Volume II._ By SIR HARRY H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., Sc.D.

(Cambridge). The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1922. Pp. 544.

This work is the result of a study of the Bantu languages commenced by the author in 1881 in the Library of the British Museum, and instigated by the project of accompanying the Earl of Mayo on an exploratory expedition in South West Africa, Angola and the countries south and east of the Kunene River. The expedition, according to the author, was extended by him to the upper Congo thanks to the assistance offered by H. M. Stanley. With this large view of Africa his studies were continued with little intermission during the forty years which followed his first introduction into that continent. Even the World War itself was not exactly an interruption but permitted the author to extend the scope of his research by bringing him into closer acquaintance with certain of the western Semi-Bantu languages through the presence in France of contingents of Senegambian troops. The Colonial office, moreover, assisted the work by requesting its officials in British West Africa to examine the Semi-Bantu languages of British Nigeria, South-west Togoland, Sierra Leone and the Gambia. Furthermore, an important discovery of two Bantu languages was made in the southern part of the Anglo-Egyptian province of Bahr-al-ghazal. He is indebted to Mr. Northcote W. Thomas's researches which revealed new and interesting forms of Semi-Bantu speech in the Cross River districts of Southern Nigeria. In the comparison of roots, moreover, the author had considerably more material to draw on than in the case of the first volume. He found also much more information concerning H[=o]ma and Bañgminda through Major Paul Larkin and Captain White. These are the chief features which, he believes, make the second volume a valuable contribution.

In spite of the extensive investigation, however, the author still finds a good deal about which he is not certain. About many of these languages he knows little regarding their structure and grammar. In other words they have been studied merely from the outside. In spite of his extensive travels, moreover, he had so much to do and apparently such a short time in which to accomplish his task that this work, as valuable as it is, can be considered no more than an introductory treatise going a little further into a field inadequately explored. Already he says he finds that he has been reproached for not bringing within the scope of these two volumes a group of languages in the North-east Togoland and Kisi and the Limba tongues of Sierra Leone. Yet although he finds that these have some Bantu features, they were too mixed to justify their treatment here. He found resemblances of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu families elsewhere but not closely enough akin to require their treatment in connection with this work.

Beginning with a treatment of the enumeration and classification of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages, the work reviews the languages illustrated in Volume I. Attention is directed to the Bantu in various regions of the continent. The author then discusses the phonetics and phonology of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages, prefixes, suffixes, and concords connected with the noun in Bantu and Semi-Bantu, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, the verbs and verb roots. The maps graphically show the probable origins and lines of migration of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages and their distribution in Central and South Africa.

On the whole, the world is indebted to Sir Harry H. Johnston for his enumeration and classification of these tongues, although the work merely marks the beginning of a neglected task. Until some scholar with better opportunities to carry forward this research has produced a more scientific treatise, the works of the author will be referred to as interesting and valuable volumes.

NOTES

On February 20, 1923, there passed away in New York City a Negro of no little distinction in his particular group. This was Horatio P. Howard, the great grandson of Captain Paul Cuffe of African colonization fame. Howard was the grandson of the Captain's daughter Ruth, who married Alexander Howard, and the child of their son Shadrach. Howard was born in New Bedford in 1854 and beginning in 1888 served as a clerk in the Custom House in New York City where he accumulated considerable wealth which, inasmuch as he lived and died a bachelor, he disposed of for philanthropic purposes. He bequeathed $5000 to Hampton and the balance of his estate he gave to Tuskegee as a fund to establish Captain Paul Cuffe scholarships.

Hoping to inculcate an appreciation of the achievements of his great grandfather, he erected to his memory a monument at a cost of $400 dedicated in 1917 with appropriate exercises by the people of both races and made still more impressive by a parade which Howard himself led. On that occasion, moreover, he distributed his interesting biography of the great pioneer in the form of a booklet entitled _A Self-Made Man, Captain Paul Cuffe_.

Henry Allen Wallace, one of the colaborers in unearthing and preserving the records of the Negro, died on the 12th of February. He was the son of Andrew and Martha Wallace and was born in Columbia, South Carolina, about sixty-seven years ago. He was educated in the public schools of Toronto, Canada, the University of Toronto, and Howard University. He began his public life as a clerk in the post office at Columbia, and in the early days of civil service secured, by success in a competitive examination, an appointment as clerk in the War Department in Washington. There he served with an unbroken record for over thirty years, after which he was transferred to the New York office with which he was connected until about eighteen months ago when on account of ill health he was compelled to retire. He afterward made his home with his sister in Chester, Pennsylvania, where he died.

