The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI.
History of Slavery in the North American Colonies.
Slavery existed in England in early times, and slaves became an article of export. Prisoners of war were reduced to slavery; criminals and debtors were added to the number, and unfortunate gamesters who had staked their liberty.[1] There were also hereditary slaves, who derived their condition from heir parents, and who were sold and transferred from hand to hand. This form of slavery was gradually extinguished by the feudal system, which substituted villeinage. To the serfs, who were the lowest grade of vassals, was committed the task of tilling the lands which the soldier gained or protected. There were grades even among the serfs, though probably there were not instances in which one held another as vassal and superior. The peculiarity of the class was, that they were astricted to the domain, and went with it when it changed hands. Some, however, had rights and privileges which they might maintain in the court of the manor of their lord. Some held small estates, which, however, they could not dispose of. The lowest class were abject and unprivileged.[2]
At the time of the first English emigration to America, but few faint traces were left of that system of villeinage once so universal throughout Europe, and still prevalent in Russia. In England it had disappeared, not by any formal legislative act, but as the joint result of private emancipations and by the discouragement long given by the English courts to claims so contrary to natural right. It became an established opinion throughout western Europe that Christians could not be held as slaves — but the immunity did not extend to infidels or heathen.
We have mentioned in a former chapter that slavery was first introduced into the North American colonies in 1620, by a Dutch vessel which landed a portion of her human merchandise at Jamestown, Virginia. The event was almost simultaneous with the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, Dec. 22d, 1620. In buying and holding negro slaves, the Virginians did not suppose themselves to be violating any law, human or divine. Whatever might be the case with the law of England, the law of Moses, in authorizing the enslavement of "strangers," seemed to give to the purchase of negro slaves an express sanction. The number of negroes in the colony, limited as it was to a few cargoes, brought at intervals by Dutch traders, was long too small to make the matter appear of much moment, and more than forty years elapsed before the colonists thought it necessary to strengthen the system of slavery by any express enactments.
In the colony of Massachusetts a body of fundamental laws was established in 1641. One of the articles, based on the Mosaic code, provides that "there shall never be any bond slavery, villeinage, nor captivity among us, unless it be lawful captives, taken in just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold unto us, and these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel requires. This exempts none from servitude who shall be judged thereto by authority." This article sanctions the slave-trade and the holding of negroes and Indians in bondage. This seems to be the first positive enactment in the colonies on the subject of slavery.
About this time a transaction occurred, (1645,) which some consider a protest on the part of Massachusetts against the African slave-trade. We state the facts, and the reader can judge whether the inference is warranted or not: The ships which took cargoes of staves and fish to Madeira and the Canaries were accustomed to touch on the coast of Guinea "to trade for negroes," who were carried generally to Barbadoes or the other English islands in the West Indies, the demand for them at home being but small. In the case above referred to, instead of buying negroes in the regular course of traffic, which, under a fundamental law of Massachusetts already quoted, would have been perfectly legal, the crew of a Boston ship joined with some London vessels on the coast, and, on pretense of some quarrel with the natives, landed a "murderer" — the expressive name of a small piece of cannon — attacked a negro village on Sunday, killed many of the inhabitants, and made a few prisoners, two of whom fell to the share of the Boston ship. In the course of a lawsuit between the master, mate, and owners, all this story came out, and Saltonstall, who sat as one of the magistrates, thereupon presented a petition to the court, in which he charged the master and mate with a threefold offense, murder, manstealing, and Sabbath-breaking; the two first capital by the fundamental laws of Massachusetts, and all of them "capital by the law of God." The magistrates doubted their authority to punish crimes committed on the coast of Africa; but they ordered the negroes to be sent back, as having been procured not honestly by purchase, but unlawfully by kidnapping.
A code of laws for Connecticut was compiled in 1650 and adopted by the general court, as the legislative assembly was then called. On the subject of the Indians this code exhibits much anxiety. The militia law is full and precise. Every town is to have a store of powder, and on Sundays and lecture days to be furnished with an armed guard, to prevent sudden surprises. Trade with the Indians in arms of any kind, or in dogs, is strictly forbidden. White men leaving the colony and joining the Indians are liable to three years' imprisonment. Every band of Indians resident near any plantation is to have some sachem or chief to be personally responsible for all depredations committed by the band; and, in conformity with a recommendation of the commissioners for the united colonies, if satisfaction for injuries is refused or neglected, the Indians themselves may be seized; "and, because it will be chargeable keeping them in prison," they may be delivered to the injured party, "either to serve, or to be shipped out and exchanged for negroes, as the case will justly bear." It thus appears that negro slavery was authorized in Connecticut as well as in Massachusetts. It was only the heretics of Providence who prohibited perpetual servitude by placing "black mankind" on the same level with regard to limitation of service as white servants. Unfortunately for the honor of Rhode Island, this regulation, enacted during a temporary disruption of the province, never extended to the other towns, and never obtained the force of a general law.[3]
Slaves were introduced into New Netherland by the Dutch West India Company, about the year 1650. Most of them remained the property of the company, and the more trusty and industrious, after a certain period of labor, were allowed little farms, paying a stipulated amount of produce. This emancipation did not extend to the children, a circumstance inexplicable and highly displeasing to the Dutch commonalty, who could not understand "how any one born of a free Christian mother could nevertheless be a slave."
At a session of the Virginia legislature, in December, 1662, an act was passed, being the first statute of Virginia which attempts to give a legislative basis to the system of hereditary slavery. It was enacted that children should be held bond or free "according to the condition of the mother."
