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.
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."22A 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.
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.23The 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.
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."24Even 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.
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,25which 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.
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."26Just 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."27Thus 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.
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.
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,"28and 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.
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.29There 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.30Of 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."31A 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."
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.32In 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.
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;33he 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.34Once 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.
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.35By 1756, however, the Negroes in Virginia numbered 120,156 and the white people but 173,316.36Thirty-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.37
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.38Both 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."39As 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.
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."40In 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."41Among 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.42The 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.
From slave advertisements of the eighteenth century43we 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."44In Massachusetts, however, as in New York, marriage was most often by common consent simply, without the office of ministers.
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,45Cotton 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 theEveningafter theSabbath; and Pray together by Turns, one to Begin, and another to Conclude the Meeting; And between the twoPrayers, aPsalmshall be sung, and aSermonRepeated.II. Our coming to the Meeting, shall never be without theLeaveof such as have Power over us: And we will be Careful, that our Meeting may Begin and Conclude between the Hours ofSevenandNine; and that we may not beunseasonably Absentfrom the Families whereto we pertain.III. As we will, with the help of God, at all Times avoid allWicked Company, so we will Receive none into our Meeting, but such as have sensiblyReformedtheir lives from all manner of Wickedness. And, therefore, None shall be Admitted, without the Knowledge and Consent of theMinisterof God in this place; unto whom we will also carry every Person, that seeks forAdmissionamong 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 ofDrunkenness, orSwearing, orCursing, orLying, orStealing, or notoriousDisobedienceorUnfaithfulnessunto their Masters, we will Admonish him of his Miscarriage, and Forbid his coming to the Meeting, for at leastone Fortnight; And except he then come with great Signs and Hopes of hisRepentance, we will utterly Exclude him, with Blotting hisNameout of our list.VI. If any of our Society Defile himself withFornication, we will give him ourAdmonition; 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 aNew Creature.VII. We will, as we have Opportunity, set ourselves to do all the Good we can, to the otherNegro-Servantsin the Town; And if any of them should, at unfit Hours, beAbroad, much more, if any of them shouldRun awayfrom their Masters, we will afford themno Shelter: But we will do what in us lies, that they may be discovered, and punished. And if any ofusare found Faulty in this matter, they shall be no longer ofus.VIII. None of our Society shall beAbsentfrom our Meeting, without giving a Reason of the Absence; and if it be found, that any have pretended unto theirOwners, that they came unto the Meeting, when they were otherwise and elsewhere Employed, we will faithfullyInformtheir 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 theQuestions, and for all the rest in their Order, to say theAnswersin the Catechism; Either, TheNew EnglishCatechism, or theAssembliesCatechism, or the Catechism in theNegro Christianised.
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";46and 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.
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"47took 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."48This "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.49They 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.
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 theDolphinof 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.50Prominent 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.
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.
Footnote 22:(return)New International Encyclopædia, Article "Slavery."
Footnote 23:(return)Coman:Industrial History, 42.
Footnote 24:(return)New International Encyclopædia, Article "Slavery."
Footnote 25:(return)Hening:Statutes, II, 170.
Footnote 26:(return)Hening:Statutes, I, 146.
Footnote 27:(return)Ibid., I, 552.
Footnote 28:(return)Hurd, commenting on an act of 1649 declaring all imported male servants to be tithables, speaks as follows (230): "Tithableswere 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."
Footnote 29:(return)Hening:Statutes, III, 537.
Footnote 30:(return)Virginia Magazine of History, X, 281.
Footnote 31:(return)The penalty was so ineffective that in 1705 it was changed simply to imprisonment for six months "without bail or mainprise."
Footnote 32:(return)Turner:The Negro in Pennsylvania, 29-30.
Footnote 33:(return)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 34:(return)Hening:Statutes, IV, 131.
Footnote 35:(return)Blake:History of Slavery and the Slave-Trade, 378.
Footnote 36:(return)Ballagh:Slavery in Virginia, 12.
Footnote 37:(return)Edward Eggleston: "Social Conditions in the Colonies," inCentury Magazine, October, 1884, p. 863.
Footnote 38:(return)For this and the references immediately following note Locke:Anti-Slavery in America, 11-45.
Footnote 39:(return)Brief Statement of the Rise and Progress of the Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends against Slavery and the Slave-Trade, 8.
Footnote 40:(return)Russell:The Free Negro in Virginia, 138-9.
Footnote 41:(return)Ibid., 138.
Footnote 42:(return)C.E. Pierre, inJournal of Negro History, October, 1916, p. 350.
Footnote 43:(return)See documents, "Eighteenth Century Slave Advertisements,"Journal of Negro History, April, 1916, 163-216.
Footnote 44:(return)Quoted from Williams: Centennial Oration, "The American Negro from 1776 to 1876," 10.
Footnote 45:(return)SeeRules for the Society of Negroes, 1693, by Cotton Mather, reprinted, New York, 1888, by George H. Moore.
Footnote 46:(return)Holland:A Refutation of Calumnies, 63.
Footnote 47:(return)Holland:A Refutation of Calumnies, 68.
Footnote 48:(return)Coffin.
Footnote 49:(return)The following account follows mainly Holland, quoting Hewitt.
Footnote 50:(return)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."