soon reconciled themselves not only to the traffic, but introduced the servitude as part of the economic system of their dependencies in America. That it became a fixture after its introduction in these colonies was due to the prerogative of the Home Government rather than to the importunities of the colonists, especially because it was a source of revenue to the Crown.

Within twelve years after its settlement, a Dutch man-of-war landed in September, 1619, a cargo of twenty slaves at Jamestown in Virginia.

Beginning with this introduction in Virginia slavery gradually made its way into all the thirteen colonies, and received the sanction of their several legislatures. Contrary to general belief, "Negro Slavery in the colonies never existed" nor was it originally established by law, but it rested wholly on custom. "Slavery where it existed, being the creature of custom, required positive law to establish or control it." In Virginia the acts first passed were "for the mere regulation of servants, the legal distinction between servants for a term of years (white immigrants under indenture), and servants for life (slaves).' The civil law rule as to descent was adopted by statute December 14, 1662. Eight years later, October 3, 1670, servants not Christians imported by shipping were declared slaves for life. Slavery was thus legalized in this colony.

In Maryland, slaves were first mentioned incidentally in a proposed law of 1638, four years after its settlement. The Swedes prohibited its establishment in Delaware, but the Dutch introduced it and gave it its first legal recognition in 1721, though it had existed in the colony as early as 1666.

In North Carolina white slavery was provided for in the Locke Constitution of 1673. In South Carolina the first legislation respecting it was February 7, 1690, before the two colonies were separated. The charter of Georgia prohibited slavery at

3 Lalor's Cyclopedia, Vol. III. Holmes Amer. Annals, Vol. I.

4 Locke Brittanica Encyclopedia.

the time of the establishment of the colony by Oglethorpe in 1733, but owing to popular clamor this prohibition was repealed in 1749 and the first legislative recognition of slavery was in 1755.5

Although slavery existed in Pennsylvania from the establishment of the colony, and was due to the Germans rather than the Quakers, a protest against it was made in 1688 by the Germantown Quakers. This was the first formal action against slavery since its introduction. In 1700 the legislature forbade selling beyond the borders of the State without the consent of the slave.

The Dutch have also the responsibility of bringing slavery into New Jersey, where it received its first legal recognition in 1664. It was in 1626 while New York was the Dutch colony of New Netherlands that African serfdom was introduced, but it received legal recognition in 1665. The traffic was never directly specifically established in Connecticut by statute, and the time of its introduction is unknown." In Rhode Island, May 19, 1652, the first act for the abolition of slavery was passed, but the law was not enforced.

In Massachusetts slavery was incidentally recognized in 1633. In 1636, a Salem ship began the importation of slaves from the West Indies, but in 1641 it was forbidden in the fundamental law. The statutes of New Hampshire show only two legal recognitions of slavery, by acts of 1714 and 1718, to regulate the conduct of servants and slaves and masters.

There was some difference between slavery in the North and in the South. This may be attributable to economic rather than to any moral causes. The African was fitted for service only as an agricultural laborer, and the character, size and location of the farms in New England and the Middle States in

Lalor's Cyclopedia.

• Lalor's Cyclopedia.

Slavery in New York, an historical sketch, A. Judd Northrup.

hibited the rapid growth and extension of chattel slavery in this section, whereas the raising of tobacco in Virginia, rice in South Carolina, also cotton, favored the employment of a large number of slaves in the southern section of our country. In both North and South the status of the slave was the same. In the eyes of the law he was a thing, a piece of personal property, and the laws recognizing and regulating it were framed with rigidity and executed with severity. By 1775 more than 300,000 Negroes were in the colonies along the coast from Maine to Georgia, distributed as follows: In New England, 25,000; New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, 50,000; in the remaining colonies of Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina and Georgia, 425,000. Relatively there were at this time 42 whites to 1 black in New England, 13 whites to 1 black in the middle colonies, while in the five southern colonies last mentioned the slave population was more than that of the whites.8

While the objection to the idea of property in man was the prevailing rule, it was by no means universal. Protests against it were by individuals rather than by communities and classes. Exception must be made as to the Quakers, whose protest in Germantown has already been instanced. They followed this up by an appeal in 1696 against any of their religious belief bringing in any more Negroes, and by their action at intervals in the eighteenth century. The majority of the men who cried aloud and spared not were the followers of George Fox. The circulation of the celebrated tract, "The Selling of Joseph" by the Colonial Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, was also a great factor in the growth of sentiment against slavery.

8 Estimated. See The Status of the Slave, 1775-1789, J. R. Brackett; The Const. History of the American People, Vol. I, F. R. Thorpe.

II

THE SLAVE CODE

THE Slave Code embodies statutes which show in an unmistakable manner the attitude of the colonies in different times and sections toward the enslaved African. So great a shock to the Christian religion was the idea of holding property in man when first suggested, that one of the first excuses was that the African was a heathen whom slavery would convert; then when the injustice of holding a fellow Christian in bonds was apparent, it was affirmed by statute that "conversion to or acceptance of Christianity does not presume or effect manumission either in person or posterity" so legislated Maryland in 1692, and Virginia in 1705 endorsed the doctrine. An act was passed in 1706 to encourage the baptizing of Negro, Indian or mulatto slaves and although a Virginia statute of 1682 had freed Negroes "born of Christian parents in England, the Spanish colonies, the English colonies and other Christian lands," it was virtually repealed by an act of 1705.

In the statutes of the colony of Virginia we note, "The Appearance of Negro, Indian and mulatto slaves after nightfall in the streets without a lighted candle was forbidden and none were permitted to absent themselves from a master's plantation without written certificate." This law was published every six months at the county court and the parish churches. It was specially designed to prevent the possibility of servile insurrections. Slaves accompanying their masters to free territory did not become free, ruled Lord Hardwicke and Lord Talbot in 1729; but forty-three years later Lord Mansfield in the

Somerset case declared that as soon as a slave set foot on the soil of the British Island he became free.

The emancipation of the slave in many colonies was impossible only in meritorious cases except by permission from a governor for which a license had to be issued. Such an instance was where "Will" was emancipated by the General Assembly of Virginia because he had been signally serviceable in discovering a conspiracy of divers Negroes in the county of Surry for levying war on the colony of Virginia. He was the slave of Elizabeth, the widow of Benjamin Harrison. The similarity of the name to that of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the father of one of the Presidents and the greatgrandfather of another, is at least suggestive.

Not only was emancipation thus carefully guarded, but to steal a slave was a capital offense punishable by death. Should a slave, who resisted his master or one acting under his authority while administering punishment, meet with death, the master or his agent was not guilty of a felony. The carrying of arms either for defense or offense without special written certificate was punishable with a penalty of from 20 to 39 lashes.

A statute was passed in 1764 ordering collars to be put on slaves to prevent their escape. Two unique advertisements further indicate the low estimate placed on the bondman. One from the London Gazette advertises for Col. Kirk's runaway black boy upon whose silver collar the inscription was, "My Lady Bromfield's black in Lincoln Inn Fields" and in the London Advertiser of 1756 a goldsmith in Westminster announces that he makes silver padlocks for blacks' or dogs' collars.

It could not be expected that the slave would be permitted to read and write, yet in 1744 Dr. Bearcroft1 of South Carolina refers to the purchase of two young Negroes when thoroughly qualified to become schoolmasters among their fellows. One such school was actually opened in Charleston, S. C., in which 1 Special Report U. S. Com. of Education 1870, p. 363.