Mr. Wallace was well informed on matters pertaining to the race during the Reconstruction and freely contributed to magazines publishing such material. Furthermore, his assistance was often solicited to correct manuscripts prepared by others who knew less of this drama in our history. His service in connection with finding the names of Negroes who served in southern legislatures and his letters, both of which have appeared from time to time in THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, constitute valuable contributions in this field.

* * * * *

SPRING CONFERENCE

On the 5th and 6th of April there will be held in Baltimore the Spring Conference of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Members of the administrative staff including Professor John R. Hawkins, the Chairman, Mr. S. W. Rutherford, Secretary-Treasurer, and others of the Executive Council, are making extensive preparation for this Conference. The aim will be to bring together teachers and public-spirited citizens with an appreciation of the value of the written record and of research as a factor in correcting error and promoting the truth. The heads of all accredited institutions of learning have been invited to take an active part in this convocation. As it is to be held in Baltimore, near which are located so many of our colleges and universities, it is believed that this Conference will prove to be one of the most successful in the history of the Association.

The program will cover two days and will offer an opportunity for the discussion of every phase of Negro life and history. On Thursday there will be a morning session at 11:00 at Morgan College and an afternoon session there at 3:00 P. M. On the following day the morning session will be held at the Douglass Theatre at 12:00 M. and the afternoon session at the Druid Hill Avenue Y. M. C. A. at 3:00 P. M. The two evening sessions will go to the Bethel A. M. E. Church. In addition to these, special groups of persons cooperating with the Association will hold conferences in the interest of matters peculiar to their needs. Among the speakers will be Professor Kelly Miller, Mr. L. E. James, Mr. Leslie Pinckney Hill, Dr. William Pickens, and Dr. J. O. Spencer.

An effort will be made to arouse interest and to arrange for conducting throughout the country a campaign for collecting facts bearing on the Negro prior to the Civil War and during the Reconstruction period. The field is now being exploited by a staff of investigators of the Association. It is earnestly desired that all persons having documentary knowledge of these phases of Negro History will not only give the Association the advantage of such information, but will attend this Conference to devise plans for a more successful prosecution of this particular work.

Another concern of the Conference will be to stimulate interest in the collection of Negro folklore for which there is offered a prize of $200 for the best collection of tales, riddles, proverbs, sayings and songs, which have been heard in Negro homes. The aim is to study the Negro mind in relation to its environment at various periods in the history of the race and in different parts of the country. The students of a number of institutions of learning are already at work preparing their collections to compete for this prize, and it is hoped that a still larger number will do likewise. This special work is under the supervision of a committee composed of Dr. Elsie Clews Parsons, Assistant Editor of the _Journal of American Folklore_, Dr. Franz Boas, Professor of Anthropology in Columbia University and a member of the Executive Council of the Association, and Dr. Carter G. Woodson, Editor of THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY.

THE JOURNAL

OF

NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. VIII., NO. 3 JULY, 1923.

NEGRO SERVITUDE IN THE UNITED STATES[A]

SERVITUDE DISTINGUISHED FROM SLAVERY

The first Negroes in the American colonies were called Africans, Blackamores, Moores, Negars, Negers, Negros, Negroes, and the like.[1] It is highly probable that Negroes were brought to America by some of the early colonists before 1619, for Negroes had been in England since 1553.[2] James Otis said: "Our colonial charters made no difference between black and white."[3] Some of such early Negro settlers might have been brought over from Barbadoes or other islands. The English colonists often went to and from the mainland for settlement and trade, and by 1674 Barbadoes was a "flourishing state" with a white population of 50,000 and 100,000 "Negroes and colored."[4] Negroes, along with Spanish explorers, are known to have been in North and South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, New Mexico, and California as early as 1526, 1527, 1540, 1542, and 1537, respectively.[5] However, the first Negroes, thus far known, in the American colonies, were the "twenty negars" introduced at Jamestown, in 1619, by the Dutch frigate.[6]

The first status of these Negroes early imported is of some importance. Although the historians do not always mention the fact, there is nevertheless ample proof of the existence of Negro servitude in most of the American colonies. The servitude did not always precede slavery in every case, nor was it ever firmly established as slavery eventually became. Still it is an interesting fact that Negro servitude frequently preceded and sometimes followed Negro slavery. In colonies where servitude followed slavery, it was due to the fact that these colonies were founded after the change of Negro servitude into slavery was well advanced. Even here, servitude accompanied slavery. In some of the colonies, the question of priority resolves itself into the question of the priority of customary servitude to customary slavery. In this case, however, it is probable that servitude was first, even though slavery was first recognized in law. In certain instances, the records make it certain that servitude preceded slavery. This was the case in Virginia.

