THE PALE MESSENGER
The formation of the American Colonization Society stimulated interest
in Negro deportation. Both whites and blacks put many inquiries to
Cuffe. He was thought of as the prospective first governor of the
colony but he did not live to realize this. Near the end of his
career his advice to his people was to be quiet and trust in God;
be industrious and honest; such conduct is the greatest boon toward
liberation. "Experience is the best schoolmaster."
He took advantage of this correspondence to exhort his brethren to
improve their morals. To William Harris he wrote: "We must depart from
that Monster--I mean intemperance. Examine your selves, your families.
Are you clean? If not set about this work immediately.... Do not
admit him into your houses in any other shape than a mere medicine. I
formerly kept him company but for many years I have forsaken him and I
find great consolation thereby."
About a year before his death he gave sound financial advice to Edward
Cooke. In the postscript of the letter he wrote "My dear Friend Edward
Cooke, if I could know that thee had given up the use of strong drink,
I should feel rejoiced, and would render thee such aid, that thee
could soon become a man of property."
About the same time that he gave this advice, Isaac Gifford received
a "Watchword." "By experience," wrote the Captain, "I have ever found
when I attended to my business I seldom suffered loss. I have found it
to be good to make choice of good companions. I have ever found it not
to be profitable for me to sit long after dining and make a tipling
habit of wine and other liquors. These very people who adopt those
practices when they see a sober, steady man will put business in his
way. The surest way to conquer strong drink is to make no use of it.
We are born and we must die. Amen."
He points out to Joel Rogers, chosen to represent the Gayhead people,
the fields among his neighbors, "devastated either by creatures or
weeds." More frugality is needed. Excessive drink and idleness are
very destructive to society. These and similar truths were recommended
to Rogers to guide his work for his people. When Cuffe and his wife
with some relatives visited there, meeting was held, and "many lively
testimonies borne to the truth of their state and standing."
The admonitions were in accord with the life of Captain Cuffe. Another
lively testimony was given to young men in a meeting in Arch Street,
Philadelphia. He said to the young men that "he was afraid to dignify
what he had to say, by calling it a vision, but it appeared to him
at a time when he was very low in mind and much cast down, and being
very disconsolate, there appeared before him the form of a man,
inquiring what ailed him. He said he could not tell. The Form told him
the disease was in his heart, and he could show it to him. Upon his
expressing submission, the Form took a sharp instrument, separated his
heart from his body and laid it before him. He was greatly terrified
in viewing it, it being very unclear and contained all kinds of
abominable things. The Form said he could never be healed, till he
submitted to have his heart cleansed. Then, said he, I fear I never
shall be healed. But on the Form asking him, if he was willing to
have it cleansed, and he consenting, he took a sharp instrument and
separated all that was vile and closed up the heart, replaced it, and
healed the wound. Thus he said he felt himself a changed man and a new
creature, and then recommended the young men to that Physician who
could heal them, although their state was ever so deplorable.
"In the course of his testimony he also related that when he was
about twelve years of age he lived upon an island where there was no
house but that of his father. Being one evening near night sent on
an errand alone, he became afraid that he should meet with some wild
beast that would attack him. He crossed to a fence in order to cut a
stick to defend himself; but after cutting it, the thought occurred
that he was not on his father's ground, and as he had no right to the
stick it was not likely it would serve to defend him. On which he laid
it down, near the place he had taken it from and in recrossing the
fence laid his hand on a loose piece of wood which was on their own
ground resting against the fence. It proved to be a club, which he
took up, and went cheerfully on his way."[65]
It was while engaged in activity of this kind that he met "the pale
messenger." His health began to fail him early in the spring of 1817.
In April, however, he was well enough to attend Quarterly Meeting,
but in June he was "on the bed of languishing." An eminent Rhode
Island physician was summoned but he could not heal him. He doubtless
then realized what he himself expressed in these words to Samuel R.
Fisher, February 28, 1817: "May we often call to remembrance that we
have no certain containing city here but above all things may we seek
one to come whose builder is God that when we put off this body of
mortality we may be clothed with the spirit of immortality that we may
be prepared and favored to experience that glorious regeneration and
friendship of everlasting peace."
On the morning of July 27 the Captain took solemn leave of his family.
The hand that had guided the _Traveller_ to so many ports was now so
enfeebled that it was limp in the grasp of the little grandchildren.
He shook hands with all the relations and the immediate members of his
own household. As he bade them farewell it was "as broken a time,"
wrote his brother John, "as wast ever known amongst us." "Not many
days hence," he said to his neighbors, "and ye shall see the glory of
God; I know that my works are gone to judgment before me but it is
all well, it is all well." Day by day he kept failing and on first day
morning at two o'clock, September 9, the Captain was borne away on the
invisible but irresistible tide.[66]
The funeral exercises were held on the following Monday afternoon. In
marked solemnity a great concourse of people gathered. After waiting
in great silence his friends bore testimony to his work and merit.
He was buried in the Friends cemetery at the South Meeting House in
Westport, a place of worship formerly known as the Old Meeting House
when the Cuffe family worshipped there. "Many of his neighbors and
friends," said William Rotch, Jr., "evinced their respect for his
memory by attending his funeral (which was conducted agreeably to the
usages of the Society of Friends, of which he was a member) and at
which several lively testimonies were borne to the truth, that the
Almighty Parent has made of one blood all the nations of men, and
worketh righteousness, is accepted with him."[67]
The New York African Institution held services for him in October
following his death. The funeral sermon was preached in the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church by Peter Williams, Jr. That trait of
character which rendered Cuffe so eminently useful, said the speaker,
was "a steady perseverance in laudable undertaking, which overcomes
obstacles apparently insurmountable and attains its object, while
others fall back in despair."
"Shall I say to you, my African brethren," continued the Reverend Mr.
Williams, "go and do likewise? Subjected as we too generally are, to
multiplied evils of poverty, made more intolerant by the prejudices
which prevail against us, his example is worthy of our imitation. It
is only by an honest, industrious, and prudent husbanding of all the
means which are placed in our power, that we can hope to rise on the
scale of society."[68]
His death was chronicled in many papers with appropriate praise of
his life. _Niles Register_ noted that all classes of people esteemed
his morality, truth and intelligence.[69] _The Columbian Sentinel_
praised his charity and particularly his deep interest in his race.
"He was concerned not only to set them a good example by his own
correct conduct; to admonish and counsel them against the habits to
which he found them most prone; but more extensively to promote their
welfare."[70] _The Colonization Herald_ said, "Captain Cuffe was a man
of the strictest integrity, modest yet dignified in his manners, of
a feeling and liberal heart, public spirited and well versed in the
business of the world."[71]
"In the example of Paul Cuffe," said _The New York Spectator_, "the
free people of color in the United States may see the manner in which
they may require competency and reputation. It is the beaten path of
industry and integrity. Captain Cuffe cultivated his own farm and
guided his own ship. He labored with his own hands and kept his own
book of accounts. He did not waste his time in idleness, nor his
income in extravagance. He was never charged with intrigue in his
contracts, neglect in his promises, or fraud in his traffic.... His
example therefore, is capable of imitation by every free person of
color."[72]
ONE HUNDRED YEARS AFTER
Paul Cuffe had some descendants of consequence. Horatio P. Howard,
a great-grandson of Captain Cuffe, wrote a short biography of his
grandsire and erected a monument in his memory. Ruth Cuffe married
Alexander Howard and their son, Shadrack, was the father of Horatio.
He was born in New Bedford in 1854, and beginning in 1888 served as a
clerk in the Custom House in New York City. Howard died February 20,
1923, leaving considerable wealth, $5000 of which he bequeathed to
Hampton, and the balance of which he gave to Tuskegee as a fund to
establish Captain Paul Cuffe Scholarships.
The monument which Howard erected is of Westerly Rhode Island granite
and cost $400. It bears the inscription: "In memory of Captain Cuffe,
Patriot, Navigator, Educator, Philanthropist, Friend." It stands five
feet high on an elevation in the front part of the church yard and
along the principal highway.
The biography is a booklet containing twenty-eight pages and is
entitled "A Self-Made Man Captain Paul Cuffe." "By the erection
of this lasting Memorial," says Howard, "in honor of the courage,
achievements and life work of Capt. Paul Cuffe, a resident of
Westport, Massachusetts, for many years, the donor, a great grandson,
hopes to awaken and stimulate energy and ambition in the rising
generation of Negro youth, that they may profit thereby."
On June 15, 1913, dedication services were held in Central Village,
Westport. Rev. Tom A. Sykes, minister of the Westport Society of
Friends, presided. The exercises, which were attended by about two
hundred people, were opened by a flower brigade of school children led
by Horatio P. Howard. Flowers were strewn on the graves of the Captain
and his wife. Speeches were made by Rev. Mr. Sykes and Mr. Samuel T.
Rex, the designer of the monument. Miss Elizabeth C. Carter read a
paper descriptive of the career of Capt. Cuffe. Howard distributed his
booklet and showed a compass used by his great-grandfather on his last
voyages.
* * * * *
The life of Paul Cuffe is noteworthy for several reasons. In the first
place, it is a tribute to American democracy. He is an example of an
American youth handicapped on every side, but overcoming so well the
difficulties which overshadowed him that he won recognition in three
continents. There is no place in the world where such achievement
is less difficult than America. She offers opportunities for
self-recognition unprecedented in the world.
In the next place his life is a tribute to the Quakers. No religious
organization has given itself so unreservedly to the uplift of the
Negro. This devotion is as old as that which won our political
liberties, as deep as the scars on Edith Cavell's heart, and as wide
in its reach as the waters of the sea. Cuffe's membership in this
religious body and his adherence to its principles gave zest to his
zeal for the betterment of his race. His plans grew so comprehensive
that they embraced the Negroes of two continents and made calls on his
philanthropic spirit for several thousand dollars. In all this he paid
a tribute to Quaker ideals and life, and deserves mention with Woolman
and Benezet.
The remedy that he believed would relieve the oppression of his race
is also noteworthy. To him the withdrawal of the free Negro from the
States would remove an obstacle to the emancipation of the slave, and
in the course of time wholly stamp out slavery in America. Negroes
would be better off by themselves, and those who settled in Africa
could help civilize and Christianize that continent. In the meantime
the slave trade would disappear.
Negro deportation had been advocated by some of America's most
distinguished citizens and soon after Cuffe's death its advocates
increased by leaps and bounds. In the early period it was not as
futile as it now is and many believed that under governmental support
and direction it was in the realm of possibility. When the measure
took on its most colossal program in 1817, Cuffe cautioned his
brethren to watch its operation for a year or two before taking sides
for or against it.
Today Negro colonizationists are few in number. The American
Colonization Society itself barely maintains its organization, and
only occasionally sends a Negro to Africa. When an individual is
sent he usually goes in the capacity of a missionary or teacher.
Colonization as a panacea for the amelioration of the Negro race is
impracticable. The Negro feels at home in America as much as the
white man. Negro uplift must be sought not in deportation but in
habits of living exemplified in Captain Cuffe.
There is his industry and thrift. It is a long step from nothing
to twenty thousand dollars. And it is a hard step when there is
practically no initial footing. But Paul Cuffe did it, and did it
because he believed in work. He was always at his task. The dignity of
labor he knew and valued. And he knew how to save. He made his money
work for him. He stopped the leaks in his business boat. He spent
wisely and invested well.
There is his interest in education. The painstaking endeavor and
indefatigable effort which belonged to his labor in industry was
equally a part of his labor in education. It is difficult for us today
with our excellent opportunities for education to realize how meagre
they were in Paul Cuffe's day. And if they were meagre for whites a
century and one half ago they were all the more so for Negro children.
Despite the handicaps he not only mastered the three R's but the
principles of navigation as well.
He learned something more valuable than this--the fine art of
diffusing knowledge. So dearly did he value education for the youth
of his neighborhood that he himself on his own land erected a school
building. He made contributions to teachers' salaries. And most of
all, he taught the principles of navigation to every young man who
offered himself for instruction. Such devotion to a cause grows out of
a recognition of its great worth.
There is his interest in religion. He stood for righteousness. No
one ever charged him with unfair dealing. His business was clean. He
sought the fellowship of the church. He contributed to its needs and
gave personal testimony to the power of Christ. Religion was vital in
his life; he tried to foster it from Westport to Freetown. He was both
a home and a foreign missionary. He knew the value of prayer. He gave
advice that was tested first in his own experience.
Overshadowing his industry, his religion, and education stands his
optimism. He believed in the victory of righteousness; therefore,
he worked for it. He believed in the triumph of truth; therefore,
he dedicated himself to it. He realized the mastery of poverty;
therefore, he gave pursuit to wealth. He believed in the amelioration
of his race; therefore, he consecrated himself to it.
