guese, but did not completely occupy the coast until 1881, and large parts of the interior are still unexplored. The area is 161,612 square miles, with a population of 4,029,000. In 1832 what is known as the culture-system originated in Java and spread to the western coast of Sumatra. This meant the officially superintended work of the natives in the culture of various products; but in 1870 this system was abolished, and native labor is now required only for the production of coffee. The Europeans and those connected with them live under the laws of the mother-country, while there are separate laws for the natives. Schools are provided for Europeans, natives and orientals. Consult Alfred Russell Wallace's Indian Archipelago.
|
| CHARLES SUMNER |
Sum′ner, Charles, an American statesman, was born at Boston, Mass., Jan. 6, 1811. He studied at Harvard and adopted the profession of law. He edited The American Jurist and three volumes of law-decisions, chiefly those of Judge Story, and lectured in the law-school at Harvard. He carried his law-studies farther in Europe at the Sorbonne, and spent two or three years in travel, receiving marked attention when in England. His appearance in politics dates from July 4, 1845, when he delivered his oration on The True Grandeur of Nations, which denounced the use of war to decide national questions and attracted general attention both in America and Europe. He succeeded Daniel Webster in the senate of the United States in 1850, and retained his position through successive re-elections until his death. He helped to form the Free Soil party, and stood almost alone in the senate at that time in his opposition to slavery. His strong, uncompromising attacks upon slavery were bitterly resented by the south. This hostile feeling resulted in an attack upon Sumner while sitting at his desk in the senate-chamber, from the effects of which he suffered for nearly four years. His speech on The Barbarism of Slavery, delivered in June, 1860, was occasioned by the struggle over the admission of Kansas as a free state. As chairman of the committee on foreign relations, in March, 1861, he argued against the seizure of the Confederate commissioners in the Trent affair, and made a powerful speech on Our Foreign Relations and one on Our Claims against England. He was selected in April, 1865, to deliver the eulogy on Lincoln. His opposition to the treaty with Santo Domingo in 1869, brought him into difficulty with President Grant, and ended in his supporting Greeley for the presidency in 1872. Among has last important measures were the introducing of the civil-rights bill and of the resolution to remove the names of battles of the Civil War from the colors of the army. His publications are made up of his public addresses, and fill 15 volumes, prepared for the press partly by himself and partly by Longfellow, his literary executor. Consult Memoirs and Letters by Pierce and Life by Lester. He died at Washington, D. C., March 11, 1874.
Sumner, Edward Vose (1797-1863), American soldier, was born in Boston, Mass., and educated at Milton Academy. In 1819 he entered the army as second lieutenant, and served in the Black Hawk and Mexican Wars and took part on the frontier in campaigns against the Indians. In the early 50's he was governor of New Mexico, and later saw further Indian righting, chiefly against the Cheyennes. In the Civil War he was given charge of the Department of the Pacific, with the rank of brigadier-general, but was subsequently transferred to the Army of the Potomac, where he served during the Peninsula and Antietam campaigns and saw severe fighting at Fair Oaks and Fredericksburg. For these services he was promoted to be major-general both in the volunteer and the regular army. Late in 1862 he was assigned to command in the Department of Missouri, but died (at Syracuse, N. Y.) ere he could reach the field of his new duties.
Sum′ter, Thomas (1734-1832), an American Revolutionary soldier, was born in Virginia. Early in his career he served under Braddock in the disastrous expedition against Fort Duquesne and took part in fighting the Cherokees. In 1776 he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of a regiment of South Carolina riflemen, and subsequently became a partisan commander, defeating the Tories in 1780 at Hanging Rock. Twice he had to accept defeat at the hands of Tarleton, the English general in command of The British Legion, though later he settled accounts with that general at Blackstock Hill, though himself wounded in the affair. Prior to this, and while in
