the facts, and the reader can judge whether the inference is warranted or not: The ships which took cargoes of staves and fish to Madeira and the Canaries were accustomed to touch on the coast of Guinea "to trade for negroes," who were carried generally to Barbadoes or the other English islands in the West Indies, the demand for them at home being but small. In the case above referred to, instead of buying negroes in the regular course of traffic, which, under a fundamental law of Massachusetts already quoted, would have been perfectly legal, the crew of a Boston ship joined with some London vessels on the coast, and, on pretense of some quarrel with the natives, landed a “murderer" the expressive name of a small piece of cannon-attacked a negro village on Sunday, killed many of the inhabitants, and made a few prisoners, two of whom fell to the share of the Boston ship. In the course of a lawsuit between the master, mate, and owners, all this story came out, and Saltonstall, who sat as one of the magistrates, thereupon presented a petition to the court, in which he charged the master and mate with a threefold offense, murder, manstealing, and Sabbath-breaking; the two first capital by the fundamental laws of Massachusetts, and all of them "capital by the law of God." The magistrates doubted their authority to punish crimes committed on the coast of Africa; but they ordered the negroes to be sent back, as having been procured not honestly by purchase, but unlawfully by kidnapping.

A code of laws for Connecticut was compiled in 1650 and adopted by the general court, as the legislative assembly was then called. On the subject of the Indians this code exhibits much anxiety. The militia law is full and precise. Every town is to have a store of powder, and on Sundays and lecture days to be furnished with an armed guard, to prevent sudden surprises. Trade with the Indians in arms of any kind, or in dogs, is strictly forbidden. White men leaving the colony and joining the Indians are liable to three years' imprisonment. Every band of Indians resident near any plantation is to have some sachem or chief to be personally responsible for all depredations committed by the band; and, in conformity with a recommendation of the commissioners for the united colonies, if satisfaction for injuries is refused or neglected, the Indians themselves may be seized; "and, because it will be chargeable keeping them in prison," they may be delivered to the injured party, "either to serve, or to be shipped out and exchanged for negroes, as the case will justly bear." It thus appears that negro slavery was authorized in Connecticut as well as in Massachusetts. It was only the heretics of Providence who prohibited perpetual servitude by placing "black mankind" on the same level with regard to limitation of service as white servants. Unfortunately for the honor of Rhode Island, this regulation, enacted during a temporary disruption. of the province, never extended to the other towns, and never obtained the force of a general law.*

Slaves were introduced into New Netherland by the Dutch West India Company, about the year 1650. Most of them remained the property of the

*Hildreth's History of the United States.

company, and the more trusty and industrious, after a certain period of labor, were allowed little farms, paying a stipulated amount of produce. This emancipation did not extend to the children, a circumstance inexplicable and highly displeasing to the Dutch commonalty, who could not understand "how any one born of a free Christian mother could nevertheless be a slave."

At a session of the Virginia legislature, in December, 1662, an act was passed, being the first statute of Virginia which attempts to give a legislative basis to the system of hereditary slavery. It was enacted that children should .be held bond or free "according to the condition of the mother."

In 1663, the subject of slavery also attracted the notice of the Maryland legislature. It was provided, by the first section of an act now passed, that "all negroes and other slaves within this province, and all negroes and other slaves to be hereafter imported into this province, shall serve during life; and all children born of any negro or other slave, shall be slaves, as their fathers were, for the term of their lives." The second section recites that "divers free-born English women, forgetful of their free condition, and to the disgrace. of our nation, do intermarry with negro slaves;" and for deterring from such "shameful matches," it enacts that, during their husbands' lives, white women so intermarrying shall be servants to the masters of their husbands, and that the issue of such marriages shall be slaves for life.

In 1667, the assembly of Virginia enacted that negroes, though converted and baptized, should not thereby become free. At the same session, in remarkable deviation from the English law, it was also enacted, that killing slaves by extremity of correction should not be esteemed felony, "since it can not be presumed that prepense malice should induce any man to destroy his own estate." The prohibition against holding Indians as slaves was also relaxed as to those brought in by water, a new law having enacted "that all servants, not being Christians, imported by shipping, shall be slaves for life." About this period, and afterward, a considerable number of Indian slaves seem to have been imported into Virginia and New England from the West Indies and the Spanish main.