HENRY NOBLE SHERWOOD.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] This biography is based on the original journal, letters, and
papers of Paul Cuffe. They are preserved in the Public Library of
New Bedford, Massachusetts. I am under obligations to the Librarian,
George H. Pripp, for many favors in connection with the examination of
these manuscripts.
The petitions referred to in Chapter II are with the Cuffe papers. A
copy of the one presented to the Probate Court of Massachusetts Bay
was furnished by Mr. James J. Tracey, Chief of the Archives Division,
State House, Boston. The story of the lawsuit related in this same
chapter is based on the original papers to be found in the records of
the Bristol County, Taunton, Massachusetts, Probate Court. They were
examined for me by my Harvard classmate, Professor Arthur Buffinton of
Williams College.
I have previously published two articles bearing on this study.
Early Negro Deportation Projects appeared in the _Mississippi Valley
Historical Review_ for March, 1916, the Formation of the American
Colonization Society in the _Journal of Negro History_ for July,
1917. A third article, PAUL CUFFE AND HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE
AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY, in volume six of the _Proceedings
of the Mississippi Valley Historical Society_, was an attempt to
bring together a full statement of his life and service. Since the
publication of this study I found the original Cuffe Papers and have
made use of them in this biography. Another source of great help was
the _Life of William Allen with Selections from his Correspondence_,
2 vols., Philadelphia, 1847. A full account of the services in
connection with the memorial monument erected by Mr. Horatio P. Howard
is contained in the _New Bedford Morning Mercury_ and the _New Bedford
Standard_ for June 16, 1917.
[1] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, New Bedford, Massachusetts, Public Library,
from the bill of sale.
[2] Ruth Cuffe to Joseph Congdon, February 12, 1851.
[3] _Dartmouth, Massachusetts, Town Book of Records for Entries of
Intention of Marriage._
[4] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Memorandum of family marriages.
[5] _Book of Bristol County Land Records_, Vol. 50, 478, 479.
[6] His commercial activities are well told in _Memoirs of Paul
Cuffe_, York, 1812.
[7] See W. J. Allison in _Non-Slaveholder_, December, 1850.
[8] _Ibid._
[9] Peter Williams, _Discourse on the Death of Paul Cuffe, delivered
before the New York African Institution, October 21, 1817_.
[12] _Memoirs of Paul Cuffe_, 14, 15.
[14] Paul Cuffe to John and Jenny Cuffe, September 8, 1808.
[10] _Massachusetts Archives_, Vol. 186, 134-136.
[11] The quoted documents relating to the question of taxation are in
the _Records of the Court of General Sessions_, Taunton, Mass. They
were examined for the writer by Professor Arthur Buffinton of Williams
College.
[13] William Armistead, _Memoir of Paul Cuffe_ (London, 1846), 23.
[17] For an extended account of these movements see H. N. Sherwood,
_Early Negro Deportation Projects_, in Mississippi Valley Historical
Review, II, 484 et seq.
[18] _The Case of our Fellow Creatures, the Oppressed Africans,
respectfully recommended to the serious Consideration of the
Legislature of Great Britain, London_, 1784.
[19] In the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[20] _Life of William Allen with Selections from His Correspondence._
(2 vols., Philadelphia, 1847), I, 85, 86.
[21] In _Cuffe Manuscripts_. Dated January 5, 1811.
[22] The _Journal_ is in the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[23] _Life of William Allen_, I, 99-105.
[24] The diary is from _Paul Cuffe's Journal_ in the _Cuffe
Manuscripts_.
[25] _Life of William Allen_, I, 103.
[26] _The Seventh Report of the Directors of the African Institution_
is in the _Edinburgh Review_, XXI.
[27] _Life of William Allen_, I, 105.
[28] In the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[29] In the _Cuffe Manuscripts_. Dated June 12, 1812.
[30] _The Cuffe Manuscripts._ Dated June 12, 1812.
[31] In _Cuffe Manuscripts_. Paul Cuffe to William Allen, April 4,
1811.
A summary of his observations came out in print in 1812. It was called
"A Brief Account of the Settlement and Present Situation of the Colony
of Sierra Leone in Africa,"[32] and was dedicated to "his friend in
New York." It contains an account of the topography of the country and
states that the population was 2,518.
[32] Published in New York, 1812.
[33] On the Friendly Society see _Life of William Allen_, I, 105-116;
139, 140. _History of Prince Le Boo_ (Dublin, 1822), 162, 163; _Cuffe
Manuscripts_. Paul Cuffe to Samuel J. Mills, August 6, 1816.
[34] _Life of William Allen_, I, 133.
[35] _Annals of Congress_, 13th Congress, 2nd session, I, 861-1863;
_National Intelligencer_ for January 11, 1814, printed the memorial at
the request of its subscribers.
[36] _Annals of Congress_, 13th Congress, 2nd session, I, 1195, 1265.
[37] _Cuffe Manuscripts._
[38] _Second Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 122.
_The Western Courier_ (Louisville, Kentucky) for October 26. 1815,
reported Captain Cuffe's trip.
[39] A memorandum in Cuffe's handwriting and containing the details
concerning each passenger is in the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[40] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Paul Cuffe to William Allen, April 1, 1816.
[41] _Ibid._
[42] _Second Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 121,
122.
[43] _Second Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 121.
[44] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Paul Cuffe to T. Brine, January 16, 1817.
[45] Memorandum made by Cuffe in _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[46] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Paul Cuffe to John Kizell, August 14, 1816.
[47] _Ibid._, Paul Cuffe to James Wise, September 15, 1816.
[48] Quoted in Williams, _Discourse on the Death of Paul Cuffe_.
[49] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Paul Cuffe to Samuel C. Aiken, August 7,
1816.
[50] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Paul Cuffe to James Forten, August 14, 1816.
[51] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, James Forten to Paul Cuffe, January 16, 1817.
[52] _Ibid._, Paul Cuffe to the Imposter, January 13, 1817.
[53] For an extended account of the activities mentioned in this
paragraph see N. H. Sherwood, _The Formation of the American
Colonization Society_, in THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, July, 1917.
[54] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Robert Finley to Paul Cuffe, December 5,
1816.
[55] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Samuel J. Mills to Paul Cuffe, March 12,
1817. See also Richard, _Life of Samuel J. Mills_ (Boston, 1906);
Spring, _Memoir of Mills_ (Boston and New York, 1829); Brown,
_Biography of Robert Finley_ (Philadelphia, 1857).
[56] Brown, _Finley_, 83.
[57] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Samuel J. Mills to Paul Cuffe, March 12,
1817.
[58] _Ibid._, James Forten to Paul Cuffe, January 25, 1817.
[59] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Samuel J. Mills to Paul Cuffe, July 14, 1817.
[60] _Second Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 151.
[61] _Ibid._, 150.
[62] _Second Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 152,
153.
[63] See also Brown, _Finley_, note L.
[64] _First Annual Report of the American Colonization Society_, 5.
[65] Memorandum in the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[66] Cf. _Cuffe Manuscripts_, John Cuffe to Freelove Cuffe, September
10, 1817; David Cuffe, Jr., to Freelove Cuffe, July 8, 1817.
[67] Clipping in the _Cuffe Manuscripts_.
[68] Peter Williams, _Discourse on the Death of Paul Cuffe_.
[69] _Niles Register_, XIII, 64.
[70] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Clipping from _Columbian Sentinel_,
September 17, 1817.
[71] _Ibid._, Clipping from _The Colonization Herald_.
[72] _Cuffe Manuscripts_, Clipping from _New York Spectator_, October,
1817.
DOCUMENTS
THE WILL OF PAUL CUFFE
Be it remembered, that I, Paul Cuffe of Westport in the County of
Bristol and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, yeoman, being at this time
(through mercy) in health and of a sound, disposing mind and memory,
and considering that it is appointed for all men once to die, I do
make and ordain this my last will and testament in the followering
manner (viz.)
Imprimis. My will is, and I hearin order, that my just debts and
funeral charges together with the expenses of setteling my estate be
paid by my executors herein after named, out of my estate.
Item. I give unto my wife Alice Cuffe all my houshould goods except
my two desks and book case, and books; I also give her in lieu of her
right of dower in my estate, so long as she shall remain my widow, the
use and improvement of my now dwelling house and the one half of all
my lands, together with one half of the live stock, and all the famely
provisions that may be on hand at my decease, and one hundred dollars
in money, and all the profits arising from my half of the salt works,
that Joseph Tripp & I built together. Should the salt works not be in
operation before this will is proved or should not be built, then my
will is she should have one hundred dollars annually.
Item. I give unto my daughter in law Lydia Wainer one hundred dollars.
Item. I give unto my daughter Mary Phelpess & to her heirs and assigns
forever, the house and lot of land which I bought of Lucy Castino.
Item. I give unto my son Paul Cuffe, and to his oldest male heir
forever, the farm that was given to me by my father Cuffe Slocum, and
my maple desk, also one half of my wereing appearl, my will further
is that five hundred dollars be retained out of my estate, and put to
interest in some safe hands, the income of which I order to be used
annually for the support of my son Paul Cuffe' family, forever. I
also order that one fourth part of the brig Traveller together with
the five hundred dollars, be placed under care and guardianship of my
executors, in order that my son Paul and his heirs, might be benefited
by it yearly and every year forever, also the one sixth part of the
residue be placed under the care & guardianship of my executors for
the benefit of Paul & his heirs as above mentioned, forever.
Item. I give unto my son William Cuffe and to his oldest male heir
forever, the lot of land which I bought of Ebenezer Eddy called the
Allen lot, and one fourth part of the brig Traveller, and my walnut
desk and book case standing thereon, and Johnsons Dictionary in two
volums, and one half of my weareing appearel, and three hundred
dollars in money, to be laid out in building him a dwelling house on
the Allen lot.
Item. I give unto my cousin Ruth Cottell fifty dollars. Ruth Howard,
Alice Cuffe Jr. and Rhoda Cuffe one half of the brig Traveller, that
is to each one of them one eighth part.
Item. I give unto my two grand daughters, namely, Almira Howard and
Alice Howard, daughters of my daughters Naomi Howard deceased, fifty
dollars to each one, when and as they arive to the age of twenty one
years.
Item. I give unto my cousin Ruth Cottell fifty dollars.
Item. I give unto my brother David Cuffe ten dollars.
Item. I give unto my brother Jonathan Cuffe ten dollars.
Item. I give unto my brother John Cuffe ten dollars.
Item. I give unto my sister Freelove Cuffe ten dollars.
Item. I give unto my sister Fear Phelpess ten dollars.
Item. I give unto my three sisters namely Sarah Durfee, Lydia Cuffe
and Ruth Weeden, six dollars annually to each one dureing their
natural life. Should they or either of them make bad use of the money
given them, in such a case I request my executors to pay them in
provision or cloathing, and such things that may be for their comfort.
Item. I give unto the monthly meeting or society of friends, called
Quakers in Westport, fifty dollars, to be paid over to their
treasurer, by my executors, according to direction of the monthly
meeting.
Item. My mind and will is that those daughters that are single and
unmarried, shall have privelege to live in the house with their
mother, and, after their mothers decease, they to have the privelege
to live in and occupie the south part of the house, with privelege to
the well and in the seller and garden to raise saurce in so long as
they remain singel and unmaried.
I give unto my two said sons and four daughters namely Paul, William,
Mary, Ruth, Alice and Rhoda all the rest and residue of my estate not
hearin otherwise disposed of to be divided between them six equally.
And my will further is, that the one fourth part of the brig Traveller
and the one sixth part of the residue, that I have herein given to my
son William, I place under the care and guardianship of my executors,
to order the use of the same as they shall think best for Williams
interest, untill he arives to twenty five years of age. Then if his
care and conduct be good, they then are requested to pay the whole
over to him together with all the profits ariseing from it.
And my will further is, the balance that may become due to my estate
not hearin otherwise disposed of to be divided between or otherway be
given up to them.
I further order that all land that I have bought belonging to the
estate of Benjmin Cook late of Dartmouth deceased, be returned to the
widow and the heirs, they paying what the land cost and interest.
And my will further is that for the payments annually that my
executors retain enough of the residue of my estate to put on interest
to rais the anual payments mentioned in this way last will.
Lastly. I do constitute and apoint William Rotch Junr. of New Bedford
and Daniel Wing of Westport aforesaid executors of this my last will
and testament.
In testemony whereof I do hear unto set my hand and seal eighteenth
day of the fourth month in the year of our Lord one thousand eight
hundred and seventeen 1817.
Paul Cuffe (seal)
Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said Paul Cuffe as and
for his last will and testament in the presence of us
EDWARD PHILLIPS
LUTHAN TRIPP
DAVID M. GIFFORD
Oct. 7, 1817, Approved.
