Library of Congress Subject Headings

Languages Used:

• English

LC Subject Headings:

• African Americans -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- North Carolina.
  
• Slavery -- Law and legislation -- North Carolina.
  
• Slaves -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- North Carolina.
  
• Slaves -- North Carolina -- Social conditions.
  
• Slavery -- North Carolina -- History.
  
• Slaves -- Emancipation -- North Carolina.
  
• Slaves -- Religious life -- North Carolina.
  
• Slave insurrections -- North Carolina.
  

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SERIES XVII
No. 7-8
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES
IN
HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor

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

SLAVERY IN THE STATE OF
NORTH CAROLINA

BY

JOHN SPENCER BASSETT, Ph.D. (J. H. U.)
Professor of History and Political Science, Trinity College (North Carolina).

THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS, BALTIMORE
PUBLISHED MONTHLY
JULY-AUGUST, 1899

COPYRIGHT 1899 BY N. MURRAY.

PREFATORY NOTE.

        The author desires to express here his sense of obligation to the many friends who have so kindly made suggestions and furnished him with facts bearing on this monograph. Their cheerful compliance with his requests has made the work easier than it might have been. Among those to whom he is especially indebted are, Dr. B. F. Arrington, Dr. Thomas Hill, and Maj. D. W. Hurt, of Goldsboro, N. C.; Dr. K. P. Battle, of the University of North Carolina; Dr. J. D. Huffham, of Henderson, N. C.; Rev. J. B. Richardson, of High Point, N. C., and Col. John D. Whitford, of Newbern, N. C. To each of these gentlemen he returns his sincere thanks.

DURHAM, N. C., July 7, 1899.

CONTENTS.

• INTRODUCTION: General Characteristics . . . . . 7
• I. Legal Status of the Slave; The Slave in Court, Runaways, The Slave's Right to Hunt, The Slave's Right to Travel and Trade, The Slave's Right to Life . . . . . 10
• II. Free Negroes and Emancipation; Emancipation, Free Negroes . . . . . 29
• III. Religious Life . . . . . 47
• IV. Industrial and Social Life; Population, Distribution, The Regulation of the Slave's Life . . . . . 77
• V. The Triumph of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment; Slave Conspiracies, The Growth of the Pro-Slavery Sentiment . . . . . 94

Slavery in the State of North Carolina.

INTRODUCTION: GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.

        The story of slavery in the State of North Carolina may be considered in two parts, the dividing point of which is the year 1831. Before this year the general conditions of the slave were more humane than after it. Public feeling on the question was then unimpassioned. Some people opposed it; some favored it. It seems to have been discussed in a sane way, as a matter of public policy and without any extraordinary excitement or recrimination. After 1831, or about that year--for no fine and distinct dividing point can properly be made--the conditions of slavery became more severe. One law after another was passed which bore hardly on the slave, until at last he was bound hand, foot, and brain in the power of his master. Moreover, public feeling became inflamed. Slavery could no longer be discussed as a public policy, and there arose with most people in the State a fervent intolerance of all views advanced against the system.

        The causes of this remarkable development have often been enumerated. Later on in this work I propose to explain the matter with some degree of fulness in a chapter on the development of the pro-slavery sentiment. Here it cannot be necessary to do more than point out the general facts of the process.

        In this sense the chief cause of this change was the invention of the cotton gin and the consequent opening up of the cotton industry, not only in many parts of North Carolina,

but in the entire Gulf region. This gave a strong impetus to the settling of large plantations which hitherto had been limited for the most part to the rice producing regions. A wide extension of slavery could never have been made on the basis of the small farm, where there was necessarily much white labor. In North Carolina, and elsewhere, no doubt, it was noticeable that slavery, even in the days of the greatest excitement over the slave question, was of a milder type in the western counties. Here the farms were small. Slave-owners had but few slaves. With these they mingled freely. They worked with them in the fields, ploughing side by side. The slave cabins were in the same yard with the master's humble home. Slave children and, indeed, slave families were directly under the eye of the master, and better still, of the mistress. On such farms from five to twenty slaves was a usual quota, although their number often went to fifty and even higher. Could this type of bondage have predominated in the South, it is likely that slavery would sooner or later have softened itself, as in the disintegrating Roman Empire, into some less austere forms of servile labor, until at last it came by successive stages to the light of freedom. That it did not happen was due to the aristocracy of cotton.

        The triumph of the cotton aristocracy did not come in a day. In 1800 North Carolina was, except certain sections in the far East, in the grasp of the small farm system. There were then many people in the State who opposed slavery. Some of them were statesmen who, like Jefferson and Washington, looked to the day of freedom. They were strong enough to offset and keep down a certain thorough-going tendency to deal with slaves in a summary manner, which from the first was not wanting with some legislators. But as the large estate prevailed, the pro-slavery influence became stronger. The arguments on this side were naturally aggressive; and those on the other side were conservative. The former caught the support of the younger men in politics. As time passed the older party was weakened

by the death of its leaders, and the new party gained strength. It was in 1831 that the latter was able definitely to triumph over the former.

        There are two well-known facts that secured this decisive victory; that is to say, the Nat Turner rebellion and the beginning of the more vigorous anti-slavery agitation in the North. The former won the victory; the latter undoubtedly made it forever sure.

        Looking behind these two facts, however, it is worth while to ask how much the newer development of slavery, due to cotton cultivation, had to do with these two occurrences. To attempt to answer this question here would be to anticipate the task of the historian of slavery in general. I shall only venture to suggest that it may be probable that the growing harshness of slavery, either in Virginia or in the far South, led Nat Turner to make his futile attempt at freedom. With more confidence I might assert that the certain extension of slavery in the Gulf States, as well as in the older slave States, nerved the anti-slavery associates of Garrison to a fiercer battle. They saw, they must have seen, that the enemy against whom they contended was every day growing stronger. This aroused their efforts in the first instance, and made the fight more bitter throughout its course. This increased strength of slavery was due to cotton. But for this the famous contest in the Virginia Legislature of 1831 might have had another end. Mr. D. R. Goodloe1

        1 See a manuscript sketch by Mr. Goodloe himself, which is preserved among the papers of the Trinity College Historical Society.

CHAPTER I.
THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE SLAVE.

        The spirit of the slavery legislation in the State of North Carolina conforms to the development that has been indicated. Before, and immediately after, 1800 many of the laws passed indicated a milder spirit. After that they became more austere till they finally partook of the spirit of harshness to which allusion has been made. But this development did not come because of deliberate cruelty on the part of the slave-owners. There are throughout the period of greatest restriction enough humane laws and more than enough humane custom to show the contrary. It came as a logical consequence of the conviction that the future development of Southern society as well as the safety of the Southern people demanded that slavery should be perpetuated. Before this iron necessity every impulse to humanity, every suggestion for a better elevated negro race, was made to fall. Now and again some sharp-eyed pro-slavery advocate would discover some way by which it was thought that the slave could lift himself out of slavery, and the way would be as promptly closed up. At one time it was teaching slaves to read, again it was allowing negroes to preach to their race, again it was allowing free negroes to attend muster, and sometimes it was allowing a slave to hire his own time. In every case the Legislature was prompt with its veto. And yet it is certain that the feeling of the community was not so harsh as these laws indicate. Severe laws were often not obeyed. Besides some other provisions of the law, the single case of the State vs. Will is sufficient evidence of this humaner feeling. This case is remarkable because it settled, in 1834, just at the time when the

pro-slavery sentiment was in the flush of victory over the conservatives, the question that a slave had a right to defend himself against the apparently murderous attack of his master or overseer. Such a decision granted the slave all the rights of a moral conscience and gave the lie direct to the notion that the slave is not a person, the notion which underlay the Dred Scott decision.

