Page:W. E. B. Du Bois - The Gift of Black Folk.pdf/180

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The Gift of Black Folk
168


own language above, extracted from your Declaration of Independence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us—men who have never given your fathers or you the least provocation!!!

“Now Americans! I ask you candidly, was your suffering under Great Britain one hundredth part as cruel and tryrannical as you have rendered ours under you? Some of you, no doubt, believe that we will never throw off your murderous government and provide new guards for our future ‘security’. If Satan has made you believe it, will he not deceive you?”

The book had a remarkable career. It appeared in September, was in a third edition by the following March and aroused the South to fury. Special laws were passed and demands made that Walker be punished. He died in 1830, possibly by foul play.

6. The Fugitive Slave

Beside force and the appeal to reason there was a third method which practically was more effective and decisive for eventual abolition, and that was the escape from slavery through running away. On the islands this meant escape to the mountains and existence as brigands. In South