It is possible the free blacks may increase in a greater, and the slaves in a less ratio, without affecting the sum total of increase of the two classes. A diminution in the increase of slaves may result from frequent emancipation, from emigration from the country-but this must be very inconsiderable, or from a lower degree of productiveness, the result of lower physical comfort, diminished valuation and less industrial uses, etc. We see no reason to allow much for the operation of these causes within the next half century, and may safely estimate ten millions of blacks and colored in the country at the close of it.

It is also clear, from our investigations, that no State, or class of States, can be more responsible than another, for the introduction and extension of the institution of slavery in the Union. The results show, too, that, in a condition of freedom, the blacks of New England have been situated most unpropitiously, as indicated in their trifling increase of numbers-unless we suppose they have passed southward, as general emancipation was expected, or took place in this quarter. Taking the whole Union into account, whatever the merits or demerits of the institution of slavery, ours is but a small share of responsibility for its continuance, and none for its introduction.

The history of slavery carries us back to the origin of society itself. It was found in the earliest advanced nations of antiquity. To attribute its derivation to war is absurd; for, admitting servus to be derived from the Latin servare (to preserve a captive), slavery, we know, was old before Rome had been founded. Perhaps the most curious and ridiculous position is that taken in the Encyclopedia Britannica, that it originated among the antediluvian giants, whose name implied assaulters of others. Nimrod, according to the same authority, was one of its authors-since the Bible tells us he was a mighty hunter before the Lord! To such stuff are authors driven in maintaining their favorite theories.

The fact is, that, immediately after the deluge, we have a decree of God, himself, condemning the children of Ham to perpetual servitude, using the very Hebrew word which translators render slave. After a few generations, slavery is referred to as a well-established institutionfor Abraham, the patriarch, had 318 slaves (Gen., xiv). The laws of God strictly regulated this relation, in all its aspects, and his own peculiar people were commanded to buy slaves from the heathen, and not

to steal them, and instructed how to treat them after they were bought, &c.*

It is said that the heathen, taking advantage of this mild slavery, tolerated by God, established a much worse kind among themselves. However this may be, and it is not improbable, many of the Jews, also, abused the institution, as they did other laws; we may well affirm that slavery presents no worse aspect in the civilized nations of the present day, than it did among the Hebrews.

In Homer, one of the oldest historians extant, there is abundant evidence that all captives were considered slaves; and Ulysses relates his escape from a Phenician, who had doomed him to Lybian slavery. Thus have we the slave trade at that early period. Philip of Macedon sold the captive Thebans, in which example he was followed by his son, Alexander the Great. In Athens, during the most polished ages, slavery was a well established order, although, it is said, that slaves were treated with more leniency than among other nations. In Rome and Sparta the worst features were exhibited. The Spartans butchered their slaves, when, by reason of great numbers, they would likely become dangerous. Camillus, one of the most accomplished generals of the Roman Republic, sold his Etrurian captives to pay the Roman ladies for the jewels they had presented to Apollo. Tabius sold 30,000 citizens of Tarentum to the highest bidder. Julius Cæsar did the same with 53,000 captives. Even debtors were allowed, by the twelve tables, to become the slaves of their creditors. So numerous were the slaves owned by the rich patricians, that Isidorus, who was almost a cotemporary with our Savior, left to his heirs 4,116 slaves; and Augustus put 20,000, of the same class, on board the corn ships. Though many laws were enacted by Augustus and other patriotic emperors, says the British Encyclopedia, to diminish the power of creditors over their insolvent debtors-though the influence of the mild spirit of Christianity tended much to meliorate the condition of slaves, even under Pagan masters, and though the emperor, Hadrian, made it capital to kill a slave without a just reason, yet this commerce prevailed for many ages, universally, in the empire, after the conversion of Constantine to the religion of Christ. It was not completely abolished, even in the reign of Justinian; and, in many countries, which had been once provinces of the empire, it continued long after the empire had fallen to pieces.

* Dr. Cartwright once told us, that one of the crimes denounced in the Bible, is denominated by a term which means, literally, slave stealers (abolitionists). We forget in what connection the term is used; perhaps in reference to Tyre.

Among the ancient Germans, gamesters often became slaves from play, and slavery is said to have existed extensively, though in a mild form, according to Tacitus. In England, in the age of Alfred the Great (tenth century), purchases of men, horses and oxen, are mentioned in the same statute. In 1574, Queen Elizabeth issued a commission to inquire into the condition of her bond men and women in Cornwall, etc., with a view of compounding with them for their freedom. The colliers and salters of Scotland were not manumitted until the close of the eighteenth century. These men could be transferred by written deed from proprietor to proprietor, and were in no respect privileged without such deed.

We have not mentioned Egypt, where Joseph was sold to slavery, and where, in that condition, the Israelites existed 400 years. The Scythians established slavery throughout their northern wilds. Babylon, Tyre, and all the countries around Palestine, had slavery as one of their institutions. The "wrath of Achilles" was a quarrel about a slave. "In early Grecian republics, slavery seemed to be an indispensable element. The slave markets of Rome were filled with men of every complexion and every clime." After the conquest of the Normans, slaves were exported from England into Ireland, until the Irish themselves decreed their emancipation. On the Baltic, the Germans conducted the slave trade, and the Russians supplied slaves to Constantinople by way of the Dnieper. Even the word slave is derived. from the Sclavonic tribes, who were reduced to slavery in their wars with the Germans. The Jews purchased slaves in France for the SarThe Arabians are said to have pawned their children to the Italian monarchs. The Venetians purchased slaves at Rome for the Arabs of Spain and Sicily. In the time of the crusades, three slaves were the price of a war horse. In the countless battles of the Moors and Christians, the captives were indiscriminately enslaved in the worse form. Christians regarded it a pious work, and the infidels retaliated. through the pirates of Barbary.

acens.