        These two opposite tendencies of greater austerity and of greater sympathy within the bounds of slavery existed conjointly throughout the period we have under consideration. In considering the legal status of slavery as well as the general social conditions of slaves, the reader will often remark the outcropping of one or both of them.

        The Slave in Court.--During the period of statehood the slave law of 1741 continued the basis of the law of slavery, although it was frequently modified. By this law two or more justices of the peace and four freeholders were constituted a court to hold the trial of a slave.1

        1 See the author's "Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina," pp. 28-29.

return a verdict on the evidence submitted by the Court, and that the Court should give judgment "agreeable to the verdict of the jury and the laws of the country." By this it seems that the penalties inflicted on white men for the crimes in question were extended to slaves convicted of the same crimes.

        Further guarantees of security were given in 1816 (chap. 14) when it was provided that slaves charged with capital offenses should be tried in the Superior Courts; and that the trial was to be conducted as the trial of a freeman, unless the charge were conspiracy. It was expressly stated that there must be a presentment by the grand jury; that the owner must be notified; that the hearing might be removed to another county on affidavit of owner; that an offense clergyable for freemen was to be clergyable for slaves; and that the slave with the advice of his master might challenge the jury for cause. Otherwise the trial was to follow the law of 1777 (chap. 2) and that of 1779 (chap. 6). If the charge were conspiracy the trial was to be by special commission of Oyer and Terminer issued by the Governor to a Superior Court on the petition of five freeholders in the county in which the conspiracy was alleged to have occurred. Conspiracy was an exceptional affair in reference to the slave; but for ordinary cases the status of the slaves improved steadily. In 1818 a slave on trial for his life was given the full right of a freeman to challenge jurors.1

        1 Revision of 1821, chap. 972.

        In 1820 a further distinction between the trial of a freeman and a slave was obviated when it was provided that when a slave was convicted of a capital offense the costs should be paid by the county.2

        2 Ibid., chap. 1973.

        Minor offenses were tried differently. By the law of 1741 they were tried in the same way as capital offenses. But in 1783 (chap. 14) it was enacted that a justice of the peace

before whom the case of a slave was brought should try the case at once, if it were less than a capital crime and if, in his judgment, the penalty ought not to be heavier than forty lashes. Such trial was to be "in a summary way." Cases between these minor cases and capital cases gradually came to be tried in the County Courts, as capital cases were to be tried in the Superior Court. Here also the trial was to be conducted "under the same rules, regulations and restrictions as the trials of freemen;" and the slave was entitled to a jury of slaveholders.1

        1 Revised Statutes, 1837, p. 582.

        The law as just stated remained in force till the war, with the difference that the cases hitherto left to the County Courts went now to one or more justices of the peace, if they chose to sit on the case, and the penalty was to be whipping not to exceed thirty-nine lashes on the bare back. Appeal was, by law of 1842 (chap. 3), to be allowed to the County or the Superior Court. Such offenses were what were called "inferior offenses" and crimes which if done by free persons would be cognizable in the County Court. Some of the "inferior offenses" ought to be mentioned. Among them were insolence to a free white person; slandering a free white person, or trespassing on the property of such a person; intermarrying or cohabiting with a free negro; having sexual intercourse or indulging in grossly indecent familiarity with a white female; trying to teach a slave to read or to write--the use of figures excepted; exhorting or preaching or holding any other public religious service where slaves of different families were assembled; playing cards, dice or nine-pins, or gambling for money, liquor or other property; raising cattle, hogs, horses, etc.; producing a forged pass or certificate of freedom, and some other offenses. Felonies and other offenses of slaves not given for trial to a justice of the peace were to be tried before the Superior Court in the manner of the trials of freemen and before juries of slave-owners.2

        2 Revised Code, pp. 510-11.

also construed a felony and punishment was to be death or transportation.

        The payment of the owners for slaves executed by law was a hard matter to settle. At the beginning of statehood the State paid the owner for the slave, and in 17791

        1 Laws of 1779, 3d session, chap. 12.

        Runaways.--In the above section the development was in favor of a more humane treatment of a slave. There had been an honest desire to secure justice to the slave, and the graver offenses were put on the same basis as in the graver cases of freemen. It could be done because in no way was the perpetuity of slavery concerned. This was not true in regard to runaways. Such slaves threatened the very life of slavery. The law of colonial days on this subject had been stringent; and that was slightly modified after the

Revolution. Such enactments as were made had to do chiefly with persons who aided runaways. Thus in 1779 (1st session, chap. 11) it was made a capital felony to steal or seduce away a slave and this law remained in force till the war.1

        1 Revised Statutes, chap. 34, sec. 10, and Revised Code, chap. 34, sec. 10.

        In the days of exasperation against the anti-slavery party in the North more stringent rules were made. From 1825 till 1833 there were three laws passed, the substance of which was to make the stealing of a slave with the purpose of sending him out of the State, or the aiding of one to escape out of the State, a felony punishable by death.2

        2 Revised Statutes, chap. 34, sec. 11.

        3 Revised Code, chap. 34, sec. 11.

        4 Revised Statutes, chap. 34, sec. 73, and Revised Code, chap. 34, sec. 81.

        The Slave's Right to Hunt.--Here, too, the question of the perpetuity of slavery was involved. For slaves to hunt with a gun jeopardized the masters' lives. Throughout the period of statehood there was no disposition to relax the strict prohibition of this practice. Anyone who found a slave so hunting might take the gun for his own use and carry the

slave to the nearest constable who should at once give the slave twenty lashes on his bare back and the owner should pay the same reward as was paid for taking up a runaway.1

        1 Revised Statutes, chap. 111, sec. 23, and Revised Code, chap. 107, sec. 26.

        The Slave's Right to Travel and Trade.--The patrol, which had been established in 1753,2

        2 See author's "Slavery and Servitude," p. 38.

        In 1802 there was an alarm over a reported slave insurrection in Bertie and adjoining counties. This induced the Assembly to provide a still more efficient patrol.3

        3 Laws of 1802, chap. 15.

were to search their respective neighborhoods once in three weeks and to whip slaves found at large.

        No further change was made in the patrol till 1830 (chap. 16, secs. 1 and 14) when the County Court was given authority to appoint, if it saw fit, a Patrol Committee of three persons in each captain's district who might appoint as many patrolers as they thought necessary, provided that this should not prevent the County Court from appointing patrols as they saw fit. The patrol was now given large powers of arrest. The patrolers were enjoined to visit suspected places, to disperse assemblages of slaves, to be diligent in arresting runaways, to detect thefts, and to report persons who traded with slaves. The patrol, or any two of them, should "have such powers as may be necessary to a proper discharge of the duties herein enjoined," ran the law. If a negro who was being whipped was insolent to them he might be further punished not to exceed thirty-nine lashes in all. The Patrol Committee was given power to discharge patrolers and to appoint others in the vacancies. To refuse to serve on the patrol was punished by a fine of $20, to go to the support of the patrol, and in 1835 (chap. 22) it was enacted that persons who refused or neglected to perform the duties of this office should be fined $25.1

        1 See Revised Statutes, chap. 86; also Tate vs. Neale, 1 Hawks, 418, and Revised Code, chap. 83.

        There was more than one reason why masters did not want their slaves to meet at slave-meetings about the neighborhood. It afforded opportunity for concocting mischief; and it demoralized the slaves by bringing them into contact with the worst negroes of the community, by keeping them up till late at night, and by giving them a desire for idleness. Accordingly the laws were always against such slave-meetings. In 1779 (2d session, chap. 10) it was enacted that an ordinary keeper who entertained slaves against their master's will should forfeit his license. In 1794 (chap. 4) it was declared that no person should permit any negroes, bond

or free, to meet on his property for drinking or dancing on penalty of fine of £ 10.

