FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]Ballagh, pp. 36-37.[2]Ibid., 32.[3]Ibid., 37; Beatty,The Free Negroes in the Carolinas before 1860, p. 3.The children, resulting from the intermixture and intermarriage of the races were likewise servants in these two colonies. Stroud,Laws Relating to Slavery, pp. 8-9.[4]Servitude was recognized in statute law in this colony by 1630-36. Ballagh,Hist. of Slavery in Va., pp. 32, 33, 36.[5]Washburn,Slavery as It Once Prevailed in Mass., p. 193.[6]Providence Isle was "an island in the Caribbean, off the Nicaraguan coast. In 1630 Charles I granted it, by a patent similar to that of Massachusetts, to a company of Englishmen, mostly Puritans, who held it till 1641, when the Spaniards captured it." Winthrop'sJournal, II, pp. 227, 228, 260; Moore,Notes on the Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 5.[7]Ballagh,Hist. of Slavery in Va., note 2, quoted fromCalendar State Papers, pp. 160, 168, 229.[8]Ante, p. 252, note 23.[9]Washburn,Slavery as It Once Prevailed in Mass., pp. 208, 215.[10]Nell,Colored Patriots in Am. Rev., p. 37.[11]"There shallneverbeanyBond Slavery, Villinage, or Captivity among us, unless it be lawful Captives taken in just Wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves, or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God, established in Israel concerning such persons, doth morally require. This exempts none from servitude, who shall be judged thereto by authority."Massachusetts Hist. Coll., 28, p. 231; Palfrey,Hist. of New England, II, p. 30[12]Moore,Notes on Slavery in Mass., pp. 62, 63-64, 248.[13]"A judgment is obtained, before the authorities at Manhattan, against one Coinclisse, for wounding a soldier at Fort Amsterdam. He is condemned to serve the company along with the blacks, to be sent by the first ship to South River, pay a fine to the fiscal, and damages to the wounded soldier. This seems to be the first intimation of blacks being in this part of the country.... Director Van Twiller having been charged, after Kiet's arrival, with mismanagement.... Another witness asserts he had in his custody for Van Twiller, at Fort Hope and Nassau, twenty-four to thirty goats, and that three negroes bought by the director in 1636 were since employed in his private service." Hazard,Annals of Penn., pp. 49-50; Turner,The Free Negro in Penn., p. 1.It is noteworthy that the Negroes among the Dutch were generally under the supervision of the Company or worked for officers of the Company.[14]Ante, p. 255, note 37.[15]"Let no blacks be brought in directly, and if any come out of Virginia, Maryld. (or elsewhere erased) in families that have formerly brought them elsewhere Let them be declared (as in the west jersey constitutions) free at 8 years end." Turner,The Negro in Penn., p. 21, notes 13, 14.[16]Ibid., p. 66.[17]Ibid., pp. 24, 25; Stroud,Laws Relating to Slavery, pp. 9-10.[18]Hurd,The Law of Freedom and Bondage, I, 290; Turner,The Free Negro in Penn., p. 92.[19]"On the 1st of March, 1780, before the war of the Revolution was closed, the Assembly of Pennsylvania passed an act declaring that negro and mulatto children whose mothers were slaves, and who were born after the passage of the act, should be free, and that slavery as to them should be forever abolished. But it was declared that such children should be held as servants, under the same terms as indentured servants, until the age of twenty-eight, when they should be free...." Watson,Annals of Philadelphia and Penn. in Olden Times, pp. 468-469.[20]Ibid., pp. 93, 94, 98, 101.[21]Ballagh,Hist. of Slavery in Va., p. 32.[22]Ibid., p. 36.[23]R. I.,Col. Rec., I, p. 243.[24]Du Bois,Suppression of the Slave Trade, p. 34.[25]Hurd,Law of Freedom and Bondage, I, p. 270; Steiner,Hist. of Slavery in Conn., p. 12.[26]Conn.,Col. Rec., XV, p. 40.[27]Stroud,Laws Relating to Slavery, p. 11, note; Hurd,Law of Freedom and Bondage, p. 271.

[1]Ballagh, pp. 36-37.

[2]Ibid., 32.

[3]Ibid., 37; Beatty,The Free Negroes in the Carolinas before 1860, p. 3.The children, resulting from the intermixture and intermarriage of the races were likewise servants in these two colonies. Stroud,Laws Relating to Slavery, pp. 8-9.

[3]Ibid., 37; Beatty,The Free Negroes in the Carolinas before 1860, p. 3.

The children, resulting from the intermixture and intermarriage of the races were likewise servants in these two colonies. Stroud,Laws Relating to Slavery, pp. 8-9.

[4]Servitude was recognized in statute law in this colony by 1630-36. Ballagh,Hist. of Slavery in Va., pp. 32, 33, 36.

[5]Washburn,Slavery as It Once Prevailed in Mass., p. 193.

[6]Providence Isle was "an island in the Caribbean, off the Nicaraguan coast. In 1630 Charles I granted it, by a patent similar to that of Massachusetts, to a company of Englishmen, mostly Puritans, who held it till 1641, when the Spaniards captured it." Winthrop'sJournal, II, pp. 227, 228, 260; Moore,Notes on the Hist. of Slavery in Mass., p. 5.

