Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 | Page 3

these slaves were used to domesticate useful animals and, later, were forced to cultivate the soil and build rude structures for the comfort and protection of their masters. Thus it was that mankind was first forced to toil and ultimately came to enjoy labor and its incident fruits, and thus human slavery became a first step from barbarism towards the ultimate civilization of mankind.
White slavery existed in the English-American colonies antecedent to black or African slavery, though at first only intended to be conditional and not to extend to offspring. English, Scotch, and Irish alike, regardless of ancestry or religious faith, were, for political offenses, sold and transported to the dependent American colonies. They were such persons as had participated in insurrections against the Crown; many of them being prisoners taken on the battle- field, as were the Scots taken on the field of Dunbar, the royalist prisoners from the field of Worcester; likewise the great leaders of the Penruddoc rebellion, and many who were taken in the insurrection of Monmouth.
Of these, many were first sold in England to be afterwards re-sold on shipboard to the colonies, as men sell horses, to the highest bidder.
There was also, in some of the colonies, a conditional servitude, under indentures, for servants, debtors, convicts, and perhaps others. These forms of slavery made the introduction of negro and perpetual slavery easy.
Australasia alone, of all inhabited parts of the globe, has the honor, so far as history records, of never having a slave population.
Egyptian history tells us of human bondage; the patriarch Abraham, the founder of the Hebrew nation, owned and dealt in slaves. That the law delivered to Moses from Mt. Sinai justified and tolerated human slavery was the boast of modern slaveholders.
Moses, from "Nebo's heights," saw the "land of promise," where flowed "milk and honey" in abundance, and where slavery existed. The Hebrew people, but forty years themselves out of bondage, possessed this land and maintained slavery therein.
The advocates of slavery and the slave trade exultingly quoted:
"And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off; for the Lord hath spoken it."--Joel iii, 8.
They likewise claimed that St. Paul, while he preached the gospel to slaveholders and slaves alike in Rome, yet used his calling to enable him to return to slavery an escaped human being--Onesimus.( 1)
The advocates of domestic slavery justified it as of scriptural and divine origin.
From the Old Testament they quoted other texts, not only to justify the holding of slaves in perpetual bondage, but the continuance of the slave trade with all its cruelties.
"And he said, I am Abraham's servant."--Gen. xxiv., 34.
"And there was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba. And when they had called him unto David, the King said unto him, Art thou Ziba? And he said, Thy servant is he. . . .
"Then the King called to Ziba, Saul's servant, and said unto him, I have given unto thy master's son all that pertained to Saul, and to all his house.
"Thou, therefore, and thy sons, and they servants shall till the land for him, and thou shalt bring in the fruits, that thy master's son may have food to eat," etc. "Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants."--2 Samuel ix., 2, 9-10.
"I got me servants and maidens and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me."--Eccles. ii., 7.
"And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence comest thou? and she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.
"And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself to her hands."--Gen. xvi., 8, 9.
"A servant will not be corrected by words; for though he understand, he will not answer."--Prov. xxix., 19.
And from the New Testament they triumphantly quoted:
"Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called. Art thou called being a servant? care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather."--I Cor., vii., 20-22.
"Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ," etc.
"And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."--Eph., vi., 5-9.
"Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service, as men pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God."--Col. iii., 22.
"Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven."--Col. iv., 1.
"Let as many servants as are under the