As a necessary pendent to the slave code, the system now also began of subjecting freed slaves to civil disabilities. It had already been enacted that female servants employed in field labor should be rated and taxed as tithable. Negro women, though free, were now subjected to the same tax. Free negroes and Indians were also disqualified to purchase or hold white servants.

Some replies of Berkeley to a series of questions submitted to him by the plantation committee of the privy council, give quite a distinct picture of the colony as it was in 1671. The population is estimated at 40,000, including 2,000 "black slaves," and 6,000 "Christian servants," of whom about 1,500 were imported yearly, principally English. Since the exclusion of Dutch vessels by the acts of navigation, the importation of negroes had been very limited; not above two or three ship loads had arrived in seven years. The English trade to Africa, a monopoly in the hands of the Royal African Company, does not seem to have been prosecuted with much spirit; and such supply of

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slaves as that company furnished was chiefly engrossed by Jamaica and other sugar colonies.

In 1671 an act was passed by Maryland encouraging the importation of slaves.

In 1682 the slave code of Virginia received some additions. Slaves were prohibited to carry arms, offensive or defensive, or to go off the plantations of their masters without a written pass, or to lift hand against a Christian even in self-defense. Runaways who refused to be apprehended might be lawfully killed. The condition of slavery was imposed upon all servants, whether negroes, Moors, mulattoes, or Indians, brought into the colony by sea or land, whether converted to Christianity or not, provided they were not of Christian parentage or country, or Turks or Moors in amity with his majesty. An unsuccessful attempt was made in the council, whether dictated by humanity, by policy, or by a wish to promote the interests of the Royal African company, to reenact the old law prohibiting the enslavement of Indians.

The attempt in Maryland to prevent the intermarriage of whites and blacks seems not to have proved very successful. The preamble to a new act on this subject recites that such matches were often brought about by the "instigation, procurement, or connivance of the master or mistress," who thus availed themselves of the provisions of the former law to prolong the servitude of their female servants, and, at the same time, to raise up a new brood of slaves. To remedy this evil, all white female servants intermarrying with negro slaves were to be declared free at once, and their children also; but the minister celebrating the marriage, and the master or mistress promoting or conniving at it, were subjected to a fine of ten thousand pounds of tobacco.

The settlement of South Carolina commenced about 1660. In the scheme of government for this colony, drafted by the afterwards celebrated metaphysician, John Locke, there was inserted a provision that "every freeman of South Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion and religion whatsoever."

In the code of laws known as the "Duke's laws," enacted for the government of New York in 1665, there is a provision that "no Christian shall be kept in bond slavery, villeinage, or captivity, except such who shall be judged thereunto by authority, or such as willingly have sold or shall sell themselves," in which case a record of such servitude shall be entered in the court of sessions, “held for that jurisdiction where the master shall inhabit." This provision, borrowed, with some modifications, from the "Massachusetts Fundamentals," did not exempt heathen negroes and Indians from slavery.

In Virginia, in 1692, an "act for suppressing outlying slaves," after setting forth in a preamble that "many times negroes, mulattoes, and other slaves unlawfully absent themselves from their masters' and mistresses' service, and lie hid, and lurk in obscure places, killing hogs, and committing other injuries to the inhabitants of this dominion," authorizes any two justices, one being of the quorum, to issue their warrant to the sheriff for the arrest of any such outlying slaves. Whereupon the sheriff is to raise the necessary force, and if the

slaves resist, run away, or refuse to surrender, they may be lawfully killed and destroyed "by guns, or any other way whatsoever," the master, in such cases, to receive from the public four thousand pounds of tobacco for the loss of his slave.

Individual runaways seem at times to have made themselves formidable. We find, a few years later, an act setting forth that one Billy, a negro, slave to John Tillet, "has several years unlawfully absented himself from his master's service, lying out, and lurking in obscure places, supposed within the counties of James City, York, and Kent, devouring and destroying the stocks and crops, robbing the houses of, and committing and threatening other injuries to several of his majesty's good and liege people within this his colony and dominion of Virginia, in contempt of the good laws thereof;" wherefore the said Billy is declared by the act guilty of a capital offense; and "whosoever shall kill and destroy the said negro slave Billy, and apprehend and deliver him to justice," is to be rewarded with a thousand pounds of tobacco; and all persons entertaining him, or trading and trucking with him, are declared guilty of felony; his master, if he be killed, to receive as compensation from the public four thousand pounds of tobacco.