[7]Ballagh,Hist. of Slavery in Va., note 2, quoted fromCalendar State Papers, pp. 160, 168, 229.

[8]Ante, p. 252, note 23.

[9]Washburn,Slavery as It Once Prevailed in Mass., pp. 208, 215.

[10]Nell,Colored Patriots in Am. Rev., p. 37.

[11]"There shallneverbeanyBond Slavery, Villinage, or Captivity among us, unless it be lawful Captives taken in just Wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves, or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God, established in Israel concerning such persons, doth morally require. This exempts none from servitude, who shall be judged thereto by authority."Massachusetts Hist. Coll., 28, p. 231; Palfrey,Hist. of New England, II, p. 30

[12]Moore,Notes on Slavery in Mass., pp. 62, 63-64, 248.

[13]"A judgment is obtained, before the authorities at Manhattan, against one Coinclisse, for wounding a soldier at Fort Amsterdam. He is condemned to serve the company along with the blacks, to be sent by the first ship to South River, pay a fine to the fiscal, and damages to the wounded soldier. This seems to be the first intimation of blacks being in this part of the country.... Director Van Twiller having been charged, after Kiet's arrival, with mismanagement.... Another witness asserts he had in his custody for Van Twiller, at Fort Hope and Nassau, twenty-four to thirty goats, and that three negroes bought by the director in 1636 were since employed in his private service." Hazard,Annals of Penn., pp. 49-50; Turner,The Free Negro in Penn., p. 1.It is noteworthy that the Negroes among the Dutch were generally under the supervision of the Company or worked for officers of the Company.

It is noteworthy that the Negroes among the Dutch were generally under the supervision of the Company or worked for officers of the Company.

[14]Ante, p. 255, note 37.

[15]"Let no blacks be brought in directly, and if any come out of Virginia, Maryld. (or elsewhere erased) in families that have formerly brought them elsewhere Let them be declared (as in the west jersey constitutions) free at 8 years end." Turner,The Negro in Penn., p. 21, notes 13, 14.

[16]Ibid., p. 66.

[17]Ibid., pp. 24, 25; Stroud,Laws Relating to Slavery, pp. 9-10.

[18]Hurd,The Law of Freedom and Bondage, I, 290; Turner,The Free Negro in Penn., p. 92.

[19]"On the 1st of March, 1780, before the war of the Revolution was closed, the Assembly of Pennsylvania passed an act declaring that negro and mulatto children whose mothers were slaves, and who were born after the passage of the act, should be free, and that slavery as to them should be forever abolished. But it was declared that such children should be held as servants, under the same terms as indentured servants, until the age of twenty-eight, when they should be free...." Watson,Annals of Philadelphia and Penn. in Olden Times, pp. 468-469.

[20]Ibid., pp. 93, 94, 98, 101.

[21]Ballagh,Hist. of Slavery in Va., p. 32.

[22]Ibid., p. 36.

[23]R. I.,Col. Rec., I, p. 243.

[24]Du Bois,Suppression of the Slave Trade, p. 34.

[25]Hurd,Law of Freedom and Bondage, I, p. 270; Steiner,Hist. of Slavery in Conn., p. 12.

[26]Conn.,Col. Rec., XV, p. 40.

[27]Stroud,Laws Relating to Slavery, p. 11, note; Hurd,Law of Freedom and Bondage, p. 271.

Let us now direct our attention to the change from servitude to slavery. It is well to note here, however, that white servitude did not embrace the chief features of slavery. Nieboer defines a slave as "a man who is the property or possession of another man, and forced to work for him." Again, "slavery is the fact that one man is the property or possession of another."[1]White servitude lacked the final and formal feature of "property," namely complete "possession," and consequently never included either perpetual service or the transmission of servile condition to offspring, although during the first half of its development in the colonies, servitude tended to assume the character of slavery.[2][3]

The servitude that existed up to 1619 underwent change until it finally crystallized into indented servitude. The conditions were not as bad as the testimony of colony servants and observers of the period would indicate, and yet where there were so many references to it the condition evidently obtained.[4]In enlisting new settlers for the colonies, the Company "issued broadsides and pamphlets,with specious promises, which, however honest its purpose, were certainly never fulfilled."[5]In Virginia in 1613, colonists of 1607 who had served out the term of their original five-year contract were either retained in servitude or granted a tenancy burdened with oppressive and unfair obligations. The changed land policy of 1616 brought upon the colony servants further disadvantages. Before March, 1617, when the men of the Charles City Hundred demanded and were granted their "long desired freedom from that general and common servitude," no freedom had been granted to the colonists. After this until 1619, it was only through "extraordinary payment" that freedom was obtained.[6]Many of these colonists of Virginia, moreover, were retained in servitude until 1624 when the Company dissolved.[7]

