Library of Congress Subject Headings

Languages Used:

• English
• French

LC Subject Headings:

• African Americans -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- North Carolina.
  
• Slavery -- Law and legislation -- North Carolina.
  
• Slaves -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- North Carolina.
  
• Slavery -- North Carolina -- History -- 18th century.
  
• Slavery -- North Carolina -- History -- 17th century.
  
• African Americans -- North Carolina -- History -- 18th century.
  
• African Americans -- North Carolina -- History -- 17th century.
  
• Slaves -- Religious life -- North Carolina.
  
• Indian slaves -- North Carolina.
  
• Indentured servants -- North Carolina.
  
• Indian captivities -- North Carolina.
  

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[Title Page Image]

[Title Page Verso Image]

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES
IN
HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
FOURTEENTH SERIES
IV-V

HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor

        History is past Politics and Politics are present History.--Freeman

SLAVERY AND SERVITUDE IN THE COLONY
OF NORTH CAROLINA

BY

JOHN SPENCER BASSETT, PH. D. (J. H. U.)
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE IN TRINITY COLLEGE,
NORTH CAROLINA

BALTIMORE
THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS
PUBLISHED MONTHLY
April and May, 1896

Copyright, 1896, by The Johns Hopkins Press

The Friedenwald Co., Printers,
Baltimore.

AUTHORITIES USED.

• Colonial Records of North Carolina; compiled by Col. W. L. Saunders, ten volumes, 1886-1890.
• Laws of North Carolina. Revisions of 1715, 1752, 1765, and 1773.
• Brickell. Natural History of North Carolina, 1737.
• Hawks. History of North Carolina, 1858.
• Weeks. Church and State in North Carolina, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Eleventh Series, Nos. V. and VI.
• Debates of the Convention of 1835.
• Brackett. The Negro in Maryland, 1889.
• Steiner. History of Slavery in Connecticut, Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Eleventh Series, Nos. IX. and X.
• Ballagh. White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, ibid., Thirteenth Series, Nos. VI. and VII.
• Bassett. The Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina, ibid., Twelfth Series, No. III.
• -- Landholding in the Colony of North Carolina, The Law Quarterly Review (London), April, 1895.
• Doyle. The English Colonies in America: Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas.
• Battle. Address on the Life and Services of Brigadier-General Jethro Sumner, 1891.
• Biggs. A Concise History of the Kehukee Baptist Association, 1834.
• Bernheim. German Settlements and Lutheran Churches of the Carolinas, 1872.
• Fiske. The Discovery of America, 1892.
• A Narrative of some of the Proceedings of the North Carolina Yearly Meeting on the Subject of Slavery within its Limits, 1848; published by the Committee for Sufferings.

PREFATORY NOTE.

        The story of the negro in the colony of North Carolina must be reconstructed out of very unsatisfactory materials. If any point in this monograph should not appear to be treated fully enough it must be considered as due to that cause. Any suggestion of further facts on the subject will be duly appreciated.

        I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness for assistance to Drs. Adams, Steiner, and Ballagh, of the historical department of the Johns Hopkins University, and to President L. L. Hobbs, of Guilford College, North Carolina.

J. S. B.

CONTENTS.

• CHAPTER I. THE INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY.
  • The Conditions of Settlement . . . . . . 11
  • Estimate of Numbers . . . . . . 19
  • Importation . . . . . . 22
  • Distribution of Slaves . . . . . . 24
• CHAPTER II. THE LEGAL STATUS OF SLAVERY.
  • Laws relating to Slavery . . . . . . 27
  • The Slave in Court . . . . . . 28
  • Runaways . . . . . . 32
  • The Slave's Right to Hunt . . . . . . 36
  • The Slave's Right to Travel . . . . . . 39
  • The Slave's Right to Property . . . . . . 40
  • The Slave's Right to Life . . . . . . 42
• CHAPTER III. RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE SLAVES.
  • Religion . . . . . . 45
  • Social Life . . . . . . 56
  • Slave Insurrections . . . . . . 60
• CHAPTER IV. THE FREE NEGRO AND INDIAN SLAVES.
  • Emancipation . . . . . . 65
  • Free Negroes . . . . . . 66
  • Indian Slavery . . . . . . 71
• CHAPTER V. WHITE SERVITUDE . . . . . . 75

SLAVERY AND SERVITUDE IN THE COLONY
OF NORTH CAROLINA.

CHAPTER I.
THE INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY.

        The lives of the American slaves were without annals, and to a large extent without conscious purpose. To get the story of their existence there is no other way than to follow the tracks they have made in the history of another people. This will be a slow and, in a sense, an unsatisfactory labor. At best it can give but a partial picture of the real life of the slaves, yet it can give all there is to give. Those who in these days of a clearer view and a broader sympathy have come to look on the former bondsmen as a race having their proper place in the evolution of the human family, must be content to gather up as many facts as can be found and to regret that circumstances have made it impossible to obtain a more complete story.

        To have come to America as a slave was not without an advantage to the negro, however disadvantageous it may be for his historian. The progress of a race is the lengthening of the experience of its earliest individuals. As each succeeding generation discovers new fields of knowledge, the experience of the former generation is thrust back to a stage in the individual's training previous to that which is considered the summit of an educated life. The facts which men now living are working out in laboratory and study will in a short time become a part of that general store of experience that will be standard knowledge for the schoolboy of the coming generation. That which any one learns from others is but the sum of the contributions made

by those who have already lived. The experience which was the contribution of the earliest man must, therefore, be referred to a very early stage in the accumulation of this whole. Since his day the race has been but lengthening his life by successive steps in progress.

        Now, the negro when he came to America was far back in this stage of progress. It is usually agreed that for ages he had developed none at all. When he came from Africa he came into contact with the most advanced type of experience in the history of man. It was his task to learn that experience. Viewing the matter from the standpoint of his development, it was his chief task to learn it. How could he best learn it? The answer is, he must learn it as another person who stands to this experience in the same relation with the negro, that is to say, as a child. The same reasoning which in all social systems recognizes the expediency of placing the child under the dominant direction of his more experienced parent, will be effective in showing that in the days of the earliest contact of the white man and the black man it was a useful thing for the latter that he took his first lessons in civilization in the rigorous school of slavery. Hard as the process was on the spirit of liberty in the black man, and costly as it proved itself in the life, the treasure, and the slow development of the white man, yet it is difficult to see how the aimless, good-natured, and improvident African could ever have been brought as a race to plow, to sow, to reap, to study, and at length to create thought, except for the tutelage of his slaveholding master.

        The coming of the negro to the New World was due to economic causes. It arose from the meeting there of the two conditions of an abundant supply of undeveloped wealth and of a scanty supply of labor with which to develop it. This conjunction was due to a sudden widening of the spheres of industrial activities which in that day had been forced on the world. It was abnormal in itself and it led to an abnormal method of meeting it. It led to the forcible taking of men whose weakness made them unable to resist,

and the bringing of them to work in the mines, forests, or fields on the American coasts. As these two unusual conditions of abundant land and a sparse population were in a measure relieved, the bondage that they had brought into the world ceased to grow, and then gradually grew less. That its final removal was accomplished by a most unhappy war against the smaller portion of this original slaveholding area was an unfortunate incident of the progress.