        The commonest crime of slaves in all ages is no doubt theft. The negro has been called thievish by nature. Certainly in American slavery he showed a decided tendency to petty thievishness, so that it was necessary to throw a great deal of legal restraint around his petty business relations with others. Various laws were passed on this subject. A slave must not trade with any other person without the written consent of his master, the article for which permission to trade was given being expressly specified.1

        1 Laws of 1779, 1st session, chap. 11, and 1788, chap. 6.

        2 Revised Statutes, chap. 34, secs. 75-78.

        3 Revised Code, chap. 34, secs. 83-92.

might have been purchased therein; it should be presumptive evidence against him.1

        1 Revised Statutes, chap. 34, sec. 78, and Revised Code, chap. 34, sec. 88.

        2 Revised Statutes, chap. 34, sec. 76, and Revised Code, chap. 34, sec. 93.

        Of a somewhat similar nature was the custom of allowing a slave to hire his own time. This was a practice by which a slave paid his owner a certain sum of money for his own time and then followed some line of work in which he was proficient. The more industrious negroes who had trades, as blacksmiths, carpenters and bricklayers, often did this. From one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars a year was the amount usually paid by a slave for his own time. Most slaves who hired their time did it with the intention of buying their freedom, and many of them accomplished their purpose. The practice gave the slave more liberty of action and it was considered undesirable both because it increased the number of free negroes and because it removed the slave so hiring from the strict control of the whites. Accordingly it was enacted as early as 1794 (chap. 4) that no slave should hire his time on penalty of being hired out for a year by the sheriff at the direction of the County Court, the proceeds to go to the poor. There is good reason to believe that this law was not generally executed, but it remained on the statute book throughout the period of slavery.3

        3 Revised Statutes, chap. 111, sec. 31, and Revised Code, chap. 107, sec. 28.

or living in a house to himself and remote from other slaves, as a freeman, even though his master should consent.1

        1 Revised Statutes, chap. 111, sec. 32, and Revised Code, chap. 107, sec. 29.

        The Slave's Right to Life.--In 1774 it was enacted that a person who willfully killed a slave should be imprisoned a year for the first offense and suffer death for the second.2

        2 See the author's "Slavery and Servitude," p. 43.

        3 North Carolina Reports, vol. 1, p. 103 (edition of 1896).

        4 Hawks's Law, p. 217.

        5 Ibid., p. 210, State vs. Tackett.

After stating the common law in regard to manslaughter the Court added that in the very nature of slavery "many acts will extenuate the homicide of a slave, which would not constitute a legal provocation if done by a white person." The defining of these acts was not attempted, but it was presumed that the Court and jury would estimate them seriously in individual cases, with due regard to the rights of slaves and white men--"to the just claims of humanity, and to the supreme law, the safety of the citizens."

        In 1823 the Supreme Court in the case of the State vs. Reed, declared directly that the killing of a slave might be tried as murder at common law, Chief Justice Taylor and Justice Henderson acquiescing and Justice Hall dissenting. The grounds of the decision were the law of Nature and Christianity. Justice Henderson made the very substantial statement that the law of slavery gave the master the control of the services of the slave and that it would be not too scrupulous in adjusting the means of enforcing these services. "But the life of a slave being in no ways necessary to be placed in the powers of the owner for the full enjoyment of his services the law takes care of that; and with me it has no weight to show that, by the laws of ancient Rome or modern Turkey, an absolute power is given to the master over the life of his slave. I answer, these are not the laws of our country, nor the mode from which they were taken. It is abhorrent to the hearts of all those who have felt the influence of the mild precepts of Christianity." The argument of Justice Hall was on the basis that the slave is a chattel. Now if a slave be killed the law provides that the owner has an action for trespass against the slayer. But if killing a slave be murder at common law the offender would be answerable both civiliter and criminaliter. The Legislature could not have intended to create such a condition. Besides, the Legislature in 1774 (chap. 31) passed a law to punish the killing of a slave. If such an offense had

been cognizable at common law the Legislature need not have made a statute on the subject.1

        1 North Carolina Reports (new edition), vol. 9, p. 454.

        The effect of this decision was modified shortly afterwards in the case of the State vs. Hoover, where it was held that if a slave died from moderate chastisement of his master every circumstance which in the general course of slavery might have hurried the master to excess would be tenderly regarded by the law. But where the punishment was barbarously immoderate and accompanied by painful privation of food, clothing, and rest, it is not correction in foro domestico, indicates deliberate killing, and is therefore murder.2

        2 See 4 Devereaux and Battle, p. 365.

        The next question to be taken up in this connection was that of the culpability of a white man who cruelly beat a slave. In 1823, in the case of the State vs. Hale,3

        3 Ibid., p. 582. Here the defendant is called Hale. Later cases cite this case as State vs. Hall.

        4 North Carolina Reports (new edition), 13, p. 263.

a right to the services of a slave has a right to all the means of controlling his conduct that belong to the owner, and that this rule would apply to the hirer of a slave. The decision was given by Justice Ruffin. Although, as he affirmed, there was no question about a master's right to inflict any kind of corporal punishment short of death on his slave, he still stated the general grounds for such a principle. There had been no prosecutions of masters for such an offense. Against this general opinion of the community the Court ought not to hold. It was erroneously said that the relation of master and slave was like that of parent and child, and it was held that a parent could not commit a cruel battery on his own son. The object of the training of a son was the life of a freeman, and the means to be used was moral and intellectual instruction. With slavery it was otherwise. "The end," ran the decision, "is the profit of the master, his security and the public safety; the subject, one doomed in his own person and his posterity, to live without knowledge and without the capacity to make anything his own, and to toil that another may reap the fruits. What moral considerations shall be addressed to such a being to convince him what it is impossible but that the most stupid must feel and know can never be true--that he is thus to labor upon a principle of natural duty, or for the sake of his own personal happiness. Such services can only be expected from one who has no will of his own, who surrenders his will in implicit obedience to that of another. Such obedience is the consequence only of uncontrolled authority over the body. There is nothing else which can operate to produce the effect. The power of the master must be absolute to render the submission of the slave perfect. I most freely confess my sense of the harshness of this proposition. I feel it as deeply as any man can; and as a principle of moral right every person in his retirement must repudiate it. But in the actual conditions of things it must be so. There is no remedy. This discipline belongs to the state of slavery. They [the discipline

and slavery] cannot be disunited without abrogating at once the rights of the master and absolving the slave from his subjection. It constitutes the curse of slavery to both the bond and free portion of our population. * * * The slave, to remain a slave, must be made sensible that there is no appeal from his master; that his power is in no instance usurped; but is conferred by the laws of man at least, if not by the laws of God." The Courts could not fix the punishment due to the violations of duty by the slave. "No man can anticipate the many and aggravated provocations of the master to which the slave would be constantly stimulated by his own passions or the instigations of others to give, or the consequent wrath of the master prompting him to bloody vengeance upon the turbulent traitor--a vengeance generally practiced with impunity because of its privacy." I do not think that one can find anywhere in the annals of modern justice a decision more brutally logical, and more void of that genial spirit of progressive amelioration which should run through a legal development. Justice Ruffin announced his own horror of the decision he was giving and consoled himself with the thought that the softening feeling of the masters in general for the slaves was increasing and with the decreasing numbers of the slaves, would eventually enable the relations of slavery to be more humane--a result more likely to come in this way "than from any rash expositions of abstract truths by a judiciary tainted with a false and fanatical philanthropy." Was it not the duty of the Court to give such a decision that would help on the humanizing process by giving the Courts the right to restrain excessive cruelty of masters towards slaves rather than by crystallizing into a judicial opinion the brutal theory of the harshest days of slavery to scotch the wheels of the progress that it was desired to see abroad?