In 1663, the subject of slavery also attracted the notice of the Maryland legislature. It was provided, by the first section of an act now passed, that "all negroes and other slaves within this province, and all negroes and other slaves to be hereafter imported into this province, shall serve during life; and all children born of any negro or other slave, shall be slaves, as their fathers were, for the term of their lives." The second section recites that "divers free-born English women, forgetful of their free condition, and to the disgrace of our nation, do intermarry with negro slaves;" and for deterring from such "shameful matches," it enacts that, during their husbands' lives, white women so intermarrying shall be servants to the masters of their husbands, and that the issue of such marriages shall be slaves for life.
In 1667, the assembly of Virginia enacted that negroes, though converted and baptized, should not thereby become free. At the same session, in remarkable deviation from the English law, it was also enacted, that killing slaves by extremity of correction should not be esteemed felony, "since it can not be presumed that prepense malice should induce any man to destroy his own estate." The prohibition against holding Indians as slaves was also relaxed as to those brought in by water, a new law having enacted "that all servants, not being Christians, imported by shipping, shall be slaves for life." About this period, and afterward, a considerable number of Indian slaves seem to have been imported into Virginia and New England from the West Indies and the Spanish main.
As a necessary pendent to the slave code, the system now also began of subjecting freed slaves to civil disabilities. It had already been enacted that female servants employed in field labor should be rated and taxed as tithable-Negro women, though free, were now subjected to the same tax. Free negroes and Indians were also disqualified to purchase or hold white servants.
Some replies of Berkeley to a series of questions submitted to him by the plantation committee of the privy council, give quite a distinct picture of the colony as it was in 1671. The population is estimated at 40,000, including 2,000 "black slaves," and 6,000 "Christian servants," of whom about 1,500 were imported yearly, principally English. Since the exclusion of Dutch vessels by the acts of navigation, the importation of negroes had been very limited; not above two or three ship loads had arrived in seven years. The English trade to Africa, a monopoly m the hands of the Royal African Company, does not seem to have been prosecuted with much spirit; and such supply of slaves as that company furnished was chiefly engrossed by Jamaica and other sugar colonies.
In 1671 an act was passed by Maryland encouraging the importation of slaves.
In 1682 the slave code of Virginia received some additions. Slaves were prohibited to carry anus, offensive or defensive, or to go off the plantations of their masters without a written pass, or to lift hand against a Christian even in self-defense. Runaways who refused to be apprehended might be lawfully killed. The condition of slavery was imposed upon all servants, whether negroes, Moors, mulattoes, or Indians, brought into the colony by sea or land, whether converted to Christianity or not, provided they were not of Christian parentage or country, or Turks or Moors in amity with his majesty. An unsuccessful attempt was made in the council, whether dictated by humanity, by policy, or by a wish to promote the interests of the Royal African company, to reënact the old law prohibiting the enslavement of Indians.
The attempt in Maryland to prevent the intermarriage of whites and blacks seems not to have proved very successful. The preamble to a new act on this subject recites that such matches were often brought about by the "instigation, procurement, or connivance of the master or mistress," who thus availed themselves of the provisions of the former law to prolong the servitude of their female servants, and, at the same time, to raise up a new brood of slaves. To remedy this evil, all white female servants intermarrying with negro slaves were to be declared free at once, and their children also; but the minister celebrating the marriage, and the master or mistress promoting or conniving at it, were subjected to a fine of ten thousand pounds of tobacco.
The settlement of South Carolina commenced about 1660. In the scheme of government for this colony, drafted by the afterwards celebrated metaphysician, John Locke, there was inserted a provision that "every freeman of South Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion and religion whatsoever."
In the code of laws known as the "Duke's laws," enacted for the government of New York in 1665, there is a provision that "no Christian shall be kept in bond slavery, villeinage, or captivity, except such who shall be judged thereunto by authority, or such as willingly have sold or shall sell themselves," in which case a record of such servitude shall be entered in the court of sessions, "held for that jurisdiction where the master shall inhabit." This provision, borrowed, with some modifications, from the "Massachusetts Fundamentals," did not exempt heathen negroes and Indians from slavery.
In Virginia, in 1692, an "act for suppressing outlying slaves," after setting forth in a preamble that "many times negroes, mulattoes, and other slaves unlawfully absent themselves from their masters' and mistresses' service, and he hid, and lurk in obscure places, killing hogs, and committing other injuries to the inhabitants of this dominion," authorizes any two justices, one being of the quorum, to issue their warrant to the sheriff for the arrest of any such outlying slaves. Whereupon the sheriff is to raise the necessary force, and if the slaves resist, run away, or refuse to surrender, they may be lawfully killed and destroyed "by guns, or any other way whatsoever," the master, in such cases, to receive from the public four thousand pounds of tobacco for the loss of his slave.
Individual runaways seem at times to have made themselves formidable. We find, a few years later, an act setting forth that one Billy, a negro, slave to John Tillet, "has several years unlawfully absented himself from his master's service, lying out, and lurking in obscure places, supposed within the counties of James City, York, and Kent, devouring and destroying the stocks and crops, robbing the houses of, and committing and threatening other injuries to several of his majesty's good and liege people within this his colony and dominion of Virginia, in contempt of the good laws thereof;" wherefore the said Billy is declared by the act guilty of a capital offense; and "whosoever shall kill and destroy the said negro slave Billy, and apprehend and deliver him to justice," is to be rewarded with a thousand pounds of tobacco; and all persons entertaining him, or trading and trucking with him, are declared guilty of felony; his master, if he be killed, to receive as compensation from the public four thousand pounds of tobacco.