Other incidents, growing out of the servant's role, tended to make the condition of servitude more rigid. In order to make the system of labor under the Company successful, Lord Delaware, in 1610, organized the colony into a "labor force under commanders and overseers"; and close watch over the men and their work was accordingly maintained. "The colonists were marched to their daily work in squads and companies under officers, and the severest penalties were prescribed for a breach of discipline or neglect of duty. A persistent neglect of labor was to be punished by galley service from one to two years. Penal servitude was also instituted; for 'petty offences' they worked 'as slaves in irons for a term of years'"; and therewere whipping, "hangings, shooting, breaking on the wheel, and even burning alive."[8]

It may be observed from references made to this early servitude that, generally, it was harsh. We read: "Having most of them served the colony six or seven years in that 'general slavery'"; "'three years slavery' to the colony"; "noe waye better than slavery"; "rather than be reduced to live under like government we desire his Magestie that Commissioners may be sent over with authority to hang us"; and "Sold as a d—— slave."[9]Undoubtedly, these references are not all true; yet, they are not altogether false. At least they indicate that the conditions of this servitude approached slavery.[10]Out of these, informal "slavery" and unsettled conditions of early servitude, indented servitude developed.

As a general rule, every advantage was taken of the servant by the servant-dealers and masters. Opportunity to hold the servant longer than the period allowed by law or to extend his service was not infrequently seized upon, for the laxity of the system and the need of labor in the colonies made this a natural consequence. During the first period of servitude, the term of service in many cases was not prescribed in the indentures; and sometimes servants were brought over without indentures, or with only verbal contracts.[11]Thus trouble about the length of their term of service arose, especially in connection with the servants who did not have indentures. Circumstances indicate that in the interpretation of law and the facts, the master generally triumphed.[12]It was in 1638-39 that Maryland took the first definite step to prevent unfair treatment of servants by their masters. In 1654 it became necessary againto pass a law determining the servant's age and length of service. Virginia enacted similar measures in 1643 and 1657. Still, when the servants were ignorant, "which was usually the case," or could not speak the English language, the master took advantage of their shortcomings.[13]Notwithstanding the repeated efforts of the courts and assembly to protect the servant in his relation to the master, the lucrative practice of extending a servant's term, which became customary in the case of Indian and Negro servants, proved a significant factor in the degradation of white servitude.

Under the system of servitude, the conduct of the servant necessarily bore a close relation to the interests of the master. When the servant stole, ran away, "unlawfully assembled" or "plotted," indulged in fornication, spent unusual time in social intercourse, or was secretly married, the master as a rule suffered some loss. And for protection of the master, methods of punishment were resorted to, the character, definiteness, and attendant circumstances of which tended to reduce the servant to the status of a slave.

As the servant had no money with which to pay fines, some other method of punishment had to be used. Corporal punishment of a harsh character appears to have been established. Practiced at first by individuals, it soon became a general custom, and finally found its way into the laws of the colonies. During the period prior to indented servitude, instances of severe whipping of servants are numerous.[14]The first colony law which gave the master the privilege of regulating the servant's conduct in thismanner, however, appeared in 1619.[15]Corporal punishment then gradually gained ground and won sanction by the colonial courts. A law in Virginia provided in 1662 "for the erecting of a whipping post in every county" and the General Assembly of this colony, in 1688, reassured the master of his right to whip the servant. All along this right was so much abused[16]that it was restrained in Virginia. In 1705 an act ordered the master not to whip the servant "immoderately"; and to whip a Christian white servant naked, an order from a justice of peace had to be obtained.[17]Several other colonies similarly restrained the right to whip.[18]

Another method of punishment that gradually hardened the conditions of servitude was the addition of time to the term of the servant. This evidently originated in the custom of the Company to prescribe as penalty for offense "service to the colony in public work."[19]This method of punishment was extensively used throughout the colonies. Sometimes the length of additional service was left to the discretion of the master, but this was so abused that the government saw fit to make regulations, which, however, themselves were not free from harshness.[20]

At first the servants undoubtedly enjoyed the right of marriage, but as this proved a source of much inconvenience and loss to the master, since the men servants lost time, stole food and other provisions, and the women servants lost time during pregnancy and in rearing children, laws restricting marriage of servants were enacted in the colonies.In Virginia, in 1643, this right was legally restricted. When the servants were secretly married, in some cases the man had to "serve out his or their tyme or tymes with his or their masters—after serve his master a complete year more for such offense committed" while the woman-servant had to double her time of service.[21]In other cases, as in North Carolina, the servants were required to serve one year.[22]Further restriction of the right of marriage appeared in Virginia in 1662. When a woman-servant and a Negro slave were married in Maryland, the woman was, in some instances, reduced to slavery, as she was required to serve her master during the life of her husband.[23]The effect of this law was, in certain instances, to complete practically the transition from servitude to slavery. Children resulting from such marriages were either made slaves for life, or required to serve until they were thirty years of age. Fornication also was made punishable by an addition of time. The woman-servant, who gave birth to illegitimate offspring, received an addition of time of one and a half to two and a half years.[24]When the offspring was by a Negro, mulatto, or Indian, she was required to serve the colony or the master for an additional time of four, five, or seven years. The children in these cases were bound out for thirty-one years.[25]With marriage restricted as it was, the family life of the servants was likely to be disorderly.Morals of servants were notably loose, and masters sometimes took advantage of their position to corrupt their servants still further.[26]

