THE NEGRO IN THE COLONIES
The Negroes who were brought from Africa to America were brought hither
to work, and to work under compulsion; hence any study of their social
life in the colonial era must be primarily a study of their life under
the system of slavery, and of the efforts of individuals to break away
from the same.
1. _Servitude and Slavery_
For the antecedents of Negro slavery in America one must go back to the
system of indentured labor known as servitude. This has been defined
as "a legalized status of Indian, white, and Negro servants preceding
slavery in most, if not all, of the English mainland colonies."[1] A
study of servitude will explain many of the acts with reference to
Negroes, especially those about intermarriage with white people. For the
origins of the system one must go back to social conditions in England
in the seventeenth century. While villeinage had been formally abolished
in England at the middle of the fourteenth century, it still lingered in
remote places, and even if men were not technically villeins they might
be subjected to long periods of service. By the middle of the fifteenth
century the demand for wool had led to the enclosure of many farms
for sheep-raising, and accordingly to distress on the part of many
agricultural laborers. Conditions were not improved early in the
sixteenth century, and they were in fact made more acute, the abolition
of the monasteries doing away with many of the sources of relief. Men
out of work were thrown upon the highways and thus became a menace to
society. In 1564 the price of wheat was 19s. a quarter and wages were
7d. a day. The situation steadily grew worse, and in 1610, while wages
were still the same, wheat was 35s. a quarter. Rents were constantly
rising, moreover, and many persons died from starvation. In the course
of the seventeenth century paupers and dissolute persons more and more
filled the jails and workhouses.
[Footnote 1: _New International Encyclopædia_, Article "Slavery."]
Meanwhile in the young colonies across the sea labor was scarce, and it
seemed to many an act of benevolence to bring from England persons who
could not possibly make a living at home and give them some chance in
the New World. From the very first, children, and especially young
people between the ages of twelve and twenty, were the most desired. The
London Company undertook to meet half of the cost of the transportation
and maintenance of children sent out by parish authorities, the
understanding being that it would have the service of the same until
they were of age.[1] The Company was to teach each boy a trade and when
his freedom year arrived was to give to each one fifty acres, a cow,
some seed corn, tools, and firearms. He then became the Company's
tenant, for seven years more giving to it one-half of his produce, at
the end of which time he came into full possession of twenty-five acres.
After the Company collapsed individuals took up the idea. Children under
twelve years of age might be bound for seven years, and persons over
twenty-one for no more than four; but the common term was five years.
[Footnote 1: Coman: _Industrial History_, 42.]
Under this system fell servants voluntary and involuntary. Hundreds of
people, too poor to pay for their transportation, sold themselves for
a number of years to pay for the transfer. Some who were known as
"freewillers" had some days in which to dispose of themselves to the
best advantage in America; if they could not make satisfactory terms,
they too were sold to pay for the passage. More important from the
standpoint of the system itself, however, was the number of involuntary
servants brought hither. Political offenders, vagrants, and other
criminals were thus sent to the colonies, and many persons, especially
boys and girls, were kidnapped in the streets of London and "spirited"
away. Thus came Irishmen or Scotchmen who had incurred the ire of the
crown, Cavaliers or Roundheads according as one party or the other was
out of power, and farmers who had engaged in Monmouth's rebellion; and
in the year 1680 alone it was estimated that not less than ten thousand
persons were "spirited" away from England. It is easy to see how such
a system became a highly profitable one for shipmasters and those in
connivance with them. Virginia objected to the criminals, and in 1671
the House of Burgesses passed a law against the importing of such
persons, and the same was approved by the governor. Seven years later,
however, it was set aside for the transportation of political offenders.
As having the status of an apprentice the servant could sue in court and
he was regularly allowed "freedom dues" at the expiration of his term.
He could not vote, however, could not bear weapons, and of course
could not hold office. In some cases, especially where the system was
voluntary, servants sustained kindly relations with their masters, a few
even becoming secretaries or tutors. More commonly, however, the lot of
the indentured laborer was a hard one, his food often being only coarse
Indian meal, and water mixed with molasses. The moral effect of the
system was bad in the fate to which it subjected woman and in the
evils resulting from the sale of the labor of children. In this whole
connection, however, it is to be remembered that the standards of the
day were very different from those of our own. The modern humanitarian
impulse had not yet moved the heart of England, and flogging was still
common for soldiers and sailors, criminals and children alike.
The first Negroes brought to the colonies were technically servants, and
generally as Negro slavery advanced white servitude declined. James II,
in fact, did whatever he could to hasten the end of servitude in order
that slavery might become more profitable. Economic forces were with
him, for while a slave varied in price from £10 to £50, the mere cost
of transporting a servant was from £6 to £10. "Servitude became slavery
when to such incidents as alienation, disfranchisement, whipping, and
limited marriage were added those of perpetual service and a denial of
civil, juridical, marital and property rights as well as the denial of
the possession of children."[1] Even after slavery was well established,
however, white men and women were frequently retained as domestic
servants, and the system of servitude did not finally pass in all of its
phases before the beginning of the Revolutionary War.
[Footnote 1: _New International Encyclopædia_, Article "Slavery."]
Negro slavery was thus distinctively an evolution. As the first Negroes
were taken by pirates, the rights of ownership could not legally be
given to those who purchased them; hence slavery by custom preceded
slavery by statute. Little by little the colonies drifted into the
sterner system. The transition was marked by such an act as that in
Rhode Island, which in 1652 permitted a Negro to be bound for ten years.
We have already referred to the Act of Assembly in Virginia in 1661 to
the effect that Negroes were incapable of making satisfaction for time
lost in running away by addition of time. Even before it had become
generally enacted or understood in the colonies, however, that a child
born of slave parents should serve for life, a new question had arisen,
that of the issue of a free person and a slave. This led Virginia in
1662 to lead the way with an act declaring that the status of a child
should be determined by that of the mother,[1] which act both gave to
slavery the sanction of law and made it hereditary. From this time
forth Virginia took a commanding lead in legislation; and it is to be
remembered that when we refer to this province we by no means have
reference to the comparatively small state of to-day, but to the richest
and most populous of the colonies. This position Virginia maintained
until after the Revolutionary War, and not only the present West
Virginia but the great Northwest Territory were included in her domain.