Several authorities have shown the extent to which the priority of Negro servitude has been recognized. "At first the African _slave_ was looked upon as but an improved variety of indented servant whose term of labor was for life instead of a few years."[7] "As has been mentioned, some Negroes were bound as _slaves_ for a term of years only."[8] The Negroes of 1619 and "others brought by early privateers were not reduced to slavery, but to limited servitude, a legalized status of Indian, white, and negro servants, preceding slavery in most, if not all, of the English mainland colonies."[9] "Negro and Indian servitude thus preceded negro and Indian slavery, and together with white servitude in instances continued even after the institution of slavery was fully developed."[10]

Furthermore, there is not the slightest evidence that the colonists were disposed to treat as slaves the first Negroes who landed in the colonies. They had no tradition of slavery in England at that time. "Whatever may have been the intent and hope of the persons in possession of the negroes as regards their ultimate enslavement, no attempt to do so legally seems for a long time to have been made ... for some reasons the notion of enslavement gained ground but slowly, and although conditions surrounding a negro or Indian in possession could easily make him a _defacto_ slave, the colonist seems to have preferred to retain him only as a servant...."[11] Servitude, on the other hand, was familiar enough, although not in the form which it eventually assumed in the colonies. The attitude of the colonists, when they first became confronted with the Negro question, was the attitude of Queen Elizabeth and Hawkins when it was proposed to go to Africa to barter for African servants.[12]

It was just as true in the colonial days as now that the attitude which the community takes towards the Negro population is largely determined by their relative numbers. If the Negroes had been numerous in the colonies immediately after 1619, it is reasonable to suppose that their status would have been defined earlier and more sharply than it was. But the numbers were not there.[13] Six years after the introduction of the first Negroes in Virginia, there were but twenty-three in the colony. Meanwhile the white population was about 2500. All through the first half of the century importation of Negroes was of an "occasional nature."[14] Forty years after the first introduction there were but three hundred Negroes in the colony.[15] It was during the last quarter of the seventeenth century that the number of Negroes in Virginia showed a noticeable increase. By 1683 there were three thousand; between 1700 and 1750, the increase was even more noticeable.[16] In Maryland, Negroes were not extensively introduced until the eighteenth century.[17] In 1665 a few slaves were brought to North Carolina and it was not until 1700 and after that their number reached eight hundred.[18] After their introduction by Sir John Yeamans in 1671 it was not until 1708 that the number of Negroes in South Carolina became a considerable part of the population.[19] In Pennsylvania, as early as 1639, a number of Negroes served a Swedish company. How many there were is not known.[20] In 1644, 1657, 1664 and 1677 several Negroes singly and in groups are known to have been in the region which afterwards became Pennsylvania. In this colony they were spoken of as "numerous" in 1702, but numerous then did not mean so many. Later their number is noticeable.[21] In Massachusetts, from 1638, when the Salem ship, _Desire_, returned from the West Indies with cotton, tobacco, and Negroes, to the close of the seventeenth century the number of Negroes was comparatively small.[22] Josselyn saw Negroes in the colony when he visited it in 1638-39.[23] In 1678, there were 200 in the colony and in 1678 Governor Andros reported that there were but a few. In 1680, Governor Bradstreet said no blacks or slaves had been brought in the colony in the space of fifty years except between forty and fifty one time and two or three now and then. In the nine years from 1698 to 1707, two hundred arrived and in 1735 there were 2,600 in the Province.[24] Immediately after 1619, then, the number of Negroes scattered throughout the colonies was comparatively small. It seems likely that their condition may be described as that of servitude, which at that time universally prevailed, rather than slavery.

We are likely to think of the status of the early Negroes in America as having been inherited or transplanted. Far from this, the status of the Negro in the early period, like slavery itself, was purely a local development.[25] The status of the early Negroes shows unmistakably that it developed in lines parallel to that of white servitude.[26] The motives which determined the growth of white servitude and Negro slavery are peculiar to the social and economic conditions of the colony of Virginia and its neighbors, whose inhabitants were primarily imported settlers and laborers. White servitude and black servitude were but different aspects of the same institution. As white servitude disappeared, Negro slavery succeeded it.[27]

The reason the early Negroes were not given at once the status of slaves is that there was at this time no legal basis for slavery. The Dutch who settled in New York seem to have defined the status of the Negro slave on the civil law of Holland. In the English colonies it was a local development.[28] Clearly, the ownership in the Negroes was widely recognized and practiced in custom and in law. It is equally clear, however, that white servitude and some form of black servitude existed for a long time side by side with Negro slavery. This recognition of slavery in custom and practice, moreover, makes its appearance near the date of the statutory recognition of slavery by the colonies.[29] Hence, the dates of this statutory recognition fix the "upper limit to the period" in which slavery may be said to have had a beginning.[30] In a number of the colonies, not only is absolute ownership in Negroes, hence slavery, conspicuous, by the absence of any records of it, but the priority of Negro servitude and of a free Negro class is established. Ownership in the services but not of the person was characteristic of both whites and Negroes in this early period.[32]