The same statute above cited for suppressing outlying slaves, contains the first provision to be found in the Virginia laws on the subject of the intermixture of the races: "For the prevention of that abominable mixture and spurious issue which hereafter may increase in this dominion, as well by negroes, mulattoes, and Indians intermarrying with English or other white women, as by their unlawful accompanying with one another," any free white man or woman intermarrying with a negro, mulatto, or Indian, was to be forever banished — a punishment changed a few years after to six months' imprisonment and a fine of ten pounds. White women having mulatto children without marriage were to pay fifteen pounds sterling, or be sold for five years, that period, if they were servants, to take effect from the expiration of their former term, the child to be bound out as a servant till thirty years of age.
Another clause of this act placed a serious restraint upon emancipation, by enacting that no negro or mulatto slave shall be set free, unless the emancipator pay for his transportation, out of the country within six months. Yet the manumission was not void. The idea of reducing again to slavery persons once made free was not yet arrived at. A violation of the act exposed to a penalty of ten pounds, to be appropriated toward the transportation out of the colony of the freed slave.
The practice of special summary tribunals for the trial of slaves charged with crimes was now first introduced — another remarkable deviation from the English law. Any slave guilty of any offense punishable by the law of England with death or loss of member, was to be forthwith committed to the county jail, there to be kept "well laden with irons," and upon notice of the fact, the governor was to issue a commission to any persons of the county he might see fit, before whom the prisoner was to be arraigned, indicted, tried "without the solemnity of a jury," and on the oath of two witnesses, or one witness "with pregnant circumstances" or confession, was to be found guilty and sentenced. The same act, by another section, forbade slaves to keep horses, cattle, or hogs. It also provided that the owner should be liable for damage done "by any negro or other slave living at a quarter where there is no Christian overseer."
These laws indicate the start which the slave-trade had recently received, and the rapid increase in Virginia of slave population.
A fifth revision of the Virginia code, in progress for the last five years-by a committee of the council and burgesses, was completed in 1705. This code provided that "all servants imported or brought into this country by sea or land, who were not Christians in their native country, (except Turks and Moors in amity with her majesty, and others who can make due proof of their being free in England or any other Christian country before they were shipped in order to transportation thither,) shall be accounted, and be slaves, notwithstanding a conversion to Christianity afterward," or though they may have been in England; "all children to be bond or free, according to the condition of their mothers."
By a humane provision of this code, slaves are made real estate, and thus, 'as it were, attached to the soil. Nor can it be said that the sole object was to shield them from seizure for debt — they remained liable to that as before. They were also to descend like personal property, but provision was made by which the heir of the plantation could buy out the inherited interest of others in the slaves. Such continued to be the law so long as Virginia remained a British colony.
The export of Indian slaves from Carolina had been a subject of complaint in Pennsylvania. The importation of Indian slaves into that province, except such as had been a year domiciled in the family of the importer, had been prohibited, in 1705, by an act especially referring to this Carolina traffic, "as having given our neighboring Indians of this province some umbrage for suspicion and dissatisfaction." A new act, in 1712, "to prevent the importation of negroes and slaves," alleging plots and insurrections, and referring in terms to a recent plot in New York, imposed a prohibitory duty of £20 upon all negroes and Indians brought into the province by land or water, a drawback to be allowed in case of reëxportation within twenty days. Indulgence was also to be granted for a longer time, not exceeding six months, "to all gentlemen and strangers traveling in this province who may have negro or Indian slaves to attend them, not exceeding two for one person." Runaways from the neighboring provinces, if taken back within twenty days after identification, were to be free of duty; otherwise, or if not claimed within twelve months, they were to be sold, and the proceeds paid into the treasury, the owner being entitled only to what remained after paying the duty and expenses. Very large powers were given to the collector to break all doors, and seize and sell all slaves suspected to be concealed with intent to evade the duty. This act, however, within a few months after its passage, was disallowed and repealed by the queen.
A Massachusetts act on the same subject, August, 1712, recites "that divers conspiracies, outrages, barbarities, murders, burglaries, thefts, and other notorious crimes and enormities, at sundry times, and especially of late, have been perpetrated and committed by Indians and other slaves within several of her majesty's plantations in America, being of a surly and revengeful spirit, rude and insolent in their behavior, and very ungovernable, the over great number and increase whereof within this province is likely to prove of pernicious and fatal consequences to her majesty's subjects and interest here unless speedily remedied, and is a discouragement to the importation of white Christian servants, this province being differently circumstanced from the plantations in the islands, and having great numbers of the Indian natives of the country within and about them, and at this time under the sorrowful effects of their rebellion and hostilities;" in consideration of all which, the further import of Indian slaves is totally prohibited, under pain of forfeiture to the crown.
Cotemporaneously with these prohibitory acts of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, the first extant slave law of South Carolina was enacted, June, 1712, the basis of the existing slave code of that state. "Whereas," says the preamble of this remarkable statute, "the plantations and estates of this province can not be well and sufficiently managed and brought into use without the labor and service of negro and other slaves; and forasmuch as the said negroes and other slaves brought unto the people of this province for that purpose are of barbarous, wild, savage natures, and such as renders them wholly unqualified to be governed by the laws, customs, and practices of this province; but that it is absolutely necessary that such other constitutions, laws, and orders should in this province be made and enacted for the good regulation and ordering of them as may restrain the disorders, rapine, and inhumanity to which they are naturally prone and inclined, and may also tend to the safety and security of the people of this province and their estates," it is therefore enacted that "all negroes, mulattoes, mestizoes, or Indians, which at any time heretofore have been sold, and now are held or taken to be, or hereafter shall be bought or sold for slaves, are hereby declared slaves; and they and their children are hereby made and declared slaves to all intents and purposes, excepting all such negroes, mulattoes, mestizoes, and Indians which heretofore have been or hereafter shall be, for some particular merit, made and declared free, either by the governor and council of this province, pursuant to any act of this province, or by their respective masters and owners, and also excepting all such as can prove that they ought not to be sold for slaves."