        Conditions in the South were favorable to slavery. Large stretches of fertile land, warm climate, at once congenial to the negroes and enervating to the whites, and in some places unhealthy regions where white men did not care to work; all these helped to draw slavery to America. Planted at first in the Spanish possessions of the West Indies, it spread as soon as the mainland was settled along the entire coast from Jamestown, both northward and southward. The method by which this extension was accomplished is interesting. It may be divided for our purposes into two stages, an experimental stage and a stage of diffusion.

        So far as the South was concerned, the experimental stage in the development of American slavery belongs to the history of Virginia, and possibly of Maryland. Chronologically speaking, that stage belongs to the seventeenth century. The Dutch traders, when they brought their human freight to Jamestown, were, according to the ways of trade, trying to open up a field for a new line of commerce. The planters that bought this new commodity did it no doubt without feeling sure that it would be a success. They found the Africans to be untamed, degraded, superstitious and dull. Could they make these into steady and reliable laborers? The partial success of the West Indies was before them, and they set out to try. In two respects they differed materially from the West Indian planters: 1. The harsh usage of the Spaniards in the latter region had destroyed the original Indian population, so that the whites were relieved of the ordinary fear of Indian atrocities. In Virginia it was not till toward the close of the seventeenth

century that the savages were driven so far inland that the eastern part of the colony was safe from their attacks. Manifestly it would have been a dangerous affair for the colony to have attempted to absorb and to tame a large number of African slaves while there was fear of the Indians in their midst. 2. The nature of the task before the Virginians was different from that before the West Indians. The latter had gone into the business with the idea of establishing colonies of slaves, driven to the fields and back to the barracks as the Indians of the encomienda or as the slaves of the Roman latifundium. This was the Spanish ideal. The ideal of the Virginia planter, on the other hand, was that of the English country gentleman. He expected to live on his estate himself, and he wanted to group his slaves around him where he would know them, physic them, give them in marriage, and in his good-natured way train and swear at each one individually. To accomplish such an ideal demanded a great deal more in the way of absorption than was necessary in the Spanish system. It would take a much longer period of training to make the negro acceptable as a servant according to the Virginian's idea than according to the Cuban's. As a matter of fact, it usually took two or three generations to make him in any safe sense tractable. It was at least a half-century after the experiment began before Virginia was satisfied that its issue would be favorable. She then had the nucleus of a slave population which henceforth, both by natural increase and by further importation, she was rapidly to make an extensive part of her population.

        There were three obstacles which everywhere in the South it was necessary to have removed before negro slavery could be widely diffused: 1. The Indians, as has already been said, must be either exterminated or driven into the interior, so that there should be no danger of Indian massacres. 2. The white population must become dense enough to be able to resist an attempt on the part of the negroes to strike for freedom. Tractable as the negro may have become

in the course of three generations of slavery, there never was a time when he became so submissive that he could be considered beyond the probability of an insurrection. The whites understood this, and not until they had reached communities settled to a tolerable degree of density did they dare to introduce a large number of negroes. 3. The earliest importation of a class of laborers into the New World was that of indented white servants. Slavery had to encounter these in its period of diffusion in all the Southern colonies. There was a struggle between the two systems. This proved itself to be a case of the survival of the fittest. The negroes were fitter to be slaves than the whites and they remained masters of the field. When these three obstacles had been overcome the diffusion of slavery over new territory might go on prosperously.

        When North Carolina was beginning to be settled, slavery was just finishing its experimental stage in Virginia. The people here were from the first satisfied with the profitableness of slaves, and took them with them as they went from the lower counties of Virginia to settle plantations on the shores of the Albemarle Sound. The three obstacles to diffusion they found it necessary to surmount. The danger of Indian attacks was not passed till 1712, when, having defeated and almost exterminated the Tuscaroras, they found themselves no longer in danger from such a source. It was about the same time that the people became densely enough settled to be able to handle the much dreaded negro rebellions should they come.1

        1 It is of interest to note that negroes were not extensively introduced into Maryland till the beginning of the eighteenth century. (Cf. Brackett, "The Negro in Maryland," p. 38.) They were not introduced extensively into Virginia until near the end of the seventeenth century (cf. Ballagh, "White Servitude in Virginia," Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series XIII., p. 349, note).

were, from the conditions of life, never a very satisfactory kind of labor.

        The manner of the spread of slavery after it had once entered the settlement is of interest. It reveals clearly the whole process by which the country yielded itself to the healthy ring of the civilizing axe. A lodgment was first effected in the extreme northwestern part of the colony, most of the people, free and slave, coming from Virginia. Either from natural increase, or from the capture of a few hostile Indians, or from importation from Virginia or New England, there was from the first an increasing supply of slaves. When a farmer moved into the colony he usually brought one or two slaves with him, or he bought about that number soon after he got himself settled. To settle a new plantation without negroes was considered a hopeless task.1

        1 Colonial Records of North Carolina, I., pp. 41, 601, 715, and VI., 745, 1026.

thrifty man might acquire a number of farms, each of which was stocked with negroes. This process was checked when the available land for settling in the older communities had been taken up, so that now if one wanted new land he must go some distance to the frontier. When such a stage had been reached the owner would begin to sell his slaves to those who were going to the new communities, or to allot them to some son or daughter who was going to the same place. Thus the negro went side by side with the white man in the van of the civilizing forces of the country.

        The lords proprietors of Carolina recognized the value of slaves to the settlers from the first. In the Concessions of 1665, their earliest announcement of terms of settlement in Albemarle, they offered to give every master or mistress who should bring slaves into the province fifty acres of land for each slave above fourteen years of age so imported.1

        1 Col. Recs., I., 86.

        2 It is embodied in the instructions to Governor Burrington in 1730 (Col. Recs., III., 101-102); in those to Governor Dobbs in 1754 (ibid., V., 1133); and in those to Governor Tryon in 1765 (ibid., VII., 127). It is likely it was in that of Governor Martin in 1771, which unfortunately, it has been impossible to examine. It is well to note, however, that Gov. Johnston in 1735 said he knew of no such instruction. The leaders of the colonists declared that such had been the custom. It was decided not to follow the custom, but how long this was enforced does not appear (cf. ibid., IV., 60).

        3 Ibid., I., 204.

        Three distinct streams of immigrants entered North Carolina. 1. The immigrants from Virginia came earliest. These

came in two rather well discerned movements. The former was that early movement of men of small means who came down into the unoccupied lands on the tributaries of the Albemarle Sound. They were not powerful and their settlements developed slowly. To them chiefly does the history of the colony in the seventeenth century belong. They brought a few slaves with them, though from the scarcity of records for this period we have very little idea of how many came or under what circumstances they lived. The latter of these two movements from Virginia came about the middle of the eighteenth century, or perhaps a little earlier, and filled up the counties in the northern and central part of the State. Edgecombe, Northampton, Halifax, Bute, and a part of Granville received the force of this movement. The people were largely the younger members of leading families in the northern colony, who took their slaves and moved south to build fortunes for themselves where land was cheaper. In some cases they were members of these same families whose extravagant living had made it necessary for them to gather up the fragments of property they still had left and to begin life again on the frontier.1

        1 See Dr. K. P. Battle's "Address on the Life and Services of General Jethro Summer," p. 15.

        2 No account is here taken of the Yeamans colony, which soon removed, and which accordingly made no impression on the history of the province.

considerable trade with Europe, the West Indies, and the other colonies, and it is likely that it received most of its slaves through that trade. It became the most prosperous slaveholding section of the colony. 3. While this region was being occupied, the van of a third body was entering another part of the colony. Starting from Pennsylvania it came down the valleys of western Virginia and settled the central and western part of North Carolina. It was composed of Scotch-Irish, Germans, a few Welch, some New Englanders, some New Jerseymen, and not a few who from one or another place had already settled on the Virginia frontier. These were almost always small farmers, owning little property and very few slaves. Except for a few wealthy men who later came in from Virginia, or who came up as officers of the law from the older settlements in the east, they took small holdings of land and set out to clear and cultivate them with their own hands. As they progressed in wealth they yielded to the influence of environment, and slaves at the time of the Revolution were being used in considerable numbers among them. They were, however, never so strongly slaveholding as the east. It is well to remember that this section, especially the western part of it, remained till the Civil War the center of the anti-slavery sentiment of the State.