[Footnote 1: Hening: _Statutes_, II, 170.]
The slave had none of the ordinary rights of citizenship; in a criminal
case he could be arrested, tried, and condemned with but one witness
against him, and he could be sentenced without a jury. In Virginia
in 1630 one Hugh Davis was ordered to be "soundly whipped before an
assembly of Negroes and others, for abusing himself to the dishonor of
God and the shame of Christians, by defiling his body in lying with a
Negro."[1] Just ten years afterwards, in 1640, one Robert Sweet was
ordered "to do penance in church, according to the laws of England, for
getting a Negro woman with child, and the woman to be whipped."[2] Thus
from the very beginning the intermixture of the races was frowned upon
and went on all the same. By the time, moreover, that the important acts
of 1661 and 1662 had formally sanctioned slavery, doubt had arisen
in the minds of some Virginians as to whether one Christian could
legitimately hold another in bondage; and in 1667 it was definitely
stated that the conferring of baptism did not alter the condition of a
person as to his bondage or freedom, so that masters, freed from
this doubt, could now "more carefully endeavor the propagation of
Christianity." In 1669 an "act about the casual killing of slaves"
provided that if any slave resisted his master and under the extremity
of punishment chanced to die, his death was not to be considered a
felony and the master was to be acquitted. In 1670 it was made clear
that none but freeholders and housekeepers should vote in the election
of burgesses, and in the same year provision was taken against the
possible ownership of a white servant by a free Negro, who nevertheless
"was not debarred from buying any of his own nation." In 1692 there
was legislation "for the more speedy prosecution of slaves committing
capital crimes"; and this was reënacted in 1705, when some provision was
made for the compensation of owners and when it was further declared
that Negro, mulatto, and Indian slaves within the dominion were "real
estate" and "incapable in law to be witnesses in any cases whatsoever";
and in 1723 there was an elaborate and detailed act "directing the
trial of slaves committing capital crimes, and for the more effectual
punishing conspiracies and insurrections of them, and for the better
government of Negroes, mulattoes, and Indians, bond or free." This
last act specifically stated that no slave should be set free upon
any pretense whatsoever "except for some meritorious services, to be
adjudged and allowed by the governor and council." All this legislation
was soon found to be too drastic and too difficult to enforce, and
modification was inevitable. This came in 1732, when it was made
possible for a slave to be a witness when another slave was on trial
for a capital offense, and in 1744 this provision was extended to civil
cases as well. In 1748 there was a general revision of all existing
legislation, with special provision against attempted insurrections.
[Footnote 1: Hening: _Statutes_, I, 146.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., I, 552.]
Thus did Virginia pave the way, and more and more slave codes took on
some degree of definiteness and uniformity. Very important was the
act of 1705, which provided that a slave might be inventoried as real
estate. As property henceforth there was nothing to prevent his being
separated from his family. Before the law he was no longer a person but
a thing.
2. 737 _The Indian, the Mulatto, and the Free Negro_
All along, it is to be observed, the problem of the Negro was
complicated by that of the Indian. At first there was a feeling that
Indians were to be treated not as Negroes but as on the same basis as
Englishmen. An act in Virginia of 1661-2 summed up this feeling in the
provision that they were not to be sold as servants for any longer time
than English people of the same age, and injuries done to them were to
be duly remedied by the laws of England. About the same time a Powhatan
Indian sold for life was ordered to be set free. An interesting
enactment of 1670 attempted to give the Indian an intermediate status
between that of the Englishman and the Negro slave, as "servants not
being Christians, imported into the colony by shipping" (i.e., Negroes)
were to be slaves for their lives, but those that came by land were to
serve "if boys or girls until thirty years of age; if men or women,
twelve years and no longer." All such legislation, however, was
radically changed as a result of Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion of 1676, in
which the aid of the natives was invoked against the English governor.
Henceforth Indians taken in war became the slaves for life of their
captors. An elaborate act of 1682 summed up the new status, and Indians
sold by other Indians were to be "adjudged, deemed, and taken to be
slaves, to all intents and purposes, any law, usage, or custom to the
contrary notwithstanding." Indian women were to be "tithables,"[1] and
they were required to pay levies just as Negro women. From this time
forth enactments generally included Indians along with Negroes, but of
course the laws placed on the statute books did not always bear close
relation to what was actually enforced, and in general the Indian was
destined to be a vanishing rather than a growing problem. Very early in
the eighteenth century, in connection with the wars between the English
and the Spanish in Florida, hundreds of Indians were shipped to the West
Indies and some to New England. Massachusetts in 1712 prohibited
such importation, as the Indians were "malicious, surly, and very
ungovernable," and she was followed to similar effect by Pennsylvania in
1712, by New Hampshire in 1714, and by Connecticut and Rhode Island in
1715.
[Footnote 1: Hurd, commenting on an act of 1649 declaring all imported
male servants to be tithables, speaks as follows (230): "_Tithables_
were persons assessed for a poll-tax, otherwise called the 'county
levies.' At first, only free white persons were tithable. The law of
1645 provided for a tax on property and tithable persons. By 1648
property was released and taxes levied only on the tithables, at
a specified poll-tax. Therefore by classing servants or slaves as
tithables, the law attributes to them legal personality, or a membership
in the social state inconsistent with the condition of a chattel or
property."]
If the Indian was destined to be a vanishing factor, the mulatto and the
free Negro most certainly were not. In spite of all the laws to prevent
it, the intermixture of the races increased, and manumission somehow
also increased. Sometimes a master in his will provided that several of
his slaves should be given their freedom. Occasionally a slave became
free by reason of what was regarded as an act of service to the
commonwealth, as in the case of one Will, slave belonging to Robert
Ruffin, of the county of Surry in Virginia, who in 1710 divulged a
conspiracy.[1] There is, moreover, on record a case of an indentured
Negro servant, John Geaween, who by his unusual thrift in the matter of
some hogs which he raised on the share system with his master, was able
as early as 1641 to purchase his own son from another master, to the
perfect satisfaction of all concerned.[2] Of special importance for
some years were those persons who were descendants of Negro fathers and
indentured white mothers, and who at first were of course legally free.