Every person finding a slave abroad without a pass was to arrest him if possible, and punish him on the spot by "moderate chastisement," under a penalty of twenty shillings for neglecting it. All negro houses were to be searched once a fortnight for arms and stolen goods. A slave guilty of petty larceny, for the first offense was to be "publicly and severely whipped;" for tne second offense was to have "one of his ears cut off," or be "branded in the forehead with a hot iron, that the mark thereof may remain; "for the third offense was to "have his nose slit;" for the fourth offense was "to suffer death, or other punishment," at the discretion of the court. Any justice of the peace, on complaint against any slave for any crime, from "chicken stealing" up to "insurrection" and "murder," was to issue his warrant for the slave's arrest, and, if the accusation seemed to be well founded, was to associate with himself another justice, they two to summon in three freeholders. The five together, or, by an additional act, the majority of them, satisfactory evidence. of guilt appearing, were to sentence the culprit to death, or such lesser punishment as the offense might seem to deserve. In case of lesser punishment, "no particular law directing such punishment" was necessary. In case of death, "the kind of death" was left to "the judgment and discretion" of the court, execution to be forthwith done on their sole warrant, the owner to be indemnified at the public charge. This summary form of procedure in the trial of slaves remains in force in South Carolina to this day, and a very similar form was also adopted, and still prevails, in North Carolina.
He who enticed a slave, "by specious pretense of promising freedom in another country," or otherwise, to leave the province, if successful, or if caught in the act, was to suffer death; and the same extreme penalty was to be inflicted on slaves "running away with intent to get out of the province." Any slave running away for twenty days at once, for the first offense was to be "severely and publicly whipped." In case the master neglected to inflict this punishment, any justice might order it to be inflicted by the constable, at the master's expense. For the second offense the runaway was to be branded with the letter R on the right cheek. If the master omitted it, he was to forfeit £10, and any justice of the peace might order the branding done. For the third offense, the runaway, if absent thirty days, was to be whipped, and have one of his ears cut off; the master neglecting to do it to forfeit £20; any justice, on complaint, to order it done as before. For the fourth offense, the runaway, "if a man, was to be gelt," to be paid for by the province if he died under the operation; if a woman, she was to be severely whipped, branded on the left cheek with the letter R, and her left ear cut off. Any master neglecting for twenty days to inflict these atrocious cruelties, was to forfeit his property in the slave to any informer who might complain of him within six months. Any captain or commander of a company, "on notice of the haunt, residence, and hiding-place of any runaway slaves," was "to pursue, apprehend, and take them, either alive or dead," being in either case entitled to a premium of from two to four pounds for each slave. All persons wounded or disabled on such expeditions were to be compensated by the public. If any slave under punishment "shall suffer in life or member, which," says the act, "seldom happens, no person whatsoever shall be liable to any penalty therefor." Any person killing his slave out of "wantonness," "bloody-mindedness," or "cruel intention," was to forfeit "fifty pounds current money," or, if the slave belonged to another person, twenty-five pounds to the public, and the slave's value to the owner. No master was to allow his slaves to hire their own time, or, by a supplementary act two years after, "to plant for themselves any corn, peas, cr rice, or to keep any stock of hogs, cattle, or horses."
"Since charity and the Christian religion which we profess," says the coneluding section of this remarkable act, "obligates us to wish well to the souls of men, and that religion may not be made a pretense to alter any man's property and right, and that no person may neglect to baptize their negroes orslaves for fear that thereby they should be manumitted and set free," "it shall be and is hereby declared lawful for any negro or Indian slave, or any other slave or slaves whatsoever, to receive and profess the Christian faith, and to be thereunto baptized; but, notwithstanding such slave or slaves shall receive or profess the Christian religion, and be baptized, he or they shall not thereby be manumitted or set free."[4]
In the quarter of a century from the English Revolution to the accession of the house of Hanover, the population of the English colonies had doubled. The following table, compiled for the use of the Board of Trade, though probably somewhat short of the truth, will serve to exhibit its distribution in 1715:
| Whites. | Negroes. | Total. | |
| New Hampshire | 9,500 | 150 | 9,650 |
| Massachusetts | 94,000 | 2,000 | 96,000 |
| Rhode Island | 8,500 | 500 | 9,000 |
| Connecticut | 46,000 | 1,500 | 47,000 |
| New York | 27,000 | 4,000 | 31,000 |
| New Jersey | 21,000 | 1,500 | 22,500 |
| Pennsylvania and Delaware | 43,300 | 2,500 | 45,800 |
| Maryland | 40,700 | 9,500 | 50,200 |
| Virginia | 72,000 | 23,000 | 95,000 |
| North Carolina | 7,500 | 3,700 | 11,200 |
| South Carolina | 6,250 | 10,500 | 16,750 |
| 375,750 | 58,850 | 434,600 |
By a revisal of the Maryland code, in 1715, "all negroes and other slaves already imported, or hereafter to be imported, and all children now born, or hereafter to be born of such negroes and slaves, shall be slaves during their natural lives" — an act construed as sanctioning in Maryland, though without any express provision to that effect, the Virginia rule of determining the condition of the child by that of the mother. It was expressly provided that baptism should not confer freedom. The provisions, in a long act on the subject of slaves and servants, bear a very strong resemblance to those of the Virginia code; but there were some peculiarities. "Any person whatsoever" traveling out of the county of his residence without a pass under the seal of the county, might be apprehended and carried before a magistrate, and if not sufficiently known, or unable to give a good account of himself, might, at the magistrate's discretion, be committed to jail for six months, or until the procurement of "a certificate or other justification that he or she is not a servant." Notwithstanding this certificate, no discharge was to be had till the jailor was paid ten pounds of tobacco, or one day's service for each day of imprisonment, and the person making the arrest, as a reward for his trouble, two hundred pounds of tobacco, or twenty days' service! What is much more remarkable than the passage of this statute, it remains unrepealed to this day.