        Estimate of Numbers.--To estimate the number of slaves in North Carolina at any time in the first seventy-five years of its existence is a very difficult matter. The colony was during this period increasing in population very slowly, and it was not till the end of the Tuscarora war, 1712, that the introduction of slaves may be considered as unimpeded. In 1709 Reverend John Adams, a missionary of the Church of England, wrote that there were in Pasquotank precinct 1332 souls, of whom 211 were negroes,1

        1 Col. Recs., I., 720.

        2 Ibid., I., 722. There were at that time four settled precincts in the colony. Besides these, there was a new county, Pamlico, on the river of that name, which contained probably about as many people as one of the older precincts. These were the only white settlements in the colony.

each of these two precincts about one-sixth of the whole population was black. It is likely that this proportion was correct for all the precincts. Inasmuch as Chowan and Perquimons precincts were older and in some respects more thriving places, it is likely that they contained over 400 negroes. Pamlico, too, must have had some blacks; so that it is a safe estimate to say that at this time there were about 800 negroes in the colony.1

        1 Dr. Hawks says ("History of North Carolina," II., 340) that in 1700 there were 6000 whites in the colony. If we put the proportion of blacks to whites at one-sixth, this will give us about 1000 blacks in 1700, a number that would have been considerably larger by 1709. Perhaps a better estimate would be midway between the 800 and 1000.

        2 Col. Recs., II., p. xvii.

        3 Ibid., II., 889.

        4 In 1720 Boone and Barnwell, of South Carolina, put the total number of taxables at 1600. They were probably mistaken. They did not know the colony, and their language shows that they bore it no goodwill. Pollock is a much safer authority (cf. Col. Recs., II., 396 and 419).

        5 Ibid., Vol. II., p. xvii.

The blacks were 9128 and the whites 15,733.1

        1 The returns for five counties do not distinguish between white and black taxables. In such cases the number of blacks has been estimated on the basis of the whites and blacks in all the other counties, which cannot be very far wrong (ibid., V., 320).

        2 Ibid., V., 461 and 471.

        3 Ibid., V., 575.

        4 Ibid., V., 603.

        5 These returns must be very unreliable. That of 1756 shows that in a majority of the counties the estimates had not been revised since 1755. This accounts for the great increase when we come to the returns for 1765.

        6 Ibid., VI., 613-614.

        7 Ibid., VI., 1027 and 1040.

        8 Ibid., VII., 145.

        9 Ibid., VII., 288-9.

being taken from the returns of 1765. This would give a total negro population of 37,000. A census taken in 1767 gives 22,600 black, and 29,000 white, taxables,1

        1 Col. Recs., VII., 539.

        2 Ibid., IX., 259.

        3 Ibid., X., 46.

        Unsatisfactory as these figures are, they indicate a tendency which is not wholly uninstructive. In 1709 about one-sixth of the population was black. In 1717 the ratio was about the same. In 1730 it was, according to Burrington, still the same. In 1754 there was a tendency for the ratio to rise, it being about ten to fifty-one. In 1765, when we come to a new census--those of 1755 and 1756 are of slight use--we find the ratio still rising, it being now ten to forty-eight. In 1767 it has risen till it is ten to thirty-nine. Thus we see that while the colony was growing slowly and was thinly settled, the ratio of blacks to whites remained comparatively constant, but that after the French and Indian War the negroes began rapidly to gain.

        Importation.--The steadiness of this increase for so long a time indicates that it was due almost wholly to births.

Such rare information as we have on this point shows that the number imported was inconsiderable. When a person took advantage of the custom giving each newcomer fifty acres of land for each slave he brought with him, it was necessary for him to go into the county court and prove the fact of importation. The records of these courts, so far as we have them, show that very few persons proved their rights to land on this account. For example, in the court of Perquimons precinct in 1706, at which land was granted for importing sixty-nine persons, there are only four of these sixty-nine of whom we are sure that they were negroes, although there are six more whose names may be those of negroes; and all of these were imported by two men.1

        1 Col. Recs., I., 649-656.

        2 Ibid., III., 115-116.

        3 Ibid., III., 154-155.

        4 Ibid., III., 430.

        5 Ibid., V., 1118.

        6 In Virginia, in 1708, Governor Jennings reported that in the past nine years the Royal African Company had imported into Virginia 679 negroes, while from other sources had come 5928. The reason for this state of affairs is not given (cf. N. C. Col. Recs., I., 693). About the same time Brickell wrote that the planters saved most of their coin "to buy negroes with in the islands and other places" (Nat. Hist. of N. C., p. 45; also p. 272).

of importation may be seen from the fact that in 1754 only nineteen negroes were entered in the custom-house at Bath, and that the average number brought into Beaufort for the preceding seven years was seventeen.1

        1 Col. Recs., V., 144h, 145, and 314. It is likely that an additional number were brought in without paying duty. The custom-houses were very loosely kept.

        2 Ibid., IX., 279.

        Distribution of Slaves.--Mention has already been made of the three movements of immigration which carried slaves into the colony. The eastern part of the country, speaking broadly, was strongly slaveholding. The western part was, for a time, almost free territory, and never had as many slaves as the east. This was due to conditions of settlement. Those persons who settled the west were used to tilling their own lands, expected to till them, and found it for a while more profitable to till them. Those in the east came mostly from eastern Virginia, where they had learned the value of slave labor and started with the idea that slaves they must have. This condition is well illustrated in a letter from Governor Dobbs in 1755. He is speaking of the people of the country and declares that above all they suffer from the lack of pious clergymen and good schools. This occasioned idleness, thriftlessness, and ignorance, "which, with the warmth of the climate and plenty they have of cattle and fruit without labour, prevents their Industry, by which Means the Price of Labour is very high, and the Artificers and Labourers being scarce in Comparison to the number of Planters, when they are employed they won't work half,

scarce a third part of work in a Day of what they do in Europe, and their wages being from 2 Shillings to 3, 4, and 5 Shillings per diem this Currency, the Planters are not able to go on with Improvements in building or clearing their Lands, and unless they are very industrious to lay up as much as can purchase 2 or 3 Negroes, they are no ways able to cultivate their Lands as Your Lordships expect. . . . Young or new planters could not venture to take up Lands, and those who are rich can't get hands to assist them to cultivate, until they can buy Slaves and teach them some handicraft Trades."1

        1 Col. Recs., V., 315, and VI., 1026.

        The numerical contrast in the slave populations of the two sections is very great. In 1767 there were in the sixteen counties which we may call eastern, that is to say those that were not settled by people who came the western route, 10,238 white, as against 12,307 black, taxables. By the method of estimating which we have already used, this would be a total population of 41,000 whites and 21,500 blacks. In the thirteen counties which we may call western there were by the same returns 19,448 white, and 9092 black, taxables. This would be a total population of about 77,000 whites and about 16,000 blacks.2

        2 Cf. Col. Recs., VII., 145, 288, 539 and 540.

        3 Ibid., VII., 539.

about 200 families."1

        1 Col. Recs., VI., 729-730 and 985-986. Brunswick was erected into a county in 1764.

        2 Ibid., V., 152.

CHAPTER II.
THE LEGAL STATUS OF SLAVERY.

