1819 paper: TEXAS independence? Six Nations; black girl executed! slavery idea

Description

Niles’ Weekly Register
July 17,
1819
idea of Texas revolution
Six Nations resolve to reject Christianity
a scheme to mitigate slavery
execution of a black girl
This is an issue of a weekly Baltimore paper which is
over 200 years old
! It is printed in a small format, measuring 6 x 9.5 inches in size. The paper is 16 pages long, and features a very small typeface, so it is crammed with material. The issue came from a bound volume, and has typical slight disbinding marks at its spine.
It shows a lot of browning from age
(see photos)
and its front page is nearly detached
; but was printed on a strong quality of paper and is still in good condition, and with its pages free from tears, and fully readable.
***************
In a section titled “Chronicle,“ The issue presents numerous short news items of historical interest. Among these is an article on
Settlers moving into Texas with the idea of starting a revolution!
However, 17 years before the battle at the Alamo, this piece cautions that the notion of establishing a new independent state in Texas may prove harder than expected. It says in its entirety:
“NEW EXPEDITION. We have heard of a number of expeditions fitted and fitting out in different places in the south-western states and territories, for the ostensible purpose of
trading
with certain nations of Indians, resident in the province of Texas and the parts adjacent. A letter just received by the editor of the REGISTER from Alexandria, Lou. broadly informs us that a project is on foot to seize upon or revolutionize Texas, and establish an independent government there. This is supposed easy to accomplish, and the temptation of getting vast tracts of some of the finest land in the world, is very great. But the frequent failure and defeat of such projects, we should think, would warn our young men how they embark in this wild scheme at present.”
Earlier in the paper is a separate short notice also commenting on prospects for change in Texas:
“MEXICO. There are some rumors afloat that the patriots are yet in force in Texas — and another account ventures to say that Gen. Mina is still alive, and at the head of an army of 3000 men. We know not how to believe either of these reports.”
***************
A piece reports on a reaction of the
Six Nations of Indians
to the latest attempts to Christianize them, saying in full:
“INDIANS IN NEW YORK. We regret to learn, (says the Niagara Journal) that the remnant of the Six Nations of Indians, residing in this state, during the last week, in full council, solemnly resolved not to encourage the introduction of the christian religion among them. We understand that the debates on the subject were long and violent.”
***************
A one-sentence item notes the
Execution of a black girl for arson
:
“
Rose Butler,
a colored girl, has been executed at New York, for setting fire to a dwelling house.”
Stern punishment indeed, presumably hastened by the race of the offender.
***************
Longer feature articles are on banking and trade, as well as
“Progress Westward,”
about the national expansion into the interior of the continent via the Missouri and Yellow Stone Rivers, etc.
An article which takes up almost two pages of text, is on
“
MITIGATION OF SLAVERY
.”
This was part of a series on various propositions to solve the slavery issue, with this one proposing a scheme to gradually lower the black population in America. It urges the death penalty for anyone bringing new slaves into the country, denouncing the slave trade as
“traffic in blood.”
As an alternative to the colonization societies’ desire to ship free blacks back to Africa, this article advocates a rather wacky idea of buying slave girls for low prices and moving them to non-slave states, which eventually would reduce the total black population in comparison to the whites. It says, in part:
“Our colonization societies propose the transport of
free
negroes to Africa. Three girls may be purchased for less cost than the establishment of one man in that country will amount to. We thus relieve the future population of the effect of
thirty
slaves in one generation, instead of sending off
one
freeman. Respectable places may easily be found for these girls to the eastward. The housekeepers of Pennsylvania would gladly take some thousands of them every year . . . . Knowing that they were to be free and well treated, the negro mothers would readily part with some of their female children, and the transfer of about 12,000 per annum of these from the slave-holding states would . . . keep the colored population from advancing in the southern states, which would of itself be a great thing. . . .”
Etc.
**************************************
Background on this publication:
Niles’ Register
was a weekly 16-page paper that was one of America’s most influential publications during the first half of the 1800s. Founded in 1811 by Hezekiah Niles—who served as its editor for 25 years—the paper quickly gained a large readership across the country. Though published in Baltimore, the paper carried hardly any local news. Instead,
Niles’ Register
was truly a national newspaper in scope. Printed in a small format and crammed with info in a fine type, the paper was serious and intellectual in tone. It accepted no advertising at all, preferring to devote its pages to a detailed and authoritative coverage of national and world news. And in an era when newspapers frequently took extremely partisan stands for one political party or the other,
Niles
was praised and trusted for its reliable, in-depth, unbiased reporting on the issues of the day. In his classic 1930 history of American periodicals, Frank Luther Mott called
Niles
“a repository of contemporary data” which is an essential source for any historian of its era. The paper is a great source for material running from the War of 1812 through the Jacksonian period. It declined in importance after the death of Hezekiah Niles in 1839, and went out of business ten years later.
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