The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America 1638-1870 | Page 5

from the above-mentioned Report, Vol. II.
Part IV. Nos. 1, 5. See also Bancroft,
_History of the
United States (1883), II. 274 ff; Bandinel, Account of the Slave Trade,
p. 63; Benezet, Caution to Great Britain_, etc., pp. 39-40, and
Historical Account of Guinea, ch. xiii.
[18] Compare earlier slave codes in South Carolina, Georgia, Jamaica,
etc.; also cf. Benezet, _Historical Account of Guinea, p. 75; Report_,
etc., as above.
[19] Sainsbury, _Cal. State Papers, Col. Ser., America and W. Indies,
1574-1660, pp. 229, 271, 295; 1661-68_, §§ 61, 412, 826, 1270, 1274,
1788; 1669-74., §§ 508, 1244; Bolzius and Von Reck, Journals (in
Force, Tracts, Vol. IV. No. 5, pp. 9, 18); _Proceedings of Governor and
Assembly of Jamaica in regard to the Maroon Negroes_ (London,
1796).
[20] Sainsbury, _Cal. State Papers, Col. Ser., America and W. Indies,
1661-68_, § 1679.
* * * * *

Chapter II
THE PLANTING COLONIES.
3. Character of these Colonies. 4. Restrictions in Georgia. 5.
Restrictions in South Carolina. 6. Restrictions in North Carolina. 7.
Restrictions in Virginia. 8. Restrictions in Maryland. 9. General
Character of these Restrictions.
3. Character of these Colonies. The planting colonies are those
Southern settlements whose climate and character destined them to be
the chief theatre of North American slavery. The early attitude of these
communities toward the slave-trade is therefore of peculiar interest; for
their action was of necessity largely decisive for the future of the trade
and for the institution in North America. Theirs was the only soil,
climate, and society suited to slavery; in the other colonies, with few
exceptions, the institution was by these same factors doomed from the
beginning. Hence, only strong moral and political motives could in the
planting colonies overthrow or check a traffic so favored by the mother
country.
4. Restrictions in Georgia. In Georgia we have an example of a
community whose philanthropic founders sought to impose upon it a
code of morals higher than the colonists wished. The settlers of Georgia
were of even worse moral fibre than their slave-trading and
whiskey-using neighbors in Carolina and Virginia; yet Oglethorpe and
the London proprietors prohibited from the beginning both the rum and
the slave traffic, refusing to "suffer slavery (which is against the Gospel
as well as the fundamental law of England) to be authorised under our
authority."[1] The trustees sought to win the colonists over to their
belief by telling them that money could be better expended in
transporting white men than Negroes; that slaves would be a source of
weakness to the colony; and that the "Produces designed to be raised in
the Colony would not require such Labour as to make Negroes
necessary for carrying them on."[2]

This policy greatly displeased the colonists, who from 1735, the date of
the first law, to 1749, did not cease to clamor for the repeal of the
restrictions.[3] As their English agent said, they insisted that "In Spight
of all Endeavours to disguise this Point, it is as clear as Light itself, that
Negroes are as essentially necessary to the Cultivation of Georgia, as
Axes, Hoes, or any other Utensil of Agriculture."[4] Meantime,
evasions and infractions of the laws became frequent and notorious.
Negroes were brought across from Carolina and "hired" for life.[5]
"Finally, purchases were openly made in Savannah from African
traders: some seizures were made by those who opposed the principle,
but as a majority of the magistrates were favorable to the introduction
of slaves into the province, legal decisions were suspended from time
to time, and a strong disposition evidenced by the courts to evade the
operation of the law."[6] At last, in 1749, the colonists prevailed on the
trustees and the government, and the trade was thrown open under
careful restrictions, which limited importation, required a registry and
quarantine on all slaves brought in, and laid a duty.[7] It is probable,
however, that these restrictions were never enforced, and that the trade
thus established continued unchecked until the Revolution.
5. Restrictions in South Carolina.[8] South Carolina had the largest and
most widely developed slave-trade of any of the continental colonies.
This was owing to the character of her settlers, her nearness to the West
Indian slave marts, and the early development of certain staple crops,
such as rice, which were adapted to slave labor.[9] Moreover, this
colony suffered much less interference from the home government than
many other colonies; thus it is possible here to trace the untrammeled
development of slave-trade restrictions in a typical planting
community.
As early as 1698 the slave-trade to South Carolina had reached such
proportions that it was thought that "the great number of negroes which
of late have been imported into this Collony may endanger the safety
thereof." The immigration of white servants was therefore encouraged
by a special law.[10] Increase