From the Records of the Probate Office, Taunton, Mass.
BOOK REVIEWS
_Africa and the Discovery of America._ Volume II. By LEO WIENER,
Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard
University. Innes & Sons, Philadelphia, Pa. 1922.
Professor Wiener, in the second volume of his series _Africa and
the Discovery of America_, deals exhaustively with the documentary
information relating to "the presence in America of cotton, tobacco
and shell money, before the discovery of America by Columbus.... The
accumulative evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of an introduction
of the articles under discussion from Africa by European or Negro
traders, decades earlier than 1492." (Foreword, p. ix.)
The importance, for the history of Pre-Columbian civilization,
of these discoveries cannot be overestimated. Moreover, their
significance is not concerned alone with the history of America.
They will compel a revision and realignment of historical frontiers
in Europe and Africa as well, from a date not later than the first
quarter of the fifteenth century. Lastly, "Africa and the Discovery
of America" forms, as it were, a sequel to Professor Wiener's
_Contributions toward a History of Arabico-Gothic Culture_, enabling
the historian to trace the influence of the Arabs as the torch-bearers
of civilization. It was they who in the eighth century, through the
medium of the Spanish Mozarabs, recreated European culture, and at a
later period, through that of the Arabicised Negroes, of whom the West
African Mandingoes were the most important, at least almost entirely
re-created, if they did not actually create, the civilization of the
native American tribes, throughout both continents, and planted, so
to speak, in the New World, the seeds of two great modern industries,
cotton and tobacco.
Let us then consider, first, what is the bearing of Professor Wiener's
work on the history of cotton. Assyria and India were centers of
cotton culture at a very early date. The evidence that the Arabs
popularized cotton in Africa, in connection with the ceremonial
purification of the dead, that is, stuffing the orifices of the body
with cotton, is shown by the fact that Arabic _'utb_ "cotton," a loan
word from Coptic _tbbe_ "to purify," has produced the West African
"cotton" words, exactly as Arabic _wudu'_ "ablution" has given rise,
doubtless through Hausa influence, to the "cotton" words of Nigeria.
What is particularly important to note, however, is that Arabic
_qutn_ "cotton" has gone everywhere into the Mandingo dialects, which
have, in turn, influenced the native American languages. Thus for
example, in South America, the Mandingo _kotondo_, etc., "cotton,"
derived from Arabic _qutn_, has left derivatives in the Indian
languages "from Venezuela south to Peru, and in Central Brazil"
(page 80), beside derivatives from Kimbunou _mujinha_ "cotton," in
eastern Brazil, northward and westward. If we concede the presence
of cotton in South America before Columbus, we can only conclude,
on the basis of linguistic evidence, that it was introduced either
directly or indirectly from Africa. The Aztec word _ychca_, the
native Mexican word for "cotton," furnishes no proof that cotton
was known to the Mexicans before the coming of the Spaniards, since
_ychca_ is not originally a specific name, but has reference to any
kind of fibre,--of a fluffy character, and came to mean "cotton" only
secondarily.
Columbus, however, reported that on Oct. 11, 1492, the Indians of
Guanahani brought parrots and cotton thread in balls, to trade for
beads and hawks' bills. Either he told the truth, or he did not. If
he told the truth, it is still remarkable that the Indians should
not only have known of the traders' demand for cotton and parrots,
but should also have offered the very articles which Cada Mosto,
nearly fifty years earlier, had mentioned as coming from Africa,
particularly the cotton, then offered for sale in the Negro markets.
Columbus's references to growing cotton are specific in declaring
that the cotton grew on trees,--hence it is obvious that he did not
see any true cotton growing, but only the false cotton, the product
of the tree Bombax Ceiba, used for stuffing mats, but not capable
of being spun (page 28). A study of the early records of Mexico is
conclusive in the evidence it furnishes to show that cotton never
formed part of the tribute due the Mexican emperor, but that the
payment of tribute in cotton was "an innovation of the Spaniards,
and did not have the sanction of the Aztec tribute" (page 56). Hence
we have nothing to indicate that, either in the Indies or in Mexico,
the material of which the "cotton clothing" of the natives, mentioned
by the Spaniards, was made, was really cotton. If it was cotton,
its presence points to contact between America and Africa before
Columbus, and the readiness of the natives to offer cotton in exchange
for hawks' bills testifies clearly to the extent of trade relations
between the two countries.
The contention of archæologists is that cotton culture in Peru
may go back to a date as early as 200 A.D. The only criterion for
such an assumption rests on the theoretical rate of accumulation
of guano deposits, in which mummies, wrapped in cotton, have been
found,--calculated at two and one half feet per century. This
conclusion is absurd, not only for the stress it lays on the
capricious habits of sea-birds, but also for the reason that it fails
to take into account the irregularity of the guano deposits, as shown
in the Peruvian Government Survey of 1854. No conclusion whatever as
to the age of even a single mummy-case can be drawn, owing to certain
facts concerning Indian burial customs, recorded by Cieza de Leon
in 1553, Ondegardo in 1571, and Cobo, nearly a century later. These
travellers state that the Peruvian natives were accustomed to open
graves, change the clothes of the dead from time to time, and re-bury
them (page 67 ff.). The proof that they told the truth is contained
in the report by Baessler, of the X-ray examinations of Peruvian
mummy-packs in the Royal Museum at Berlin. One such pack contains
"the bones of _four separate individuals_, but of none there were
enough to construct even distantly one complete skeleton. Besides,
there were some _animal bones_ present" (page 71). This disinterment
of bodies, and of course the same confusion of the remains, revealed
by the X-ray, was practised by the Indians as late as 1621. Nothing
then remains to militate against the linguistic testimony so strongly
in support of the conclusion that South American cotton culture is of
African origin.
Professor Wiener's tentative conclusion that tobacco smoking was
of African origin, outlined in his first volume of this series,
has been strongly reinforced by a study of the Old-World origin of
capnotherapy. "Smoking for medicinal purposes," he says on page 180,
"is very old, and goes back at least to Greek medicine. A large
number of viscous substances, especially henbane and bitumen, were
employed in fumigation, and taken through the mouth, sometimes through
the nose, for certain diseases, especially catarrh, toothache and
pulmonary troubles. This fumigation took place through a funnel which
very much resembles a modern pipe, but by its knot-like end at the
bottom of the bowl shows its derivation from the distilling cap of
the alchemist's retort." The _bitumen_ corresponds to the _tubbaq_
or _tobbaq_ of the Arab doctors, a name applied to several medicinal
plants containing a pungent and viscous juice. One of these plants was
known in Spain as _tobbaqah_.
Fumigation as a curative measure soon degenerated in Europe into
quackery,--the Arab smoke doctor giving place to the itinerant
charlatan whose Arabic name lingers in Portuguese _bufarinheiro_
"peddler," originally "smoke vender." In Africa, medical fumigation
spread southward through the Negro country, finding its way to America
perhaps a full century before the coming of Columbus. The manner in
which smoking was introduced into America is made clear by the history
of the Negro _pombeiro_, the African bootlegger in the service of the
Portuguese colonists, who taught the natives to drink _pombe_, a kind
of intoxicating liquor. This word _pombe_ is a corruption of Latin
_pulpa_, which through the Spanish _pulpa_ has persisted in Mexico
as _pulque_, the name of an intoxicant used by the Indians, exactly
as Arabic _hashish_, through Spanish _chicha_, has entered Nahuatl,
producing the Nahuatl _chichila_ "to ferment, etc." The method of
preparing the _chicha_ in Peru, by masticating grain, is clearly
of African origin, since in the Sudan, a kind of drink is made by
chewing the fruit of the baobab. The clearest proof, however, that
such _pombeiros_ reached America in Pre-Columbian days is found in
Columbus's reference to the report by the Indians of Hispaniola, that
"_black people_ had come thither from the south and south east, with
spearheads of _guanin_." Now _guanin_ is a Mandingo word; the name of
an alloy of 18 parts of gold, 6 of silver and 8 of copper.
The history of shell and bead money, familiar as the wampum of
the northern Indians, forms the third part of the present volume,
and is perhaps the source of the strongest arguments to show the
Pre-Columbian relation of Africa and America. Ultimately, the use of
cowry shells for money comes from China, where such shells, called
_pei_, _tze-pei_, _pei-tze_, had been used from time immemorial. The
Chinese name of the cowry, _ho-pei_, probably anciently pronounced
something like _ka-par_, is evidently the origin of Sanskrit
_kaparda_, Hindustani _kauri_ (whence English _cowry_), Dravidian
_kavadi_ "cowry." "From the ninth century on, we have many references
in the Arabic authors to the cowries in Asia and Africa" (page 208).
It is quite to be expected, then, that in the Negro languages, we
should find derivatives of this ultimately Chinese word, descended
through the medium of successive borrowings, via Hindustani and
Arabic,--that is, Hausa _al-kawara_, _kawara_, etc., Zanzibar
_kauri_, Wolof _korre_, Bambara _kori_, etc., side by side with a
group descended from Dravidian _woda_ "shell,"--that is Hausa _wori_,
Malinke _wuri_, Bambara _wari_.
The substitution of beads for shells, as the development of this
primitive form of currency went on, has left its mark likewise in
linguistic records. That is to say, we have in Africa a group of
words descended ultimately from Chinese _par_, _pei_, originally
meaning "cowry," and secondarily "bead," together with a new group,
traceable through an Arabic intermediary stage to Persian _sang_
"onyx," the bead-stone par excellence. From the cowry-words have
come Benin _cori_, _kori_, _koli_, "blue bead," whence _akori_, the
"_aggry_" bead of the white traders, Neule _gri_ "beads," and Baule
_worye_ "blue bead," a loan-word from Mandingo _wori_. In Bantu
_zimbo_, we have either a Bantu plural of _abuy_, itself a derivative
of Maldive _boli_, _bolli_, which is the Chinese _pei_ "cowry," or a
direct loan-word, through Arabic or Portuguese influence, of Chinese
_tsze-pei_ "purple shell." The transference in meaning from "cowry"
to "bead" is illustrated in Kaffir _in-tsimbi_ "beads." Similarly,
the original "bead" words, from Persian _sang_ "onyx," have given
Zanzibar, Swahili _ushanga_ "bead," Kongo _nsanga_ "string of blue
beads," with a recession of meaning in Kongo _nsungu_ "cowry shell."
The transference of African currency to America is shown by two
significant facts. First, we have the name. In the Brazilian _caang_
"to prove, try," _caangaba_ "mould, picture, etc.," is to be seen
a form of some African derivative of Persian _sang_, as seen in
Zanzibar _ushanga_ "bead," Kongo _nsanga_ "blue beads," etc., the
change of meaning leading to the connotation "mould" being due to
the substitution of the European idea of money as a piece of stamped
metal, in place of that of bead or shell money. Exactly as the
_petun_ words for tobacco spread from South to North America along
the trade routes, so the words for "money" followed the same course.
Jacques Cartier's word _esnogny_, given as the Indian name of shell
money,--the shells actually gathered by an African method of fishing
for shell-fish with a dead body,--is traceable only to some form of
the Brazillian _çaang_, which has also given Gree _soniwaw_ "silver,"
Long Island _sewan_ "money." The Chino-African cowry-word, seen in
African _abuy_, is preserved in the North American _bi_, _pi_ (plural
_peag_, _peak_) "wampum," side by side with the Guarani _mboi_,
_poi_, "shell bead." Lest the reader still harbor a lingering doubt of
the fact of early trade relations between Brazil and Canada, Professor
Wiener shows how Spanish _aguja_ "needle" has left derivatives in a
large number of Indian languages distant by many hundreds of miles
from any Spanish settlement.
Secondly, we have the standard of value. From the earliest times, in
China, the purple cowry was more valuable than the white. The same
standard prevailed in Africa, and was transferred to the beads when
beads were substituted for cowries. Among the Indians, the _blue_, or
_dark colored_ currency, whether shells or beads, was consistently
reckoned as superior in worth to the white. Shell-money was first
popularized on Long Island by the Dutch, who, as we are informed,
imported cowries and _aggry_ beads from the East to sell them to the
Guinea-merchants. Moreover, Gov. Bradford has stated that it took the
Massachusetts colonists two years to teach the Indians to use shell or
bead money. Finally, Professor Wiener concludes that "in the Norman
country, ... the wampum belt, as a precious ornament for European
women, had its origin, and was by the Frenchmen transferred to Brazil
and Canada" (page 258).
The fifteen full-page illustrations serve well to bring home much of
the force of the arguments, even to a casual reader.
PHILLIPS BARRY, A.M., S.T.B.
GROTON, MASSACHUSETTS.
* * * * *
_The Negro Press in the United States._ By FREDERICK G. DETWEILER.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1922. Pp. 274.
