Kennedy and Thomas
Parker. It contains the evidence in full, and a separate narrative of
the whole affair, more candid and lucid than any other which I have
found in the newspapers or pamphlets of the day. It exhibits that rarest
of all qualities in a slave-community, a willingness to look facts in
the face. This narrative has been faithfully followed, with the aid
of such cross-lights as could be secured from many other quarters, in
preparing the present history.
The editor of the first official report racked his brains to discover
the special causes of the revolt, and never trusted himself to allude
to the general one. The negroes rebelled because they were deluded
by Congressional eloquence, or because they were excited by a Church
squabble, or because they had been spoilt by mistaken indulgences, such
as being allowed to learn to read, "a misguided benevolence," as he
pronounces it. So the Baptist Convention seems to have thought it was
because they were not Baptists, and an Episcopal pamphleteer because
they were not Episcopalians. It never seems to occur to any of these
spectators that these people rebelled simply because they were slaves
and wished to be free.
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