        The first law of North Carolina, if such it may be called, in regard to slavery was a clause in the Fundamental Constitutions. It ran: "Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over negro slaves of what opinion and religion soever."1

        1 Col. Recs., I., 204.

        The earliest known law passed in North Carolina on the subject of slavery was included in the Revision of 1715.2

        2 These laws are preserved in manuscript in the State Library, Raleigh, N. C., and the one in question may be found on pages 269-290 of that volume. It appears as chapter 46.

        3 Col. Recs., I., 514.

        The Slave in Court.--By this law a slave could not be tried in the same court that was open to a freeman. If he had offended seriously he must be tried before any three justices of the peace and three additional freeholders who were also slaveholders, or the major part of them, and who lived in the precinct in which the offence was committed. The tribunal thus constituted was to have power to try the case according to its best judgment, to give sentence of life or member, or other corporal punishment, and to order the execution of the sentence by the regular officers of the law. It was to meet at such a time as should be appointed by that justice of the peace whose name came first in the commission of the peace for the precinct.1

        1 In 1740 John Swann and John Davis were removed from their commissions of the peace in New Hanover County for refusing to act at the trial of a negro (Col. Recs., IV., 460).

        2 History of North Carolina, II., 205.

        This act was in force until 1741, when a new "Act Concerning Servants and Slaves"3

        3 Laws of 1741, ch. 24.

This court was given a broader jurisdiction than that possessed by the older tribunal. It was directed to "take for evidence the confession of the offender, the oath of one or more credible witnesses, or such testimony of negroes, mulattoes, or Indians, bond or free, with pregnant circumstances as to them shall seem convincing, without solemnity of jury; and the offender being then found guilty, to pass such judgment upon the offender, according to their discretion, as the nature of the offence may require; and on such judgment to award execution." The master of the slave, or his overseer, could appear at the trial in his behalf, but in defending him he was to see "that the defence do not relate to the formality in the proceeding of the trial" (sects. 48-52). This law remained on the statute book throughout the colonial period.

        It was a part of the universal law of Southern slavery that a slave should not testify against a white person in the courts. In North Carolina this principle seems to have been recognized from the first; for Tobias Knight, when he was charged in 1719 with complicity with Teach, the pirate, urged in his defence that the prosecution had introduced the evidence of four negro slaves, "which by the laws and custom of all America ought not to be examined as evidence, neither is there sic] evidence of any validity against any white person soever."1

        1 Cf. Col. Recs., II., 345.

        2 Laws of 1746 (3d session), ch. 2, sect. 50.

        3 See Laws of 1762, ch. 1; 1768, ch. 1; and 1773, ch. 1.

        The denial of the privilege of testifying in court has been regarded as a great hardship to the negro. Inasmuch as it affected the more advanced of the slaves of the period just before the Civil War, this is a just contention; but it is well to remember that in the days when slavery was introduced into America there were two good reasons, as the whites thought, why the negroes should not give evidence against a white man. 1. They were in the lowest moral condition. Those who have not examined contemporary testimony on the subject will not easily imagine how the negroes lived. They were naturally ignorant, superstitious, and filled with intense hatred for those who made them slaves and held them as such. They were bestial, given to the worst venereal diseases and they had little or no regard for the marriage bond. Indeed, as Brickell says, marriage sat very lightly on them.1

        1 Brickell, Natural History of North Carolina, p. 274.

        Not satisfied with denying them the right to testify against the whites, the Assembly, in the law of 1741 (sect. 50), enacted that if any negro, mulatto, or Indian, bond or free, be found to have testified falsely, he should without further trial be ordered by the court to have one ear nailed to the pillory and there to stand one hour, at the end of which time that ear should be cut off; then the other ear should be nailed to the pillory, and at the end of another hour be cut off as the former. Finally the luckless fellow received thirty-nine lashes on his bare back, well laid on. This, it must be confessed, was vigorous enough to reach the conscience even of a pagan. The chairman of the court before

which the slave was tried was, however, instructed to warn the witnesses in the outset against giving false testimony, unless indeed such witnesses were Christians (sect. 51). They were unchaste and mostly unreliable. 2. The Africans were pagans. Those few who professed conversion to Christianity could not have had any clearly defined idea of Christian principles. The mass who were unconverted could have very little regard for the Christian oath. How could such persons, argued the colonists, be allowed to imperil the lives of Christian whites? That such testimony should not be received was quite in keeping with the spirit of the times.

        If a slave should lose his life while engaged in some affair of the colony's responsibility, the master would feel that he should not have to lose the value of this piece of property. He might also be disposed to impede the action of the law. To obviate this it was provided that any master who had lost a slave in dispersing a conspiracy, in taking up runaways, or in the execution of an order of court, should have a claim against the public, to be allowed by the Assembly. If, however, a third party should kill a man's slave, the owner would have no other recourse than an action for damage to property.1

        1 Laws of 1741, ch. 21, sects. 54 and 55.

        2 Laws of 1758, ch. 7.

in 1762.1

        1 Col.. Recs., VI., 742.

        2 Laws of 1764, ch. 8.

        3 Col. Recs., VIII., 355, 356, 403, 405 and 409.

        4 Ibid., IX., 404 and 418.

        Runaways.--One of the commonest delinquencies on the part of the slaves was running away. Used to the forest life in Africa and accustomed to much severity on the farms of the frontier planters, it was no great hardship to them to live for months or years in camp in the swamps.5

        5 The Dismal Swamp was a great place for these runaways. Elkanah Watson found them there in 1777, and they seem to have been there much earlier. See Watson's Journal, Wake Forest Student, December, 1895, p. 85.

should allow a slave to go off his plantation--except he be in livery, or waited on a master or mistress, or accompanied a white servant--unless he first gave the said slave a ticket stating the place from which, and the place to which, the slave was going. Five shillings was the penalty for violating this feature of the law (sect. 7). All persons were commanded to do all they could to arrest slaves off their master's plantations without the proper tickets, and in fact to arrest any suspected runaways or any slaves away from their homes with arms in their possession. A slave so arrested was to be taken before a neighboring magistrate, who might, at his discretion, order corporal punishment. He who arrested such a slave was to deliver him to the master, if he were known, otherwise to the provost marshal of the colony,1

        1 The provost marshal was the high sheriff of the county. In each precinct there was a deputy marshal. When the precincts were changed into counties the latter officers were thenceforth called sheriffs.

        A slave that thus came into the hands of the provost marshal must be kept safely. If necessary, he was confined and the public paid for his support; but if he was not unmanageable, the provost marshal might work him to pay for his keep. A slave thus in custody must be advertised by proclamation in every precinct in the colony at the next three courts after the date of arrest. The jails in the colony were at that time notoriously insecure, and provision was made that if the slave escaped from jail the provost marshal should not be held accountable unless it could be shown that the prison was secure, or that the marshal had connived at, or aided in, the escape. Any person who should kill a runaway slave "that hath lyen out two months," while trying to apprehend him, was not to be held accountable for it if he would swear that he did the killing in self-defence (sect. 8).