        It was fortunate for the slave, it was fortunate for the State, that this spirit was not permanent in the Supreme

Court decisions. In 1834 the case of the State vs. Will,1

        1 See "The Trinity College Historical Society Papers," series II, p. 12; also 1 Devereaux and Battle, p. 121.

        2 Mr. G. W. Mordecai was also associated with the defense, but Mr. Moore's argument won the case.

and "reduced into perfect tameness the instinct of self-preservation," a result difficult to accomplish and lamentable if accomplished. But if the relation of slavery required "that the slave shall be disrobed of the essential features that distinguish him from the brute, the relation must adapt itself to the consequences and leave its subjects the instinctive privileges of a brute. I am arguing no question of abstract right, but am endeavoring to prove that the natural incidents of slavery must be borne with because they are inherent to the condition itself; and that any attempt to punish the slave for the exercise of a right which even absolute power cannot destroy is inhuman and without the slightest benefit to the security of the master or to that of society at large. The doctrine may be advanced from the bench, enacted by the Legislature, and enforced with all the varied agony of torture and still the slave cannot believe and will not believe that there is no instance in which the master's power is usurped. Nature, stronger than all, will discover many instances and vindicate her rights at any and at every price. When such a stimulant as this urges the forbidden deed punishment will be powerless to proclaim or to warn by example. It can serve no purpose but to gratify the revengeful feelings of one class of people and to influence the hidden animosities of the other."

        The opinion was written by Justice Gaston, who two years earlier had said in a public address: "Disguise the truth as we may, and throw the blame where we will, it is slavery which, more than any other cause, keeps us back in the career of improvement."1

        1 Address at Chapel Hill, June 20, 1832, p. 24.

him of life. There may be other exceptions, but in a matter so full of difficulties, where reason and humanity plead with almost irresistible force on one side, and a necessary policy, rigorous indeed, but inseparable from slavery, urges on the other, I fear to err should I undertake to define them." Neither would he define legal provocation, but he did say that a slave's unlawful violence excited by his master's inhumanity ought not to be construed as malice. "The prisoner," said the Court, "is a human being, degraded by slavery, but yet having organs, senses, dimensions, passions like our own." No malice was shown in the evidence and the killing was pronounced manslaughter. It was a notable case and it fixed a humaner spirit in the law of slavery in North Carolina until the end of that institution.

        But one more case before the Supreme Court will be mentioned, that of the State vs. Jarrot,1

        1 North Carolina Reports, 23, p. 75.

        2 This decision also was written by Judge Gaston.

        In regard to the slave's legal status a curious case has come under my notice. The late Dr. John Manning, widely known as Professor of Law at the State University, told me that Judge Ruffin, the senior, told him that a case was once decided in the North Carolina Supreme Court in which it was held that a white man could not be convicted of fornication and adultery with a slave woman, because such a woman had no standing in the courts. The case, said Judge Ruffin, was decided early in this century, but it was agreed that in the interest of public morality it should not be published.1

        1 Inquiry of the Clerk of the Supreme Court fails to discover the papers in reference to the case; but since there is no other index to the Supreme Court cases than the printed reports it is quite possible that the papers are preserved, but so lost among a vast number of documents that only a long and careful search would bring them to light.

CHAPTER II.
FREE NEGROES AND EMANCIPATION.

        Emancipation.--During the colonial period emancipation was forbidden except for meritorious conduct to be adjudged by the County Court,1

        1 See the author's "Slavery and Servitude," pp. 64-66.

        2 When the Superior Courts were created the judging of meritorious conduct was left to them. Revisal of 1821, chap. 971.

        3 Laws of 1779, 2d session, chap. 12.

        These slaves had been freed by the Quakers, who were at that time very active in favor of emancipation. Their liberated slaves were going about, said the Assembly, "to the terror of the people of the State." The law which forbade their liberation was a failure, because it left the duty of informing of its violation to freeholders only and made their action optional. To remedy this condition the Assembly in 1788 (chap. 20) gave the duty of informing on such liberated slaves to any freeman, and thus secured the co-operation of the landless whites who were usually strangely willing to have a fling at the slaves and who, no

doubt, were anxious to get the reward offered for such information.

        After the San Domingo revolt in 1791 much concern was felt in the Southern States lest the success of the slaves there should inspire attempts at insurrection in the United States. Several new features of the slave law were added, one of which provided that no slave should be liberated unless he could give bond in the sum of £200 that he would remain quiet and orderly.1

        1 Laws of 1795, chap. 16.

        In 1830 (chap. 9) it was made more difficult to emancipate. Now, the petitioner must notify his intention at the court house and in the State Gazette six weeks before the hearing of the petition; he must give bond with two sureties for $1000 that the said slave should conduct himself well as long as he or she remained in the State, that the slave would leave the State within ninety days after liberation, and the said liberation should invalidate the rights of no creditor. Executors of wills by which slaves were directed to be liberated must secure consent of the courts and take steps to send the negroes out of the State and guard against the loss of creditors. A slave more than fifty years old might be liberated for meritorious conduct to be approved by the Court without subsequently leaving the State, provided that the master swore that the emancipation was not for money and that he gave bond that the negro would conduct himself well and not become a charge on the county. No slave was to be liberated except by this law.2

        2 Revised Statutes, chap. 111, secs. 57-64.

        3 Revised Code, chap. 107, secs. 45-53.

        4 Cameron vs. Commissioners of Raleigh (the Rex Will Case), 1 Iredell's Eq., p. 436.

        Among the various cases reported from the Supreme Court in regard to emancipation there are several from which the point is obtained that the freedom of slaves could be acquired through prescription. For instance, it was held that when a woman who had once been a slave, but who for thirty years or more, had been treated as a free person, and her daughter with her, then a granddaughter must be free; for it would be proper to infer that so long an enjoyment of freedom must have followed legal emancipation. It was not attempted to fix the time necessary to constitute such liberation by prescription; but in the cases cited thirty and forty years are the periods mentioned.1

        1 Brookfield vs. Stuart, 6 Jones, p. 156; Cully vs. Jones, 9 Iredell, p. 168; Strange vs. Burnham, 12 Iredell, p. 41.

        In Sampson vs. Burgwin2

        2 3 Devereaux and Battle's Law, p. 28.

        Granting permission to liberate was not liberation, as was held in the case of Bryan vs. Wadsworth.3

        3 1 Devereaux and Battle's Law, p. 384.

his freedom. He lost the case. It was held that only the master could emancipate and that the Court only gave permission to emancipate.

        The harshness of the law led to various subterfuges in regard to emancipation. It was attempted to hold slaves in nominal servitude, but in real freedom. This was opposed for the general reason that it increased the free negro class and whenever a case involving such a trick came before the Supreme Court it was severely handled. A case in point was that of the Quakers, which arose as follows: In 1817 William Dickinson conveyed a slave to the trustees of the Quaker society of Contentnea, to be held in a kind of guardianship, to be kept at work but to receive the profits of his labor, and ultimately to be free when his freedom could be effected by the laws of the State. In 1827 the matter was before the Supreme Court. It was in evidence that nothing was said about sending the slave out of the State when he should be freed. On the contrary it seemed to be the purpose of the parties to keep him in the State till free, and then to let him go where he would. The opinion was by Taylor, Chief Justice. He declared that the practice of the Quakers was emancipation in everything but name. By statute a religious society could hold property for its use only, and in a conveyance to it for a purpose forbidden by the policy of the laws nothing was passed. That the Quakers did not hold this slave, or other slaves, for their own use was shown by the fact that slaveholding was against their well-known principles. Justice Hall dissented. He thought a religious society might hold personal property unlimitedly and seems not to have approved of the law which fixed such stringent measures against emancipation.1

        1 Contentnea Society vs. Dickinson, 1 Devereaux, p. 189.

        A case not unlike this occurred in 1822, when Collier Hill left slaves to four trustees, one of whom was "Richard

Graves, of the Methodist Church," with the injunction to keep the said slaves for such purposes as "they [the trustees] shall judge most for the glory of God and the good of the said slaves." The case came before the Supreme Court, and the opinion declared that such a bequest, "when it could be fairly collected from other parts of the will that the testator did not mean by the bequest any personal benefit to the legatees, was held to constitute them trustees for the purpose of emancipation," and as such purpose was illegal it was held that the trustees take the property in trust for the legal heirs.1

        1 Huckaby vs. Jones, 2 Hawks, p. 720. See also Stephens vs. Ely, 1 Devereaux's Equity, p. 497.

        In all these cases the cast-iron necessity of keeping slavery unbendingly confined to its present condition, cutting off the least tendency to amelioration, is clearly seen. Slavery absolute--nothing short of it--and as few free negroes as possible; that was the idea.