By 1691 the problem had become acute in Virginia. In this year "for
prevention of that abominable mixture and spurious issue, which
hereafter may increase in this dominion, as well by Negroes, mulattoes
and Indians intermarrying with English or other white women, as by their
unlawful accompanying with one another," it was enacted that "for the
time to come whatsoever English or other white man or woman being free
shall intermarry with a Negro, mulatto, or Indian man or woman, bond
or free, shall within three months after such marriage be banished
and removed from this dominion forever, and that the justices of each
respective county within this dominion make it their particular care
that this act be put in effectual execution."[3] A white woman who
became the mother of a child by a Negro or mulatto was to be fined £15
sterling, in default of payment was to be sold for five years, while the
child was to be bound in servitude to the church wardens until thirty
years of age. It was further provided that if any Negro or mulatto was
set free, he was to be transported from the country within six months
of his manumission (which enactment is typical of those that it was
difficult to enforce and that after a while were only irregularly
observed). In 1705 it was enacted that no "Negro, mulatto, or Indian
shall from and after the publication of this act bear any office
ecclesiastical, civil or military, or be in any place of public trust or
power, within this her majesty's colony and dominion of Virginia"; and
to clear any doubt that might arise as to who should be accounted a
mulatto, it was provided that "the child of an Indian, and the child,
grandchild, or great-grandchild of a Negro shall be deemed, accounted,
held, and taken to be a mulatto." It will be observed that while the act
of 1670 said that "none but freeholders and housekeepers" could vote,
this act of 1705 did not specifically legislate against voting by a
mulatto or a free Negro, and that some such privilege was exercised for
a while appears from the definite provision in 1723 that "no free Negro,
mulatto, or Indian, whatsoever, shall hereafter have any vote at the
election of burgesses, or any other election whatsoever." In the same
year it was provided that free Negroes and mulattoes might be employed
as drummers or trumpeters in servile labor, but that they were not to
bear arms; and all free Negroes above sixteen years of age were declared
tithable. In 1769, however, all free Negro and mulatto women were
exempted from levies as tithables, such levies having proved to be
burdensome and "derogatory to the rights of freeborn subjects."
[Footnote 1: Hening: _Statutes_, III, 537.]
[Footnote 2: _Virginia Magazine of History_, X, 281.]
[Footnote 3: The penalty was so ineffective that in 1705 it was changed
simply to imprisonment for six months "without bail or mainprise."]
More than other colonies Maryland seems to have been troubled about the
intermixture of the races; certainly no other phase of slavery here
received so much attention. This was due to the unusual emphasis on
white servitude in the colony. In 1663 it was enacted that any freeborn
woman intermarrying with a slave should serve the master of the slave
during the life of her husband and that any children resulting from
the union were also to be slaves. This act was evidently intended to
frighten the indentured woman from such a marriage. It had a very
different effect. Many masters, in order to prolong the indenture of
their white female servants, encouraged them to marry Negro slaves.
Accordingly a new law in 1681 threw the responsibility not on the
indentured woman but on the master or mistress; in case a marriage took
place between a white woman-servant and a slave, the woman was to be
free at once, any possible issue was to be free, and the minister
performing the ceremony and the master or mistress were to be fined ten
thousand pounds of tobacco. This did not finally dispose of the problem,
however, and in 1715, in response to a slightly different situation, it
was enacted that a white woman who became the mother of a child by a
free Negro father should become a servant for seven years, the father
also a servant for seven years, and the child a servant until thirty-one
years of age. Any white man who begot a Negro woman with child, whether
a free woman or a slave, was to undergo the same penalty as a white
woman--a provision that in course of time was notoriously disregarded.
In 1717 the problem was still unsettled, and in this year it was enacted
that Negroes or mulattoes of either sex intermarrying with white people
were to be slaves for life, except mulattoes born of white women, who
were to serve for seven years, and the white person so intermarrying
also for seven years. It is needless to say that with all these changing
and contradictory provisions many servants and Negroes did not even
know what the law was. In 1728, however, free mulatto women having
illegitimate children by Negroes and other slaves, and free Negro
women having illegitimate children by white men, and their issue, were
subjected to the same penalties as in the former act were provided
against white women. Thus vainly did the colony of Maryland struggle
with the problem of race intermixture. Generally throughout the South
the rule in the matter of the child of the Negro father and the
indentured white mother was that the child should be bound in servitude
for thirty or thirty-one years.
In the North as well as in the South the intermingling of the blood of
the races was discountenanced. In Pennsylvania as early as 1677 a white
servant was indicted for cohabiting with a Negro. In 1698 the Chester
County court laid it down as a principle that the mingling of the races
was not to be allowed. In 1722 a woman was punished for promoting a
secret marriage between a white woman and a Negro; a little later the
Assembly received from the inhabitants of the province a petition
inveighing against cohabiting; and in 1725-6 a law was passed positively
forbidding the mixture of the races.[1] In Massachusetts as early as
1705 and 1708 restraining acts to prevent a "spurious and mixt issue"
ordered the sale of offending Negroes and mulattoes out of the colony's
jurisdiction, and punished Christians who intermarried with them by a
fine of £50. After the Revolutionary War such marriages were declared
void and the penalty of £50 was still exacted, and not until 1843 was
this act repealed. Thus was the color-line, with its social and legal
distinctions, extended beyond the conditions of servitude and slavery,
and thus early was an important phase of the ultimate Negro Problem
foreshadowed.
[Footnote 1: Turner: _The Negro in Pennsylvania_, 29-30.]