The servants were also restricted in political affairs. In the earliest period of servitude in the colonies, servants, as "inhabitants," enjoyed with the other "inhabitants" whatever suffrage there was.[27]Later on, however, this rare privilege dwindled tonil. For the "first sixteen years of the settlement" in Massachusetts the servants exercised the franchise.[28]In Virginia they voted until 1646 and the freedservant until 1670.[29]In Maryland in 1636, in the first assembly of the colony, only "freemen" seemed to hold sway.[30]Disfranchisement became the rule, however, after the middle of the seventeenth century.[31]The very noticeable scarcity of information on the servant's exercise of the suffrage seems to suggest that as a matter of understanding he did not enjoy the franchise. Evidently there prevailed a certain suspicion concerning not only the servant's ability to use the suffrage, but also his proper use of it; and this attitude wasalso always fairly pronounced toward the recently freedservant.[32]

The final remedy of the servant, then, was flight. From the beginning of indented servitude, the servants invariably deserted their master's service. While in all cases they did not run away on account of abuses, the practice brought on abuses and other incidents which, during the first part of servitude, became more and more intolerable.

The number of runaways increased as the servants continued coming in. It was comparatively easy for them to escape to the more northern colonies, since the country about them was convenient for hiding and clandestine traveling; and the fugitives themselves, on account of having no physical characteristics distinguishable from those of the other colonists, could not easily be identified.[33]Thus North Carolina became popularly known as the "Refuge of Runaways" and that colony, Maryland, and the Dutch plantations were to fugitive servants what Massachusetts, Ohio, and Canada were later to runaway slaves.[34]The "under-ground railroad," too, had a forerunner in the early period of indentured servitude.[35]Methods of dealing with the runaways necessarily grew more strict, and precautions similar to those of slavery inevitably appeared. "Unlawful assembling," "plotting," and tentative insurrections became a source of apprehension.[36]Then came methods of pursuit, return,and punishment of the fugitives. Sometimes the master made the pursuit; at other times the sheriff and his posse did it; and often the constable with a search warrant went in quest of the fugitive. Everyone who traveled was required to have a pass or a certificate of freedom to show his status;[37]and this no doubt afforded the servants a means of using forgery to facilitate their escape to freedom.[38]Again, whenever it was possible, advertisements for runaways were put in the newspapers.[39]During this time, too, there were enacted colonial statutes providing for the return of fugitives by one colony to the other. Colonial governments often accused each other of unduly holding and protecting the runaways.[40]

The greatest abuses in servitude occurred in the punishment of fugitive servants. These abuses, moreover, gradually increased in number and intensified in character.[41]The expense of the servant's capture, return, and loss of time from work, and the desire to prevent running away led to stringent punishment and evident abuses.[42]In Virginia before 1643, some runaways were punished with "additional terms from two to seven years, served in irons, to the public."[43]The act of 1643 in Virginia provided that runaways from their "master's service shall be lyable to make satisfaction by service at the end of their tymes by indenture (vizt.) double the tyme of service soe neglected, and in some cases more if the commissioners ... find it requisite and convenient."[44]Thelaws of 1639 and of 1641-42 made running away in Maryland punishable with death, but the proprietor or governor could commute this penalty to servitude of seven years or less.[45]Corporal punishment, too, scathed the fugitives.[46]

Plainly, then, the fugitive servant tended to assimilate the status of the servant to that of the slave and tended to become mere property. The servant could be transferred as property from one person to another, for from the beginning his services were bought and sold. The custom of purchasing and disposing of apprentices and servants was early practiced in Virginia and out of this practice grew the more definite and far-reaching custom of signing the servant's contract. Begun in 1623, it was resented by servants and deprecated by England; and yet with no question of its legality, the selling of servants' time became a common practice.[47]Later on, upon securing the servant in England, the indenture was often made out to the shipmaster or his assigns, and the servant was sold by him to the planters in America. To sell the servants, merchants were sometimes invited on board the ship, where they could look over the human cargo and select those who were desirable. Often it happened that the servants were brought over without indentures. They were made to believe that their lot would be made easy by the master who would buy them.[48]These, too, were sold by the captain to the highest bidder.[49]That theservants were dealt with in this way eventually made the indentures as a rule negotiable, and this led to further degradation of the servants' status. The theory that the servant's time was property was tenable as late as 1756 in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, for during the war with the French and Indians, when the governments and officers were recruiting the servants of the masters, the masters protested, resisted, and won.[50]

The servant, then, gradually became property, not principally because of a tendency to consider the Negro servant as such, but because of the incidents necessarily arising from the methods which had to be used to make white servitude possible in the colonies. These methods, then, the custom of using them, and finally the tentative legal sanction of them, were fairly well practiced before the Negro's arrival and long before he was considered as chattel.[51]

