Buckner H. Payne
Born
Buckner Harrison Payne

1799
DiedJune 1, 1883
Davidson County, Tennessee, U.S.
Resting placeMount Olivet Cemetery
Other namesAriel
Occupation(s)Clergyman, publisher
Known forAriel: or the Ethnological Origin of the Negro

Colonel Buckner H. Payne (1799- June 1, 1883) was an American clergyman, publisher and racist pamphleteer. Under the pseudonym of Ariel, Payne authored a racist pamphlet, offering a counter-argument to the Curse of Ham, suggesting instead that blacks did not descend from Ham (and thus not from Adam and Eve), and that blacks had no soul.

Payne was "at one time considered the greatest logician in the South."[1] After his death, Payne's work continued to influence racist authors.

Early life

Buckner H. Payne was born in 1799.[2]

Career

Payne was a clergyman and publisher.[3][4] He was also a member of Payne, James & Co.[5]

Under the pseudonym of Ariel, Payne was the author of Ariel: or the Ethnological Origin of the Negro, an 1867 racist pamphlet about blacks.[3][6] In it, he suggested that blacks did not descend from Ham, son of Noah, and thus did not descend from Adam and Eve.[3][7] Instead, he argued that they were Pre-Adamite and they descended from an animal on Noah's Ark.[3][7] As a result, he rejected the Curse of Ham,[4] and suggested that they had no soul.[8]

Payne's pamphlet "created much talk."[8] His ideas challenged the status quo of White Supremacy, which rested upon the Curse of Ham.[4] Shortly after its publication, Robert A. Young, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, published a response based on scientific arguments.[9] Meanwhile, a literate former slave from Georgia, Harrison Berry, dismissed the pamphlet as confused and misguided.[4][10] Nevertheless, Payne was "at one time considered the greatest logician in the South."[1][11]

Payne was falsely accused of murder in 1868.[12] His case went to the Tennessee Supreme Court.[12]

According to his obituaries, Payne predicted the assassination of President James A. Garfield one year before it happened.[1][11] He also predicted the smallpox epidemic in 1880, which occurred in 1883.[1][11] Additionally, he predicted his own death for the last day of May 1883.[1][11]

Decline, death and legacy

Payne was interned in an asylum in Davidson County, Tennessee in 1879.[2][6] He died poor and blind in 1889,[6] at the age of eighty-four.[8] He was buried in a lumber square box without screws at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee.[1][5][11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Pity He's Gone". The Morning Astorian. Astoria, Oregon. June 3, 1883. p. 4. Retrieved November 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. open access
  2. ^ a b "Payne, Buckner H. 1799-1883". WorldCat. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  3. ^ a b c d Friedman, David M. (2001). A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis. New York City: Simon and Schuster. p. 113. ISBN 0684853205. OCLC 47271694.
  4. ^ a b c d Wood, Forrest G. (1968). Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. pp. 6–7. OCLC 797646080. Buckner H. Payne.
  5. ^ a b "Death of Col. Buckner H. Payne". The New York Times. June 8, 1883. Retrieved November 27, 2015.
  6. ^ a b c "Ariel Ascends to the Aereal". The Farmer and Mechanic. Raleigh, North Carolina. June 13, 1883. p. 3. Retrieved November 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. open access
  7. ^ a b Kidd, Colin (2006). The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 149. ISBN 0521793246. OCLC 64427347.
  8. ^ a b c "General". The Biblical Recorder. Raleigh, North Carolina. June 13, 1883. p. 3. Retrieved November 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. open access
  9. ^ Speer, William S. (1888). Sketches of prominent Tennesseans. Containing Biographies and Records of Many of the Families Who Have Attained Prominence in Tennessee. Nashville, Tennessee: A.B. Tavel. pp. 414–416.
  10. ^ Mohr, Clarence L. (February 10, 2003). "Harrison Berry (1816-ca. 1882)". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  11. ^ a b c d e "Death of a Singular Character". The Record-Union. Sacramento, California. June 2, 1883. p. 1. Retrieved November 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. open access
  12. ^ a b "The Payne Murder Case in the Supreme Court". Nashville Union and American. Nashville, Tennessee. February 28, 1868. p. 3. Retrieved November 26, 2015 – via Newspapers.com. open access

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