        Any one who will examine the laws passed from time to time on any one feature of slavery will be able to

understand with ease the whole progress of the public mind in the South in reference to the slaves. The whites started with the idea that the negroes must be kept from rebelling. They erected certain restraints on actions which looked like rebellion, or which might possibly lead to it. As time went on the negroes learned how to evade these restraints or to find new lines, which it was feared would lead to liberty. As these avenues were seen, new laws were passed which closed them to the unfortunate blacks. It was not the harshness of the dispositions of the whites, but the inevitable logic of their first attitude on the matter that made them draw cord after cord around the black man to make his bondage secure.1

        1 Brickell, who wrote with an eye to attract immigrants, said that the planters continually put into force all laws against the slaves "to prevent all opportunity they might lay hold of to make themselves formidable" (Natural History of North Carolina, p. 276).

        In nothing is this process seen more clearly than in the law in reference to runaways. The slaves found means of evading the law of 1715 in regard to certain minor points. The law of 1741 re-enacted the law of 1715 and added provisions to cut off these avenues of evasion. It was enacted that the person who tempted a slave to run away should be fined, and the fine for harboring a runaway was increased. If the person so fined could not pay, or did not pay, the fine, he was to be sold by the court for such time as was necessary to get money enough to pay it (sect. 25). This provision referred undoubtedly to freemen, and the inference is that it aimed at the free negroes and poor whites, most of whom had once been bonded people themselves. That they should have tried to screen the fugitive negroes is not unlikely. Any one charged with attempting to steal a slave and to take him out of the province was to be bound over to court on the oath of one reputable witness, and if he was lawfully convicted he should pay the owner the sum of twenty-five pounds. If unable to pay this amount he was to restore the stolen slave and to serve the owner five years. If, however,

he had already sent the slave out of the colony he was to be considered guilty of felony, and might accordingly be condemned to lose his lands, and also his life (sect. 27). To insure that he who took up runaways should be paid for his services, it was ordered that if a slave were taken ten miles from his master's plantation the churchwardens should pay the cost of taking him up and then collect the amount from the owner (sect. 28). If a runaway could not speak English, or refused to give his master's name, the sheriff was to advertise him for two months at the court-house door, and at each church in the county, or at any other convenient places (sect. 29). If at the end of a month the owner was still unknown, the sheriff1

        1 At this time the older precincts had been changed into counties, and the provost marshal, with his deputies, had given place to a sheriff for each county.

        Lest all this should delay punishment so long that the slave would not be properly impressed, the justice of the peace before whom he was first taken was to whip him as he thought best, not to exceed thirty-nine lashes (sect. 34). To get the slave to the central jail was not an easy matter; constables gave various excuses. To facilitate their journeying, the keepers of ferries were ordered to give immediate passage to constables thus engaged; and the churchwardens were directed to pay the ferriage and to collect the same as the other costs (sect. 37). Runaways that were

thought to belong to another colony must be advertised in the Virginia and the South Carolina Gazettes (sect. 39). When slaves had gone away to the swamps, and were issuing thence to destroy hogs and other stock, there was nothing to be done with them but to make them outlaws. The law of 1741 did just that. It directed that in such cases two neighboring justices of the peace should issue a proclamation calling on such slaves to return to their masters. If they did not return at once, any person meeting them might lawfully kill them, "without accusation of any crime for the same"; and for the slaves so killed the masters should be repaid by the public (sects. 45 and 46). When runaways were taken it was the custom to put yokes around their necks, and these they were forced to wear until "they gave sufficient testimony of their good behaviour to the contrary."1

        1 Brickell, Natural History of North Carolina, p. 270.

        The Slave's Right to Hunt.--Severe restrictions were put on the slave in regard to his right to hunt. Hunting was the gentleman's pastime, and it may be that the idea that it was not becoming to allow slaves to engage in it had something to do with the passing of these laws. Still it cannot be doubted that the chief reason was the desire to keep arms out of the hands of the negroes. In this, as in so many other features of these laws, the whites were looking to the possibility of an insurrection. Carrying a gun also gave the slave an opportunity to kill hogs or other stock in the woods, and this it was desired to prevent.

        The first law on this subject was made in 1729.2

        2 Laws of 1729, ch. 5, sect. 7.

The manner in which this clause was introduced indicates that it was passed chiefly to protect the stock. The law of 1741 took up this subject also. It provided that any one who found an armed slave hunting or ranging in the woods without the written permission of his master should take him before the nearest constable, who, without further process, should give the said slave twenty lashes and then send him to his master. The master should pay the apprehender for his trouble (sect. 40). This clause, it was seen, might bear severely on the man who relied on game for an article of diet. It was accordingly added that this law should not prevent a man from keeping one slave on each of his plantations to take game for his family's use and to drive away such animals as were destroying stock. Any slave who was thus set apart as his master's hunter must carry with him a certificate signed by his master, and counter-signed by the chairman of the county court, stating that he had the right to carry a gun. If he were caught without this certificate he was whipped (sects. 41 and 42).

        These were, without question, harsh laws, and they stood for a severe spirit of repression on the part of the dominant Assemblymen. Their very severity seems to have partly defeated them. It is pleasant to know that the spirit of the law was here harsher than the practice of the people. This we know from the preamble of an act passed in 1753.1

        1 Laws of 1753, ch. 6.

master's responsibility was taken into account. It enacted that no slave should hunt in the woods with a gun unless his master would give bond for his good behavior; and that if any one should suffer an injury at the hands of such a slave he could recover the amount of the damage from the master's bondsmen (sect. 2). No slave should carry a gun on a plantation on which no crop was planted, and only one should carry a gun on a cultivated plantation; "and the master, mistress, or overseer of any slave with whom shall be found any gun, sword, or other weapon contrary to the true intent and meaning of this and the before-recited act, shall forfeit and pay to the person finding the same the sum of twenty shillings proclamation money, . . . any punishment inflicted on the slave, forfeiture of the gun, sword, or other weapon notwithstanding; unless such master, mistress, or overseer shall by oath or other proof make appear that such a slave carrying a gun, sword, or other weapon was without their consent or knowledge" (sect. 3). In this way a master was held to a stricter account, and through him the slaves were probably better kept in hand.

        It was also thought that the slaves should be watched more closely by the civil authority. To that end the courts, if they saw fit, were directed to divide the counties into districts and to appoint three searchers in each district. Four times a year, or oftener, these should search as privately as possible the quarters and places of resort of the slaves to find guns or other weapons. Any arms thus found they were to seize and have for their own use (sects. 4 and 7). This, it seems, was the first appearance in the State of the patrole, an institution which the slave eventually learned to dread perhaps next to the bloodhounds. It was also provided that a slave with no certificate from his master could not hunt with a dog, and any one who caught him violating this clause might kill the dog and have the slave whipped by the nearest magistrate, not exceeding thirty lashes (sect. 8).

        An abuse by both whites and blacks was hunting at night with guns. Those who were so disposed might by that means

easily kill a hog or a cow and claim that it was an accident. To guard against this the Assembly in 1766 placed a fine of five pounds on any person hunting for deer at night.1

        1 Laws of 1766, ch. 18.

        2 Laws of 1770, ch. 10.

        3 Laws of 1773, ch. 18, sect. 3.

        4 Laws of 1738, ch. 10.

        The Slave's Right to Travel.--The keeping down of the slaves involved a strict prohibition on any assembling or communicating at night with one another. In 1729 the matter was taken up by the lawmakers.5

        5 Laws of 1729, ch. 5.

satisfactory account of themselves, or be whipped not more than forty lashes (sect. 7). This, however, was not to be construed to prevent a master from sending his negroes on business with a pass, or to obstruct the intermarrying of the slaves of neighboring plantations when they had received permission from their masters (sect. 9). This law remained in force until after the Revolution. So much did the white people fear that the negroes would plot insurrection if they could meet, that they forbade, as will be seen later on, the meeting of the slaves for religious purpose.