FOOTNOTES:[1]Nieboer,Slavery as an Industrial Institution, p. 42.[2]Doyle,Hist. of Eng. Col. in Am., p. 385.[3]Ballagh,Hist. of Slavery in Va., p. 42.[4]McCormac,White Servitude in Md., pp. 9, 60, 61, 63.[5]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 15.[6]Ibid., pp. 19, 31, 24.[7]"We see, then, that the colonist, while in theory only a Virginia member of the London Company, and entitled to equal rights and privileges with other members or adventurers, was, from the nature of the case, practically debarred from exercising these rights.... He was kept by force in the colony, and could have no communication with his friends in England.... Under the arbitrary administration of the Company and of its deputy governors he was as absolutely at its disposal as a servant at his master's. His conduct was regulated by corporal punishment or more extreme measures. He could be hired out by the Company to private persons, or by the Governor for his personal advantage."Ibid., p. 26.[8]Ibid., p. 23.[9]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 23, 24, 25, 43 note.[10]McCormac,White Servitude in Md., pp. 48, 49.[11]Ibid., pp. 38, 43; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 40, 49.[12]"Where no contract but a verbal one existed there was always room for controversy between master and servant, each trying to prove an agreement that would be to his advantage."Ibid., p. 50.[13]"Where the servants were ignorant, which was usually the case, it was to the advantage of the master that there should be no written contract, as there was then a chance of extending the term of service." McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 44."The Palatines and other German races, who, in the later years formed nearly all of the servant population, knew little of the laws and language and were an easy prey to the abuses of traders and harsh masters. They had been used to very little liberty at home and were slow to assert their rights in America."Ibid., p. 61.[14]Ante, p. 268.[15]Henning,Statutes at Large, I, pp. 127, 130, 192; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 45.[16]Ibid., p. 77.[17]Ibid., pp. 58, 59.[18]Bassett,Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C., p. 81.[19]"In this we have the germ of addition of time, a practice which later became the occasion of a very serious abuse of the servants rights by the addition of terms altogether incommensurate with the offenses for which they were imposed." Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 45.[20]Henning,Statutes at Large, I, p. 438, II, p. 114, III, pp. 87, 140, 450; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 57.[21]Henning,Statutes at Large, p. 257; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 50-51.[22]Bassett,Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C., p. 34.[23]"Instead of preventing such marriages, this law enabled avaricious and unprincipled masters to convert many of their servants to slaves. While this act continued in force, it did more to lower the standard of servitude than any other law passed during the whole period." McCormac,White Servitude in Md., pp. 68-69.[24]Turner,The Negro in Penn., p. 30; Bassett,Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C., p. 83; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 57.[25]Ibid., 57; Bassett,Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C., pp. 83-84; Turner,The Negro in Penn., p. 30; McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 70.[26]"If she should be delivered of a child by her master during this period she should be sold by the church wardens for the benefit of the church for one year after the term of service.... Here again there was no punishment for the seducing master. It is also evident that the sin of the servant would be an advantage of the master, since he would thereby secure her service for a longer period. We have not the least evidence that such a thing did happen, yet it is possible that a master might for this reason have compassed the sin of his serving-woman." Bassett,Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C., pp. 83-84."By the acts giving the master additions of time for the birth of a bastard child to his servant a premium was actually put upon immorality, and there appear to have been masters base enough to take advantage of it." Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 79.The master also encouraged marriage between servants and Negroes. McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 68.[27]Hurd,Law of Freedom and Bondage, I, p. 228 note.[28]Ibid., p. 255.[29]Ibid., pp. 232, 254; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 93.[30]Hurd,Law of Freedom and Bondage, I, p. 248.[31]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 90.[32]"Thus the liberated servant became an idler, socially corrupt, and often politically dangerous." Doyle,Eng. Cols in Am., I, p. 387."By the temporary disfranchisement of the servant during his term, common after the middle of the 17th century, a serious public danger was avoided. There could be no guarantee, of the judicious exercise of the suffrage with this class who, for the most part, had never enjoyed the privilege before. Their servitude may be regarded as preparing them for a proper appreciation of suffrage when obtained, and the duties of citizenship...." Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 90 note.[33]"To facilitate discovery, habitual runaways had their hair cut 'close around their ears' and 'were branded on the cheek with the letter R.'" Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 55 note.[34]Ibid., pp. 53-54.[35]McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 53.[36]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 53, 60.[37]Ibid., p. 54; McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 54.[38]Ibid., p. 55.[39]Ibid., p. 50.[40]Ibid., pp. 52-53; Bassett,Slavery and White Servitude in the Col. of N. C., p. 79; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 54.[41]McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 54.[42]"Statute after statute was passed regulating the punishment and providing for the pursuit and recapture of runaways; but although laws became severer and finally made no distinction in treatment of runaway servants and slaves, it was impossible to entirely put a stop to the habit so long as the system itself lasted."Ibid., p. 56; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 52, 57.[43]Ibid., p. 57.[44]Ibid., pp. 57-58; Henning,Statutes at Large, II, p. 458.[45]McCormac,White Servitude in Md., pp. 51-52.[46]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 59.[47]"As a result, (my comma) the idea of the contract and of the legal personality of the servant was gradually lost sight of in the disposition to regard him as a chattel and a part of the personal estate of his master, which might be treated and disposed of very much in the same way as the rest of the estate. He became thus rated in inventories of estate, and was disposed of both by will and by deed along with the rest of the property." Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 43, 44.[48]Eddis,Letters from Am., p. 72.[49]Example of the advertisement of the arrival of a servantship: "Just Arrived in the Sophia, Alexander Verdeen, Master, from Dublin, Twenty stout, healthy Indented Men Servents Whose Indentures will be disposed of on reasonable Terms, by the Captain on board, or the subscribers ..., etc." McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 42.[50]Ibid., pp. 39, 40, 42, 52, 85-89.[51]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 31, 33, 68; Ballagh,Hist. of Slavery in Va., pp. 39-40; Russell,The Free Negro in Va., pp. 46-47.

