A Social History of the American Negro | Page 9

apiece."
These people were regarded rather as servants than as slaves, and early
legislation was mainly in the line of police regulations designed to
prevent their running away.
In 1652 it was enacted in Rhode Island that all slaves brought into the
colony should be set free after ten years of service. This law was not
designed, as might be supposed, to restrict slavery. It was really a step
in the evolution of the system, and the limit of ten years was by no
means observed. "The only legal recognition of the law was in the
series of acts beginning January 4, 1703, to control the wandering of
African slaves and servants, and another beginning in April, 1708, in
which the slave-trade was indirectly legalized by being taxed."[1] "In
course of time Rhode Island became the greatest slave-trader in the
country, becoming a sort of clearing-house for the other colonies."[2]
[Footnote 1: William T. Alexander: History of the Colored Race in
America, New Orleans, 1887, p. 136.]
[Footnote 2: DuBois: Suppression of the Slave-Trade, 34.]
New Hampshire, profiting by the experience of the neighboring colony
of Massachusetts, deemed it best from the beginning to discourage
slavery. There were so few Negroes in the colony as to form a quantity
practically negligible. The system was recognized, however, an act
being passed in 1714 to regulate the conduct of slaves, and another four
years later to regulate that of masters.
In North Carolina, even more than in most of the colonies, the system
of Negro slavery was long controlled by custom rather than by legal
enactment. It was recognized by law in 1715, however, and police
regulations to govern the slaves were enacted. In South Carolina the
history of slavery is particularly noteworthy. The natural resources of
this colony offered a ready home for the system, and the laws here
formulated were as explicit as any ever enacted. Slaves were first

imported from Barbadoes, and their status received official
confirmation in 1682. By 1720 the number had increased to 12,000, the
white people numbering only 9,000. By 1698 such was the fear from
the preponderance of the Negro population that a special act was passed
to encourage white immigration. Legislation "for the better ordering of
slaves" was passed in 1690, and in 1712 the first regular slave law was
enacted. Once before 1713, the year of the Assiento Contract of the
Peace of Utrecht, and several times after this date, prohibitive duties
were placed on Negroes to guard against their too rapid increase. By
1734, however, importation had again reached large proportions; and in
1740, in consequence of recent insurrectionary efforts, a prohibitive
duty several times larger than the previous one was placed upon
Negroes brought into the province.
The colony of Georgia was chartered in 1732 and actually founded the
next year. Oglethorpe's idea was that the colony should be a refuge for
persecuted Christians and the debtor classes of England. Slavery was
forbidden on the ground that Georgia was to defend the other English
colonies from the Spaniards on the South, and that it would not be able
to do this if like South Carolina it dissipated its energies in guarding
Negro slaves. For years the development of Georgia was slow, and the
prosperous condition of South Carolina constantly suggested to the
planters that "the one thing needful" for their highest welfare was
slavery. Again and again were petitions addressed to the trustees,
George Whitefield being among those who most urgently advocated
the innovation. Moreover, Negroes from South Carolina were
sometimes hired for life, and purchases were openly made in Savannah.
It was not until 1749, however, that the trustees yielded to the request.
In 1755 the legislature passed an act that regulated the conduct of the
slaves, and in 1765 a more regular code was adopted. Thus did slavery
finally gain a foothold in what was destined to become one of the most
important of the Southern states.
For the first fifty or sixty years of the life of the colonies the
introduction of Negroes was slow; the system of white servitude
furnished most of the labor needed, and England had not yet won
supremacy in the slave-trade. It was in the last quarter of the

seventeenth century that importations began to be large, and in the
course of the eighteenth century the numbers grew by leaps and bounds.
In 1625, six years after the first Negroes were brought to the colony,
there were in Virginia only 23 Negroes, 12 male, 11 female. [1] In
1659 there were 300; but in 1683 there were 3,000 and in 1708, 12,000.
In 1680 Governor Simon Bradstreet reported to England with reference
to Massachusetts that "no company of blacks or slaves" had been
brought into the province since its beginning, for the space of