Struck by the number and distribution of Negro magazines and
newspapers, many investigators in the social sciences have recently
directed their attention to the study of the Negro press. This
increased interest resulted largely from the unusual impetus given
the Negro press during the World War when it played the part of
proclaiming the oppression of the Negroes to the nations pretending
to be fighting for democracy when they were actually oppressing
their brethren of color at home. And why should not the public be
startled when the average Negro periodical, formerly eking out an
existence, became extensively circulated almost suddenly and began to
wield unusual influence in shaping the policy of an oppressed group
ambitious to right its wrongs? These investigators, therefore, desire
to know the influences at work in advancing the circulation of these
periodicals, the cause of the change of the attitude of the Negroes
toward their publications, their literary ability to appreciate them,
the areas of their greatest circulation, and the attitude of the white
people toward the opinion of this race.
While it is intended as a sort of scientific work treating this
field more seriously than Professor Robert T. Kerlin's _The Voice of
the Negro_, it leaves the impression that the ground has not been
thoroughly covered. In the first place, the author does not show
sufficient appreciation of the historic background of the Negro press
prior to emancipation. He seems acquainted with such distinguished
characters as Samuel Cornish, John B. Russwurm, and the like but
inadequately treats or casually passes over the achievements of many
others who attained considerable fame in the editorial world. In any
work purporting to be a scientific treatment of the Negro press in
the United States the field cannot be covered by a chapter of twenty
pages as the author in question has undertaken to do. Furthermore,
many of the underlying movements such as abolition, colonization,
and temperance, which determined the rise and the fall of the Negro
editor prior to the Civil War, are not sufficiently discussed and
scientifically connected in this work. The book, then, so far as
the period prior to the Civil War is concerned, is not a valuable
contribution.
The author seemed to know more about the Negro press in freedom.
Living nearer to these developments he was doubtless able to obtain
many of these facts at first-hand and was able to present them more
effectively. He well sets forth the favorite themes of the Negro
press and the general make-up of the Negro paper, but does not
sufficiently establish causes for this particular trend in this sort
of journalism. Taking up the question of the demand for rights, the
author explains very clearly what the Negro press has stood for. Then
he seemingly goes astray in the discussion of the solution of the
race problem, Negro life, Negro poetry, and Negro criticism, which
do not peculiarly concern the Negro editor more than others in the
various walks of life. Looking at the problem from the outside and
through a glass darkly, as almost any white man who has spent little
time among Negroes must do, the work is about as thorough as most of
such investigators can make it and it should be read by all persons
directing attention to the Negro problem.
* * * * *
_The Disruption of Virginia._ By JAMES C. MCGREGOR. The Macmillan
Company, New York, 1922. Pp. 328, price $2.00.
This book was written, according to the author, as an attempt to
present an unbiased account of the strange course of events in
the history of Virginia from the time of Lincoln's election to
the presidency to the time of the admission of West Virginia into
the Union. It is, however, more of a polemic than an historical
contribution. The author raises this very question himself by his
declaration that he has no grudges to satisfy and no patrons to
please. "If he seems harsh in his opinions and conclusions regarding
the irregular and inexpedient methods employed in cutting off the
western counties of Virginia and forming them into a new State,"
says he, "it is due to the conviction that an unnecessary wrong was
committed, a wrong that helped not at all in Lincoln's prosecution
of the Civil War." The author is convinced that not only was the
act unconstitutional but that it was not desired by more than a
small minority of the people of the new State. He believes that
the President and Congress, being grateful to the Union men in
northwestern Virginia for their loyalty to the Union, rewarded them
by giving their consent to the organization of a new State which,
nevertheless, was in violation of the principles of the Constitution.
Unlike Professor C. H. Ambler who, in his _Sectionalism in Virginia_,
has set forth in detail the differing political interests of the
sections of Virginia, this author reduces it to a mere exploit on
the basis that the end justified the means. Furthermore, the author
differs widely from C. G. Woodson who in an unpublished thesis
similarly entitled _The Disruption of Virginia_, presented in 1911 to
the Graduate School of Harvard University in partial fulfilment of the
requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, emphasized the
economic differences as the underlying causes. Dr. McGregor minimizes
such causes by reducing his treatment of the economic situation to a
single chapter of ten pages. He then briefly discusses the opening of
the breach, the Constitutional Convention of 1829-30 and the growth of
sectionalism between that Convention and the Civil War. Approaching
the main feature of the work, the author takes up the preliminaries of
the Convention of 1861, the various conventions of the northwestern
counties out of which evolved the organization of the new State of
West Virginia, and finally the question of admission before Congress.
Why such a work could be considered necessary and accepted as a
contribution in this particular field when valuable works have
already been written upon this subject, is justified by the author
on the ground that he has discovered considerable new material which
convinces him that the new State movement in West Virginia was
unrepresentative of the majority of the people of the northwestern
counties but was put through in dictatorial fashion by a militant
minority. It is true that some new material has been added to this
work, but it hardly convinces well informed historians that the
far-reaching and sweeping conclusion of the author are justified by
the few additional facts which he has been able to find. Almost a
causal study of the history of Virginia shows that the western part
of the State became estranged from the eastern because their economic
interests were different and the authorities failed to make the
improvements necessary to connect these sections and thus unify such
interests. By the time of the Civil War the northwestern counties
were commercially connected with the North and West and accordingly
followed these in that upheaval.
* * * * *
_A Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages.
Volume II._ By SIR HARRY H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., Sc.D.
(Cambridge). The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1922. Pp. 544.
This work is the result of a study of the Bantu languages commenced
by the author in 1881 in the Library of the British Museum, and
instigated by the project of accompanying the Earl of Mayo on an
exploratory expedition in South West Africa, Angola and the countries
south and east of the Kunene River. The expedition, according to
the author, was extended by him to the upper Congo thanks to the
assistance offered by H. M. Stanley. With this large view of Africa
his studies were continued with little intermission during the forty
years which followed his first introduction into that continent. Even
the World War itself was not exactly an interruption but permitted
the author to extend the scope of his research by bringing him into
closer acquaintance with certain of the western Semi-Bantu languages
through the presence in France of contingents of Senegambian troops.
The Colonial office, moreover, assisted the work by requesting its
officials in British West Africa to examine the Semi-Bantu languages
of British Nigeria, South-west Togoland, Sierra Leone and the Gambia.
Furthermore, an important discovery of two Bantu languages was made in
the southern part of the Anglo-Egyptian province of Bahr-al-ghazal. He
is indebted to Mr. Northcote W. Thomas's researches which revealed
new and interesting forms of Semi-Bantu speech in the Cross River
districts of Southern Nigeria. In the comparison of roots, moreover,
the author had considerably more material to draw on than in the case
of the first volume. He found also much more information concerning
H[=o]ma and Bañgminda through Major Paul Larkin and Captain White.
These are the chief features which, he believes, make the second
volume a valuable contribution.
In spite of the extensive investigation, however, the author still
finds a good deal about which he is not certain. About many of these
languages he knows little regarding their structure and grammar.
In other words they have been studied merely from the outside. In
spite of his extensive travels, moreover, he had so much to do and
apparently such a short time in which to accomplish his task that
this work, as valuable as it is, can be considered no more than an
introductory treatise going a little further into a field inadequately
explored. Already he says he finds that he has been reproached for not
bringing within the scope of these two volumes a group of languages
in the North-east Togoland and Kisi and the Limba tongues of Sierra
Leone. Yet although he finds that these have some Bantu features, they
were too mixed to justify their treatment here. He found resemblances
of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu families elsewhere but not closely enough
akin to require their treatment in connection with this work.
Beginning with a treatment of the enumeration and classification of
the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages, the work reviews the languages
illustrated in Volume I. Attention is directed to the Bantu in various
regions of the continent. The author then discusses the phonetics and
phonology of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages, prefixes, suffixes,
and concords connected with the noun in Bantu and Semi-Bantu,
adjectives, pronouns, numerals, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions,
the verbs and verb roots. The maps graphically show the probable
origins and lines of migration of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages
and their distribution in Central and South Africa.
On the whole, the world is indebted to Sir Harry H. Johnston for his
enumeration and classification of these tongues, although the work
merely marks the beginning of a neglected task. Until some scholar
with better opportunities to carry forward this research has produced
a more scientific treatise, the works of the author will be referred
to as interesting and valuable volumes.
NOTES
On February 20, 1923, there passed away in New York City a Negro
of no little distinction in his particular group. This was Horatio
P. Howard, the great grandson of Captain Paul Cuffe of African
colonization fame. Howard was the grandson of the Captain's daughter
Ruth, who married Alexander Howard, and the child of their son
Shadrach. Howard was born in New Bedford in 1854 and beginning in
1888 served as a clerk in the Custom House in New York City where he
accumulated considerable wealth which, inasmuch as he lived and died
a bachelor, he disposed of for philanthropic purposes. He bequeathed
$5000 to Hampton and the balance of his estate he gave to Tuskegee as
a fund to establish Captain Paul Cuffe scholarships.
Hoping to inculcate an appreciation of the achievements of his great
grandfather, he erected to his memory a monument at a cost of $400
dedicated in 1917 with appropriate exercises by the people of both
races and made still more impressive by a parade which Howard himself
led. On that occasion, moreover, he distributed his interesting
biography of the great pioneer in the form of a booklet entitled _A
Self-Made Man, Captain Paul Cuffe_.
Henry Allen Wallace, one of the colaborers in unearthing and
preserving the records of the Negro, died on the 12th of February. He
was the son of Andrew and Martha Wallace and was born in Columbia,
South Carolina, about sixty-seven years ago. He was educated in the
public schools of Toronto, Canada, the University of Toronto, and
Howard University. He began his public life as a clerk in the post
office at Columbia, and in the early days of civil service secured, by
success in a competitive examination, an appointment as clerk in the
War Department in Washington. There he served with an unbroken record
for over thirty years, after which he was transferred to the New York
office with which he was connected until about eighteen months ago
when on account of ill health he was compelled to retire. He afterward
made his home with his sister in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he died.
Mr. Wallace was well informed on matters pertaining to the race during
the Reconstruction and freely contributed to magazines publishing
such material. Furthermore, his assistance was often solicited to
correct manuscripts prepared by others who knew less of this drama
in our history. His service in connection with finding the names of
Negroes who served in southern legislatures and his letters, both of
which have appeared from time to time in THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY,
constitute valuable contributions in this field.
* * * * *
SPRING CONFERENCE
On the 5th and 6th of April there will be held in Baltimore the
Spring Conference of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and
History. Members of the administrative staff including Professor John
R. Hawkins, the Chairman, Mr. S. W. Rutherford, Secretary-Treasurer,
and others of the Executive Council, are making extensive preparation
for this Conference. The aim will be to bring together teachers and
public-spirited citizens with an appreciation of the value of the
written record and of research as a factor in correcting error and
promoting the truth. The heads of all accredited institutions of
learning have been invited to take an active part in this convocation.
As it is to be held in Baltimore, near which are located so many of
our colleges and universities, it is believed that this Conference
will prove to be one of the most successful in the history of the
Association.
The program will cover two days and will offer an opportunity for the
discussion of every phase of Negro life and history. On Thursday there
will be a morning session at 11:00 at Morgan College and an afternoon
session there at 3:00 P. M. On the following day the morning session
will be held at the Douglass Theatre at 12:00 M. and the afternoon
session at the Druid Hill Avenue Y. M. C. A. at 3:00 P. M. The two
evening sessions will go to the Bethel A. M. E. Church. In addition to
these, special groups of persons cooperating with the Association will
hold conferences in the interest of matters peculiar to their needs.
Among the speakers will be Professor Kelly Miller, Mr. L. E. James,
Mr. Leslie Pinckney Hill, Dr. William Pickens, and Dr. J. O. Spencer.
An effort will be made to arouse interest and to arrange for
conducting throughout the country a campaign for collecting
facts bearing on the Negro prior to the Civil War and during the
Reconstruction period. The field is now being exploited by a staff
of investigators of the Association. It is earnestly desired that all
persons having documentary knowledge of these phases of Negro History
will not only give the Association the advantage of such information,
but will attend this Conference to devise plans for a more successful
prosecution of this particular work.
Another concern of the Conference will be to stimulate interest in
the collection of Negro folklore for which there is offered a prize
of $200 for the best collection of tales, riddles, proverbs, sayings
and songs, which have been heard in Negro homes. The aim is to study
the Negro mind in relation to its environment at various periods in
the history of the race and in different parts of the country. The
students of a number of institutions of learning are already at work
preparing their collections to compete for this prize, and it is
hoped that a still larger number will do likewise. This special work
is under the supervision of a committee composed of Dr. Elsie Clews
Parsons, Assistant Editor of the _Journal of American Folklore_, Dr.