Generally then, in the South, in the colonial period, the free Negro
could not vote, could not hold civil office, could not give testimony in
cases involving white men, and could be employed only for fatigue
duty in the militia. He could not purchase white servants, could not
intermarry with white people, and had to be very circumspect in his
relations with slaves. No deprivation of privilege, however, relieved
him of the obligation to pay taxes. Such advantages as he possessed were
mainly economic. The money gained from his labor was his own; he might
become skilled at a trade; he might buy land; he might buy slaves;[1] he
might even buy his wife and child if, as most frequently happened,
they were slaves; and he might have one gun with which to protect his
home.[2] Once in a long while he might even find some opportunity
for education, as when the church became the legal warden of Negro
apprentices. Frequently he found a place in such a trade as that of
the barber or in other personal service, and such work accounted very
largely for the fact that he was generally permitted to remain in
communities where technically he had no right to be. In the North his
situation was little better than in the South, and along economic lines
even harder. Everywhere his position was a difficult one. He was most
frequently regarded as idle and shiftless, and as a breeder of mischief;
but if he showed unusual thrift he might even be forced to leave his
home and go elsewhere. Liberty, the boon of every citizen, the free
Negro did not possess. For all the finer things of life--the things that
make life worth living--the lot that was his was only less hard than
that of the slave.
[Footnote 1: Russell: _The Free Negro in Virginia_, 32-33, cites from
the court records of Northampton County, 1651-1654 and 1655-1658, the
noteworthy case of a free negro, Anthony Johnson, who had come to
Virginia not later than 1622 and who by 1650 owned a large tract of land
on the Eastern Shore. To him belonged a Negro, John Casor. After several
years of labor Casor demanded his freedom on the ground that from the
first he had been an indentured servant and not a slave. When the case
came up in court, however, not only did Johnson win the verdict that
Casor was his slave, but he also won his suit against Robert Parker, a
white man, who he asserted had illegally detained Casor.]
[Footnote 2: Hening: _Statutes_, IV, 131.]
3. _First Effort for Social Betterment_
If now we turn aside from laws and statutes and consider the ordinary
life and social intercourse of the Negro, we shall find more than one
contradiction, for in the colonial era codes affecting slaves and free
Negroes had to grope their way to uniformity. Especially is it necessary
to distinguish between the earlier and the later years of the period,
for as early as 1760 the liberalism of the Revolutionary era began to be
felt. If we consider what was strictly the colonial epoch, we may find
it necessary to make a division about the year 1705. Before this date
the status of the Negro was complicated by the incidents of the system
of servitude; after it, however, in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and
Massachusetts alike, special discrimination against him on account of
race was given formal recognition.
By 1715 there were in Virginia 23,000 Negroes, and in all the colonies
58,850, or 14 per cent of the total population.[1] By 1756, however,
the Negroes in Virginia numbered 120,156 and the white people but
173,316.[2] Thirty-eight of the forty-nine counties had more Negro than
white tithables, and eleven of the counties had a Negro population
varying from one-fourth to one-half more than the white. A great many of
the Negroes had only recently been imported from Africa, and they were
especially baffling to their masters of course when they conversed in
their native tongues. At first only men were brought, but soon women
came also, and the treatment accorded these people varied all the way
from occasional indulgence to the utmost cruelty. The hours of work
regularly extended from sunrise to sunset, though corn-husking and
rice-beating were sometimes continued after dark, and overseers were
almost invariably ruthless, often having a share in the crops. Those who
were house-servants would go about only partially clad, and the slave
might be marked or branded like one of the lower animals; he was not
thought to have a soul, and the law sought to deprive him of all human
attributes. Holiday amusement consisted largely of the dances that the
Negroes had brought with them, these being accompanied by the beating of
drums and the blowing of horns; and funeral ceremonies featured African
mummeries. For those who were criminal offenders simple execution was
not always considered severe enough; the right hand might first be
amputated, the criminal then hanged and his head cut off, and his body
quartered and the parts suspended in public places. Sometimes the
hanging was in chains, and several instances of burning are on record.
A master was regularly reimbursed by the government for a slave legally
executed, and in 1714 there was a complaint in South Carolina that
the treasury had become almost exhausted by such reimbursements. In
Massachusetts hanging was the worst legal penalty, but the obsolete
common-law punishment was revived in 1755 to burn alive a slave-woman
who had killed her master in Cambridge.[3]
[Footnote 1: Blake: _History of Slavery and the Slave-Trade_, 378.]
[Footnote 2: Ballagh: _Slavery in Virginia_, 12.]
[Footnote 3: Edward Eggleston: "Social Conditions in the Colonies," in
_Century Magazine_, October, 1884, p. 863.]
The relations between the free Negro and the slave might well have given
cause for concern. Above what was after all only an artificial barrier
spoke the call of race and frequently of kindred. Sometimes at a later
date jealousy arose when a master employed a free Negro to work with
his slaves, the one receiving pay and the others laboring without
compensation. In general, however, the two groups worked like brothers,
each giving the other the benefit of any temporary advantage that it
possessed. Sometimes the free Negro could serve by reason of the greater
freedom of movement that he had, and if no one would employ him, or if,
as frequently happened, he was browbeaten and cheated out of the reward
of his labor, the slave might somehow see that he got something to eat.
In a state of society in which the relation of master and slave was the
rule, there was of course little place for either the free Negro or the
poor white man. When the pressure became too great the white man moved
away; the Negro, finding himself everywhere buffeted, in the colonial
era at least had little choice but to work out his salvation at home as
well as he could. More and more character told, and if a man had made
himself known for his industry and usefulness, a legislative act might
even be passed permitting him to remain in the face of a hostile law.
Even before 1700 there were in Virginia families in which both parents
were free colored persons and in which every effort was made to bring up
the children in honesty and morality. When some prosperous Negroes found
themselves able to do so, they occasionally purchased Negroes, who might
be their own children or brothers, in order to give them that protection
without which on account of recent manumission they might be required to
leave the colony in which they were born. Thus, whatever the motive, the
tie that bound the free Negro and the slave was a strong one; and in
spite of the fact that Negroes who owned slaves were generally known
as hard masters, as soon as any men of the race began to be really
prominent their best endeavor was devoted to the advancement of their
people. It was not until immediately after the Revolutionary War,
however, that leaders of vision and statesmanship began to be developed.