On the discovery of America, the native Indians were imported into Spain as slaves. All the rivers of the country were penetrated for this commerce, which was effected through fraud and force. Even Columbus sent five hundred such slaves to be sold at Seville. This traffic is said to have continued two centuries. The New Englanders enslaved the Pequods, the Waldrans and the Annon Indians, and they even fought Indian slaves from the southern provinces. The colonists were supplied with white servants from England, by a class of men called "spirits," who deluded them away and sold them in England, as

* See Thornton's "Slavery" and the authorities there cited, p. 21.

well as in this country, under the hammer. The Scots taken in battle were sold to slavery, the royalist prisoners, and the Catholics of Ireland. The prisoners of Monmouth were eagerly sought as a merchantable commodity. Jeffries, the famous judge of James II, considered these prisoners as worth "ten or fifteen pounds apiece."*

In regard to African slavery, it appears first to have taken deep root in Africa itself, though it is clear, from modern researches, that this people were held in slavery by the Egyptians, as proved by their monuments. The Africans, at no period of history, were devoid of slavery among themselves. They traded slaves to the Tyrians and Carthagenians. Slavery, says the Encyclopedia, seems indeed to have prevailed through all Africa, from the very first peopling of that unexplored country; and we doubt if, in any age of the world, the unhappy negro was absolutely secure of his personal freedom, or even of not being sold to a foreign trader. The African princes were in the habit of destroying thousands of their prisoners, before an opportunity offered of selling them. The Guinea coast supplied the Arabs with slaves, hundreds of years before the Portuguese embarked in the traffic. The Arabs of the desert have always been served by negro slaves. In 651, the king of Numidia promised an annual present of Ethiopian slaves to the Arabs of Egypt. Negro slaves were found in Greece [Bancroft]. In 1100, they must have been uncommon in Europe, for we learn, the crusaders burst into laughter on seeing some negroes in Asia, so comical was their appearance. It appears, however, the Portuguese, fifty years before the discovery of America, found the "trade in negro slaves, having curled hair," very profitable. The Spaniards vied with them in the trade at Seville. Isabella excepted the Moors, or negroes of Africa, from the act emancipating the Indians of America.

Queen Elizabeth was so delighted with the success of John Hawkins's slave operations in America, that she became a partner in his monopoly, sharing his gains and protecting him in his worst enterprises.

The early history of slavery in the United States we have already given (See Thornton, 26th and 27th pages, for the Quaker and Yankee participation in it). The West India Company sent slaves to New York by thousands. The Stewarts, and even Queen Anne, patronized the traffic. Amsterdam participated in its results in her corporate capacity. Pennsylvania maintained that it was "neither just nor convenient to emancipate her slaves;" and Rhode Island, the greatest of all

* See the stirring but disgusting picture of the scene, when peers and dignitaries and favorites, male and female, importuned the king for the privilege of disposing of these prisoners, and the success which attended them, in Macaulay's History of England.

the slave traders, "doubted if slaves should be baptized, as then they might become free."

It is well known how the introduction of slavery was forced upon the South, and how long resisted. The northern country even declared, that no person should own, in the colonies, land at all, unless he would purchase at least four negro slaves to every hundred acres !*

ART. III.-DE SOTO IN ALABAMA.

INVASION OF THE TERRITORY OF ALABAMA, BY ONE THOUSAND SPANIARDS, UNDER FERDINAND DE SOTO, IN 1540.-BY A. J. PICKETT.

MONTGOMERY, ALA., Brittan and De Wolf, 1849.

THE above title introduces a pamphlet, of some forty pages, to the attention of the reading public. If taken by themselves, the facts would excite no inconsiderable interest in those who love the stirring incidents of early adventure, and delight to trace the history of genius, amid scenes of hardship and suffering. To gratify such tastes, is not, however, the aim of Colonel Pickett. The sketch of De Soto is introductory to a history of Alabama, and forms the first chapter of the forthcoming work. Viewed in this connection, it serves a higher purpose than to please the fancy and awaken romantic sentiments. Its design is to exhibit historic truth-a form of truth that every age appreciates more and more, not only for the principles it illustrates, and the lessons it unfolds, but for that union with the past which the present covets, and for those impressive associations which it creates with the material scenery which surrounds us in our daily life.

The records of our country's first exploration and settlement, are records of unparalleled interest. If they are studied as exhibitions of human character, they afford an opportunity for the philosophic to analyze the power of absorbing passions, and to mark the causes which stimulate ardent minds to penetrate into hidden forests and desert wilds. If contemplated for imaginative pleasure, they bring under review the stronger elements of our nature, as they hasten into the fiercest strife, with whatever can develop manly endurance and mighty courage. The age in which these exhibitions took place, was calculated to arouse all kinds of motives and quicken all springs of action. A new impulse had been given to religion, philosophy, government and commerce. Men, in every department of life, felt the sense of power awakening

* Thornton's "Slavery," p. 29, 32.