Franz Boas, Professor of Anthropology in Columbia University and a
member of the Executive Council of the Association, and Dr. Carter G.
Woodson, Editor of THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY.
THE JOURNAL
OF
NEGRO HISTORY
VOL. VIII., NO. 3 JULY, 1923.
NEGRO SERVITUDE IN THE UNITED STATES[A]
SERVITUDE DISTINGUISHED FROM SLAVERY
The first Negroes in the American colonies were called Africans,
Blackamores, Moores, Negars, Negers, Negros, Negroes, and the
like.[1] It is highly probable that Negroes were brought to America
by some of the early colonists before 1619, for Negroes had been
in England since 1553.[2] James Otis said: "Our colonial charters
made no difference between black and white."[3] Some of such early
Negro settlers might have been brought over from Barbadoes or other
islands. The English colonists often went to and from the mainland
for settlement and trade, and by 1674 Barbadoes was a "flourishing
state" with a white population of 50,000 and 100,000 "Negroes and
colored."[4] Negroes, along with Spanish explorers, are known
to have been in North and South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, New
Mexico, and California as early as 1526, 1527, 1540, 1542, and 1537,
respectively.[5] However, the first Negroes, thus far known, in the
American colonies, were the "twenty negars" introduced at Jamestown,
in 1619, by the Dutch frigate.[6]
The first status of these Negroes early imported is of some
importance. Although the historians do not always mention the fact,
there is nevertheless ample proof of the existence of Negro servitude
in most of the American colonies. The servitude did not always
precede slavery in every case, nor was it ever firmly established as
slavery eventually became. Still it is an interesting fact that Negro
servitude frequently preceded and sometimes followed Negro slavery. In
colonies where servitude followed slavery, it was due to the fact that
these colonies were founded after the change of Negro servitude into
slavery was well advanced. Even here, servitude accompanied slavery.
In some of the colonies, the question of priority resolves itself
into the question of the priority of customary servitude to customary
slavery. In this case, however, it is probable that servitude was
first, even though slavery was first recognized in law. In certain
instances, the records make it certain that servitude preceded
slavery. This was the case in Virginia.
Several authorities have shown the extent to which the priority of
Negro servitude has been recognized. "At first the African _slave_
was looked upon as but an improved variety of indented servant whose
term of labor was for life instead of a few years."[7] "As has been
mentioned, some Negroes were bound as _slaves_ for a term of years
only."[8] The Negroes of 1619 and "others brought by early privateers
were not reduced to slavery, but to limited servitude, a legalized
status of Indian, white, and negro servants, preceding slavery in
most, if not all, of the English mainland colonies."[9] "Negro and
Indian servitude thus preceded negro and Indian slavery, and together
with white servitude in instances continued even after the institution
of slavery was fully developed."[10]
Furthermore, there is not the slightest evidence that the colonists
were disposed to treat as slaves the first Negroes who landed in
the colonies. They had no tradition of slavery in England at that
time. "Whatever may have been the intent and hope of the persons in
possession of the negroes as regards their ultimate enslavement, no
attempt to do so legally seems for a long time to have been made ...
for some reasons the notion of enslavement gained ground but slowly,
and although conditions surrounding a negro or Indian in possession
could easily make him a _defacto_ slave, the colonist seems to have
preferred to retain him only as a servant...."[11] Servitude, on the
other hand, was familiar enough, although not in the form which it
eventually assumed in the colonies. The attitude of the colonists,
when they first became confronted with the Negro question, was the
attitude of Queen Elizabeth and Hawkins when it was proposed to go to
Africa to barter for African servants.[12]
It was just as true in the colonial days as now that the attitude
which the community takes towards the Negro population is largely
determined by their relative numbers. If the Negroes had been
numerous in the colonies immediately after 1619, it is reasonable to
suppose that their status would have been defined earlier and more
sharply than it was. But the numbers were not there.[13] Six years
after the introduction of the first Negroes in Virginia, there were
but twenty-three in the colony. Meanwhile the white population was
about 2500. All through the first half of the century importation of
Negroes was of an "occasional nature."[14] Forty years after the first
introduction there were but three hundred Negroes in the colony.[15]
It was during the last quarter of the seventeenth century that the
number of Negroes in Virginia showed a noticeable increase. By 1683
there were three thousand; between 1700 and 1750, the increase was
even more noticeable.[16] In Maryland, Negroes were not extensively
introduced until the eighteenth century.[17] In 1665 a few slaves
were brought to North Carolina and it was not until 1700 and after
that their number reached eight hundred.[18] After their introduction
by Sir John Yeamans in 1671 it was not until 1708 that the number
of Negroes in South Carolina became a considerable part of the
population.[19] In Pennsylvania, as early as 1639, a number of Negroes
served a Swedish company. How many there were is not known.[20] In
1644, 1657, 1664 and 1677 several Negroes singly and in groups are
known to have been in the region which afterwards became Pennsylvania.
In this colony they were spoken of as "numerous" in 1702, but numerous
then did not mean so many. Later their number is noticeable.[21] In
Massachusetts, from 1638, when the Salem ship, _Desire_, returned from
the West Indies with cotton, tobacco, and Negroes, to the close of the
seventeenth century the number of Negroes was comparatively small.[22]
Josselyn saw Negroes in the colony when he visited it in 1638-39.[23]
In 1678, there were 200 in the colony and in 1678 Governor Andros
reported that there were but a few. In 1680, Governor Bradstreet said
no blacks or slaves had been brought in the colony in the space of
fifty years except between forty and fifty one time and two or three
now and then. In the nine years from 1698 to 1707, two hundred arrived
and in 1735 there were 2,600 in the Province.[24] Immediately after
1619, then, the number of Negroes scattered throughout the colonies
was comparatively small. It seems likely that their condition may
be described as that of servitude, which at that time universally
prevailed, rather than slavery.
We are likely to think of the status of the early Negroes in America
as having been inherited or transplanted. Far from this, the status of
the Negro in the early period, like slavery itself, was purely a local
development.[25] The status of the early Negroes shows unmistakably
that it developed in lines parallel to that of white servitude.[26]
The motives which determined the growth of white servitude and Negro
slavery are peculiar to the social and economic conditions of the
colony of Virginia and its neighbors, whose inhabitants were primarily
imported settlers and laborers. White servitude and black servitude
were but different aspects of the same institution. As white servitude
disappeared, Negro slavery succeeded it.[27]
The reason the early Negroes were not given at once the status of
slaves is that there was at this time no legal basis for slavery. The
Dutch who settled in New York seem to have defined the status of the
Negro slave on the civil law of Holland. In the English colonies it
was a local development.[28] Clearly, the ownership in the Negroes was
widely recognized and practiced in custom and in law. It is equally
clear, however, that white servitude and some form of black servitude
existed for a long time side by side with Negro slavery. This
recognition of slavery in custom and practice, moreover, makes its
appearance near the date of the statutory recognition of slavery by
the colonies.[29] Hence, the dates of this statutory recognition fix
the "upper limit to the period" in which slavery may be said to have
had a beginning.[30] In a number of the colonies, not only is absolute
ownership in Negroes, hence slavery, conspicuous, by the absence of
any records of it, but the priority of Negro servitude and of a free
Negro class is established. Ownership in the services but not of the
person was characteristic of both whites and Negroes in this early
period.[32]
"Prior to 1619 every inhabitant of Virginia was practically a 'servant
manipulated in the interest of the company, held in servitude beyond
a stipulated term.'" "It was not an uncommon practice in the early
period for shipmasters to sell white servants to the planters." By
1619 servitude was already recognized in the law of Virginia.[33]
In this early period the Company, as represented locally by its
officials, was the sole controlling and directing power of the
colony.[34] The Company was at the outset doubtful about the
advantages of bringing in slaves, partly because they were not sure
of the value of slave labor, and partly because they feared the Negro
would not become a permanent settler and so contribute to the building
up and defending the colony. The opposition of the trustees of Georgia
to the importation of Negroes was rested on these grounds.[35] Early
legislation in order to prohibit the trade in the colonies imposed
duties on slaves imported.[36] Moreover, it appears that the Company
generally held and worked the Negroes, who were purchased, in the
interest of the government, frequently distributing them among the
officers and planters. This was done, for example, in the island
colony, the Bermudas, in Virginia, and in Providence Island.[37]
Established and universal as white servitude was it not only became
the model of Negro servitude but also decidedly influenced its
transition to slavery. When Negro servitude passed into slavery, it
was white servitude that lent that slavery the mild character which it
possessed until the early part of the nineteenth century.[38]
The earliest authorized effort of England for Negro servants further
elucidates this point. In 1562, Sir John Hawkins proposed to take
Negroes from Africa and sell them. Queen Elizabeth did not at first
approve Hawkins' plan but questioned the justice of it. Hawkins argued
that bringing the Africans from a wild and barren country would
be eminently just and beneficial to the Africans and to the world.
He seemed not to have had the purpose of selling the Africans into
perpetual servitude: "Hawkins told her, that he considered it as an
act of humanity to carry men from a worse condition to a better ...
from a state of wild barbarism to another where they might share the
blessings of civil society and Christianity; from poverty, nakedness
and want to plenty and felicity. He assured her that in no expedition
where he had command should any Africans be carried away without their
own free will and consent, except such captives as were taken in war
and doomed to death;.... Indeed it would appear that Hawkins had no
idea of perpetual slavery, but expected that they would be treated
as free servants after they had by their labor brought their masters
an equivalent for the expenses of their purchase."[39] After this,
Hawkins received approval and support from the Queen, and with three
ships and crews he went on his trip to Africa.
Upon his arrival he began traffic with the natives. He sought at
first to persuade the blacks to go with him, offering them glittering
rewards. When the natives did not respond so readily to his entreaty,
members of his crew, under the influence of rum, undertook to coerce
the Africans.[40] Hawkins sought to dissuade them and reminded the
men of his promise to the Queen. They finally succeeded in getting on
board a number of Africans and set sail for the Spanish islands where
the Africans were to be sold as servants.[41]
The early Negroes of Virginia, moreover, were servants. On the
status of "the 1619 Negroes" historians are uncertain, but the
popular conception of the situation is undoubtedly erroneous. The
Dutch frigate sold the Negroes to the Company which controlled and
distributed them. Some of them were clearly retained by the officers
while others "were put to work upon public lands to support the
governor and other officers of the government." There is no evidence
that any of these Negroes were made slaves, while evidence that they
were servants is abundant.[42]
The statutes of Virginia up to 1661 indicate the existence of Negro
servitude rather than that of slavery.[43] In 1630, whites were
whipped for fornication with the blacks "before an assembly of
_negroes_." In 1639 and 1640, all persons except _Negroes_ were to be
provided with arms and ammunition or be fined.[44] Up to that time
the acts do not indicate slavery. The act of 1655 refers to Indian
slavery.[45] The act of 1659 does not show that Negro slavery existed
in the colony, but apparently aims to prevent it.[46] No other acts,
in the statutes, throw any light on the status of the Negro before
the act of 1661. This acts reads, "In case any English servant shall
run away in company with any negroes who are incapable of making
satisfaction by addition of time, be it enacted that the English so
running away in company with them shall serve for the time of the said
negroes absence as they are to do for their own by a former act."[47]
The inferences from this act are three: some of the Negroes in the
colony were slaves, others free, and still others servants. The
repetition of this act the following year made provision for runaway
Negro servants also by a change of statement.[48]
Notwithstanding the statutes, Russel found that in the records of
county courts dating from 1632 to 1661 negroes are designated as
'servants,' 'negro servants,' or simply as 'negroes,' but never
in the records were the Negroes termed 'slaves'. From the context
of the records, moreover, "servant" was distinctly meant and not
"slave." Again, according to the census taken in 1624-1625, there
were twenty-three persons of the African race in Virginia and they
are listed as "servants."[49] In several musters of settlements the
names of Negroes appear under the heading, "Servants"; sometimes
only "Negro" appears.[50] The General Court in October, 1625, had
before it for the first time a question involving the legal status
of the Negro in America. A Negro named Brass had been brought to the
colony by the captain of a ship. Upon handing down the decision as
to what should be done with Brass, since his master had died, the
Court "ordered that he should belong to Sir Francis Wyatt, Governor,"
evidently as servant.[51] Anthony Johnson and Mary, his wife, whose
names appeared as servants in the census mentioned above, were, at
sometime before 1652, given their freedom from servitude, for in that
year they were exempted from payment of taxes by the county court
on account of the burning of their home. The order of the court in
reference to Johnson and his wife mentioned that "they have been
inhabitants in Virginia _above_ thirty years." According to this,
they had been in the colony at least from 1621 which approaches 1619.
