lecturer had
advocated "amalgamation,"
saying that abolitionists contended only for
natural rights, not civil or social
rights. "Social relations," he added, "are
regulated by tastes, and abolitionism
has nothing to do with them."42
While most of Cincinnati's churches remained
segregated, a few white
Baptist and Methodist churches seem to
have warmly accepted Negro
membership. Most significantly, the
city's Catholic churches made "no
distinction in the laity . . . on
account of color."43 Nevertheless, as Salmon
P. Chase noted in a speech to a Negro
audience: "Thrust by prejudice into
the obscure corners of the edifices in
which men offer prayer, you have
erected churches of your own . . .
."44 Between 1835 and 1851, the black
folk supported from three to five
churches; the African Methodist Episcopal
Chapel, the Bethel African Methodist
Episcopal Church, and the Baker
Street African Baptist Church survived
throughout the period.45
Among several general uplift programs
supported by black clergymen
was a Sabbath school system. As of 1840
three such schools held classes
for 310 regular attendants. A. D.
Barber's report on the "Condition of
Colored People in Ohio" noted the
"good order, deep interest and marked
attention of the pupils." Moreover,
by the early 1850's, two Methodist
churches, two Baptist, and the Colored
Christian church offered regular
classes in Bible and an elementary
education.46
Moral reform movements likewise engaged
the black community's efforts.
A prominent Negro educator, Owen T. B.
Nickens, formed the Moral
Reform Society of the Colored Citizens
of Ohio. The constitution, among
other things, called for "the
suppression of intemperance, licentiousness,
gambling, sabbath-breaking, blasphemy,
and all other vices."47 Excluded
from membership in white temperance
organizations, the Negroes
established their own, the Total
Abstainance Temperance Society.48 Charity
also became a part of the community
spirit, and fairs were often held
for the benefit of the less fortunate
black people. Organized in 1847, a
branch of the African Masonic Lodge of
Ohio helped support the needy.49
186 OHIO HISTORY
In 1849 a devastating cholera epidemic
struck the city. Living in crowd-
ed hovels, huts, and shanties near the
swamps of Deer Creek or along the
river bottoms, Negroes suffered
severely. Even in such dire times dissident
white "scounderals" still
tormented Negroes. During a funeral procession
along Fifth Street, a number of whites
"threw brickbats" at the Negro
mourners. Once the funeral trains had
reached their destination, the black
folk buried their dead in segregated
cemeteries.50 Orphaned Negro chil-
dren, already denied the benefits of
charitable societies, public schools,
and apprenticeship training, found the
doors of white orphan asylums
closed to them.51 In response
to their need, "plain to every passer on the
street," Nicholas Longworth and
Salmon P. Chase, two prominent lawyers,
aided by Lydia P. Mott, a benevolent
Quaker, founded the Colored Orphan
Asylum in 1844--"the colored people
themselves, as was becoming, took
the lead in the matter."52 The
institution had to rely mostly on sporadic
charitable donations for its
maintenance, and appeals for its support were
constantly issued by the Morning Herald.
Meanwhile, the Negroes them-
selves held fairs, levees, and bazaars,
and the Gilmore High School stu-
dents donated their time for concerts to
aid the orphans' cause.53
Within the broader context of social
relations, whites in the Queen
City practised a highly sophisticated
ideological repression of the Negro
people. The so-called logic for
retaining their almost impassable color line
rested not only on apparent cultural and
physical differences, but also on
a highly elaborated stereotype of the
Negro, mockingly recorded by white
journalists. A composite carricature,
gleaned from issues of three major
city newspapers, emphasized the black
folk's heritage, "native Africans";
their complexion, 'gemman ob color' or
'weak females ob color,' "darkies,"
"darkies of the deepest rye";
their hair, "wool"; their dress, clownish for
the "Chinese fashion of pointed toe
boots which gave them the appearance
of a man on runners"; their speech,
plantation dialect, such as, "dat fust
last brick bat." If a bright Negro
"calculator" arrived in town, the whites
simply marveled, almost in disbelief, at
his accomplishments.54 This color-
ful, but degrading imagery was
constantly reinforced by some Negroes
through such groups as the Congo
Minstrels, the Sable Serenaders, and
the Sable Harmonists--to the
consternation of Negro educators and re-
formers. All of these groups delineated
the slap-happy, ever-smiling, banjo-
strumming "Sambo" as the
"true negro character."55
Once any intelligent white person
grasped this "understanding" of the
Negro "character," white
supremacy advocates reasoned, social intercourse
with them would seem most unnatural.
"We hold them, indeed, at arm's-
length from us," explained Dr.
Drake, "and, according to the instinct,
feeling, and opinion of an immense
majority of our people, they are, and
should be kept, a distinct and
subordinate caste."56 In the same vein,
another white further admonished the
Negroes always to act with
"propriety" and to avoid
"assaults" or "insults" toward their white social
betters. Community peace, he concluded,
depends on you "knowing and
keeping" your "place."57 Years later,
William Dean Howells recalled the
NEGRO SELF-IMPROVEMENT
187
effectiveness of the city-wide
segregation policy. As a child he had revered
a deaf-mute Negro, but at the same time
had recognized that "an impass-
able gulf" existed between his
"hero's" family and the town's white
families.58
Exploited, segregated and often
terrorized by the white citizens of Cin-
cinnati, the Negroes turned inward,
erected their own institutions, and
advocated self-help and cooperative
projects as necessary defensive tactics for
survival. Their acceptance into white
society as equals was postponed. That
the black folk's efforts often fell
short of their desired goals does not reflect
on their character which they sought so
courageously to redeem from
racists' stereotypes.
THE AUTHOR: Richard W. Pih is
a graduate associate in the history
depart-
ment at Miami University.