It was only the materialism of the eighteenth century that accounted for
the amazing development of the system of Negro slavery, and only this
that defeated the benevolence of Oglethorpe's scheme for the founding
of Georgia. As yet there was no united protest--no general movement for
freedom; and as Von Holst said long afterwards, "If the agitation had
been wholly left to the churches, it would have been long before men
could have rightly spoken of 'a slavery question.'" The Puritans,
however, were not wholly unmindful of the evil, and the Quakers were
untiring in their opposition, though it was Roger Williams who in 1637
made the first protest that appears in the colonies.[1] Both John Eliot
and Cotton Mather were somewhat generally concerned about the harsh
treatment of the Negro and the neglect of his spiritual welfare.
Somewhat more to the point was Richard Baxter, the eminent English
nonconformist, who was a contemporary of both of these men. "Remember,"
said he, in speaking of Negroes and other slaves, "that they are of as
good a kind as you; that is, they are reasonable creatures as well as
you, and born to as much natural liberty. If their sin have enslaved
them to you, yet Nature made them your equals." On the subject of
man-stealing he is even stronger: "To go as pirates and catch up poor
Negroes or people of another land, that never forfeited life or liberty,
and to make them slaves, and sell them, is one of the worst kinds of
thievery in the world." Such statements, however, were not more than the
voice of individual opinion. The principles of the Quakers carried them
far beyond the Puritans, and their history shows what might have been
accomplished if other denominations had been as sincere and as unselfish
as the Society of Friends. The Germantown protest of 1688 has already
been remarked. In 1693 George Keith, in speaking of fugitives, quoted
with telling effect the text, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master
the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee" (Deut. 23.15).
In 1696 the Yearly Meeting in Pennsylvania first took definite action
in giving as its advice "that Friends be careful not to encourage the
bringing in of any more Negroes; and that such that have Negroes, be
careful of them, bring them to meetings, have meetings with them in
their families, and restrain them from loose and lewd living as much as
in them lies, and from rambling abroad on First-days or other times."[2]
As early as 1713 the Quakers had in mind a scheme for freeing the
Negroes and returning them to Africa, and by 1715 their efforts
against importation had seriously impaired the market for slaves
in Philadelphia. Within a century after the Germantown protest the
abolition of slavery among the Quakers was practically accomplished.
[Footnote 1: For this and the references immediately following note
Locke: _Anti-Slavery in America_, 11-45.]
[Footnote 2: _Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the
Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends against Slavery and the
Slave-Trade_, 8.]
In the very early period there seems to have been little objection to
giving a free Negro not only religious but also secular instruction;
indeed he might be entitled to this, as in Virginia, where in 1691 the
church became the agency through which the laws of Negro apprenticeship
were carried out; thus in 1727 it was ordered that David James, a free
Negro boy, be bound to Mr. James Isdel, who was to "teach him to read
the Bible distinctly, also the trade of a gunsmith" and "carry him to
the clerk's office and take indenture to that purpose."[1] In general
the English church did a good deal to provide for the religious
instruction of the free Negro; "the reports made in 1724 to the English
bishop by the Virginia parish ministers are evidence that the few free
Negroes in the parishes were permitted to be baptized, and were received
into the church when they had been taught the catechism."[2] Among
Negroes, moreover, as well as others in the colonies the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was active. As early as 1705,
in Goose Creek Parish in South Carolina, among a population largely
recently imported from Africa, a missionary had among his communicants
twenty blacks who well understood the English tongue.[3] The most
effective work of the Society, however, was in New York, where as early
as 1704 a school was opened by Elias Neau, a Frenchman who after several
years of imprisonment because of his Protestant faith had come to New
York to try his fortune as a trader. In 1703 he had called the attention
of the Society to the Negroes who were "without God in the world, and of
whose souls there was no manner of care taken," and had suggested the
appointment of a catechist. He himself was prevailed upon to take up the
work and he accordingly resigned his position as an elder in the French
church and conformed to the Church of England. He worked with success
for a number of years, but in 1712 was embarrassed by the charge that
his school fomented the insurrection that was planned in that year. He
finally showed, however, that only one of his students was in any way
connected with the uprising.
[Footnote 1: Russell: _The Free Negro in Virginia_, 138-9.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., 138.]
[Footnote 3: C.E. Pierre, in _Journal of Negro History_, October, 1916,
p. 350.]
From slave advertisements of the eighteenth century[1] we may gain many
sidelights not only on the education of Negroes in the colonial era,
but on their environment and suffering as well. One slave "can write a
pretty good hand; plays on the fife extremely well." Another "can both
read and write and is a good fiddler." Still others speak "Dutch and
good English," "good English and High Dutch," or "Swede and English
well." Charles Thomas of Delaware bore the following remarkable
characterization: "Very black, has white teeth ... has had his left leg
broke ... speaks both French and English, and is a very great rogue."
One man who came from the West Indies "was born in Dominica and speaks
French, but very little English; he is a very ill-natured fellow and has
been much cut in his back by often whipping." A Negro named Simon who in
1740 ran away in Pennsylvania "could bleed and draw teeth pretending to
be a great doctor." Worst of all the incidents of slavery, however, was
the lack of regard for home ties, and this situation of course obtained
in the North as well as the South. In the early part of the eighteenth
century marriages in New York were by mutual consent only, without the
blessing of the church, and burial was in a common field without any
Christian office. In Massachusetts in 1710 Rev. Samuel Phillips drew up
a marriage formulary especially designed for slaves and concluding as
follows: "For you must both of you bear in mind that you remain still,
as really and truly as ever, your master's property, and therefore
it will be justly expected, both by God and man, that you behave
and conduct yourselves as obedient and faithful servants."[2] In
Massachusetts, however, as in New York, marriage was most often by
common consent simply, without the office of ministers.
[Footnote 1: See documents, "Eighteenth Century Slave Advertisements,"
_Journal of Negro History_, April, 1916, 163-216.]
[Footnote 2: Quoted from Williams: Centennial Oration, "The American
Negro from 1776 to 1876," 10.]
As yet there was no racial consciousness, no church, no business
organization, and the chief coöperative effort was in insurrection.
