The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 22

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22

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

Hebrew, the Slay. Asia sent her contribution from
China, Japan, India, and Turkey. In fact, as some
one has recently suggested, in our great metropolis
from forty to fifty nationalities are represented in

Chapel and Members of a Colored Lutheran Church
in Virginia.

the population. Here in the United States one
meets people from every country of the globe and
of every color, who mingle and become a part of
the American nation. Thus, for example, one out
of every ten persons in this country is a Negro;
in other words, the Negro constitutes approximately
ten per cent. of our entire population, and conse-
quently we must call about twelve million Negroes
our fellow-citizens or countrymen. We dare say
that when you read this, you will be tempted to
doubt that there are really so many Negroes in this
country. However, when you remember that New
York City alone has over 200,000 Negroes and Chi-
eago and Philadelphia each over 150,000, you will
begin to realize how great a part of our population
the Negro goes to make up.

How the Negro Came to America.

When we realize how great a portion of our
people are colored, we are naturally interested to
know more about them. ‘The first question that
suggests itself is this: Where did they originally
come from, and how did they happen to get to the
United States? ‘The first part of the question we
shall let go unanswered, since it would lead us too
‘far from the purpose of this paper. We believe
that everybody is able to answer that question him-
self. We count them as members of that great
family of nations which has been created of one
blood by the almighty Creator of heaven and earth.

Acts 17, 26. As to the other part of the above ques-
tion, we know that as early as 1525 Negroes were
first introduced within the present confines of the
United States. These, however, after an insurrec-
tion, returned to Haiti with their Spanish com-
panions. By far “the center of the colonial slave-
trade was the African coast for about two hundred
miles east of the Niger River. T'rom this com-
paratively small region came as many slaves as from
all the rest of Africa together.” (Short History of
the American Negro, by B. G. Brawley.) From
here also came those twenty Negroes who were first
brought to an English colony on the mainland.
This was in the year 1619, when a Dutch trading-
vessel, being in need of supplies, weighed anchor
at Jamestown and exchanged twenty blacks for food
and supplies. For two hundred and fifty years this
traffic in human bodies continued and was not
stopped until the blood of a nation had flown in °
streams. At the time of the emancipation of the
black race there were in this country over four mil-
lion Negroes and after almost sixty years of freedom
they have become a mighty host three times as great.

God Brings Good out of Evil.
We shall pass over the period of slavery. It may
be necessary, in the following articles, to touch upon
it from time to time. Suffice it to say that with

A Happy Pupil of One of Our Mission-Schools.

reference to that epoch of Negro history in this
country that “the things which seemed to be hin-
drances to the black man in his enforced servitude
turned out to he helps. ... On the one side was