"Prior to 1619 every inhabitant of Virginia was practically a 'servant manipulated in the interest of the company, held in servitude beyond a stipulated term.'" "It was not an uncommon practice in the early period for shipmasters to sell white servants to the planters." By 1619 servitude was already recognized in the law of Virginia.[33]

In this early period the Company, as represented locally by its officials, was the sole controlling and directing power of the colony.[34] The Company was at the outset doubtful about the advantages of bringing in slaves, partly because they were not sure of the value of slave labor, and partly because they feared the Negro would not become a permanent settler and so contribute to the building up and defending the colony. The opposition of the trustees of Georgia to the importation of Negroes was rested on these grounds.[35] Early legislation in order to prohibit the trade in the colonies imposed duties on slaves imported.[36] Moreover, it appears that the Company generally held and worked the Negroes, who were purchased, in the interest of the government, frequently distributing them among the officers and planters. This was done, for example, in the island colony, the Bermudas, in Virginia, and in Providence Island.[37]

Established and universal as white servitude was it not only became the model of Negro servitude but also decidedly influenced its transition to slavery. When Negro servitude passed into slavery, it was white servitude that lent that slavery the mild character which it possessed until the early part of the nineteenth century.[38]

The earliest authorized effort of England for Negro servants further elucidates this point. In 1562, Sir John Hawkins proposed to take Negroes from Africa and sell them. Queen Elizabeth did not at first approve Hawkins' plan but questioned the justice of it. Hawkins argued that bringing the Africans from a wild and barren country would be eminently just and beneficial to the Africans and to the world. He seemed not to have had the purpose of selling the Africans into perpetual servitude: "Hawkins told her, that he considered it as an act of humanity to carry men from a worse condition to a better ... from a state of wild barbarism to another where they might share the blessings of civil society and Christianity; from poverty, nakedness and want to plenty and felicity. He assured her that in no expedition where he had command should any Africans be carried away without their own free will and consent, except such captives as were taken in war and doomed to death;.... Indeed it would appear that Hawkins had no idea of perpetual slavery, but expected that they would be treated as free servants after they had by their labor brought their masters an equivalent for the expenses of their purchase."[39] After this, Hawkins received approval and support from the Queen, and with three ships and crews he went on his trip to Africa.

Upon his arrival he began traffic with the natives. He sought at first to persuade the blacks to go with him, offering them glittering rewards. When the natives did not respond so readily to his entreaty, members of his crew, under the influence of rum, undertook to coerce the Africans.[40] Hawkins sought to dissuade them and reminded the men of his promise to the Queen. They finally succeeded in getting on board a number of Africans and set sail for the Spanish islands where the Africans were to be sold as servants.[41]

The early Negroes of Virginia, moreover, were servants. On the status of "the 1619 Negroes" historians are uncertain, but the popular conception of the situation is undoubtedly erroneous. The Dutch frigate sold the Negroes to the Company which controlled and distributed them. Some of them were clearly retained by the officers while others "were put to work upon public lands to support the governor and other officers of the government." There is no evidence that any of these Negroes were made slaves, while evidence that they were servants is abundant.[42]

The statutes of Virginia up to 1661 indicate the existence of Negro servitude rather than that of slavery.[43] In 1630, whites were whipped for fornication with the blacks "before an assembly of _negroes_." In 1639 and 1640, all persons except _Negroes_ were to be provided with arms and ammunition or be fined.[44] Up to that time the acts do not indicate slavery. The act of 1655 refers to Indian slavery.[45] The act of 1659 does not show that Negro slavery existed in the colony, but apparently aims to prevent it.[46] No other acts, in the statutes, throw any light on the status of the Negro before the act of 1661. This acts reads, "In case any English servant shall run away in company with any negroes who are incapable of making satisfaction by addition of time, be it enacted that the English so running away in company with them shall serve for the time of the said negroes absence as they are to do for their own by a former act."[47] The inferences from this act are three: some of the Negroes in the colony were slaves, others free, and still others servants. The repetition of this act the following year made provision for runaway Negro servants also by a change of statement.[48]