Until the great chain of slavery was thrown off, little independent
effort could be put forth. Even in the state of servitude or slavery,
however, the social spirit of the race yearned to assert itself, and
such an event as a funeral was attractive primarily because of the
social features that it developed. As early as 1693 there is record of
the formation of a distinct society by Negroes. In one of his manuscript
diaries, preserved in the library of the Massachusetts Historical
Society,[1] Cotton Mather in October of this year wrote as follows:
"Besides the other praying and pious meetings which I have been
continually serving in our neighborhood, a little after this period
a company of poor Negroes, of their own accord, addressed me, for my
countenance to a design which they had, of erecting such a meeting for
the welfare of their miserable nation, that were servants among us. I
allowed their design and went one evening and prayed and preached (on
Ps. 68.31) with them; and gave them the following orders, which I insert
duly for the curiosity of the occasion." The Rules to which Mather here
refers are noteworthy as containing not one suggestion of anti-slavery
sentiment, and as portraying the altogether abject situation of the
Negro at the time he wrote; nevertheless the text used was an inspiring
one, and in any case the document must have historical importance as
the earliest thing that has come down to us in the nature of the
constitution or by-laws for a distinctively Negro organization. It is
herewith given entire:
Rules for the Society of Negroes. 1693.
We the Miserable Children of Adam, and of Noah, thankfully Admiring
and Accepting the Free-Grace of GOD, that Offers to Save us from our
Miseries, by the Lord Jesus Christ, freely Resolve, with His Help,
to become the Servants of that Glorious LORD.
And that we may be Assisted in the Service of our Heavenly Master,
we now join together in a SOCIETY, wherein the following RULES are
to be observed.
I. It shall be our Endeavor, to Meet in the _Evening_ after the
_Sabbath_; and Pray together by Turns, one to Begin, and another to
Conclude the Meeting; And between the two _Prayers_, a _Psalm_ shall
be sung, and a _Sermon_ Repeated.
II. Our coming to the Meeting, shall never be without the _Leave_ of
such as have Power over us: And we will be Careful, that our Meeting
may Begin and Conclude between the Hours of _Seven_ and _Nine_; and
that we may not be _unseasonably Absent_ from the Families whereto
we pertain.
III. As we will, with the help of God, at all Times avoid all
_Wicked Company_, so we will Receive none into our Meeting, but
such as have sensibly _Reformed_ their lives from all manner of
Wickedness. And, therefore, None shall be Admitted, without the
Knowledge and Consent of the _Minister_ of God in this place; unto
whom we will also carry every Person, that seeks for _Admission_
among us; to be by Him Examined, Instructed and Exhorted.
IV. We will, as often as may be, Obtain some Wise and Good Man, of
the English in the Neighborhood, and especially the Officers of the
Church, to look in upon us, and by their Presence and Counsel, do
what they think fitting for us.
V. If any of our Number fall into the Sin of _Drunkenness_, or
_Swearing_, or _Cursing_, or _Lying_, or _Stealing_, or notorious
_Disobedience_ or _Unfaithfulness_ unto their Masters, we will
Admonish him of his Miscarriage, and Forbid his coming to the
Meeting, for at least _one Fortnight_; And except he then come with
great Signs and Hopes of his _Repentance_, we will utterly Exclude
him, with Blotting his _Name_ out of our list.
VI. If any of our Society Defile himself with _Fornication_, we will
give him our _Admonition_; and so, debar him from the Meeting, at
least half a Year: Nor shall he Return to it, ever any more, without
Exemplary Testimonies of his becoming a _New Creature_.
VII. We will, as we have Opportunity, set ourselves to do all the
Good we can, to the other _Negro-Servants_ in the Town; And if any
of them should, at unfit Hours, be _Abroad_, much more, if any of
them should _Run away_ from their Masters, we will afford them
_no Shelter_: But we will do what in us lies, that they may be
discovered, and punished. And if any of _us_ are found Faulty in
this matter, they shall be no longer of _us_.
VIII. None of our Society shall be _Absent_ from our Meeting,
without giving a Reason of the Absence; and if it be found, that any
have pretended unto their _Owners_, that they came unto the Meeting,
when they were otherwise and elsewhere Employed, we will faithfully
_Inform_ their Owners, and also do what we can to Reclaim such
Person from all such Evil Courses for the Future:
IX. It shall be expected from every one in the Society, that he
learn the Catechism; And therefore, it shall be one of our usual
Exercises, for one of us, to ask the _Questions_, and for all the
rest in their Order, to say the _Answers_ in the Catechism; Either,
The _New English_ Catechism, or the _Assemblies_ Catechism, or the
Catechism in the _Negro Christianised_.
[Footnote 1: See _Rules for the Society of Negroes_, 1693, by Cotton
Mather, reprinted, New York, 1888, by George H. Moore.]
4. Early Insurrections
The Negroes who came to America directly from Africa in the eighteenth
century were strikingly different from those whom generations of
servitude later made comparatively docile. They were wild and turbulent
in disposition and were likely at any moment to take revenge for the
great wrong that had been inflicted upon them. The planters in the South
knew this and lived in constant fear of uprisings. When the situation
became too threatening, they placed prohibitive duties on importations,
and they also sought to keep their slaves in subjection by barbarous and
cruel modes of punishment, both crucifixion and burning being legalized
in some early codes. On sea as well as on land Negroes frequently rose
upon those who held them in bondage, and sometimes they actually
won their freedom. More and more, however, in any study of Negro
insurrections it becomes difficult to distinguish between a clearly
organized revolt and what might be regarded as simply a personal crime,
so that those uprisings considered in the following discussion can only
be construed as the more representative of the many attempts for freedom
made by Negro slaves in the colonial era.