        As time passed this feature of the law became harder. Most severe was a case before the Court in 1849. The facts were these. William Quarry, of Mecklenberg, conveyed by deed absolute to Peoples and others a slave woman Linney, who was married to a freeman. Desiring that she might continue to live with her husband he conveyed to the same parties twelve acres of land with a house on it, presumably for her use. No consideration was paid, although it was duly acknowledged. The defendants claimed that they were absolute owners, that the donor conveyed the woman and her family to provide for her comfort and to prevent the division of the family. They allowed the husband to occupy the house with his wife for a certain rent. They took her and her children under their personal care and agreed to control their conduct. Yet the arrangement would not do at all. It was, said the Court, qualified slavery, and the conveyance was void. Linney and her children were given to the heirs of the donor, and, moreover,

the donees were held liable, "with just deductions," for the profits due from her services while in their hands, and because the defendants had attempted to defraud the law they were to pay the costs.1

        1 Lemmond vs. Peoples, 6 Iredell's Equity, p. 137.

        Severe as these cases seem the Court showed that within the range of the fact that the free negro class must not be extended they were disposed to be as humane as possible. In the case of Redding vs. Long,2

        2 4 Jones' Equity, p. 216.

        Free Negroes.--Slaveholders disliked and feared free negroes because they demoralized the quiet conduct of the slaves. These negroes were under no direct control of the white man. They might aid the slaves in planning a revolt, in disposing of stolen property, in running away, and in any other act of defiance. Privilege after privilege was withdrawn from them. At first they had most of the rights and duties of the poor white man; they fought in the Revolutionary armies, mustered in the militia, voted in the elections, and had the liberty to go where they chose. At length they lost their right to vote; their service in the militia was restricted to that of musicians; and the patrol came more and more to limit their freedom of travel. Taxes and road duty alone of all their functions of citizenship were at last preserved. The story of the appearance of these progressive limitations is not a pleasant one.

        It was in 1787 (chap. 6) that the Assembly enacted that no free negro should entertain a slave at his house at night or on Sunday, on penalty of fine. If the fine was not paid the culprit was to be hired out long enough to pay it. The

same law forbade a free negro to marry or to cohabit with a slave without the written consent of the master, and in 1830 (chap. 4, sec. 3) such relations were forbidden even though the master gave his written consent, and the penalty for violation was thirty-nine lashes.1

        1 State vs. Fore, 1 Iredell, p. 378.

        2 Laws of 1830, chap. 7, and 1831, chap. 28.

        The collection of fines from free negroes was often difficult, and in 1831 (chap. 13) the Legislature enacted that when the Court had reason to believe that a free negro could not pay the fine imposed upon him it might direct that he be hired out to the highest bidder for a time long enough to pay the fine. The bidder who bid the shortest time took the negro. The relation between hirer and hired was to be the same as that between master and apprentice. A free negro was not to be hired out in this way for a longer term than five years. If a longer term was the lowest bid the fine was to be reduced to an amount which five years' service would satisfy.3

        3 The constitutionality of this law was questioned but it was upheld by the Supreme Court. See State vs. Oxendine, 1 Devereaux and Battle, p. 435, and State vs. Manuel, 4 Devereaux and Battle, p. 20.

that he should be produced in Court at the end of his service or oftener, if so ordered by the Court.1

        1 Revised Code, chap. 107, sec. 77.

        In 1826 (chap. 21) the relation of the free negro to the State was pretty thoroughly restated by law. With free negroes were now to be included all persons of negro blood to the fourth generation inclusive, though one ancestor in each generation may have been white.2

        2 See State vs. Dempsy, 9 Iredell, p. 384.

        3 It was under the operation of this law that Lunsford Lane was driven from the State. See the author's "Anti-Slavery Leaders of North Carolina," p. 60.

        4 Revised Code, chap. 107, sec. 77.

(chap. 14) when it was provided that those who were willingly absent from the State for more than ninety days together should not be allowed to return to it. It was a capital offense without benefit of clergy for any person of color to rape a white female.1

        1 Laws of 1823, chap. 1229.

        2 State vs. Lane, 8 Iredell, p. 256.

        3 Laws of 1844, chap. 86.

        4 Revised Code, chap. 107, sec. 76.

        The legal status of the free negro was peculiar. Was he a freeman, or was he less than a freeman? The former he was by logical intent; yet he was undoubtedly denied, as has just been stated, many rights which mark the estate of freemen. At any time in the eighteenth century, I suppose, there would have been no question about the free negro being equally a freeman with the whites. After the severe laws of the third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century opinion changed. It was thus that it was as late as 1844 that the Supreme Court undertook to fix the status of free negroes. It then declared that "free persons of color in this State are not to be considered as citizens in the largest sense of the term, or if they are, they occupy such a position as justifies the Legislature in adopting a course of policy in its acts peculiar to them, so that they do not violate the great principles of justice which lie at the foundation of all law."5

        5 State vs. Newsom, 5 Iredell, p. 250.

defend himself against physical force. It was held in 1850 that insolence from a free negro to a white man would excuse a battery in the same manner and to the same extent as insolence from a slave.1

        1 State vs. Jowers, 11 Iredell, p. 535.

        2 State vs. Davis, 7 Jones, p. 52.

        More important still is the history of free negroes and suffrage.3

        3 See the author's paper on "Suffrage in North Carolina," Report of the American Historical Association, 1895, pp. 272-3.

Of course, where they did not vote it was through their own will--whether it was influenced by choice or by fear of the whites. Unquestionably, they were not a desirable class of voters. In Granville County, it is said, they lost the favor of the people because they persistently voted for one Potter, a demagogue of plausible speech, who had not the respect of the best whites. At length it came to be regarded as a blot on a man's political record to have the support of the free negroes. It was not unusual for candidates to twit one another with such support and for the one to reply that he would give up the negro vote if the other would do the same.1

        1 See David Dodge: "The Free Negroes of North Carolina," The Atlantic, Jan., 1886. David Dodge is O. W. Blacknall, Esq., Kittrels, N. C.