On the banks of the Savannah a new colony was planted. Its founder was James Edward Oglethorpe, an officer of the English army, and member of the House of Commons. Desirous to provide a place in America for such discharged prisoners and others of the suffering poor as might be willing to commence there a life of industry and sobriety, Oglethorpe, in conjunction with several others, petitioned the king for a grant of territory. The charter was issued June 9, 1732. The right of legislation for the province was vested in a board of trustees. Oglethorpe superintended in person the planting of the colony. The use of rum was prohibited; and, the better to exclude this source of demoralization, all trade with the West Indies was forbidden. The trustees did not wish to see their province "void of white inhabitants, filled with blacks, the precarious property of a few, equally exposed to domestic treachery and foreign invasion." They prohibited negro slavery, not only as unjust and cruel — for so it was beginning to be esteemed by all the more intelligent and humane — but as fatal to the interests of the poor white settlers, for whose special benefit the colony had been projected.
The city of New York became, in 1741, the scene of a cruel and bloody delusion, less notorious, but not less lamentable than the Salem witchcraft. That city then contained some seven or eight thousand inhabitants, of whom twelve or fifteen hundred were slaves. Nine fires in rapid succession, most of them, however, merely the burning of chimneys, produced a perfect insanity of terror. An indented servant woman purchased her liberty and secured a reward of £100 by pretending to give information of a plot formed by a low tavern-keeper, her master, and three negroes, to burn the city and murder the whites. This story was confirmed and amplified by an Irish prostitute convicted of a robbery, who, to recommend herself to mercy, reluctantly turned informer. Numerous arrests had been already made among the slaves and free blacks. Many others followed. The eight lawyers who then composed the bar of New York all assisted by turns on behalf of the prosecution. The prisoners, who had no counsel, were tried and convicted upon most insufficient evidence. The lawyers vied with each other in heaping all sorts of abuse on their heads, and chief-justice Delancey, in passing sentence, vied with the lawyers. Many confessed to save their lives, and then accused others. Thirteen unhappy convicts were burned at the stake, eighteen were hanged, and seventy-one transported.
The slow progress of Georgia for twenty years, furnished new proofs, if such were needed, that the colonization of a wilderness, even with abundant facilities for it, is, for the most part, a tedious process; and, when undertaken by a company or the public, very expensive.
The results of their own idleness, inexperience, and incapacity, joined to the inevitable obstacles which every new settlement must encounter, were obstinately ascribed by the inhabitants of Georgia to that wise but ineffectual prohibition of slavery, one of the fundamental laws of the province. The convenience of the moment caused future consequences to be wholly overlooked. Every means was made use of to get rid of this prohibition. Even Whitfield and Habersham, forgetful of their former scruples, strenuously pleaded with the trustees in favor of slavery, under the old pretense of propagating in that way the Christian religion. "Many of the poor slaves in America," wrote Habersham, "have already been made freemen of the heavenly Jerusalem." The Salzburgers for a long time had scruples, but were reassured by advice from Germany: "If you take slaves in faith, and with intent of conducting them to Christ, the action will not be a sin, but may prove a benediction." Thus, as usual, the religious sentiment and its most disinterested votaries were made tools of by avarice for the enslavement of mankind. Habersham, however, could hardly be included in this class. Having thrown off the missionary, and established a mercantile house at Savannah, the first, and for a long time the only one there, he was very anxious for exportable produce. The counselors of Georgia; — for the president was now so old as to be quite incapacitated for business — winked at violations of the law, and a considerable number of negroes had been already introduced from Carolina as hired servants, under indentures for life or a hundred years. The constant toast at Savannah was, "The one thing needful," by which was meant negroes. The leading men both at New Inverness and Ebenezer, who opposed the introduction of slavery, were traduced, threatened, and persecuted.
Thus beset, the trustees yielded at last, in 1150, on condition that all masters, under "a mulct of £5," should be obliged to compel their negroes "to attend at some time on the Lord's day for instruction in the Christian religion" — the origin, doubtless, of the peculiarly religious character of the negroes in and about Savannah.
By custom, or by statute, says Hildreth, whether legal or illegal, slavery existed as a fact in every one of the Anglo-American colonies. The soil and climate of New England made slaves of little value there except as domestic servants. In 1701, the town of Boston had instructed its representatives in the General Court to propose "putting a period to negroes being slaves." About the same time, Sewall, a judge of the Superior Court, aftewards chief-justice of Massachusetts, published "The Selling of Joseph," a pamphlet tending to a similar end. But these scruples seem to have been short-lived. With the increase of wealth and luxury, the number of slaves increased also. There were in Massachusetts in 1654, as appears by an official census, twenty-four hundred and forty-eight negro slaves over sixteen years of age, about a thousand of them in Boston — a greater proportion to the free inhabitants than is to be found at present in the city of Baltimore. Connecticut exceeded Massachusetts in the ratio of its slave population, and Rhode Island exceeded Connecticut. Newport, grown to be the second commercial town in New England, had a proportion of slaves larger than Boston. The harsh slave-laws in force in the more southern colonies were unknown, however, in New England. Slaves were regarded as possessing the same legal rights as apprentices; and masters, for abuse of their authority, were liable to indictment. Manumissions, however, were not allowed except upon security thai the freed slave; should not become b burden to the parish.