        The Slave's Right to Property.--It probably occurred quite early to the owners of slaves to ask themselves what property a slave could own. If he were a chattel, a thing, how could he have a dominant relation over another thing? How the men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in North Carolina answered this question we do not definitely know. We do know that at first they were lenient with their slaves on this subject. They allowed them to have cattle, and probably to cultivate small plots of ground for their own use. Later in this period they became more stringent and took away the right of holding cattle. The cause of this does not seem to have been any intention to carry to its logical sequence their idea of a slave's legal status. It arose rather from the thievishness of the negroes. Having stock of their own, it was easy for them to steal that of other people, to change the marks so as to make them conform with their own marks, and thus baffle punishment. This seems to have led to the several laws which gradually restrained the slave's right of owning property until it was finally extinguished altogether.

        The first provision of this nature is found in the law of 1715. It restrained the slave's right to buy and sell, or even to borrow. It provided that whoever should sell or lend to a slave without the consent of the slave's master should forfeit treble the value of the amount of the trade or loan and be subject, in addition, to a fine of ten pounds, to be recovered by the master. That this was considered more a matter

of public safety than an act of justice to the master is shown by a further provision. If the master did not sue within six months after he knew of the transaction, anybody else might bring suit and recover the fine (sect. 9). The law of 1741 modified this by reducing the fine from ten to six pounds, and by providing that if the offender could not pay the fine he should be sold by the county court for a term sufficient to pay it.1

        1 Laws of 1741, ch. 24, sect. 14.

        2 Laws of 1773, ch. 8, sect. 9.

        In 1741 the Assembly took up the matter of the stealing of stock by slaves. Thievish by nature, the African in America became especially expert in petty larcenies. He was the more impelled to it because he felt that he had worked to raise the stock and ought to have a full share. At the time of which we are now speaking it was enacted3

        3 Laws of 1741, ch. 8.

        The slaves for their part seem to have been accustomed to allege that they stole because they were not properly fed. In some cases this was doubtless a true allegation. At least the Assembly seem to have thought as much; for in 1753

they enacted that no man who had a slave killed in outlawry or executed by the order of a court could recover his value from the public unless he could make it appear that the said slave had been properly clothed, and for the preceding year had constantly received an allowance of one quart of corn a day (sect. 9). This was an insufficient ration, and an insufficient means of enforcing it was provided. To direct that the getting of it should depend on the liability of the slave to be executed or to become an outlaw was but a slight approach to justice. There ought at least to have been a plainly expressed injunction that this minimum ration should be given to each slave on pain of proper penalties. The same law further provided that if a slave who was not properly clothed and fed should be convicted of stealing from any man other than his master, the wronged man might recover damages from the owner of the thief. If we may believe Brickell, clothing of slaves was not an item of great expense to the masters. He says that children wore little or no clothing in the summer, and that many young men and young women worked in the fields naked but for cloths around their loins.1

        1 Natural History of North Carolina, p. 276.

        The Slave's Right to Life.--The King seems to have been more inclined to compassion towards the slaves than the Lords Proprietors. The latter in their Fundamental Constitutions had given the settlers absolute control over their negro slaves. So far as we know, this remained their attitude toward slavery as long as they held the colony. Burrington, the first royal governor, however, was instructed to endeavor to get a law passed "for the restraining of any inhuman severity which by ill masters or their overseers may be used towards their Christian servants and their slaves, and that provision be made therein that the wilful killing of Indians and negroes may be punished with death, and that a fit penalty be imposed for the maiming of them."2

        2 Col. Recs., III., p. 106.

        3 Ibid., V., 1122.

He duly recommended it to the Assembly,1

        1 Col. Recs., V., 660.

        2 Ibid., V., 666 and 676.

        3 Ibid., IX., 398, 470, 663 and 664.

        4 Laws of 1774, ch. 31.

        Two of the sections of this act are so full of meaning that it is well to give them in full. They are:

        "I. Whereas some doubts have arisen with respect to the punishment proper to be inflicted upon such as have been guilty of wilfully and maliciously killing slaves:

        "II. Be it therefore enacted by the Governor, Council and Assembly, and by the authority of the same, That from and after the first day of May next if any person shall be guilty of wilfully and maliciously killing a slave, so that if he had in the same manner killed a freeman he would by the laws of the realm be held and deemed guilty of murder, that then and in that case such an offender shall, upon due and legal conviction thereof in the Superior Court of the district where such offence shall happen or have been committed, suffer twelve months imprisonment; and upon a second conviction thereof shall be adjudged guilty of murder, and shall suffer death without benefit of clergy."

        It was also provided that if the slave that should be killed in this manner be not the property of the offender, the slayer shall pay to the owner the value of the slave, to be assessed by the Inferior Court of the county; provided, however, that this act should not extend to those who killed outlaws, or to

slaves who died under moderate correction, or to those who were killed while resisting their lawful masters. If this was all the relief that could now be granted to the slave, what must have been his rights in regard to his own life before this law was passed! It is impossible to fail to see that the last proviso, in that it gave a man the opportunity to allege that the killing had been done while the slave was resisting authority, or in process of moderate correction, went far toward annulling the whole law.

CHAPTER III.
THE RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE SLAVES.

        Religion.--There is no part of our subject on which we have more unsatisfactory records than on this. The earliest slaves in the colony, except in rare cases, were undoubtedly pagans. The people seem to have been content that they should have remained such. Indeed, if we may believe much contemporary evidence that has come down to us, the whites did not care very much if they themselves were pagans. In view of such circumstances it is not surprising that we are compelled to pass over as much of the seventeenth century as falls within our sphere of inquiry with but little comment on the slave's religious life.

        Besides the indifference to religion on the part of the whites, there was another cause of the failure to convert the slaves. At first all the American colonists who had slaves had the notion that it was illegal to hold a Christian in bondage. The right to enslave a negro seems to have been based on the fact that he was a pagan. If such were the case, would not conversion enfranchise him? It was a matter of doubt in the minds of the planters, and since it was such they hesitated to allow their negroes to become converted.1

        1 Maryland in 1671 passed the law stating that conversion or baptism should not be taken to give freedom to slaves. In 1677 an English court gave an opinion that converted slaves were "infranchised." See Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, 28, 29.

and to be of what church or profession any of them shall think best, and thereof be as fully members as any freeman. But yet no slave shall hereby be exempted from that civil dominion his master hath over him, but be in all things in the same state and condition he was in before."1

        1 Col. Recs., I., 204.

        2 Ibid., II., 857.

        3 See the author's "Constitutional Beginnings of North Carolina," Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series XII., pp. 137, 138.