[1]Nieboer,Slavery as an Industrial Institution, p. 42.

[2]Doyle,Hist. of Eng. Col. in Am., p. 385.

[3]Ballagh,Hist. of Slavery in Va., p. 42.

[4]McCormac,White Servitude in Md., pp. 9, 60, 61, 63.

[5]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 15.

[6]Ibid., pp. 19, 31, 24.

[7]"We see, then, that the colonist, while in theory only a Virginia member of the London Company, and entitled to equal rights and privileges with other members or adventurers, was, from the nature of the case, practically debarred from exercising these rights.... He was kept by force in the colony, and could have no communication with his friends in England.... Under the arbitrary administration of the Company and of its deputy governors he was as absolutely at its disposal as a servant at his master's. His conduct was regulated by corporal punishment or more extreme measures. He could be hired out by the Company to private persons, or by the Governor for his personal advantage."Ibid., p. 26.

[8]Ibid., p. 23.

[9]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 23, 24, 25, 43 note.

[10]McCormac,White Servitude in Md., pp. 48, 49.

[11]Ibid., pp. 38, 43; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 40, 49.

[12]"Where no contract but a verbal one existed there was always room for controversy between master and servant, each trying to prove an agreement that would be to his advantage."Ibid., p. 50.

[13]"Where the servants were ignorant, which was usually the case, it was to the advantage of the master that there should be no written contract, as there was then a chance of extending the term of service." McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 44."The Palatines and other German races, who, in the later years formed nearly all of the servant population, knew little of the laws and language and were an easy prey to the abuses of traders and harsh masters. They had been used to very little liberty at home and were slow to assert their rights in America."Ibid., p. 61.

"The Palatines and other German races, who, in the later years formed nearly all of the servant population, knew little of the laws and language and were an easy prey to the abuses of traders and harsh masters. They had been used to very little liberty at home and were slow to assert their rights in America."Ibid., p. 61.

[14]Ante, p. 268.

[15]Henning,Statutes at Large, I, pp. 127, 130, 192; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 45.

[16]Ibid., p. 77.

[17]Ibid., pp. 58, 59.

[18]Bassett,Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C., p. 81.

[19]"In this we have the germ of addition of time, a practice which later became the occasion of a very serious abuse of the servants rights by the addition of terms altogether incommensurate with the offenses for which they were imposed." Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 45.

[20]Henning,Statutes at Large, I, p. 438, II, p. 114, III, pp. 87, 140, 450; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 57.

[21]Henning,Statutes at Large, p. 257; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 50-51.

[22]Bassett,Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C., p. 34.

[23]"Instead of preventing such marriages, this law enabled avaricious and unprincipled masters to convert many of their servants to slaves. While this act continued in force, it did more to lower the standard of servitude than any other law passed during the whole period." McCormac,White Servitude in Md., pp. 68-69.

[24]Turner,The Negro in Penn., p. 30; Bassett,Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C., p. 83; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 57.

[25]Ibid., 57; Bassett,Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C., pp. 83-84; Turner,The Negro in Penn., p. 30; McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 70.

[26]"If she should be delivered of a child by her master during this period she should be sold by the church wardens for the benefit of the church for one year after the term of service.... Here again there was no punishment for the seducing master. It is also evident that the sin of the servant would be an advantage of the master, since he would thereby secure her service for a longer period. We have not the least evidence that such a thing did happen, yet it is possible that a master might for this reason have compassed the sin of his serving-woman." Bassett,Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C., pp. 83-84."By the acts giving the master additions of time for the birth of a bastard child to his servant a premium was actually put upon immorality, and there appear to have been masters base enough to take advantage of it." Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 79.The master also encouraged marriage between servants and Negroes. McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 68.

"By the acts giving the master additions of time for the birth of a bastard child to his servant a premium was actually put upon immorality, and there appear to have been masters base enough to take advantage of it." Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 79.

The master also encouraged marriage between servants and Negroes. McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 68.

[27]Hurd,Law of Freedom and Bondage, I, p. 228 note.

[28]Ibid., p. 255.

[29]Ibid., pp. 232, 254; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 93.

[30]Hurd,Law of Freedom and Bondage, I, p. 248.

[31]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 90.

