Page:The black man - his antecedents, his genius, and his achievements (IA blackmanantecede00browrich).pdf/161

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And treacherous politicians league
  With hireling priests to crush and ban
All who expose their vain intrigue,
  And vindicate the rights of man.
How long shall Afric raise to thee
  Her fettered hand, O Lord, in vain,
And plead in fearful agony
  For vengeance for her children slain?
I see the Gambia's swelling flood,
  And Niger's darkly-rolling wave,
Bear on their bosoms, stained with blood,
  The bound and lacerated slave;
While numerous tribes spread near and far
Fierce, devastating, barbarous war,
Earth's fairest scenes in ruin laid,
To furnish victims for that trade
Which breeds on earth such deeds of shame,
As fiends might blush to hear or name."

Mr. Whitfield has written several long poems, all of them in good taste and excellent language.



ANDRE RIGAUD.


Slavery, in St. Domingo, created three classes—the white planters, the free mulattoes, and the slaves, the latter being all black. The revolution brought out several valiant chiefs among the mulattoes, their first being Vincent Oge. This man was not calculated for a leader of rebellion. His mother having been enabled to support him in France as a gentleman, he had cherished a delicacy of sentiment very incompatible with