        4 Col. Recs., III., 452.

        The condition that followed these circumstances is well seen from a statement of James Adams, a clergyman of the Established Church who was in the colony in 1709. He complained because the masters would "by no means permit [their slaves] to be baptized, having a false notion that a Christian slave is by law free." A few of the negroes, he said, were instructed in the principles of religion, but he says plainly that they were not baptized.5

        5 Col. Recs., I., 720.

        6 Ibid., I., 858. In 1715 this same man writes: "I have baptized upwards of forty negroes in this and the neighboring government in the compass of this past year"; but there is no means of knowing how many of these were in North Carolina and how many were in Virginia (ibid., II., 153).

later Mr. Taylor, another missionary, reported that he had baptized five slaves belonging to Mr. Duckinfield. He had also been preparing several others for baptism, but the opponents of the baptism of slaves had talked so much to the owner about it that he had declared that no more should be baptized until the British Parliament should pass a law providing that slaves should not obtain their freedom by baptism.1

        1 Col. Recs., II., 332-333.

        It is by no means a compliment to the North Carolinians of that day that this condition was improved so slowly. The lack of any efficient system of schools and of any even tolerable supply of ministers2

        2 Governor Everhard said in 1726 that there was not a clergyman in the province (ibid., III., 48); and in 1735 there were only three (ibid., IV., p. 7).

        3 Ibid., IV., 13-14.

        4 Ibid., IV., 605.

        5 Cf. ibid., IV., 793, 794, 795, 925, 1315; VI., 225, 233, 265, 315, 711, 729, 735.

black infants are reported as baptized in 1765;1

        1 Col. Recs., VII., 126.

        2 Ibid., VII., 424.

        3 Ibid., VII., 705.

        4 Ibid., VIII., 553.

        5 Ibid., IX., 326.

        6 Governor Tryon was thought to have done a great thing when he raised the number of parishes that had ministers from five in 1765 to twelve in 1767; yet it ought to be remembered that there were thirty parishes in the colony, and that he had not after all provided half of them with clergymen (ibid., VII., 103, 457, 540).

        The method of instructing slaves in religion was entirely according to the notion of the clergyman, so far as we know. In the earliest days of the colony the masters did not put themselves to the trouble to try to convert their slaves; yet in the later period they seem to have been more interested. Mr. Taylor, in speaking in 1716 about the Duckinfield slaves,

intimates that all the efforts made to convert them were made by himself. His own method of proceeding with the negro converts he recounts as follows: "I hope I took a method with the negro young man and the mustee young woman, whom I baptized, which will please the Society, which was this: I made them get our church catechism perfectly without book, and then I took some pains with them to make them understand it, and especially the baptismal covenant, and to persuade them, faithfully and constantly, to perform the great things they were to promise at their baptism, and ever after to perform to God; and then I caused them to say the catechism one Lord's Day and the other another Lord's Day before a large congregation, which they did both distinctly and so perfectly that all that heard them admired their saying it so well, and with great satisfaction to myself I baptized these two persons."1

        1 Col. Recs., II., 332.

        It was some time later before the public conscience was aroused to the duty of instructing the slave. In 1754 the instructions sent to Governor Dobbs directed him with the Council and Assembly to devise some sufficient means of converting the negroes to Christianity. This instruction was perhaps given to Governor Johnston, whose instructions we have not preserved, and it was renewed to Governor Tryon but nothing came of it. In 1760 Mr. Reed, the clergyman in Craven County, said that he would not baptize negro children unless their masters would become surety for their proper instruction in religion. The masters, he said, would not take the pains to do this.2

        2 Ibid., VI., 265.

        3 Ibid., VII., 705.

        Whether or not these converted slaves fared better than the unconverted ones does not appear. They were most likely in

the first instance slaves who waited around the dwellings of the whites, and who thus came under the religious influences of their masters or mistresses. As these were converted they would become missionaries to the field hands. Negroes were allowed to come into the dwellings of the whites in order to attend family worship,1

        1 Dr. Hawks makes this statement on the authority of a MS. letter of Rev. Mr. Taylor, dated in 1718. This letter it has been impossible to find (Hawks, History of North Carolina, II., p. 229).

        Although the negroes were allowed to join any church they might fancy, they were not allowed to have a church organization among themselves. To have one was at once against the policy of the English Church and against the sentiments of the planters. At that time, as well as now, the negro knew but little distinction between church and secular organizations. The planters feared that negro churches might become centers of negro conspiracies. It was in this spirit that there was incorporated in The Law Concerning Servants and Slaves, revision of 1715, the following remarkable section: "Be it further enacted, That if any master, or owner of negroes, or slaves, or any other person or persons whatsoever in the government shall permit or suffer any negro or negroes to build on their or either of their lands or any part thereof any house under pretense of a meeting house upon account of worship or upon any pretense whatsoever, and shall not suppress and hinder them, he, she, or they so offending shall for every default forfeit and pay fifty pounds, one-half towards defraying the contingent charges of the government, the other to him or them that shall sue for the same."2

        2 Laws of 1715, ch. 46, sect. 18.

        So far we have dealt with the religious life of the negro only as it regarded the Established Church in the colony. It would be interesting to know, also, his relation to the various dissenting churches of the province. Unfortunately, we know but little about these churches during the colonial period. With the exception of the Quakers, none of them, so far as we know, opposed the ownership of slaves, and all of them seem to have received the negroes into full connection when they had professed conversion.

        The first religious body to worship in North Carolina was the Quakers.1

        1 See Weeks, Church and State in North Carolina, Johns Hopkins University Studies, Vol. XI., pp. 230-231.

as much as they reasonably can?" In 1768 the subject next came up. The Western Quarterly meeting could not satisfy themselves as to the true intent of a clause in the discipline in regard to the buying of slaves, and on that they appealed to the yearly meeting. That body appointed a committee on the matter, which duly reported that the discipline ought to be understood "as a prohibition of buying negroes to trade upon, or of those that trade in them; and that as the having of negroes is a burthen to such as are in possession of them, it might be well for the meeting to advise all Friends to be careful not to buy or sell in any case that can be reasonably avoided." The Western Friends were not satisfied at this, and at the next yearly meeting asked for the absolute prohibition of negro slavery. The matter was not decided at that meeting, and it was only in 1770 that it was definitely disposed of. In that year the query as to slaves was made to read: "Are all the Friends careful to bear a faithful testimony against the iniquitous practice of importing negroes, or do they refuse to purchase of those who make a trade or merchandise of them? And do they use those whom they have by inheritance or otherwise well, endeavoring to discourage them from evil and to encourage them in that which is good?"

        This was taking very advanced ground, but two years later the yearly meeting went further still and agreed that thenceforth no Friend should buy a slave "of any other person than a friend in unity," except to prevent the separation of man and wife, or of parent and child, or for some other good reason, to be approved by the monthly meeting, and furthermore, that no Friend should sell a slave to any one who was used to buying or selling slaves for gain. About the same time the Standing Committee formally declared its views on the slave trade in the most vigorous language. They said:

        "Being fully convinced in our minds and judgments, beyond a doubt or scruple, of the great evil and abomination of the importation of negroes from Africa, by which iniquitous practice great

numbers of our fellow-creatures with their posterity are doomed to perpetual and cruel bondage without any regard to their natural right to liberty and freedom, which they have not forfeited through any act of their own or consent thereto, but by mere force and cruelty--we are impressed with abhorrence and detestation against such a practice in a Christian community; for experience makes it fully manifest that instead of their embracing true religion and virtue in exchange for their natural liberty, they have become nurseries of pride and idleness to our youth--in such a manner that morality and true piety are much wounded where slave-keeping abounds, to the great grief of true Christian minds.

        "And therefore we cannot but invite our fellow-subjects, and especially the Representatives of North Carolina (as much as lies at their door for the good of the people and prosperity of the Provinces), to join with their prudent brethren, the Burgesses of the colony of Virginia, in presenting an address to the throne of Great Britain, in order to be as eyes to the blind, and mouths to the dumb; and whether it succeed or not, we shall have the secret satisfaction in our own minds of having used our best endeavors to have so great a torrent of evil effectually stopped at the place where it unhappily had permission to begin.