It appears that they were among the first Negroes sold at Jamestown.
And this, with the understanding that they were not free at first
establishes quite well their original status as servants as well as
that of the 1619 Negroes and other Negroes in the colony.
The free Negro, Anthony Johnson, in 1653 owned John Castor, another
Negro of Northampton County, as his indented servant. In 1655, a Negro
was bound to serve George Light for a period of five years.[52] The
court record of the discharge of Francis Pryne in 1656 is an example
of the discharge certificate of Negro servants:
"I Mrs. Jane Elkonhead ... have hereunto sett my hand yt ye
aforesd Pryne [a negro] shall bee discharged from all hindrance of
servitude (his child) or any [thing] yt doth belong to ye sd Pryne
his estate.
Jane Elkonhead"[53]
In some cases, as it was with the white servants, Negroes were given
written indentures, of which Russell gives several examples. It was
an early practice of the colony to allow "head rights," a certain
number of acres of land for every servant imported. In 1651 "head
rights" were allowed on the importation of a Negro whose name was
Richard Johnson. "Only three years later a patent calling for one
hundred acres of land was issued to this negro for importing two
other persons. Hence, it appears that Richard Johnson came in as a
free negro or remained in a condition of servitude for not more than
three years."[54] It was a practice also of those who held servants to
allow them the privilege of raising hogs and poultry and of tilling a
small plot of ground. The court records show that by this means John
Geaween, Emanuel Dregis, and Bashasar Farando, as Negro servants,
between 1649 and 1652, accumulated property. Again, there are cases
illustrating that the Negro servant received "freedom dues" as the
white servants at the close of the term of service.[55] Thus the first
and early Negroes of Virginia were servants, not slaves. They were not
only servants at first, but also servants in general for a period of
years.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] In the preparation of dissertation the following works were
consulted: Ballagh, James Curtis, _White Servitude in the Colony
of Virginia_ (J. H. U. Studies, Thirty-first Series, 1913), and
_History of Slavery in Virginia_ (J. H. U. Studies, Twenty-fourth
Series, 1902); Bassett, John Spencer, _History of Slavery in
North Carolina_ (J. H. U. Studies, Seventeenth Series, 1899), and
_Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina_ (J. H. U.
Studies, Fourteenth Series, 1896); Beatty, William Jennings, _The
Free Negroes in the Carolinas before 1860_ (1920); Brackett, J. R.,
_The Negro in Maryland_ (J. H. U. Studies, Seventh Series, Extra
Volume, 1889); Brown, Alexander, _The Genesis of the United States,
1605-1616_, Two Volumes (1890), and _The First Republic in America_
(1898); Bruce, Philip Alexander, _Economic History of Virginia in
the Seventeenth Century_, Two Volumes (1896); Buckingham, J. S.,
_The Slave States of America_ (1842); _Calendar of Virginia State
Papers and Other Manuscripts, 1652-1798_, Edited by Wm. P. Palmer,
Six Volume (1875-86); Carroll, Bartholomew Rivers, _Historical
Collections of South Carolina_ (1836); Daniels, John, _In Freedom's
Birth Place, A Study of Boston Negroes_ (1914); Doyle, J. A., _English
Colonies in America_, Five Volumes (1889); DuBois, W. E. Burghardt,
_The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States
of America_ (1896); Eddis, Wm., _Letters from America, 1769-77_;
Hazard, Willis P., _Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in the
Olden Time_ (1879); Henry, Howell Meadows, _The Police Control
of the Slave in South Carolina_ (1914); Henning, William Waller,
_Statutes at Large of Virginia, 1623-1792_, Thirteen Volumes (1812);
Hotten, J. C., _Original Lists of Emigrants, 1600-1700_ (1874);
Hurd, John C, _The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States_,
Two Volumes (1858-62); Jones, Hugh, _The Present State of Virginia_
(1865); _Journal of Negro History_, edited by Carter G. Woodson (The
Association for the Study of Negro Life and History); Lauber, Almon
Wheeler, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times Within Present Limits of
the United States_ (Columbia University Studies, Volume LIV (1913));
Washburn, Emory, _Massachusetts and Its Early History: Slavery
as it once prevailed in Massachusetts_; McCormac, E. I., _White
Servitude in Maryland 1634-1820_ (J. H. U. Studies, Twenty-second
Series, 1904); Moore, George H., _Notes on the History of Slavery in
Massachusetts_ (1866); Work, Monroe N., _Negro Year Book, An Annual
Encyclopedia of the Negro_; Neill, E. D., _History of the Virginia
Company of London, 1604-24_ (1869) and _Virginia Carolorum, 1625-85_;
Nell, Wm. C., _Colored Patriots of the American Revolution_ (1855);
Nieboor, Herman Jeremias, _Slavery as an Industrial Institution_
(1900); Palfrey, John Gorham, _History of New England_, Five Volumes
(1892); Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell, _American Negro Slavery_ (1918);
_Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
in New England_, edited by John Russell Bartlett (1856-65); Rivers,
William James, _A Sketch of the History of South Carolina to the Close
of the Proprietary Government by the Revolution of 1719_ (1856);
Russell, John H., _The Free Negro in Virginia 1619-1865_ (J. H. U.
Studies, Thirty-first Series, 1913); Steiner, Bernard C., _History
of Slavery in Connecticut_ (J. H. U. Studies, Series Eleven, 1893);
Stevens, William Bacon, _A History of Georgia from its First Discovery
by Europeans to the Adoption of the Present Constitution in 1798_
(1848); Stroud, George M., _A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery
in the Several States of America_ (1827); Thwaites, Ruben Gold,
_The Colonies, 1492-1750_; Turner, Edward Raymond, _The Negro in
Pennsylvania 1693-1861_ (1910); _Winthrop's Journal: "History of New
England" 1630-1649_, Three Volumes. Edited by James Kendall Hosmer.
[1] Many historians have substituted "slave" for "Negro." Russell,
_Free Negroes in Virginia_, p. 16. White servants are also called
slaves. Doyle, _History of English Colonies in America_, II, p. 387;
Stevens, _History of Georgia_, pp. 289, 294.
[2] Several years before 1619, Negroes in England were sentenced to
work in the colonies. "Two Moorish thieves [negroes] in London were
sentenced to work in the American colonies. And they said no, they
would rather die at once." Brown adds: "I do not know whether they
were sent to Virginia or not." (_The First Republic in America_, p.
219. See also postnote 14.) Again, "I do not know that these negroes
were the first brought to the colony of Virginia. I do not remember
to have seen any contemporary account which says so. The accounts
which we have even of the voyages of the company's ships are very
incomplete, and we have scarcely an idea of the private trading
voyages which would have been most apt to bring such 'purchas' to
Virginia." Pory wrote in September, 1619: "'In these five months of my
continuance here, there have come at one time or another eleven sail
of ships into this river.' If he meant that these eleven ships came
in after he did, at least three of them are not accounted for in our
annals." Washburn, _Slavery as it once prevailed in Massachusetts_,
pp. 198, 327.
[3] Nell, _Colored Patriots of the American Revolution_, p. 59.
[4] Rivers, _History of South Carolina_, p. 113; Buckingham, _Slave
States of America_, I, p. 19.
[5] _The Journal of Negro History_, III, p. 33; Work, _Negro Year
Book_, p. 152. "The second settler in Alabama was a Negro."
[6] Ballagh gives an interesting and the most reliable account of
this ship and these Negroes. (_History of Slavery in Virginia_, p.
8.) A heated controversy took place over what should be done with the
Negroes. "And so the people of her were all disposed of for the year
to the use of the company till it could be truly known to whom the
right lyeth." Brown, _The First Republic in America_, pp. 359, 368,
391, 325-27.
[7] Thwaites, _The Colonies_, p. 98.
[8] Daniels, _In Freedom's Birthplace_, p. 7.
[9] _New International Encyclopedia_, p. 166.
[10] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 32.
[11] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 31.
[12] Washburn holds that the moral stamina of sturdy people seeking
freedom argued against enslavement. _Slavery as it once prevailed in
Mass._, p. 194.
[13] "If twenty negroes came in 1619, as alleged, their increase was
very slow, for according to a census of 16th of February, 1624, there
were but twenty-two then in the colony." Neill, _Hist. of the Va.
Co._, p. 72.
"When the census was taken in January, 1625, there were only twenty
persons of the African race in Virginia...." _Virginia Carolorum_, pp.
15, 16, 22, 33, 40, 59, 225; Brown, _The Genesis of Am._, II, p. 987.
[14] Ballagh, _History of Slavery in Virginia_, pp. 9-10.
[15] The group brought over in 1638 by Menefie was an unusually large
number: "Menefie was now the leading merchant. On April 19, 1638, he
entered 3,000 acres of land on account of 60 transports, of whom 23
were, as he asserts, 'negroes, I brought out of England.'" _Virginia
Carolorum_, p. 187 note; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Colony of
Virginia_, p. 91 note.
[16] "Intended insurrections of negroes in 1710, 1722, 1730, bear
witness to their alarming increase...." _White Servitude in the Colony
of Virginia_, p. 92 note.
[17] Brackett, _The Negro in Md._, p. 38.
[18] Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, pp. 18-20.
[19] Henry, _Police Control of the Slave in S. C._, p. 3.
[20] Post, p. 262, note 10.
[21] Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, pp. 1-3.
[22] Moore, _Notes on the History of Slavery in Mass._, pp. 5, 48;
Palfrey, _Hist. of N. E._, p. 30.
[23] "They have store of children, and are well accommodated with
Servants;----of these some are English, others Negroes: of the English
there are can eat till they sweat, and work till they freeze; and of
the females they are like Mrs. Wintus paddocks, very tinder fingered
in cold weather." _Account of Two Voyages to N. E._, pp. 28, 139-140.
[24] Moore, _Notes on the Hist. of Slavery in Mass._, pp. 48-49.
[25] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Virginia_, pp. 2, 3, 34.
[26] "The main ideas on which servitude was based originated in the
early history of Virginia as a purely English colonial development
before the other colonies were formed. The system was adopted in them
with its outline already defined, requiring only local legislation
to give it specific character...." (Ballagh, _White Servitude in the
Colony of Virginia_, p. 9.) The status of servitude, customary and
legal, similar to that given the Negroes in Virginia is as a rule met
with in several of the colonies.
[27] Post, p. 254, note 33.
[28] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 28, 29, 34.
[29] White servitude had recognition in statute law by 1630-36 in
Massachusetts, by 1643 in Connecticut, by 1647 in Rhode Island, by
1619 in Virginia, by 1637 in Maryland, by 1665 in North Carolina,
by 1682 in Pennsylvania, and by 1732 in Georgia. Ballagh, _Hist. of
Slavery in Va._, pp. 36, 37. Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 18,
19, 22, 29.
[30] Statutory recognition of slavery by the American colonies
occurred as follows: Massachusetts, 1641; Connecticut, 1650; Virginia,
1661; Maryland, 1663; New York and New Jersey, 1664; South Carolina,
1682; Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, 1700; North Carolina, 1715;
and Georgia, 1755. Prior to these dates the legal status of all
subject Negroes was that of servants, and their rights, duties, and
disabilities were regulated by legislation the same as, or similar to,
that applied to white servants. Ballagh, _Hist. of Servitude in Va._,
pp. 34, 35.
[31] Russell, _The Free Negroes in Va._, p. 29.
[32] Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p. 25; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery
in Va._, pp. 30, 31.
[33] Ante, note 30: "It was but natural then that they should be
absorbed in a growing system which spread to all the colonies and
for nearly a century furnished the chief supply for colonial labor."
Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Colony of Va._, pp. 14, 27, 49.
Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 32.
[34] The Company secured servants for the colony. Stevens, _History of
Ga._, p. 290; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 15.
[35] The Trustees of Georgia held out on account of philanthropic
motives. See Du Bois, _Suppression of the Slave Trade_, pp. 7, 8, 26;
Declaration of one of the trustees, Stevens, _Hist. of Ga._, p. 287.
[36] Moore, _Notes on the History of Slavery in Mass._, p. 50. Du
Bois, _Suppression of African Slave Trade_, p. 15.
[37] In Providence in 1633, "it was recommended that twenty or thirty
negroes be introduced for public work, and that they be separated
among various families of officers and industrious planters to prevent
the formation of plots. Some of these negroes received wages and
purchased their freedom, and the length of servitude seems to have
been dependent on the time of conversion to Christianity." Lefroy,
_The History, of the Bermudaes_, p. 219. Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in
Va._, pp. 29, 30, notes.
