FROM OUR PROVIDENCE CORRESPONDENT.

DEAR DOUGLASS:—Had I the descriptive genius of your EthiopWilson, William Joseph ("Ethiop")

William Joseph Wilson (1818–?), a free black man from New Jersey, operated a bootmaking shop in New York City as early as the 1830s. In the 1840s he became a secondary school teacher and later a principal of a black school in Brooklyn. He was an activist on behalf of black education, encouraging access and attendance, and even opened his own library. Wilson also campaigned to secure the franchise for New York African Americans. He served as a member of the Committee of Thirteen, organized by New York black leaders to stop enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the early 1850s Wilson’s letters appeared frequently in Frederick Douglass’ Paper, and Douglass referred to him as the newspaper’s “Brooklyn correspondent.” Wilson’s letters to the newspaper, published under the pseudonym “Ethiop,” were often part of an ongoing debate about the condition of blacks in New York and the United States. Wilson’s most frequent sparring partner in the war of letters was “Communipaw,” actually James McCune Smith, a prominent black physician in New York City. Carleton Mabee, Black Education in New York State: From Colonial to Modern Times (Syracuse, N.Y., 1979), 54, 63-67, 123, 129, 155, 158; Foner and Walker, Black State Conventions, 1:79-88; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 87, 212, 229; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4:144-45n. , I might entertain your readers with a description of our beautiful and prosperous city; within which as Ethiop would say, health and beauty abound; lacking his genius, I forego the task, but invite the distinguished personage, in the name of the ladies of the city of Providence, thereto, that they may have the benefit of his descriptive powers. There are, however, some incidents occurring within the surroundings of my adopted home, of which I may venture to speak.

Politics in this State have a deeper foundation —are taken to heart more seriously—than is common in other States. The two great leading divisions of the State have made it even a matter of life and death.—One has regarded the other as jeopardising, attracting not only the property, but the life of the other. The other felt that all was to be made or lost in struggling for what they conceived to be existence, and were willing to risk all for the same. This depth of feeling had its origin in what is known as the Dorr excitement. These were trying times. All parties were anxious to secure whomsoever they might to assist them—even the black man could be a man capable of enjoying rights and of defending the interest of a party. The estrangement—the rancor of feeling which has existed, is fading, yet you feel the sting of proscription, if it be suspicioned that you are not of the party. A happy incident which grew out of the above difficulty, was the enjoyment of the right to vote by the colored citizens of the State.—The party benefitted by this incident, have fallen into an error. They have voted blindfolded for the party which claims to have extended to them the right to vote, save in one instance. The voting for a party is right when done intelligently—when it secures one's interest—when one is moved by a conviction of right—but when party is made to war against these, it should be hewn down, as was St. Anthony's nose, when it interrupted the course of the Hudson River Railroad.

Gov. Dorr is no longer a tenant of earth; he has gone where the only primogenial son is the one co-existant with the father. Without remarking upon the merits of the act of Mr. Dorr, which associated his name with the striving event in the history of Rhode Island, above alluded to, we may truthfully affirm that it was he that proclaimed and advocated that it was but right and just that colored citizens, along with others, should vote; and that it is because of him and his influence that we enjoy that right, rather than to any creditable intent on the part of those who prate annually, or just preceeding every election day of the credit due themselves.

We may rely upon Providence, if not for all good things, at least for some. There are opportunities within the bounds of the city for colored youths to obtain dignified trades—opportunities which should not go unimproved. I have not lately seen a more encouraging sign of progress than the sight of two stone-cutters—not working for the consideration of the stone-cutter of St. Pierce, but in the pay of the city, knee to knee in the streets of Providence, one of the proscribed, the other of the proscribing class.—As the fire followed the stroke of their mallets, methought I saw light for the future.

Our Legislature passed an act yesterday, granting unto a military company of this city, composed of colored men, the use of the States arms, the most that it could do, and more than any other State has done. The doing of "all that could be done," was recommended; but the charter prayed for, could not be granted, because of a law of Congress.

There is another incident to which I would refer. I have been in the receipt of public documents and other valuable information from our States representatives, in both branches of Congress, which very frequently embrace facts of much importance. The last book which I received put me in possession of a fact which would make the humanity of our nation the subject of a song of derision, even for pagan nations.

It is known that much pains is taken to secure the comfort and health of all those who may please to come to or leave our shores; to this end much legislation has been had, honorable and worthy of note. It has been settled that no ship shall carry more than a certain number of passengers to a certain number of feet set apart for passenger accommodations; that a certain quantity of provisions should be provided for each passenger; that certain rules as to ventilation should be observed, other necessary conveniences regarded; that the apartments should be kept clean and healthy, and the like humane arrangements seen to—restrictions deemed necessary to guard against the cupidity and inhumanity which too commonly exhibits itself individually, and in associations —arrangements necessary to be observed by the commander of any ship bound to any port with any class of passengers, if the comfort and health of those passengers is cared for. But what think you was the action of this great nation, of its representatives in Congress assembled? They, by a special act, gave unto the American Colonzation Society, full scope for their cupidity and murderous design by exempting that Society from an observance of each and all of the above just, necessary and humane provisions relative to the conveyance of passengers, while this Society should be shipping off to die "on the west coast of Africa, colored emigrants."

Mr. Editor, for a verity you would believe that your correspondent Ethiop relied upon Providence, could you read a letter in which he protests to the female portion of Providence, calling upon them in piteous terms to "scan carefully every line from his pen."—Will you allow me to assure him, in behalf of Providence, that we will "preserve" his reputation, even if obliged to go to our sea coast at Newport to obtain the salt; we will make it if not as mysterious, as everlasting as the "old stone mill."n

Friend Ethiop, we live in a Maine Law State, and eschew the vices common to New York, Brooklyn, and its neighbor in the Jerseys, consequently did not visit on New Year's day, according to your fashion. I have been informed by CosmopoliteBell, Philip A.