[32]"Thus the liberated servant became an idler, socially corrupt, and often politically dangerous." Doyle,Eng. Cols in Am., I, p. 387."By the temporary disfranchisement of the servant during his term, common after the middle of the 17th century, a serious public danger was avoided. There could be no guarantee, of the judicious exercise of the suffrage with this class who, for the most part, had never enjoyed the privilege before. Their servitude may be regarded as preparing them for a proper appreciation of suffrage when obtained, and the duties of citizenship...." Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 90 note.

[32]"Thus the liberated servant became an idler, socially corrupt, and often politically dangerous." Doyle,Eng. Cols in Am., I, p. 387.

"By the temporary disfranchisement of the servant during his term, common after the middle of the 17th century, a serious public danger was avoided. There could be no guarantee, of the judicious exercise of the suffrage with this class who, for the most part, had never enjoyed the privilege before. Their servitude may be regarded as preparing them for a proper appreciation of suffrage when obtained, and the duties of citizenship...." Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 90 note.

[33]"To facilitate discovery, habitual runaways had their hair cut 'close around their ears' and 'were branded on the cheek with the letter R.'" Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 55 note.

[34]Ibid., pp. 53-54.

[35]McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 53.

[36]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 53, 60.

[37]Ibid., p. 54; McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 54.

[38]Ibid., p. 55.

[39]Ibid., p. 50.

[40]Ibid., pp. 52-53; Bassett,Slavery and White Servitude in the Col. of N. C., p. 79; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 54.

[41]McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 54.

[42]"Statute after statute was passed regulating the punishment and providing for the pursuit and recapture of runaways; but although laws became severer and finally made no distinction in treatment of runaway servants and slaves, it was impossible to entirely put a stop to the habit so long as the system itself lasted."Ibid., p. 56; Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 52, 57.

[43]Ibid., p. 57.

[44]Ibid., pp. 57-58; Henning,Statutes at Large, II, p. 458.

[45]McCormac,White Servitude in Md., pp. 51-52.

[46]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., p. 59.

[47]"As a result, (my comma) the idea of the contract and of the legal personality of the servant was gradually lost sight of in the disposition to regard him as a chattel and a part of the personal estate of his master, which might be treated and disposed of very much in the same way as the rest of the estate. He became thus rated in inventories of estate, and was disposed of both by will and by deed along with the rest of the property." Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 43, 44.

[48]Eddis,Letters from Am., p. 72.

[49]Example of the advertisement of the arrival of a servantship: "Just Arrived in the Sophia, Alexander Verdeen, Master, from Dublin, Twenty stout, healthy Indented Men Servents Whose Indentures will be disposed of on reasonable Terms, by the Captain on board, or the subscribers ..., etc." McCormac,White Servitude in Md., p. 42.

[50]Ibid., pp. 39, 40, 42, 52, 85-89.

[51]Ballagh,White Servitude in the Col. of Va., pp. 31, 33, 68; Ballagh,Hist. of Slavery in Va., pp. 39-40; Russell,The Free Negro in Va., pp. 46-47.

The status of the Negro in British America was at first that of a servant. He was not held for life, but set at liberty after a term of service. It was his service, not himself, that was the property or chattel of another, and his offspring was not subject to servitude. Again, he had privileges similar to and in some cases identical with those of the other servants; in many cases the rules which governed other servants governed him as well. In short, the Negro was not the "absolute possession" of another.[1]Moreover, it was some years before he became a slave. Distinctly during this time, his status wentthrough a gradual process of transition inevitable in the development of subjection in the colonies.[2]

"Servant" becomes "servant for life" and "perpetual servant" in colonial laws. The progress of extending the Negro servant's term is generally observed in the language of the laws of the colonies. It appears that as the servants went into slavery, "what is termed perpetual was substituted for limited service, while all the predetermined incidents of servitude, except such as referred to ultimate freedom, continued intact." Later the terms "servant for life," "perpetual servant" and "bond servant" were used interchangeably with "slave" and the words "servant" and "slave" and their liabilities were joined in the same enactments.[3]It was some time before the word "slave" was clearly and definitely used, and the servant who became slave lost all the earmarks of a servant.[4]

The practice of holding the servant after the expiration of his term was more characteristic of black servitude than white. As the Negroes increased in numbers, this practice increased. As white servitude declined, the assurance of labor waned. The extension of the Negro's term, then, for a few years longer and eventually to life service appeared a logical as well as a necessary step for the masters to take.[5]Moreover, since the public wasoften led to believe that when at liberty the Negroes were an uncontrollable and probably dangerous element of the population, extension of their terms in servitude gradually gained public approval.[6]Hence, the Negro servant was held whenever the occasion demanded and the opportunity presented itself.