THOMAS NICHOLSON,
CALEB TRUEBLOOD,
RALPH FLETCHER,
JOHN SYMONS,
JOHN SANDERS,
[and fifteen others]."

        At the same time the committee wrote a letter to the London Friends expressing their approval of an address against the slave trade which the Virginia Assembly was about to present to the king, saying that they had spoken of the matter to some North Carolina Assemblymen, and that they hoped to get a like petition from that colony. They also referred to a law of the latter colony which restricted emancipation to cases of meritorious conduct, by which "such Friends as desire to liberate their slaves from principles of justice and Christianity are under a great difficulty." Thus while the king was giving instructions to his governors to allow no act to pass the Assembly to prohibit the slave trade, the Friends were forming their views to ask that it should be discontinued.

        None of these declarations had gone so far as actual emancipation. It was but two years later, 1774, when that matter was destined to come up. Thomas Newby becoming dissatisfied with owning slaves, brought the matter before the

yearly meeting. It was decided "That all Friends finding themselves under a burden and uneasiness on account of keeping slaves may set them at liberty by applying to the monthly meeting." Persons were also to be appointed to prepare instruments of writing suitable for emancipation, and to decide whether or not those whom it was proposed to free could support themselves. In the same year Thomas Nicholson was permitted to publish "Liberty and Property," a pamphlet regarding a change in the law of emancipation.

        One step farther was taken before the limits of our subject were reached. In the yearly meeting of 1775 the Western Quarter again brought up the query respecting slaves. They desired such changes to be made "as would relieve some distressed minds." The committee to whom the matter was referred found that it could be settled only by the prohibition of buying or selling slaves without the consent of the monthly meetings, and, loth to act, returned the affair to the meeting as too weighty for them. The meeting then took it up and ordered: "That Friends in unity shall neither buy nor sell a negro without the consent of the monthly meeting to which they belong." The succeeding year the subject was again brought up, this time by the Eastern Quarter. After much deliberation, and a most earnest desire to settle the matter in the spirit of love, it was the "unanimous sense of the meeting that all the members thereof who hold slaves be earnestly and affectionately advised to clear their hands of them as soon as they possibly can; and in the meantime that no member be permitted to buy or to sell any slaves, or hire any from those who are not of our Society." Any one persistently violating this decision was to be "disowned as in other offences against the Church." Apart from its remarkable significance as being the culmination of several steps towards the abolition of slavery by the Friends, this action is most noteworthy for its display of the harmonizing power of the Quaker principles. For several years these people had had a disagreement over this question. It had been settled time after time only to be reopened. Step by step

the advocates of slavery had been pushed back. Finally they were defeated. What did they then do? They "were able very affectionately to express their sentiments" and to make the decision unanimous. It was reserved for this little meeting of simple Friends to show the world that the question of slavery could be debated and decided without either side surrendering itself to a passion. In this respect it was greater than the Congress of the United States.1

        1 For these facts on the relation of the Quakers to slavery the author is indebted to "A Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of the North Carolina Yearly Meeting on the Subject of Slavery within its Limits, 1848." This is a rare pamphlet, only one copy of which he has been able to hear of. That has been kindly furnished to him by the Library of Guilford College, North Carolina. See pp. 1-12.

        Thus did the Friends gradually come up to the position of entire abolition, giving themselves up to the cause in 1776, the year in which the great war for national freedom was begun. With the balance of the story we may not deal here. It is sufficient to say that the Society had committed itself to the cause of freedom, and that in so doing it had started the first movement in that direction in the history of the province.

        The Baptists came into North Carolina at an early date. By the middle of the eighteenth century they had become strong in the central and eastern part of the upper tier of counties.2

        2 Col. Recs., III., 48.

        3 Col. Recs., VII., 164.

them to it, and to endeavor to convince them of their duty; and then to leave them to their own choice."1

        1 Biggs, History of the Kehukee Baptist Association, pp. 59-60.

        There were many Presbyterians in the province, but unfortunately we have no evidence as to their relation to slavery. They probably did not materially differ from the members of the Established Church in that regard. Along with these ought to be put a considerable number of Lutherans and members of the Dutch Reformed Church.2

        2 Bernheim, The German Settlements and the Lutheran Churches of the Carolinas. Cf. pp. 148 and 235.

        Social Life.--Mr. Taylor, the missionary, writing in 1719, gave the North Carolina slaves an excellent reputation. He said of the Duckinfield slaves that they "were as sensible and civil and as much inclined to Christianity and things that are good as ever I knew any slaves, any slaves in this place, wherever I have been, and indeed so are the slaves generally in this province, and many of the slaves of this country, I am persuaded, would be converted, baptized, and saved, if their masters were not so wicked as they are, and did not oppose their conversion, baptism, and salvation, so much as they do." It is likely that Mr. Taylor's success in teaching the catechism to the two Duckinfield negroes had made him a little too hopeful of the race. It is also probable that the negroes he here came into contact with were superior to the average negro of the country.

        Brickell, writing about 1731, probably came nearer the truth. From what he says we may divide the negroes in the colony into two classes: (1) Those who had recently been brought from Guinea, and (2) those who had been reared in

the colonies. The latter were much more manageable. This was because of training among Christians, "which," he said, "very much polishes and refines them from their barbarous and stubborn natures."1

        1 Brickell, Natural History of North Carolina, p. 272.

        2 Ibid., p. 273.

        3 In Virginia in 1708 the price was, according to Jennings, "20 to 30 pounds a head for those sold by the [African] Company, and from 30 to 35 pounds a head for the like kinds sold by separate traders, who in general have sold theirs at a higher rate than the Company." Col. Recs., I., 693.

        4 In 1774 we find a Congo negro offered for sale in Halifax for £140 colonial currency. Ibid., IX., 826-827.

        The intermarriage of slaves was a matter of little ceremony. The masters of the contracting party must first consent to the union. That being arranged, the groom sought his bride, offered her some toy, as a brass ring, and if his gift were accepted, the marriage was considered as made. If the couple separated the present was always returned. This occurred often, at times against the will of the parties. If the women bore no children in two or three years, says Brickell, "the planters oblige them to take a second, third, fourth, fifth, or more husbands or bedfellows--a fruitful woman amongst them being very much valued by the planters and a numerous issue esteemed the greatest riches

in this country." The children belonged to the owner of the mother, and the planters took pains to bring them up properly. The slaves showed great jealousy among themselves on account of their wives or mistresses. With such money as they could pick up they bought bracelets, toys, and ribbons for the women.1

        1 Brickell, Natural History of North Carolina, pp. 272-275.

        The marriage of a white person and a negro was from the first considered exceedingly undesirable. The law of 1715, already cited, provided that no white man or white woman should marry any negro, mulatto or Indian on penalty of fifty pounds, to be collected of that one of the contracting parties who should be white. It also stipulated that any clergyman or other person who should officiate at such a marriage should also be liable to a fine of fifty pounds, one-half to go to the informer and one-half to go to the public (sects. 15 and 16). Explicit as was this law, it did not succeed in preventing such unions. The records show that two persons were indicted within two years for performing such a marriage ceremony. In one case the suit was dropped;2

        2 Col. Recs., II., 591, 594, 602.

        3 In this case it seems that the clergyman confessed judgment in