The Dutch dealt with the early Negroes in a similar way. "In practice
the heavy duty imposed by the Company seems to have discouraged any
large importation. As a natural consequence, too, most of those
imported seem to have been in the employment of the Company. Thus
we learn that the fort at New Amsterdam was mainly built by negro
labor. The Company seems wisely to have made arrangements whereby its
slaves should be gradually absorbed in the free population. In 1644 an
ordinance was passed emancipating the slaves of the Company after a
fixed period of service." Doyle, _Eng. Cols. in Am._, IV, p. 49.
[38] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 33.
[39] Carroll, _Hist. Coll._, I, p. 27.
[40] _Ibid._, p. 29.
[41] _Ibid._, p. 29.
[42] Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 16, 23; Ballagh, _Hist. of
Slavery in Va._, p. 29 notes; Brown, _The First Republic in Am._, p.
326.
Thomas Jefferson said, "the right to these negroes was common, or,
perhaps they lived on a footing with the whites, who, as well as
themselves, were under absolute direction of the president." Russell,
_The Free Negro in Va._, p. 24.
[43] _Ibid._, 23, 24; Ballagh, _History of Slavery in Va._, 28, 31;
Phillips, _Am. Negro Slavery_, p. 75.
[44] Henning, I, pp. 146, 226.
[45] The first time the term "slave" is used in the statutes was in
these words: "If the Indians shall bring in any children as gages of
their good and quiet intentions to us, ... that we will not use them
as slaves." Henning, I, p. 296.
[46] In Henning, _Statutes_ I, p. 540, it is said: "That _if_ the said
Dutch or other foreigners shall import any negroes, they the said
Dutch or others shall, for the tobacco really produced by the sale of
the said negro, pay only the impost of two shillings per hogshead, the
like being paid by our own nation."
[47] Henning, II, p. 26.
[48] Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, p. 20, note 13.
[49] _Ibid._, pp. 23, 24; Hotten, _List of Immigrants to Am._, pp.
202, etc.
The "_Lists of the Living and Dead in Virginia_, Feb. 16th, 1623,"
shows that there were twenty or more Negroes in the Colony; these
Negroes are referred to as servants not slaves. _Col. Records of Va._,
p. 37, etc.
[50]
"Captain Francis West, His Muster.
**********
Servants
**********
John Pedro, A Neger, aged 30, in the _Swan_, 1623."
Va. Carolorum, p. 15.
"Muster of Sir George Yeardley, Kt.
**********
Servants
**********
Thomas Barnett, 16, in the _Elsabeth_, 1620
Theophilus Bereston, in the _Treasuror_, 1614
Negro Men, 3.
Negro Women, 5.
Susan Hall, in the _William_ and _Thomas_, 1608"
Ibid., p. 16.
"Muster of Capt. William Tucker, Elizabeth City.
**********
Servants
**********
Antoney, Negro
Isabell, Negro
William, theire child, baptised"
Ibid., p. 40; see a muster
also on page 22.
"On the 25 of January, 1624-5, a muster of Mr. Edward Bennett's
servants at Wariscoyak was taken, and the number was twelve, two of
whom were negroes." _Va. Carolorum_, 225 note. See also Brown, _The
Genesis of Am._, II, 987.
[51] _Virginia Carolorum_, pp. 33, 34; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in
Virginia_, p. 30.
[52] Russell, _The Free Negro in Virginia_, pp. 24, 26, 32.
[53] _Ibid._, pp. 26, 29.
[54] _Ibid._, pp. 25, 26.
[55] _Ibid._, pp. 22, 28, 34; Bruce, _Econ. Hist. of Virginia_, II,
pp. 52, 53.
NEGRO SERVITUDE AND ITS PRIORITY IN OTHER COLONIES
Slavery received statutory recognition in the colony of Maryland in
1663, and in North Carolina in 1715. White servitude had long existed
in these colonies, receiving statutory recognition in Maryland as
early as 1637, and in North Carolina in 1665. Servitude, therefore,
had ample time for local definition "before slavery entered upon
either its customary or legal development."[1] Ballagh holds that
in these colonies, also, Negro servitude historically preceded
slavery.[2] In Maryland, particularly, along with Virginia and
Massachusetts, the "circumstances surrounding the enactments defining
slavery" indicate a natural transition from Negro servitude to
slavery. Since servitude existed in these states, it seems probable,
from analogy with conditions in other parts of the country, that the
early Negroes in these colonies were servants.[3]
Negro servitude preceded Negro slavery in Massachusetts. This
servitude existed legally and underwent a period of development.
After the recognition of slavery in 1641, Negro servitude continued
along with slavery and in a more pronounced manner.[4] The early
inhabitants of Massachusetts were hostile to the introduction of
slavery. This attitude was, perhaps, responsible for the milder form
which Negro bondage first assumed, for "the facts of history ... seem
to establish this conclusion, that slavery never was in harmony with
the public sentiment of the colony."[5] The Salem ship, the _Desire_,
brought to the Colony, February 26, 1638, "some cotton, tobacco, and
negroes." This cargo had been taken on by Mr. Pierce of the _Desire_,
at Providence Island, evidently in exchange for fifteen Indian boys
and two women, taken as prisoners in the Pequod War.[6] At this time,
it was common to purchase servants from shipmasters and merchants,
and so it is not certain that the Negroes brought back by Mr. Pierce
were slaves. At Providence, moreover, Negroes had the status of
servants.[7] When Josselyn visited New England in 1638-39, he saw in
Boston servants, English and Negroes.[8] In 1641, after the adoption
of the Body of Liberties, a master of a ship brought two Negroes for
sale into slavery, but was compelled by the court to give them up.
These Negroes were then sent back to their native country. In 1646,
the General Court passed an act "against the heinous and crying sin
of man-stealing." In this colony "slaves" testified against white men
in court and, for a long time after 1652, served in the militia.[9]
Again, beginning with 1700, Judge Sewall and the Quakers started their
memorable work against slavery. Charles Sumner said concerning slavery
in Massachusetts: "Her few slaves were merely for a term of years, or
for life."[10]
The Bond of Liberty, adopted in 1641, evidently made provision for
servitude.[11] Negroes were held as servants under this provision.
During the entire colonial period until 1791, they were rated as
polls, as, for example, in the tax laws, in 1718, which provided that
"all Indian, negro and mulatto servants _for a term of years_ were to
be numbered and rated as Polls, and not as Personal Estate."[12]
Prior to 1700, moreover, Negroes had the status of servants in
Pennsylvania. In the region of the Delaware River, which became a
part of Pennsylvania, the Dutch had a few Negroes with them in 1636.
In 1639, also, a number of Negroes worked under the New Netherlands
Company on the South River.[13] It is not definitely known that
these Negroes were servants, although the circumstances indicate that
they were. The same is true of the Negroes in the employment of the
Dutch during this very early period. Provision was apparently made
for their gradual absorption by the free population. As late as 1663,
there existed laws which "granted them a qualified form of freedom,
working alternate weeks, one for themselves, one for the Company."[14]
Among the Swedes, also, in the region of the Delaware, were a number
of Negroes. Just after Rising had come to the region as head of the
Swedish Company, in 1654, he issued an ordinance that "after a certain
period Negroes should be absolutely free." In Penn's charter to the
Free Society of Traders, in 1682, there was a provision that if the
inhabitants "held blacks they should make them free at the end of
fourteen years...." Benjamin Furley, also, vigorously opposed holding
Negroes longer than eight years.[15] The Friends of Germantown in
1688, made strong protests against slavery; and in 1693, George Keith
declared that the masters should let the Negroes go free after a
reasonable term of service.[16] Later on, children of white mothers
and slave fathers became servants for a term of years, and the same
was true of the children of free Negro mothers and slave fathers.[17]
After 1700, Negro servants were a common and well-recognized class
in Pennsylvania. Negroes who were "unable or unwilling to support
themselves" were bound by the court for the term of one year.[18]
All children of free Negroes were bound out until twenty-one or
twenty-four years. Mulatto children "who were not slaves for life"
were bound out "until they were twenty-eight years of age." The
abolition act of 1780 provided among other things that "all future
children of registered slaves should become servants until they were
twenty-eight."[19] And again, Negroes manumitted could indenture
themselves until twenty-eight.
Negro servants were generally subject to the laws which governed the
white servitude; but they were subject further to other laws which
gave to the Negro servants a status between that of the white servants
and Negro slaves. Negro servants were apprenticed for a longer period
than white servants; and such servants were object of a considerable
interstate traffic, people from other states selling them into
Pennsylvania. They were often apprenticed and generally given some
form of freedom dues. So entrenched was Negro servitude here that in
1780 there were probably a greater number of servants in Pennsylvania
than slaves.[20]
In Rhode Island Negro servitude preceded and passed into slavery.[21]
Although as early as 1652 the practice of buying Negroes for service
or slaves for life existed in this colony, this was not sanctioned
by law. On the other hand, white servitude was clearly recognized in
statute law of 1647.[22] In 1652 the legally established servitude,
as well as the attitude of the colonists, undoubtedly influenced
the passing of a law to prohibit slavery and provide for servitude.
This law said: "Whereas, there is a common course practiced amongst
English men to buy negers, to that end they may have them for service
or slaves forever; for the preventinge of such practices among us,
let it be ordered, that no blacke mankind or white being forced by
covenant bond, or otherwise, to serve any man or his assighness longer
than ten yeares, or until they come to bee twentie four yeares of age,
if they bee taken in under fourteen, for the time of their cominge
within the liberties of this Collinie. And at the end or terme of ten
yeares to sett them free, as the manner is with the English servants.
And that man that will not let them goe free, or shall sell them away
elsewhere, to that end that they may bee enslaved to others for a long
time, he or they shall forfeit to the Collonie forty pounds."[23]
Although this law was enforced for a time, it soon became a dead
letter, for after 1708, when slavery received sanction by statute,
buying and selling Negroes was practiced generally.[24]
The first few Negroes in Connecticut were servants along with a few
Indian and white servants. It was due, no doubt, to the paucity of
the Negroes--there were in 1680 not above thirty in the colony--that
they became servants. However, as this number increased, their status
became gradually that of slaves by custom. Because of the fear of
treachery from the Negro and Indian servants, the General Court,
in 1680, ordered that "neither Indian nor negar servants shall be
required to train, watch or ward in the Colony."[25] Evidently some
of the servants very early had served out their time and had been
freed, for by a law, in 1690, "Negro, mulatto, or Indian servants,"
"suspected persons" and free Negroes who were found wandering could
be taken up and brought before a magistrate.[26] An act in 1711 made
provision for the care of Negro servants and others who came to want
after they had served out their time. "An act relating to slaves,
and such in particular as shall happen to become servants for life,
enacts that all slaves set at liberty by their owners, and all negro,
mulatto, and Spanish Indians, who are servants to masters for time, in
case they shall come to want after they shall be so set at liberty or
the time of their service be expired, they shall be relieved at the
cost of their masters." In fact, slavery of the "absolute, rigid kind"
never existed to any extent in Connecticut.[27]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Ballagh, pp. 36-37.
[2] _Ibid._, 32.
[3] _Ibid._, 37; Beatty, _The Free Negroes in the Carolinas before
1860_, p. 3.
The children, resulting from the intermixture and intermarriage of
the races were likewise servants in these two colonies. Stroud, _Laws
Relating to Slavery_, pp. 8-9.
[4] Servitude was recognized in statute law in this colony by 1630-36.
Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 32, 33, 36.
[5] Washburn, _Slavery as It Once Prevailed in Mass._, p. 193.
[6] Providence Isle was "an island in the Caribbean, off the
Nicaraguan coast. In 1630 Charles I granted it, by a patent similar to
that of Massachusetts, to a company of Englishmen, mostly Puritans,
who held it till 1641, when the Spaniards captured it." Winthrop's
_Journal_, II, pp. 227, 228, 260; Moore, _Notes on the Hist. of
Slavery in Mass._, p. 5.
[7] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, note 2, quoted from _Calendar
State Papers_, pp. 160, 168, 229.
[8] Ante, p. 252, note 23.
[9] Washburn, _Slavery as It Once Prevailed in Mass._, pp. 208, 215.
[10] Nell, _Colored Patriots in Am. Rev._, p. 37.
[11] "There shall _never_ be _any_ Bond Slavery, Villinage, or
Captivity among us, unless it be lawful Captives taken in just Wars,
and such strangers as willingly sell themselves, or are sold to us.
And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which
the law of God, established in Israel concerning such persons, doth
morally require. This exempts none from servitude, who shall be judged
thereto by authority." _Massachusetts Hist. Coll._, 28, p. 231;
Palfrey, _Hist. of New England_, II, p. 30
[12] Moore, _Notes on Slavery in Mass._, pp. 62, 63-64, 248.
[13] "A judgment is obtained, before the authorities at Manhattan,
against one Coinclisse, for wounding a soldier at Fort Amsterdam.