In illustrating the gradual transition into slavery through repeated holding and attempts at holding the Negro servants for life, court cases of Virginia may be taken as typical. Brass, a Negro, whose master, a ship captain, had died, was, upon being threatened with enslavement, assigned by the General Court in 1625 as servant to the governor of the colony instead of as slave to the company of his late master's ship.[7]John Punch, who ran away in company with three white servants, was adjudged by the court, in 1640, to serve his master the "time of his natural life" while the white servants were given four additional years to serve. Anthony Johnson, a Negro to whom attention has already been called, owned a large tract of land on the Eastern Shore. In 1640 he became involved in a suit for holding John Castor, another Negro, seven years overtime. It appears that Castor was set free. Later, however, Johnson brought suit against Robert Parker, a white man, for harboring Castor as if he were a free man; and the court decided that Castor return to his master, Johnson, evidently for service forlife. Sometime before 1644, a mulatto boy named Emanuel, a servant, was sold "as a slave forever" but later was adjudged by the Assembly "no slave and but to serve as other Christian servants do." In 1673, a servant, who had been unlawfully detained beyond his five-year period, won judgment against his master, George Light; the Negro servant was set free and received his freedom dues from the master.[8]In 1674 Philip Cowan petitioned the governor for freedom on the ground that Charles Lucas kept him three years overtime and then compelled him by threats to sign an indenture for twenty years.[9]

Other indications of holding the Negro servant may be shown. In Pennsylvania, Negro servants were invariably given a longer term of service than the white servants and often held after the expiration of the term;[10]so extensive was the practice of holding these servants that, in 1682 and 1693, laws were enacted against it.[11]In Georgia a road to slavery was paved by extending the servants' terms. Negroes were brought out of North Carolina into Georgia by white servants who, becoming tired of servitude, had these blacks serve out their unexpired terms with the Georgia masters. As this worked well themasters lengthened the term of the Negro servants to life.[12]In fact, on account of the reciprocal influence of white servitude and Negro servitude, wherever white servants were taken advantage of and held longer, Negro servants were subjected to harsher treatment and longer extension of term.

The mulatto class in the colonies constituted an element through which transition of Negro servitude into slavery is apparent. As the mulattoes were looked upon as the result of an "abominable mixture" of the races and as representing a troublesome element in society, local laws and colonial statutes were gradually enacted to check and control them.[13]The statutes first aimed at serving as a deterrent upon the women, and hence arose the doctrine ofpartus sequitur ventrem, which imposed the mother's status upon the offspring. However, the first statute to this effect, the act of 1662 in Virginia, was largely enacted because of fornication of Englishmen and Negro women.[14]Statutes enunciating this doctrine were enacted in the other colonies as follows: Maryland, 1663; Massachusetts, 1698; Connecticut and New Jersey, 1704; Pennsylvania and New York, 1706; South Carolina, 1712; Rhode Island, 1728; and North Carolina, 1741.[15]Thus not only Negro mulattoes, that is, the offspring of white men and Negro women, were prevented from becoming servants, but those who were already either freemen or servants were gradually reduced to slavery. To check the growth of the mulatto class, particularly through the intermixture and intermarriage of Negro men and white women, a Virginia law in 1691 provided that the woman be fined, or sold into service for five years, or given five years ofadded time, and the mulatto be bound out for thirty years.[16]In Maryland, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, similar laws were passed.[17]The mulatto, then, in one case was reduced from freeman and servant to slave, and in the other case made a servant for thirty or more years.[18]Thus the debasing of the status of the mulatto helped the transition to slavery.

Just as the fugitive white servant repeatedly gave occasion, through incidents growing out of his capture, return, and deterrence, to lower the status of the servant until it assumed the character of slavery, so the fugitive Negro servant made his lot harder and influenced the extension of his term to perpetuity. The Negro servant, unlike either the Indian or white servant, obviously had little to tempt him to run away from his master; his physical characteristics made detection easy, there was no free Negro population to which he could escape, the unfamiliar country around him held but poor prospects for his making a livelihood more easily than under his master, and the strangeness of his situation undoubtedly had much to do with his acceptance of it. Yet the Negro as a servant did run away. It is very probable that the practice of runningaway to the Indians began when he was a servant.[19]Again, it appears that he ran away not infrequently in company with white servants. In Virginia, in 1640, John Punch, a Negro servant, ran away in company with two white servants. The three were overtaken in Maryland and brought back to Virginia for trial. The court ordered that the white servants' terms be lengthened four years, and that Punch, the Negro servant, "shall serve his master or his assigns for the time of his natural life."[20]

The transition of servitude to slavery, moreover, is distinctly noticed in the change in the conception of property in the service of the Negro to that of property in his person.[21]Like that of the white and Indian servants, the Negro's service through contract, implied and expressed, was owned by the master. This ownership, however, consisted of only the right of the master to the service of the servant. Gradually, as this service necessarily became involved in wills, estates, taxation, and business transactions, the person of the servant instead of his service came more and more to be regarded, both in custom and in law, as property, so that eventually the servant, himself, was considered personal estate. Thus he was "rated in inventories of estates, was transferable bothinter vivosand by will, descended to the executors and administrators, and was taxable." While he was now a "contractual person," he still retained such incidents ofpersonality as rights of limited protection, personal freedom, and possession of property.[22]As the service of the servant became more and more regarded and treated as a form of property, his personality was completely lost sight of, and his term was extended to the time of his natural life.[23]Easily, then, the Negro servant regarded at first a part of the personal estate came at length to be regarded as a chattel real.

T. R. Davis

Walden College,Nashville, Tenn.

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