In the provinces of New York and New Jersey, negro slaves were employed to a certain extent, not only as domestic servants, but as agricultural laborers. In the city of New York they constituted a sixth part of the population. The slave code of that province was hardly less harsh than that of Virginia.
In Pennsylvania, the number of slaves was small, partly owing to the ample supply of indented white servants, but partly, also, to scruples of conscience on the part of the Quakers. In the early days of the province, in 1688, some German Quakers, shortly after their arrival, had expressed the opinion that slavery was not morally lawful. George Keith had borne a similar testimony: but he was disowned as schismatic, and presently abandoning the society, was denounced as a renegade. When Penn, in 1699, had proposed to provide by law for the marriage, religious instruction, and kind treatment of slaves, he met with no response from the Quaker legislature. In 1712, to a petition in favor of emancipating the negroes, the Assembly replied, "that it was neither just nor convenient to set them at liberty." They imposed, however, a heavy duty, in effect prohibitory, and intended to be so, on the importation of negroes. This act, as we have seen, was negatived by the crown. The policy, however, was persevered in. New acts, passed from time to time, restricted importations by a duty first of five, but lately reduced to two pounds per head. The Quaker testimony against slavery was renewed by Sandiford and Lay, who brought with them to Pennsylvania a strong detestation of the system of servitude which they had seen in Barbadoes in all its rigors. The same views began presently to be perseveringly advocated by Woodman and Benezet, whose labors were not without effect upon the Quakers, some of whom set the example of emancipating their slaves. Franklin was also distinguished as an early and decided advocate for emancipation. The greater part of the slaves of Pennsylvania were to be found in Philadelphia. A fourth part of the inhabitants of that city were persons of African descent, including many, however, who had obtained their freedom.
In the tobacco growing colonies, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, slaves constituted a third part or more of the population. In South Carolina, where rice was the principal produce, they were still more numerous, decidedly outnumbering the free inhabitants.
The slave code of South Carolina, as revised and reënacted in a statute still regarded as having the force of law, had dropped from its phraseology something of the extreme harshness of the former act. It contained, also, some provisions for the benefit of the slaves, but, on the whole, was harder than before. "Whereas," says the preamble to the act of 1740, "in his majesty's plantations in America, slavery has been introduced and allowed, and the people commonly called negroes, Indians, mulattoes, and mestizoes have been deemed absolute slaves, and the subjects of property in the hands of particular persons, the extent of whose power over such slaves ought to be settled and limited by positive laws, so that the slaves may be kept in due subjection and obedience, and the owners and other persons having the care and government of slaves may be restrained from exercising too great rigor and cruelty over them, and that the public peace and order of this province may be preserved," it is therefore enacted that "all negroes, Indians, mulattoes, and mestizoes (free Indians in amity with this government, and negroes, mulattoes, and mestizoes who are now free, excepted,) who now are or shall hereafter be in this province, and all their issue and offspring born and to be born, shall be, and they are hereby declared to be and remain forever hereafter absolute slaves, and shall follow the condition of the mother, and shall be claimed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal." This provision, which deprives the master of the power of manumission, and subjects to slavery the descendant of every slave woman, no matter how many degrees removed, nor who may have been the male ancestor, nor what the color, was subsequently adopted in the same terms by the Georgia Legislature as the law of that province. A suit for freedom might be brought by any white man who chose to volunteer for that purpose on behalf of any person claimed as a slave. in all such suits, "the burden of proofs shall lay upon the plaintiff, and it shall always be presumed that every negro, Indian, mulatto, and mestizo is a slave, unless the contrary can be made to appear, the Indians in amity with this government excepted, in which case the burden of proof shall lie on the defendant." Masters were forbidden to allow their slaves to hire their own time; to let or hire any plantation; to possess any vessel or boat; to keep or raise any horses, cattle, or hogs; to engage in any sort of trade on their own account; to be taught to write; or to have or wear any apparel (except livery servants) finer than negro cloth, duffils, kerseys, osnaburgs, blue linen, check linen, or coarse garlix or calicoes, checked cotton or Scotch plaid; "and any constable seeing any negro better clad, might seize the clothes and appropriate them to his own use. It was forbidden to work slaves on Sundays, under a penalty of five pounds; for working them more than fifteen hours daily in summer, and fourteen in winter, a like penalty was imposed. Upon complaint to any justice that any master does not provide his slaves with sufficient "clothing, covering, or food," the justice might make such order in the premises as he saw fit, and fine the master not exceeding £20. "And whereas cruelty is not only highly unbecoming those who profess themselves Christians, but odious in the eyes of all men who have any sense of virtue and humanity," the fine for the willful murder of a slave was increased to £700 currency, with incapacity to hold any office, civil or military, and in case of inability to pay the fine, seven years' labor in a frontier garrison or the Charleston work-house. For killing a slave in the heat of passion, for maiming, or inflicting any other cruel punishment "other than by whipping or beating with a horse whip, cowskin, switch, or small stick, or by putting in irons or imprisonment," a fine of £350 was imposed; and in case of slaves found dead, maimed, or otherwise cruelly punished, the masters were to be held guilty of the act unless they make the contrary appear.
No statute of North Carolina seems ever to have declared who were or might be held as dares in that province, the whole system being left to rest on usage or the supposed law of England. Bat police laws for the regulation of slave-were enacted similar to Chose of Virginia, and the Virginia prohibition was also adopted of manumissions, except for meritorious services, to be adjudged by the governor and council.