        In the triumph of the pro-slavery views, about 1830, the free negro was destined to lose the franchise. The matter came to a head in the Constitutional Convention of 1835. Already a law had been passed to forbid the free negro to hold office in the State. I do not know just how the act which called the Constitutional Convention came to include in the objects of the convention the consideration of the disfranchisement of free negroes. Perhaps it was a compromise wrung from the men of the West by those of the East in order to get popular representation. Its consideration was made optional. There were many friends of the black man in the convention, but the majority was against him. Realizing their position they tried to secure a law which would save the franchise to the more industrious and intelligent of the free negroes. It was therefore proposed to limit the right to vote to such of this class as had a freehold estate worth $250. The debate on this proposition was long. It was argued by the affirmative that this would be an incentive to the thrift and good conduct of the free negroes; that it would make the better men in that class friends of the whites in case of slave riot; that many free negroes had fought in the Revolution; that they usually

voted for good men when they voted, and that if they were taxed they ought to vote. It was admitted that the bill of rights was intended to apply to white men only; but, it was said, expediency demanded the present concession. It was not denied that the prejudice against these people was justified by the unworthiness of many of them; but the whites were largely responsible; for, it was added, "the whites are the principal corrupters of the morals of these people." Mr. Shober, of Surry, an extremely western county, was more outspoken. He said that it was sufficient for him that a free negro was a human being, that he had a will and was a free agent. If held liable for taxes and other burdens he ought to have some privileges. Said Mr. Giles: "It was charged that the vote of the free negro could be purchased--purchased by whom? Undoubtedly by white men. The Legislature had been remiss in its duty to the free negroes. Instead of improving their situation they appear to have acted on a principle of hostility toward them." The convention ought to do something to raise them from their degradation. Judge Gaston also spoke for the negro. After Macon he was the most distingished man in the convention. The question, said he, was not the giving of a right but the taking of one away. He was willing to restrict the right of suffrage; but those free negroes who possessed freeholds were honest men and perhaps Christians and they should not be politically excommunicated on account of their color. "Let them know that they are part of the body politic, and they will feel an attachment to the form of government, and have a fixed interest in the prosperity of the community, and will exercise an important influence over the slaves."

        On the other hand, it was argued that a free negro was not a citizen, and that if he had ever voted it was illegally. Being called freemen in the abstract did not confer on them the dignity of citizenship. Fighting in the Revolution did not make them citizens any more than it made citizens of the slaves, many of whom fought in the Revolution. The

lot of the free negro was not a hard one. "It far surpassed the nondescript situation of the ancient Helots and villeins, or the ignoble condition of the oppressed peasants of Poland." A slave was not a citizen. When was a freed slave naturalized? And until naturalized could he be a citizen? Citizens of one State have privileges of citizens in the other States, and yet North Carolina severely restricted their coming to its borders, thus implying that they were not citizens. It was granted that the better class would suffer hardship in losing the right of suffrage, yet the interest of a few must yield to the general good. Although, it was said, free negroes voted elsewhere in the State, yet the privilege was not allowed to those in the eastern counties, and they had accepted the restriction "with cheerfulness and contentment." The cold logic of the views of the majority was stated by Mr. Bryan, of Carteret, as follows:

        "This is, to my mind, a nation of white people, and the enjoyment of all civil and social rights by a distinctive class of individuals is purely permissive, and unless there be a perfect equality in every respect it cannot be demanded as a right. * * * It may be urged that this is a harsh and cruel doctrine, and unjust, and by no means reciprocal in its operation. I do not acknowledge any equality between the white man and the free negro in the enjoyment of political rights. The free negro is a citizen of necessity and must, as long as he abides among us, submit to the laws which necessity and the peculiarity of his position compel us to adopt."

        Mr. McQueen, of Chatham, continued the argument: The Government of North Carolina did not make the negro a slave, said he. It gave the boon of freedom, but did that carry the further boon of citizenship? "Is there any solid ground for the belief that a free mulatto can have any permanent interest with, and attachment to, this country? He finds the door of office closed against him by the bars and bolts of public sentiment; he finds the circle of every

respectable society closed against him; let him conduct himself with as much propriety as he may, he finds himself suspended between two classes of society--the whites and the blacks--condemned by the one and despised by the other; and when his favorite candidate in the election prevails, it communicates no gratification in his breast, for the candidate will be a white man, and he knows full well that the white man eyes him with contempt." More relentless still was Mr. Wilson, of Perquimons. He said: "A white man may go to the house of a free black, maltreat and abuse him, and commit any outrage upon his family, for all of which the law cannot reach him, unless some white person saw the act committed--some fifty years of experience having satisfied the Legislature that the black man does not possess sufficient intelligence and integrity to be intrusted with the important privilege of giving evidence against a white man. And after all this shall we invest him with the more important rights of a freeman?"

        After the discussion had continued two days, the matter was carried against the free negro by a vote of 65 to 62. It was the strongly slaveholding East that carried the vote; for, of the majority, 47 votes were eastern and 18 were western, while of the minority 40 were western and 22 eastern. The amendment to the Constitution as finally adopted read: "No free negro, free mulatto, or free person of mixed blood, descended from negro ancestors to the fourth generation inclusive (though one ancestor of each generation may have been a white person) shall vote for members of the Senate or House of Commons."

        There were more free negroes in North Carolina in 1860 than in any other State except Virginia. Rigorous as they were the North Carolina laws against these people were more lenient than the laws of Virginia or of any other State. Consequently many free negroes quietly crossed into the former State and settled there undisturbed in the northern or southern counties. They took the poorest land. Usually they rented a few acres; often they bought a small

"patch," and on it dwelt in log huts of the rudest construction. In either case they supplemented their resources by following some simple trade. They were well-diggers, shoemakers, blacksmiths, fiddlers, hucksters, pedlers, and so forth. Besides, they were easily called in to help the whites on occasions of need. There were a very few who accumulated money and some of these became slave-owners. Although it was against the law for them to come into the State, their arrival was tolerated both because the law was recognized as severe and because their services were wanted in the community. Many of them had Indian blood in their veins, and when such was the case they were a little distant towards the slaves. Unambitious, often immoral, they were of the least value to society, which, indeed, offered them no inducement to be better than they were. They usually were on terms of friendship with that other class of incompetents, the "poor whites." Sometimes these two classes lived on terms of sexual intimacy. In Granville County there was a pretty well authenticated story of a white woman who had her colored lover bled and drank some of the blood so that she might swear she had negro blood in her and thus be enabled to marry the object of her affection. She succeeded in her purpose and the couple lived to rear a family of children.1

        1 David Dodge [O. W. Blacknall] in The Atlantic Monthly, Jan., 1886.

        Regardless of the severe laws there were not a few free negroes who acquired wealth and consideration. Of this class were notably Rev. John Chavis, Lunsford Lane and John C. Stanley. The first of these will be noticed in another chapter, the second has been treated by the author with much fulness elsewhere,2

        2 "Anti-slavery Leaders of North Carolina," p. 60.

        John C. Stanley was a mulatto, the son of an African born slave woman, who was brought to Newbern, N. C. (from the West Indies), before the Revolutionary War. He was a barber by trade and throughout his days of manhood was known as "Barber Jack." He was a faithful servant, and in 1808 he was liberated by the General Assembly on petition of Mrs. Lydia Stewart, into whose possession he had come. He soon began to acquire negro slaves and land till at length he had sixty-four slaves and as many more bound free negroes working his several plantations. Says Col. John D. Whitford: "He was popular, too, with both slave and free negroes generally, notwithstanding he was a hard taskmaster. Yes, he worked all well and fed and clothed indifferently."1

        1 See Raleigh, N. C., Morning Post, Dec. 5, 1897. Other facts not mentioned by Col. Whitford are from statements made to the writer by Maj. D. W. Hurt, Goldsboro, N. C.

her pew and then leave her to take his seat with his own family in the place assigned to colored people.

        Many of the free negroes were in circumstances of independent thrift, and from many parts of the State I have had evidence that some negroes were slaveholders. In Newbern especially there were a number of such thrifty colored men. Notable among these was John Good. He was a son of his master and for a long time a slave. When the master died, his two surviving children, who were daughters, had but little property besides this boy, John, who was a barber. John took up the task of supporting them. He boarded them in good houses and otherwise provided for them well. His faithfulness won him many friends among the best citizens, and when both of his mistresses were married these friends united to persuade the owners to liberate him as a reward for his services. Unfortunately, freedom proved no boon. He fell into bad habits, took to drink and soon died. There were other thrifty and notable free negroes in the same place, as, for example, John Y. Green, a carpenter and contractor; Richard Hazel, a blacksmith of means; Albert and Freeman Morris, described as two "nice young men," and thoroughly respected, tailors by trade; and Scipio, slave of Dr. Hughes, who was a blacksmith and owner of a livery stable. Another was Fellow Bragg, a tailor who was thoroughly conscientious and so good a workman that prominent people were known to move their custom to the shops at which he was employed in order that he might work on it. Most of these men moved to Cincinnati sooner or later. What became of them after that I do not know.1

        1 The facts in this paragraph are from Maj. D. W. Hurt, formerly of Newbern, but now of Goldsboro, N. C.

This mulatto class was partly due to the easy sexual relations between the races. A white man who kept a negro mistress ordinarily lost no standing in society on account of it. The habit, though not common, was not unusual. Often the mistress was a slave, and thus there were frequent emancipations either by gift or by purchase of liberty, till the stricter spirit of the laws after 1831 checked it.