In 1687 there was in Virginia a conspiracy among the Negroes in the
Northern Neck that was detected just in time to prevent slaughter, and
in Surry County in 1710 there was a similar plot, betrayed by one of the
conspirators. In 1711, in South Carolina, several Negroes ran away from
their masters and "kept out, armed, robbing and plundering houses and
plantations, and putting the inhabitants of the province in great
fear and terror";[1] and Governor Gibbes more than once wrote to the
legislature about amending the Negro Act, as the one already in
force did "not reach up to some of the crimes" that were daily being
committed. For one Sebastian, "a Spanish Negro," alive or dead, a reward
of £50 was offered, and he was at length brought in by the Indians and
taken in triumph to Charleston. In 1712 in New York occurred an outbreak
that occasioned greater excitement than any uprising that had preceded
it in the colonies. Early in the morning of April 7 some slaves of the
Carmantee and Pappa tribes who had suffered ill-usage, set on fire the
house of Peter van Tilburgh, and, armed with guns and knives, killed and
wounded several persons who came to extinguish the flames. They fled,
however, when the Governor ordered the cannon to be fired to alarm the
town, and they got away to the woods as well as they could, but
not before they had killed several more of the citizens. Some shot
themselves in the woods and others were captured. Altogether eight or
ten white persons were killed, and, aside from those Negroes who had
committed suicide, eighteen or more were executed, several others being
transported. Of those executed one was hanged alive in chains, some were
burned at the stake, and one was left to die a lingering death before
the gaze of the town.
[Footnote 1: Holland: _A Refutation of Calumnies_, 63.]
In May, 1720, some Negroes in South Carolina were fairly well organized
and killed a man named Benjamin Cattle, one white woman, and a little
Negro boy. They were pursued and twenty-three taken and six convicted.
Three of the latter were executed, the other three escaping. In October,
1722, the Negroes near the mouth of the Rappahannock in Virginia
undertook to kill the white people while the latter were assembled in
church, but were discovered and put to flight. On this occasion, as on
most others, Sunday was the day chosen for the outbreak, the Negroes
then being best able to get together. In April, 1723, it was thought
that some fires in Boston had been started by Negroes, and the selectmen
recommended that if more than two Negroes were found "lurking together"
on the streets they should be put in the house of correction. In 1728
there was a well organized attempt in Savannah, then a place of three
thousand white people and two thousand seven hundred Negroes. The plan
to kill all the white people failed because of disagreement as to the
exact method; but the body of Negroes had to be, fired on more than
once before it dispersed. In 1730 there was in Williamsburg, Va., an
insurrection that grew out of a report that Colonel Spotswood had orders
from the king to free all baptized persons on his arrival; men from all
the surrounding counties had to be called in before it could be put
down.
The first open rebellion in South Carolina in which Negroes were
"actually armed and embodied"[1] took place in 1730. The plan was for
each Negro to kill his master in the dead of night, then for all to
assemble supposedly for a dancing-bout, rush upon the heart of the city,
take possession of the arms, and kill any white man they saw. The plot
was discovered and the leaders executed. In this same colony three
formidable insurrections broke out within the one year 1739--one in St.
Paul's Parish, one in St. John's, and one in Charleston. To some extent
these seem to have been fomented by the Spaniards in the South, and in
one of them six houses were burned and as many as twenty-five white
people killed. The Negroes were pursued and fourteen killed. Within two
days "twenty more were killed, and forty were taken, some of whom
were shot, some hanged, and some gibbeted alive."[2] This "examplary
punishment," as Governor Gibbes called it, was by no means effective,
for in the very next year, 1740, there broke out what might be
considered the most formidable insurrection in the South in the whole
colonial period. A number of Negroes, having assembled at Stono, first
surprised, and killed two young men in a warehouse, from which they then
took guns and ammunition.[3] They then elected as captain one of their
own number named Cato, whom they agreed to follow, and they marched
towards the southwest, with drums beating and colors flying, like a
disciplined company. They entered the home of a man named Godfrey, and
having murdered him and his wife and children, they took all the arms he
had, set fire to the house, and proceeded towards Jonesboro. On their
way they plundered and burned every house to which they came, killing
every white person they found and compelling the Negroes to join them.
Governor Bull, who happened to be returning to Charleston from the
southward, met them, and observing them armed, spread the alarm, which
soon reached the Presbyterian Church at Wilton, where a number of
planters was assembled. The women were left in the church trembling with
fear, while the militia formed and marched in quest of the Negroes, who
by this time had become formidable from the number that had joined them.
They had marched twelve miles and spread desolation through all the
plantations on their way. They had then halted in an open field and too
soon had begun to sing and drink and dance by way of triumph. During
these rejoicings the militia discovered them and stationed themselves
in different places around them to prevent their escape. One party then
advanced into the open field and attacked the Negroes. Some were
killed and the others were forced to the woods. Many ran back to the
plantations, hoping thus to avoid suspicion, but most of them were taken
and tried. Such as had been forced to join the uprising against their
will were pardoned, but all of the chosen leaders and the first
insurgents were put to death. All Carolina, we are told, was struck with
terror and consternation by this insurrection, in which more than twenty
white persons were killed. It was followed immediately by the famous and
severe Negro Act of 1740, which among other provisions imposed a duty of
£100 on Africans and £150 on colonial Negroes. This remained technically
in force until 1822, and yet as soon as security and confidence were
restored, there was a relaxation in the execution of the provisions
of the act and the Negroes little by little regained confidence in
themselves and again began to plan and act in concert.
[Footnote 1: Holland: _A Refutation of Calumnies_, 68.]
[Footnote 2: Coffin.]
[Footnote 3: The following account follows mainly Holland, quoting
Hewitt.]
About the time of Cato's insurrection there were also several uprisings
at sea. In 1731, on a ship returning to Rhode Island from Guinea with a
cargo of slaves, the Negroes rose and killed three of the crew, all the
members of which died soon afterwards with the exception of the captain
and his boy. The next year Captain John Major of Portsmouth, N.H., was
murdered with all his crew, his schooner and cargo being seized by the
slaves. In 1735 the captives on the _Dolphin_ of London, while still on
the coast of Africa, overpowered the crew, broke into the powder room,
and finally in the course of their effort for freedom blew up both
themselves and the crew.
A most remarkable design--as an insurrection perhaps not as formidable
as that of Cato, but in some ways the most important single event in the
history of the Negro in the colonial period--was the plot in the city
of New York in 1741. New York was at the time a thriving town of
twelve thousand inhabitants, and the calamity that now befell it was
unfortunate in every way. It was not only a Negro insurrection, though
the Negro finally suffered most bitterly. It was also a strange compound
of the effects of whiskey and gambling, of the designs of abandoned
white people, and of prejudice against the Catholics.