Among the ten acts of the Virginia revision rejected by the king in 1751, was one "concerning servants and slaves," a consolidation and reënactment of all the old statutes on that subject, the substance of which has been given in former pages. It appears from the address of the Assembly to the king on the subject of this veto, to have been a standing instruction to the governor not to consent to the reënactment of any law once rejected by the king, without express leave first obtained upon representation of the reasons and necessity for it. Such a representation was accordingly made by the Assembly as to eight of the ten rejected laws. The act concerning servants and slaves was not of this number, yet we find it reënacted within a year after in the very same words. Why the royal assent had been refused does not appear. It could hardly have been from any scruples on the subject of slavery; for the acts expressly approved was one "for the better government of Indians, negroes, and mulattoes," which provided that the death of a slave under extremity of correction should not be esteemed murder, unless it were proved by the oath of at least one "lawful and credible witness" that the slave was willfully and maliciously killed; persons indicted for the murder of a slave, and found guilty of manslaughter only, to "incur no forfeiture or punishment." Slaves set free without leave from the governor and council might be sold at auction by the church-wardens of any parish in which such freed slave might reside for the space of a month. The same statute also continued the authority formerly given to the county courts to "dismember" disorderly slaves "notoriously guilty of going abroad in the night, or running away and laying out," and not to be reclaimed by the common methods — an authority very much abused, if we may judge by a subsequent statute, 1169, which declares this dismembering "to be often disproportioned to the offense, and contrary to the principles of humanity," and prohibits the castration of slaves except on conviction of an attempt to ravish a white woman.
The negroes imported from the African coast, whose descendants now constitute a sixth part of the population of the United States, were not by any means of one nation, language, or race. A single slave-ship often brought to America a great variety of languages and customs, a collection of unfortunate strangers to each other, or perhaps of hereditary enemies, with no common bond except that of servitude. Hence a want of union and sympathy among the slaves, which, joined to their extreme ignorance and simplicity, prevented cooperation, and rendered it easy to suppress such outbreaks as occasionally occurred. Even in complexion and physiognomy, the most obvious characteristic of the negroes, there were great differences. Some were of a jet black, often with features approaching the European standard; others of a mahogany or reddish black, with features less shapely and regular; and others yet of a tawny yellow, with flat noses and projecting jaws — an ugliness often, but erroneously, esteemed characteristic of all the African races, but which seems to have been principally confined to the low and swampy grounds about the delta of the Niger. The negroes marked by these shapeless features were noted also for indomitable capacity of endurance, and were esteemed, therefore, the best slaves. Intermixture among themselves, and a large infusion of European blood, have gradually obliterated these differences, or made them less noticeable.
Contrary to what happened in the West Indies, in the Anglo-North American provinces the natural increase of the slave population was rapid. The women were seldom put to the severer labors of the field. The long winter secured to both sexes a season of comparative rest. Such was the abundance of provisions, that it was cheaper to breed than to buy slaves. Those born in America, and reared up on the plantations, evidently surpassed the imported Africans both physically and intellectually. Of the imported slaves a few were Mohammedans, among whom were occasionally found persons of some education, who knew Arabic, and could read the Koran. But the great mass were pagans, in a condition of gross barbarism. They brought with them from Africa many superstitions, but these, for the most part, as well as the negro languages, very soon died out.
Zealous for religion as the colonists were, very little effort was made to convert the negroes, owing partly, at least, to a prevalent opinion that neither Christian brotherhood nor the law of England would justify the holding Christians as slaves. Nor could repeated colonial enactments to the contrary entirely root out this idea, for it was not supposed that a colonial statute could set aside the law of England. What, precisely, the English law might be on the subject of slavery, still remained a matter of doubt. Lord Holt had expressed the opinion, in 1697, that slavery was a condition unknown to English law, and that every person setting foot in England thereby became free. American planters, on their visits to England, accompanied by their slaves, seem to have been annoyed by claims of freedom set up on this ground, and that, also, of baptism. To relieve their embarrassments, the merchants concerned in the American trade had obtained a written opinion from Yorke and Talbot, in 1729, the attorney and solicitor general of that day. According to this opinion, which passed for more than forty years as good law, not only was baptism no bar to slavery, but negro slaves might be held in England just as well as in the colonies. The two lawyers by whom this opinion was given, rose afterward, one of them to be chief justice of England, and both to be chancelors. Yorke, sitting in the latter capacity with the title of Lord Hardwicke, had recognized the doctrine of that opinion as sound law in 1749. He objects to Lord Holt's doctrine of freedom, secured by setting foot on English soil, that no reason could be found "why slaves should not be equally free when they set foot in Jamaica or any other English plantation." "All our colonies are subject to the laws of England, although as to some purposes they have laws of their own." His argument is, that if slavery be contrary to English law, no local enactments in the colonies could give it any validity. To avoid overturning slavery in the colonies, it was absolutely necessary to uphold it in England. At a subsequent period, as stated in a former chapter, the law of England was definitively settled in favor of liberty, the extra-judicial opinion of Talbot and Hardwicke being set aside by a solemn decision of the King's Bench.
The remaining exclusive privileges of the Royal African Company having expired, the English government undertook to maintain, at their own expense the forts and factories on the African coast; and thus the slave-trade was thrown open to free competition. The recent introduction of the cultivation of coffee into the West Indies, and the increasing consumption in Europe of colonial produce, gave fresh impulse to this detestable traffic, and it now began to be carried on to an extent which soon roused against it the indignant humanity of an enlightened age. The West Indies were the chief market; but the imports to Virginia and the Carolinas were largely increased. New England rum, manufactured at Newport, was profitably exchanged on the coast of Africa for negroes, to be sold in the southern colonies; and vessels sailed on the same business from Boston and New York. The trade, however, was principally carried on by the English merchants of Bristol and Liverpool. Except in Pennsylvania, the colonial duties levied on the import of slaves were intended chiefly for revenue. They were classed in the instructions to the royal governors with duties on British goods, as impediments to British commerce not to be favored. On this ground several of these acts received the royal veto. Yet Virginia was allowed to impose such duties as she pleased, on the sole condition of making them payable by the buyer.