He is condemned to serve the company along with the blacks, to be
sent by the first ship to South River, pay a fine to the fiscal, and
damages to the wounded soldier. This seems to be the first intimation
of blacks being in this part of the country.... Director Van Twiller
having been charged, after Kiet's arrival, with mismanagement....
Another witness asserts he had in his custody for Van Twiller, at Fort
Hope and Nassau, twenty-four to thirty goats, and that three negroes
bought by the director in 1636 were since employed in his private
service." Hazard, _Annals of Penn._, pp. 49-50; Turner, _The Free
Negro in Penn._, p. 1.
It is noteworthy that the Negroes among the Dutch were generally under
the supervision of the Company or worked for officers of the Company.
[14] Ante, p. 255, note 37.
[15] "Let no blacks be brought in directly, and if any come out of
Virginia, Maryld. (or elsewhere erased) in families that have formerly
brought them elsewhere Let them be declared (as in the west jersey
constitutions) free at 8 years end." Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p.
21, notes 13, 14.
[16] _Ibid._, p. 66.
[17] _Ibid._, pp. 24, 25; Stroud, _Laws Relating to Slavery_, pp. 9-10.
[18] Hurd, _The Law of Freedom and Bondage_, I, 290; Turner, _The Free
Negro in Penn._, p. 92.
[19] "On the 1st of March, 1780, before the war of the Revolution was
closed, the Assembly of Pennsylvania passed an act declaring that
negro and mulatto children whose mothers were slaves, and who were
born after the passage of the act, should be free, and that slavery
as to them should be forever abolished. But it was declared that
such children should be held as servants, under the same terms as
indentured servants, until the age of twenty-eight, when they should
be free...." Watson, _Annals of Philadelphia and Penn. in Olden
Times_, pp. 468-469.
[20] _Ibid._, pp. 93, 94, 98, 101.
[21] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 32.
[22] _Ibid._, p. 36.
[23] R. I., _Col. Rec._, I, p. 243.
[24] Du Bois, _Suppression of the Slave Trade_, p. 34.
[25] Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, I, p. 270; Steiner, _Hist. of
Slavery in Conn._, p. 12.
[26] Conn., _Col. Rec._, XV, p. 40.
[27] Stroud, _Laws Relating to Slavery_, p. 11, note; Hurd, _Law of
Freedom and Bondage_, p. 271.
THE TRANSITION FROM WHITE SERVITUDE TO SLAVERY
Let us now direct our attention to the change from servitude to
slavery. It is well to note here, however, that white servitude did
not embrace the chief features of slavery. Nieboer defines a slave as
"a man who is the property or possession of another man, and forced
to work for him." Again, "slavery is the fact that one man is the
property or possession of another."[1] White servitude lacked the
final and formal feature of "property," namely complete "possession,"
and consequently never included either perpetual service or the
transmission of servile condition to offspring, although during the
first half of its development in the colonies, servitude tended to
assume the character of slavery.[2][3]
The servitude that existed up to 1619 underwent change until it
finally crystallized into indented servitude. The conditions were not
as bad as the testimony of colony servants and observers of the period
would indicate, and yet where there were so many references to it the
condition evidently obtained.[4] In enlisting new settlers for the
colonies, the Company "issued broadsides and pamphlets, with specious
promises, which, however honest its purpose, were certainly never
fulfilled."[5] In Virginia in 1613, colonists of 1607 who had served
out the term of their original five-year contract were either retained
in servitude or granted a tenancy burdened with oppressive and unfair
obligations. The changed land policy of 1616 brought upon the colony
servants further disadvantages. Before March, 1617, when the men of
the Charles City Hundred demanded and were granted their "long desired
freedom from that general and common servitude," no freedom had been
granted to the colonists. After this until 1619, it was only through
"extraordinary payment" that freedom was obtained.[6] Many of these
colonists of Virginia, moreover, were retained in servitude until 1624
when the Company dissolved.[7]
Other incidents, growing out of the servant's role, tended to make
the condition of servitude more rigid. In order to make the system of
labor under the Company successful, Lord Delaware, in 1610, organized
the colony into a "labor force under commanders and overseers"; and
close watch over the men and their work was accordingly maintained.
"The colonists were marched to their daily work in squads and
companies under officers, and the severest penalties were prescribed
for a breach of discipline or neglect of duty. A persistent neglect
of labor was to be punished by galley service from one to two years.
Penal servitude was also instituted; for 'petty offences' they worked
'as slaves in irons for a term of years'"; and there were whipping,
"hangings, shooting, breaking on the wheel, and even burning alive."[8]
It may be observed from references made to this early servitude that,
generally, it was harsh. We read: "Having most of them served the
colony six or seven years in that 'general slavery'"; "'three years
slavery' to the colony"; "noe waye better than slavery"; "rather
than be reduced to live under like government we desire his Magestie
that Commissioners may be sent over with authority to hang us"; and
"Sold as a d---- slave."[9] Undoubtedly, these references are not
all true; yet, they are not altogether false. At least they indicate
that the conditions of this servitude approached slavery.[10] Out of
these, informal "slavery" and unsettled conditions of early servitude,
indented servitude developed.
As a general rule, every advantage was taken of the servant by the
servant-dealers and masters. Opportunity to hold the servant longer
than the period allowed by law or to extend his service was not
infrequently seized upon, for the laxity of the system and the need
of labor in the colonies made this a natural consequence. During the
first period of servitude, the term of service in many cases was not
prescribed in the indentures; and sometimes servants were brought
over without indentures, or with only verbal contracts.[11] Thus
trouble about the length of their term of service arose, especially
in connection with the servants who did not have indentures.
Circumstances indicate that in the interpretation of law and the
facts, the master generally triumphed.[12] It was in 1638-39 that
Maryland took the first definite step to prevent unfair treatment of
servants by their masters. In 1654 it became necessary again to pass
a law determining the servant's age and length of service. Virginia
enacted similar measures in 1643 and 1657. Still, when the servants
were ignorant, "which was usually the case," or could not speak the
English language, the master took advantage of their shortcomings.[13]
Notwithstanding the repeated efforts of the courts and assembly to
protect the servant in his relation to the master, the lucrative
practice of extending a servant's term, which became customary in the
case of Indian and Negro servants, proved a significant factor in the
degradation of white servitude.
Under the system of servitude, the conduct of the servant necessarily
bore a close relation to the interests of the master. When the servant
stole, ran away, "unlawfully assembled" or "plotted," indulged in
fornication, spent unusual time in social intercourse, or was secretly
married, the master as a rule suffered some loss. And for protection
of the master, methods of punishment were resorted to, the character,
definiteness, and attendant circumstances of which tended to reduce
the servant to the status of a slave.
As the servant had no money with which to pay fines, some other method
of punishment had to be used. Corporal punishment of a harsh character
appears to have been established. Practiced at first by individuals,
it soon became a general custom, and finally found its way into the
laws of the colonies. During the period prior to indented servitude,
instances of severe whipping of servants are numerous.[14] The first
colony law which gave the master the privilege of regulating the
servant's conduct in this manner, however, appeared in 1619.[15]
Corporal punishment then gradually gained ground and won sanction
by the colonial courts. A law in Virginia provided in 1662 "for the
erecting of a whipping post in every county" and the General Assembly
of this colony, in 1688, reassured the master of his right to whip
the servant. All along this right was so much abused[16] that it was
restrained in Virginia. In 1705 an act ordered the master not to whip
the servant "immoderately"; and to whip a Christian white servant
naked, an order from a justice of peace had to be obtained.[17]
Several other colonies similarly restrained the right to whip.[18]
Another method of punishment that gradually hardened the conditions of
servitude was the addition of time to the term of the servant. This
evidently originated in the custom of the Company to prescribe as
penalty for offense "service to the colony in public work."[19] This
method of punishment was extensively used throughout the colonies.
Sometimes the length of additional service was left to the discretion
of the master, but this was so abused that the government saw fit
to make regulations, which, however, themselves were not free from
harshness.[20]
At first the servants undoubtedly enjoyed the right of marriage, but
as this proved a source of much inconvenience and loss to the master,
since the men servants lost time, stole food and other provisions,
and the women servants lost time during pregnancy and in rearing
children, laws restricting marriage of servants were enacted in the
colonies. In Virginia, in 1643, this right was legally restricted.
When the servants were secretly married, in some cases the man had to
"serve out his or their tyme or tymes with his or their masters--after
serve his master a complete year more for such offense committed"
while the woman-servant had to double her time of service.[21] In
other cases, as in North Carolina, the servants were required to serve
one year.[22] Further restriction of the right of marriage appeared
in Virginia in 1662. When a woman-servant and a Negro slave were
married in Maryland, the woman was, in some instances, reduced to
slavery, as she was required to serve her master during the life of
her husband.[23] The effect of this law was, in certain instances,
to complete practically the transition from servitude to slavery.
Children resulting from such marriages were either made slaves for
life, or required to serve until they were thirty years of age.
Fornication also was made punishable by an addition of time. The
woman-servant, who gave birth to illegitimate offspring, received an
addition of time of one and a half to two and a half years.[24] When
the offspring was by a Negro, mulatto, or Indian, she was required
to serve the colony or the master for an additional time of four,
five, or seven years. The children in these cases were bound out for
thirty-one years.[25] With marriage restricted as it was, the family
life of the servants was likely to be disorderly. Morals of servants
were notably loose, and masters sometimes took advantage of their
position to corrupt their servants still further.[26]
The servants were also restricted in political affairs. In the
earliest period of servitude in the colonies, servants, as
"inhabitants," enjoyed with the other "inhabitants" whatever suffrage
there was.[27] Later on, however, this rare privilege dwindled
to _nil_. For the "first sixteen years of the settlement" in
Massachusetts the servants exercised the franchise.[28] In Virginia
they voted until 1646 and the freedservant until 1670.[29] In Maryland
in 1636, in the first assembly of the colony, only "freemen" seemed to
hold sway.[30] Disfranchisement became the rule, however, after the
middle of the seventeenth century.[31] The very noticeable scarcity of
information on the servant's exercise of the suffrage seems to suggest
that as a matter of understanding he did not enjoy the franchise.
Evidently there prevailed a certain suspicion concerning not only the
servant's ability to use the suffrage, but also his proper use of
it; and this attitude was also always fairly pronounced toward the
recently freedservant.[32]
The final remedy of the servant, then, was flight. From the beginning
of indented servitude, the servants invariably deserted their master's
service. While in all cases they did not run away on account of
abuses, the practice brought on abuses and other incidents which,
during the first part of servitude, became more and more intolerable.
The number of runaways increased as the servants continued coming in.
It was comparatively easy for them to escape to the more northern
colonies, since the country about them was convenient for hiding
and clandestine traveling; and the fugitives themselves, on account
of having no physical characteristics distinguishable from those of
the other colonists, could not easily be identified.[33] Thus North
Carolina became popularly known as the "Refuge of Runaways" and that
colony, Maryland, and the Dutch plantations were to fugitive servants
what Massachusetts, Ohio, and Canada were later to runaway slaves.[34]
The "under-ground railroad," too, had a forerunner in the early period
of indentured servitude.[35] Methods of dealing with the runaways
necessarily grew more strict, and precautions similar to those of
slavery inevitably appeared. "Unlawful assembling," "plotting," and
tentative insurrections became a source of apprehension.[36] Then
came methods of pursuit, return, and punishment of the fugitives.
Sometimes the master made the pursuit; at other times the sheriff
and his posse did it; and often the constable with a search warrant
went in quest of the fugitive. Everyone who traveled was required
to have a pass or a certificate of freedom to show his status;[37]
and this no doubt afforded the servants a means of using forgery
to facilitate their escape to freedom.[38] Again, whenever it was
possible, advertisements for runaways were put in the newspapers.[39]
During this time, too, there were enacted colonial statutes providing
for the return of fugitives by one colony to the other. Colonial
governments often accused each other of unduly holding and protecting
the runaways.[40]
The greatest abuses in servitude occurred in the punishment of
fugitive servants. These abuses, moreover, gradually increased in
number and intensified in character.[41] The expense of the servant's
capture, return, and loss of time from work, and the desire to prevent
running away led to stringent punishment and evident abuses.[42] In
Virginia before 1643, some runaways were punished with "additional
terms from two to seven years, served in irons, to the public."[43]
The act of 1643 in Virginia provided that runaways from their
"master's service shall be lyable to make satisfaction by service at
the end of their tymes by indenture (vizt.) double the tyme of service
soe neglected, and in some cases more if the commissioners ... find it
requisite and convenient."[44] The laws of 1639 and of 1641-42 made
running away in Maryland punishable with death, but the proprietor or
governor could commute this penalty to servitude of seven years or
less.[45] Corporal punishment, too, scathed the fugitives.[46]