The same statute above cited for suppressing outlying slaves, contains the first provision to be found in the Virginia laws on the subject of the intermixture of the races: "For the 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," any free white man or woman intermarrying with a negro, mulatto, or Indian, was to be forever banished a punishment changed a few years after to six months' imprisonment and a fine of ten pounds. White women having mulatto children without marriage were to pay fifteen pounds sterling, or be sold for five years, that period, if they were servants, to take effect from the expiration of their former term, the child to be bound out as a servant till thirty years of age.

Another clause of this act placed a serious restraint upon emancipation, by enacting that no negro or mulatto slave shall be set free, unless the emancipator pay for his transportation out of the country within six months. Yet the manumission was not void. The idea of reducing again to slavery persons once made free was not yet arrived at. A violation of the act exposed to a penalty of ten pounds, to be appropriated toward the transportation out of the colony of the freed slave.

The practice of special summary tribunals for the trial of slaves charged with crimes was now first introduced-another remarkable deviation from the English law. Any slave guilty of any offense punishable by the law of England with death or loss of member, was to be forthwith committed to the county jail, there to be kept "well laden with irons," and upon notice of the fact, the governor was to issue a commission to any persons of the county he might see fit, before whom the prisoner was to be arraigned, indicted, tried "without the solemnity of a jury," and on the oath of two witnesses, or one witness "with

pregnant circumstances" or confession, was to be found guilty and sentenced. The same act, by another section, forbade slaves to keep horses, cattle, or hogs. It also provided that the owner should be liable for damage done "by any negro or other slave living at a quarter where there is no Christian overseer." These laws indicate the start which the slave-trade had recently received, and the rapid increase in Virginia of slave population.

A fifth revision of the Virginia code, in progress for the last five years by a committee of the council and burgesses, was completed in 1705. This code provided that "all servants imported or brought into this country by sea or land, who were not Christians in their native country, (except Turks and Moors in amity with her majesty, and others who can make due proof of their being free in England or any other Christian country before they were shipped in order to transportation thither,) shall be accounted, and be slaves, notwithstanding a conversion to Christianity afterward," or though they may have. been in England; "all children to be bond or free, according to the condition of their mothers."

By a humane provision of this code, slaves are made real estate, and thus, as it were, attached to the soil. Nor can it be said that the sole object was to shield them from seizure for debt-they remained liable to that as before. They were also to descend like personal property, but provision was made by which the heir of the plantation could buy out the inherited interest of others in the slaves. Such continued to be the law so long as Virginia remained a British colony.

The export of Indian slaves from Carolina had been a subject of complaint in Pennsylvania. The importation of Indian slaves into that province, except such as had been a year domiciled in the family of the importer, had been prohibited, in 1705, by an act especially referring to this Carolina traffic, "as having given our neighboring Indians of this province some umbrage for suspicion and dissatisfaction." A new act, in 1712, "to prevent the importation of negroes and slaves," alleging plots and insurrections, and referring in terms to a recent plot in New York, imposed a prohibitory duty of £20 upon all negroes and Indians brought into the province by land or water, a drawback to be allowed in case of reëxportation within twenty days. Indulgence was also to be granted for a longer time, not exceeding six months, "to all gentlemen and strangers traveling in this province who may have negro or Indian slaves to attend them, not exceeding two for one person." Runaways from the neighboring provinces, if taken back within twenty days after identification, were to be free of duty; otherwise, or if not claimed within twelve months, they were to be sold, and the proceeds paid into the treasury, the owner being entitled only to what remained after paying the duty and expenses. Very large powers were given to the collector to break all doors, and seize and sell all slaves suspected to be concealed with intent to evade the duty. This act, however, within a few months after its passage, was disallowed and repealed by the queen.

A Massachusetts act on the same subject, August, 1712, recites "that di