Prominent in the remarkable drama were John Hughson, a shoemaker and
alehouse keeper; Sarah Hughson, his wife; John Romme, also a shoemaker
and alehouse keeper; Margaret Kerry, alias Salinburgh, commonly known
as Peggy; John Ury, a priest; and a number of Negroes, chief among whom
were Cæsar, Prince, Cuffee, and Quack.[1] Prominent among those who
helped to work out the plot were Mary Burton, a white servant of
Hughson's, sixteen years of age; Arthur Price, a young white man who
at the time of the proceedings happened to be in prison on a charge of
stealing; a young seaman named Wilson; and two white women, Mrs. Earle
and Mrs. Hogg, the latter of whom assisted in the store kept by her
husband, Robert Hogg. Hughson's house on the outskirts of the town was a
resort for Negroes, and Hughson himself aided and abetted the Negro men
in any crime that they might commit. Romme was of similar quality. Peggy
was a prostitute, and it was Cæsar who paid for her board with the
Hughsons. In the previous summer she had found lodging with these
people, a little later she had removed to Romme's, and just before
Christmas she had come back to Hughson's, and a few weeks thereafter she
became a mother. At both the public houses the Negroes would engage in
drinking and gambling; and importance also attaches to an organization
of theirs known as the Geneva Society, which had angered some of the
white citizens by its imitation of the rites and forms of freemasonry.
[Footnote 1: The sole authority on the plot is "A Journal of the
Proceedings in the Detection of the Conspiracy formed by Some White
People, in Conjunction with Negro and other Slaves, for Burning the City
of New York in America, and Murdering the Inhabitants (by Judge Daniel
Horsemanden). New York, 1744."]
Events really began on the night of Saturday, February 28, 1741, with
a robbery in the house of Hogg, the merchant, from which were taken
various pieces of linen and other goods, several silver coins, chiefly
Spanish, and medals, to the value of about £60. On the day before, in
the course of a simple purchase by Wilson, Mrs. Hogg had revealed to the
young seaman her treasure. He soon spoke of the same to Cæsar, Prince,
and Cuffee, with whom he was acquainted; he gave them the plan of the
house, and they in turn spoke of the matter to Hughson. Wilson, however,
when later told of the robbery by Mrs. Hogg, at once turned suspicion
upon the Negroes, especially Cæsar; and Mary Burton testified that she
saw some of the speckled linen in question in Peggy's room after Cæsar
had gone thither.
On Wednesday, March 18, a fire broke out on the roof of His Majesty's
House at Fort George. One week later, on March 25, there was a fire at
the home of Captain Warren in the southwest end of the city, and the
circumstances pointed to incendiary origin. One week later, on April
1, there was a fire in the storehouse of a man named Van Zant; on the
following Saturday evening there was another fire, and while the people
were returning from this there was still another; and on the next day,
Sunday, there was another alarm, and by this time the whole town had
been worked up to the highest pitch of excitement. As yet there was
nothing to point to any connection between the stealing and the fires.
On the day of the last one, however, Mrs. Earle happened to overhear
remarks by three Negroes that caused suspicion to light upon them; Mary
Burton was insisting that stolen goods had been brought by Prince and
Cæsar to the house of her master; and although a search of the home of
Hughson failed to produce a great deal, arrests were made right and
left. The case was finally taken to the Supreme Court, and because of
the white persons implicated, the summary methods ordinarily used in
dealing with Negroes were waived for the time being.
Peggy at first withstood all questioning, denying any knowledge of the
events that had taken place. One day in prison, however, she remarked
to Arthur Price that she was afraid the Negroes would tell but that she
would not forswear herself unless they brought her into the matter. "How
forswear?" asked Price. "There are fourteen sworn," she said. "What,
is it about Mr. Hogg's goods?" he asked. "No," she replied, "about the
fire." "What, Peggy," asked Price, "were you going to set the town on
fire?" "No," she replied, "but since I knew of it they made me swear."
She also remarked that she had faith in Prince, Cuff, and Cæsar. All
the while she used the vilest possible language, and at last, thinking
suddenly that she had revealed too much, she turned upon Price and with
an oath warned him that he had better keep his counsel. That afternoon
she said further to him that she could not eat because Mary had brought
her into the case.
A little later Peggy, much afraid, voluntarily confessed that early in
May she was at the home of John Romme, where in the course of December
the Negroes had had several meetings; among other things they had
conspired to burn the fort first of all, then the city, then to get all
the goods they could and kill anybody who had money. One evening just
about Christmas, she said, Romme and his wife and ten or eleven Negroes
had been together in a room. Romme had talked about how rich some people
were, gradually working on the feelings of the Negroes and promising
them that if they did not succeed in their designs he would take them
to a strange country and set them free, meanwhile giving them the
impression that he bore a charmed life. A little later, it appeared,
Cæsar gave to Hughson £12; Hughson was then absent for three days,
and when he came again he brought with him seven or eight guns, some
pistols, and some swords.
As a result of these and other disclosures it was seen that not only
Hughson and Romme but also Ury, who was not so much a priest as an
adventurer, had instigated the plots of the Negroes; and Quack testified
that Hughson was the first contriver of the plot to burn the houses of
the town and kill the people, though he himself, he confessed, did fire
the fort with a lighted stick. The punishment was terrible. Quack and
Cuffee, the first to be executed, were burned at the stake on May
30. All through the summer the trials and the executions continued,
harassing New York and indeed the whole country. Altogether twenty white
persons were arrested; four--Hughson, his wife, Peggy, and Ury--were
executed, and some of their acquaintances were forced to leave the
province. One hundred and fifty-four Negroes were arrested. Thirteen
were burned, eighteen were hanged, and seventy-one transported.
* * * * *
It is evident from these events and from the legislation of the era
that, except for the earnest work of such a sect as the Quakers, there
was little genuine effort for the improvement of the social condition
of the Negro people in the colonies. They were not even regarded as
potential citizens, and both in and out of the system of slavery were
subjected to the harshest regulations. Towards amicable relations with
the other racial elements that were coming to build up a new country
only the slightest measure of progress was made. Instead, insurrection
after insurrection revealed the sharpest antagonism, and any outbreak
promptly called forth the severest and frequently the most cruel
punishment.