The position of the Africans in the colonies was disastrous. Not only were they servants for life, which possibly the law of England might have countenanced, but by colonial statute and usage this servitude descended to their children also. The few set free by the good will or the scruples of their masters seemed a standing reproach to slavery, and an evil example in the eyes of the rest. They became the objects of a suspicious legislation, which deprived them of most of the rights of freemen, and reduced them to a social position eery similar, in many respects, to that which inveterate prejudice in many parts of Europe has fixed upon the Jews. Hence, too, legislative restraints on the bounty or justice of the master in manumitting his slave.
Intermarriage with the inferior race, whether bond or free, was prohibited by religion as a sin, by public opinion as a shame, and by law as a crime. But neither law, gospel, nor public opinion could prevent that amalgamation which, according to all experience, inevitably and extensively takes place whenever two races come into that close juxtaposition which domestic slavery of necessity implies. Falsehood and hypocrisy took the place of restraint and self-denial. The Dutch, French, Spanish, and Portuguese colonists, less filled with pride of race, and less austere and pretending in their religious morality, esteemed that white man mean and cruel who did not, so far as his ability permitted, secure for his colored children emancipation and some pecuniary provision . Laws were even found necessary, in some of those colonies, to limit what was esteemed a superfluity of parental tenderness. In the Anglo-American colonies colored children were hardly less numerous But conventional decorum, more potent than law, forbade any recognition by the father. They followed the condition of the mother. They were born, and they remained slaves. European blood was thus constantly transferred into servile veins; and hence, among the slaves sold and bought to-day in our American markets, may be found the descendants of men distinguished in colonial and national annals. — Hildreth's History United States.
In Massachusetts a controversy arose as to the justice and legality of negro slavery, which was conducted by able writers. It began about 1766 and was continued until 1773, when the subject was very warmly agitated. In 1767 and afterwards, attempts were made in the legislature to restrict the further importation of slaves. It was even questioned whether, under the laws of Massachusetts, any person could be held as a slave. This point was carried before the superior court in a suit by a negro to recover wages from his alleged master. The negroes collected money among themselves to carry on the suit, and it terminated favorably. Other suits were instituted between that time and the revolution, and the juries invariably gave their verdict in favor of freedom. The pleas on the part of the masters were, that the negroes were purchased in open market, and bills of sale were produced in evidence; that the laws of the province recognized slavery as existing in it, by declaring that no person should manumit his slave without giving bond for his maintenance, &c. On the part of the blacks, it was pleaded that the royal charter expressly declared all persons born or residing in the province to be as free as the king's subjects in Great Britain; that, by the law of England, no subject could be deprived of his liberty but by the judgment of his peers; that the laws of the province respecting an evil, and attempting to mitigate or regulate it, did not authorize it; and on some occasions the plea was, that though the slavery of the parents were admitted, yet no disability of that kind could descend to the children.[5]
The view taken by the Massachusetts juries, was sanctioned about the same time in England by a solemn decision of the court of king's bench, in the celebrated case of James Somersett, mentioned in a former chapter. Being brought before Lord Mansfield on a writ of habeas corpus, his case was referred to the full court. After the argument, Lord Mansfield said: "In five or six cases of this nature, I have known it accommodated by agreement between the parties. On its first coming before me I strongly recommended it here. But if the parties will have it decided, we must give our opinion. Compassion will not on the one hand, nor inconvenience on the other, be to decide, but the law." "The question now is, whether any dominion, authority, or coercion can be exercised in this country on a slave according to the American laws. The difficulty of adopting the relation, without adopting it in all its consequences, is indeed extreme; yet many of those consequences are
absolutely contrary to the municipal law of England. On the other hand, should we think the coercive power cannot be exercised, it is apw about fifty years since the opinion" to the contrary "by two of the greatest men of their own or any time. "This referred to the opinion of Yorke and Talbot, subsequently recognized as law by Lord Hardwicke, sitting as chancelor. "The setting fourteen or fifteen thousand men" — the estimated number of negro slaves in England — "at once loose by a solemn opinion, is very disagreeable in the effects it threatens." But "if the parties will have judgment, fiat justitia ruat cœlum, let justice be done, whatever be the consequence. Fifty pounds may not be a high price; then a loss follows to the proprietors of above £700,000 sterling. How would the law stand in respect to their settlement — their wages? How many actions for any slight coercion by the master? We can not in any of these points direct the law, the law must direct us."
Afterward, in giving judgment, June 22, 1712, Lord Mansfield said: "The only question before us is whether the cause on the return is sufficient, If it is, the negro must be remanded; if it is not, he must be discharged. The return states that the slave departed, and refused to serve, whereupon he was kept to be sold abroad. So high an act of dominion must be recognized by the law of the country where it is used. The power of a master over his slave has been exceedingly different in different countries. The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created is erased from memory. It is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I can not say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England, and therefore the black must be discharged."
The continental congress which assembled in Philadelphia in 1784, made a declaration of colonial rights. As means of enforcing this claim of rights, fourteen articles were agreed to to form the basis of an "American Association," and in one of these articles the slave-trade was especially denounced; and entire abstinence from it, and from any trade with those concerned in it, formed a part of the association.