Ros42
Since Jul 22, 2003

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Word wasn’t always used in a derogatory fashion

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Before retiring the name Negro Mountain, it should be noted that the word “negro” (Spanish for “black”) was not always used pejoratively by “whites” living on the mid-Appalachian frontier, who sometimes used it interchangeably with “black.”

Consider the following excerpt from a speech given in 1802 by Maj. Gen. Arthur St. Clair, a Scot who made his home near Fort Ligonier, a little further north in the Appalachians, following his service in the French and Indian War.

St. Clair was the governor of the Northwest Territory, appointed by President George Washington, and his remarks in Cincinnati were a rebuke to those who would have the territory become a slave state.

“What is a republican? Is there a single man in all the country that is not a republican, both in principle and practice, except, perhaps, a few people who wish to introduce negro slavery amongst us, and those chiefly residing in the county of Ross? Let them say what they will about republicanism, a man who is willing to entail slavery upon any part of God’s creation is no friend to the rational happiness of any, and had he the power would as readily enslave his neighbors as the poor black that has been torn from his country and friends.”

(Taken from The St. Clair Papers: The Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair, vol. II, p. 588, by William Henry Smith, Robert Clark & Co., Cincinnati, 1882.)