CHAPTER III.
RELIGIOUS LIFE.

        I have already said that the central idea of slavery in North Carolina was a determination to perpetuate the institution, whatever the price, and at the same time a disposition to make it as gentle as possible for the slave, provided that doing so did not tend to loosen his bonds. This same idea is found in the master's regulation of the religious life of the slave. Without question he was willing to make the slave a Christian. He was anxious to do it. He spent money with more or less bountifulness to do it. This was sometimes done by men who were not Christians themselves, but who wanted their slaves to be Christians for the purposes of discipline; but oftener it was done out of pure benevolence, and with a devout purpose to accomplish the spiritual welfare of the negro. Persons who have formed their opinions of Southern society from the popular works of certain novelists are apt to think of the slave-owner as a fine-bred gentleman of cavalier instincts and patriarchal feelings. Such an estimate is but half true. There was in the South--in North Carolina it was very strong--a large class of slave-owners who approached more nearly to the English farmer type than to the English gentleman type. They were usually self-made men, of fair intelligence, and of some education. They were generally thrifty and often wealthy. The majority of them were Christians, mostly of the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian Churches. This class of men has received but little attention from those who have written of Southern society, and yet it was the backbone of that society. There was little that was ideal about such men. They were humdrum, but they were honest,

pious and substantial, and they were numerous. Such people are to be compared, not only in wealth, but in general social development as well, with the upper farmer class in the North and West. I do not mean to say that they were all of the South. The planter class, in the ordinary use of the term, was there, and it was the governing class and the class that touched the outside world. It went to summer resorts, and to Congress, and to political conventions, and it got into novels, and sometimes into history, and it was usually benignly patriarchal, but the farmer class as a class came closer into touch with the slave and in a hundred ways softened the harshness of an institution which no one knew how to modify in law.

        It was, indeed, in a harsh spirit that the law came at last to regulate the religious relations of the slave. In the beginning, when the slaves were just from barbarism and freedom, it was thought best to forbid them to have churches of their own. But as they became more manageable, this restriction was omitted from the law1

        1 See the author's "Slavery and Servitude," p. 50.

to read or write, the use of figures excepted, or give to a slave any book or pamphlet.1

        1 Revised Statutes, pp. 209, 578, and Revised Code, p. 218.

        2 See the unpublished manuscript of E. W. Caruthers's book on "Slavery," p. 396. It is preserved in the library of Greensboro Female College, Greensboro, N. C.

        3 Revised Statutes, p. 580, and Revised Code, p. 576.

        As to the preaching of the dominant class to the slaves it always had one element of disadvantage. It seemed to the negro to be given with a view to upholding slavery. As an illustration of this I may introduce the testimony of

Lunsford Lane. This slave was the property of a prominent and highly esteemed citizen of Raleigh, N. C. He hired his own time and with his father manufactured smoking tobacco by a secret process. His business grew and at length he bought his own freedom. Later, he opened a wood yard, a grocery store and kept teams for hauling. He at last bought his own home, and had bargained to buy his wife and children for $2500, when the rigors of the law were applied and he was driven from the State. He was intelligent enough to get a clear view of slavery from the slave's standpoint. He was later a minister, and undoubtedly had the confidence and esteem of some of the leading people of Raleigh, among whom was Governor Morehead. He is a competent witness for the negro. In speaking of the sermons from white preachers he said that the favorite texts were "Servants, be obedient to your masters," and "he that knoweth his master's will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes." He adds, "Similar passages with but few exceptions formed the basis of most of the public instruction. The first commandment was to obey our masters, and the second was like unto it; to labor as faithfully when they or the overseers were not watching as when they were. I will not do them the injustice to say that connected with this instruction there was not mingled much that was excellent." All this was natural. To be a slave was the fundamental fact of the negro's life. To be a good slave was to obey and to labor. Not to obey and not to labor were, in the master's eye, the fundamental sins of a slave. Such a condition was inherent in slavery. On the other hand, many of the more independent negroes, those who in their hearts never accepted the institution of slavery, were repelled from the white man's religion, and thus the support of a very valuable portion of the race was lost. This condition of affairs was not to be entirely remedied by having negro preachers; but it might have been ameliorated by it, and if, in the long course of time, the church work among the slaves could have been done entirely by

negro preachers acting under white supervision the salvation of the slave would have been very near its accomplishment.

        As it was, it is no doubt true that many slaves were reached by religious influences. Through the teachings of the church many were enabled to bend in meekness under their bondage and be content with a hopeless lot. There are whites to whom Christianity is still chiefly a burdenbearing affair. Such quietism has a negative value. It saves men from discontent and society from chaos. But it has little positive and constructive value. The idea of social reform which is also associated with the standard of Christian duty was not for the slave. Those very few who, like Lunsford Lane, did work themselves heroically to freedom were acting on principles not usually preached from the pulpit in the latter part of our period.

        How a slave looked at the religion that was brought to him may be seen from the following words of Lunsford Lane, who seems to have been a consistent Christian:

        I was permitted to attend church, and this I esteem a great blessing. It was there I received much instruction, which I trust was a great benefit to me. I trusted, too, that I had experienced the renewing influences of divine grace. I looked upon myself as a great sinner before God, and upon the doctrine of the great atonement, through the suffering and death of the Saviour, as a source of continual joy to my heart. After obtaining from my mistress a written permit, a thing always required in such cases, I had been baptized and received into fellowship with the Baptist denomination. Thus in religious matters I had been indulged in the exercise of my own conscience; this was a favor not always granted to slaves. There was one hard doctrine to which we as slaves were compelled to listen, which I found difficult to receive. We were often told by the minister how much we owed to God for bringing us over from the benighted shores of Africa and permitting us to listen to the sound of the gospel. In ignorance of any special revelation that God had made to master, or to his ancestors, that my ancestors should be stolen and enslaved on the soil of America to accomplish their salvation, I was slow to believe all my teachers enjoined on this subject. How surprising, then, this high moral end being accomplished, that no proclamation of emancipation had before this been made! Many of us

were as highly civilized as some of our masters, and, as to piety, in many instances their superiors. I was rather disposed to believe that God had originally granted me temporal freedom, which wicked men had forcibly taken from me--which now I had been compelled to purchase at great cost. * * * There was one very kind-hearted clergyman whom I used often to hear; he was very popular with the colored people. But after he had preached a sermon to us in which he urged from the Bible that it was the will of Heaven from all eternity that we should be slaves, and our masters be our owners, many of us left him, considering, like the doubting disciple of old, "This is a hard saying, who can hear it?"1

        1 See Hawkins' "Memoir of Lunsford Lane," 64-66.

        Dr. Caruthers, whose long pastorate in Guilford ought to have given him good grounds for speaking, said that slaves knew little of the Bible, except as they picked it up from others, "and that little," he adds, "they don't know half their time whether to believe or disbelieve. It is often said that many of them become very pious people, and although we can't know the heart, charity would lead us to believe or hope so; but no thanks to slavery or the slave laws." It was the Lord's work. The negroes who were spoken of as pious, said he, did not have "those enlarged views or that expansion of soul which is always imparted by scriptural and enlightened sentiments of immortality."2