Philip A. Bell (1808-89) was educated at the New York City Free School and worked as an agent for the Liberator and at a variety of occupations in his youth. He was secretary of a January 1831 public meeting of New York blacks that protested against the colonization movement. In 1837 Bell helped found and edit the Weekly Advocate, later renamed the New York Colored American, which was an important forum for black opinion until its demise in 1842. In the 1850s he operated an employment agency for New York City blacks and was active in literary, temperance, and mutual relief societies as well as the antislavery movement. Bell attended many of the antebellum National Negro Conventions and lectured for equal suffrage for blacks. Moving to California in 1860, Bell briefly ran a real estate agency before returning to journalism, first as associate editor of the San Francisco Pacific Appeal, and later as owner and editor of the San Francisco Elevator. In the 1870s Bell was president of the Equal Rights League of California, a politically independent group that lobbied Republican politicians for better treatment of blacks. While still in New York, Bell wrote to the North Star under the pseudonym "Cosmopolite." New York Colored American, 8 December 1838; San Francisco Elevator, 12 June 1868, 11 January, 15 November 1873; William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization: or; an Impartial Exhibition of the Doctrines, Principles and Purposes of the American Colonization Society (New York, 1832), 13- 17; Penn, Afro-American Press, 32-34, 94-98; Robert C. Dick, Black Protest: Issues and Tactics (Westport, Conn., 1974), 84, 173-77, 267; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 20, 31, 95; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 113-14, 175, 195, 210; James A. Fisher, "A History of the Political and Social Development of the Black Community in California, 1850-1950" (Ph.D. diss., State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1971), 72-75, 97-100, 140-46; Freeman, "Free Negro in New York City," 35, 46, 128, 175-76, 237, 299; "Black Elites and the Draft Riots," New York Times, July 13, 2013. Autobiography, My Life and Times, Part 2 , that there was seen to light that day, or a few days preceding thereto, in the vicinity of St. John's Park, 123 Transit birds, performing telegraphic operations; and that during their stay in those parts, they feasted mostly upon a certain Yankee dish called apple slunk, prepared after the advice of an individual who once resided at No. 4, Ironside Alley, Pittsburgh.

Our friend CommunipawSmith, James McCune

James McCune Smith (1813–65), a prominent black physician, abolitionist, and writer, was born in New York City to an enslaved father and a self-emancipated mother. He attended the New York African Free School, but was denied admission to Columbia University, Geneva Medical College, and the New York Academy of Medicine. He turned to the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he received a B.A. (1835), M.A. (1836), and M.D. (1837). Upon returning to New York, he opened a pharmacy and medical practice that catered to both blacks and whites. He became involved in the abolitionist movement, serving as an associate editor of the Colored American in 1839, contributed regularly to the Anglo-African Magazine, and wrote correspondence for the North Star and Frederick Douglass’ Paper under the pseudonym “Communipaw.” Smith also wrote the introduction to Douglass’s second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). In 1861, Smith helped finance the revival of the Weekly Anglo-African to oppose black colonization and emigration, and he was a prominent member of the New York City Young Men’s Association, the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the New York African Society for Mutual Relief. He was the sole attending physician of the Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children, a member and vestryman of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and a trustee of the New York Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children. In 1863 Wilberforce College appointed Smith professor of anthropology, but illness kept him from assuming his post. Lib., 1 June 1838; FDP, 18 May 1855; Douglass Papers, ser. 2:7–19; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 243; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 90–92, 103, 110; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 115, 134; Rhoda G. Freeman, “The Free Negro in New York City in the Era before the Civil War” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1966), 40–42, 177, 186, 195, 200, 247, 276, 286, 325, 353, 393; DAB, 27:288–89. must not be so mischievous; he must not interfere with my friend's writings, or we will get a regiment of a certain domestic animal to mew all along his path, until he shall reform.

Yours, PHILO.

PROVIDENCE, March 3, 1855.

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Spain losing Cuba without remuneration, from
internal revenues and external assistance in
the same; and they consider that if the Cubans
were to organize an insurrection against the
Government, and other indepindent Governments
were to step in and assist Spain, no human
power could prevent the Government of
United States in taking part in support of their
neighbors and friends.

The report then goes on to consider what
action will become necessary in event of Spain
refusing to sell and decides that if Cuba in the
possession of Spain is deemed to seriously endanger
our internal peace and the existence of
our cherished Union, then, by every law, human
and divine, we shall be justified in wresting
it from Spain, if we possess the power, and
under such circumstances, we ought neither to
count the cost nor regard the odds which Spain
might enlist against us. They consider we
should be recreant to our duty to permit Cuba
to be Africanized and become a second Domingo,
and fear events are tending to such a
catastrophe.

The report concludes with a brief response to
the various outrages committed upon us by the
Cuban authorities, especially the Black Warrior
affair, which without immediate redress,
would have justified a resort to measures of
war, and yet that outrage is not only unatoned
for, but is sanctioned by the Spanish Government.
Such a course as has been pursued in
this case, they consider derogagtory to our
dignity as an independent nation, and should not
be countenanced.

[new item:]
The corner stone of the new custom
house at San Francisco, was laid on the 20th
January, with proper ceremonies. The foundation
stone cost $250,000, and it is estimated
that it will require a further sum of 400,000
to complete the building.