        2 See manuscript book on "Slavery," p. 294.

        All the churches of North Carolina, so far as I have been able to ascertain, received freely negro members. Every church had its space reserved for negroes. It was almost invariably in the gallery, if there was one, or in the back of the church, if there was no gallery. In the ceremony of the Lord's Supper, after the whites had partaken, the sacrament was administered to the negro members. In many churches, particularly of Methodist and Baptist denominations, which had often many colored communicants, there was a special service in the afternoon by the white preacher for the negroes. It was to these two churches that most of the negroes joined themselves, although there were some in each of the other leading bodies. There was much reason

for this. These two churches in North Carolina were organized for the masses. Their doctrines were easily comprehended and emotional; and the negro is a creature of emotions. Moreover these bodies made special efforts to reach the negroes. They went among the large slave plantations as missionaries. Other denominations paid more attention to household slaves. In not a few cases Methodism began with negro congregations and in at least one place it was introduced by a negro preacher. But true as it was that the Methodists and Baptists attracted the negroes more strongly, it was perhaps equally true that the Quakers, in proportion to their own numbers, were more closely intimate with the negroes than any other religious body in the State. Of this more will be said later on. Let us now consider the Methodists and the slave.

        In the eighteenth century the record of the Methodists was clearly against slavery. John Wesley himself said that the slave trade was the sum of all villainies, although Whitefield was not opposed to it. The anti-slavery sentiment was strongest in the Northern Conferences, although it was not unknown in the Southern. As early as 1780 the Conference of all the Church declared: "Slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man and nature and hurtful to society, contrary to the dictates of conscience and pure religion, and doing that which we would not that others should do to us and ours."1

        1 Conference Minutes, p. 25.

        2 Ibid., pp. 47-48.

contact with Methodist preachers.1

        1 Drew: "Life of Dr. Coke," pp. 132-139.

        2 Conference Minutes, p. 55.

        3 Ibid., pp. 163-164.

        As the Church became strong enough to organize Conferences, in the various sections the question of the existence of slavery was referred to these bodies and thus localized to an extent. But one particular question that concerned all was the propriety of allowing a preacher to hold slaves. As early as 1783 the Conference forbade a preacher to own slaves in a State where it was legal to free them.4

        4 Ibid., p. 41, and the Discipline of 1821, p. 69.

        5 See the Discipline of 1817 and Redpath's "Organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church South," p. 10.

The occasion was the censure voted against Bishop Andrew because he had married in Georgia a woman who owned slaves. The Southern organization which was now formed continued its protest against slavery. The first edition of its Discipline, 1846, said in the words of the older Discipline: "We declare that we are as much as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery. Therefore, no slaveholder shall be eligible to any official position in our Church hereafter where the Laws of the State in which he lives will admit of emancipation and permit the liberated slave to enjoy freedom. When any traveling preacher becomes an owner of a slave or slaves, by any means, he shall forfeit his ministerial character in our Church, unless he execute, if it be practicable, a legal emancipation of such slaves, conformable to the laws of the State in which he lives." Furthermore, preachers were to enforce prudently on their members the duty of teaching slaves to read the Bible and to attend church services. Colored preachers and officials were guaranteed the privileges of their official relation "where the usages of the country do not forbid it." Of all of these ameliorating conditions to the slave but one was applicable in North Carolina; for here he could not be legally emancipated and remain in the State, nor could he be allowed to preach or be taught to read the Bible. It only remained for him to aspire to be some church official lower than a preacher. The original strong desire to christianize the negro, which the Methodists never forsook, was clearly bound and held in restraint in conformity to the newer spirit of harshness that, as has already been said, seized the State Legislature about 1830.

        The labors of the Methodists among the slaves began in the very first days of Methodism in the State. The General Conference in 17871

        1 See Minutes of Conference, p. 67. The Methodist Church in America dates from 1784.

worthy, and "to exercise the whole Methodist Discipline among them." How well these efforts prospered may be seen from the following figures: In 1787 there were in North Carolina1

        1 The estimates are based on reports in the Minutes. It is doubtful whether some charges near the State boundaries were in North Carolina or out of it. Therefore, the figures may not be absolutely correct, but for purposes of comparison they are adequate.

        Although there were negro Methodists in most sections of the State, they were most numerous in the eastern counties. In this section the Methodists often began their work with an appeal to the slaves--"negro churches," their meeting houses were often called by the more aristocratic denominations. An illustration is Wilmington. Here William Meredith, a Methodist preacher, arrived at the beginning of this century. He began to work among the

slaves. He bought a lot, and through the penny collection from the blacks and the scanty contributions of the few poorer whites who had joined with him, a building was completed. This was the beginning of Methodists in the town. Hither came Bishop Francis Asbury in 1807 and preached twice in one day. On the same day, John Charles, a colored preacher, preached at sunrise. The feeling of friendship for him seems to have been great and the good Bishop writes in his journal that it was "a high day on Mount Zion." The attitude of the community was not always tolerant of this "negro church." There were various disturbances, and once the building was wrecked by a mob.1

        1 See "Early Methodism in Wilmington," by Dr. A. M. Chreitzberg, in the Annual Publication of the Historical Society of the N. C. Conference, 1897, p. 1; also Wightman: "Life of Bishop Capers," p. 136.

        More striking, but not so typical, is the story of the planting of Methodism in Fayetteville. Late in the eighteenth century, Fayetteville had but one church organization, the Presbyterian, and that had no building. One day there arrived in town Henry Evans, a full-blooded free negro from Virginia, who was moving to Charleston, S. C., where he proposed to follow the trade of shoemaking. He was perhaps free born; he was a Methodist and a licensed local preacher. In Fayetteville he observed that the colored people "were wholly given to profanity and lewdness, never hearing preaching of any denomination." He felt it his duty to stop and work among them. He worked at his trade during the week and preached on Sunday. The whites became alarmed and the Town Council ordered him to stop preaching. He then met his flock in the "sand hills," desolate places outside of the jurisdiction of the Town Council. Fearing violence he made his meetings secret and changed the place of meeting from Sunday to Sunday. He was particular to violate no law, and to all the whites he showed the respect which their sense of caste superiority demanded. Public

opinion began to change, especially when it was noticed that slaves who had come under his influence were more docile for it. Some prominent whites, most of whom were women, became interested in his cause. They attended his meetings and through their influence public opinion was reversed. Then a rude frame building was erected within the town limits and a number of seats were reserved for the whites, some of whom became regular attendants at his services. The preacher's reputation spread. The white portion of the congregation increased till the negroes were crowded out of their seats. Then the boards were knocked from the sides of the house and sheds were built on either hand and in these the blacks were seated. By this time the congregation, which had been unconnectional at first, had been taken into the regular Methodist connection and a regular white preacher had been sent to it. But the heroic founder was not displaced. A room was built for him in the rear of the pulpit and there he lived till his death in 1810.

        Of Henry Evans, Bishop Capers said: "I have known not many preachers who appeared more conversant with the Scriptures than Evans, or whose conversation was more instructive as to the things of God. He seemed always deeply impressed with the responsibility of his position * * * nor would he allow any partiality of friends to induce him to vary in the least degree from the lines of conduct or the bearing which he had prescribed to himself in this respect; never speaking to a white man but with his hat under his arm, never allowing himself to be seated in their houses and even confining himself to the kind and manner of dress proper for slaves in general, except his plain black coat in the pulpit. 'The whites are kind and come to hear me preach,' he would say, 'but I belong to my own sort and must not spoil them.' " Rare self-control before the most wretched of castes! Henry Evans did much good, but he would have done more good had his spirit been untrammeled by this s