Notwithstanding the statutes, Russel found that in the records of county courts dating from 1632 to 1661 negroes are designated as 'servants,' 'negro servants,' or simply as 'negroes,' but never in the records were the Negroes termed 'slaves'. From the context of the records, moreover, "servant" was distinctly meant and not "slave." Again, according to the census taken in 1624-1625, there were twenty-three persons of the African race in Virginia and they are listed as "servants."[49] In several musters of settlements the names of Negroes appear under the heading, "Servants"; sometimes only "Negro" appears.[50] The General Court in October, 1625, had before it for the first time a question involving the legal status of the Negro in America. A Negro named Brass had been brought to the colony by the captain of a ship. Upon handing down the decision as to what should be done with Brass, since his master had died, the Court "ordered that he should belong to Sir Francis Wyatt, Governor," evidently as servant.[51] Anthony Johnson and Mary, his wife, whose names appeared as servants in the census mentioned above, were, at sometime before 1652, given their freedom from servitude, for in that year they were exempted from payment of taxes by the county court on account of the burning of their home. The order of the court in reference to Johnson and his wife mentioned that "they have been inhabitants in Virginia _above_ thirty years." According to this, they had been in the colony at least from 1621 which approaches 1619. It appears that they were among the first Negroes sold at Jamestown. And this, with the understanding that they were not free at first establishes quite well their original status as servants as well as that of the 1619 Negroes and other Negroes in the colony.

The free Negro, Anthony Johnson, in 1653 owned John Castor, another Negro of Northampton County, as his indented servant. In 1655, a Negro was bound to serve George Light for a period of five years.[52] The court record of the discharge of Francis Pryne in 1656 is an example of the discharge certificate of Negro servants:

"I Mrs. Jane Elkonhead ... have hereunto sett my hand yt ye aforesd Pryne [a negro] shall bee discharged from all hindrance of servitude (his child) or any [thing] yt doth belong to ye sd Pryne his estate.

Jane Elkonhead"[53]

In some cases, as it was with the white servants, Negroes were given written indentures, of which Russell gives several examples. It was an early practice of the colony to allow "head rights," a certain number of acres of land for every servant imported. In 1651 "head rights" were allowed on the importation of a Negro whose name was Richard Johnson. "Only three years later a patent calling for one hundred acres of land was issued to this negro for importing two other persons. Hence, it appears that Richard Johnson came in as a free negro or remained in a condition of servitude for not more than three years."[54] It was a practice also of those who held servants to allow them the privilege of raising hogs and poultry and of tilling a small plot of ground. The court records show that by this means John Geaween, Emanuel Dregis, and Bashasar Farando, as Negro servants, between 1649 and 1652, accumulated property. Again, there are cases illustrating that the Negro servant received "freedom dues" as the white servants at the close of the term of service.[55] Thus the first and early Negroes of Virginia were servants, not slaves. They were not only servants at first, but also servants in general for a period of years.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] In the preparation of dissertation the following works were consulted: Ballagh, James Curtis, _White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia_ (J. H. U. Studies, Thirty-first Series, 1913), and _History of Slavery in Virginia_ (J. H. U. Studies, Twenty-fourth Series, 1902); Bassett, John Spencer, _History of Slavery in North Carolina_ (J. H. U. Studies, Seventeenth Series, 1899), and _Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina_ (J. H. U. Studies, Fourteenth Series, 1896); Beatty, William Jennings, _The Free Negroes in the Carolinas before 1860_ (1920); Brackett, J. R., _The Negro in Maryland_ (J. H. U. Studies, Seventh Series, Extra Volume, 1889); Brown, Alexander, _The Genesis of the United States, 1605-1616_, Two Volumes (1890), and _The First Republic in America_ (1898); Bruce, Philip Alexander, _Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century_, Two Volumes (1896); Buckingham, J. S., _The Slave States of America_ (1842); _Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other Manuscripts, 1652-1798_, Edited by Wm. P. Palmer, Six Volume (1875-86); Carroll, Bartholomew Rivers, _Historical Collections of South Carolina_ (1836); Daniels, John, _In Freedom's Birth Place, A Study of Boston Negroes_ (1914); Doyle, J. A., _English Colonies in America_, Five Volumes (1889); DuBois, W. E. Burghardt, _The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America_ (1896); Eddis, Wm., _Letters from America, 1769-77_; Hazard, Willis P., _Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in the Olden Time_ (1879); Henry, Howell Meadows, _The Police Control of the Slave in South Carolina_ (1914); Henning, William Waller, _Statutes at Large of Virginia, 1623-1792_, Thirteen Volumes (1812); Hotten, J. C., _Original Lists of Emigrants, 1600-1700_ (1874); Hurd, John C, _The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States_, Two Volumes (1858-62); Jones, Hugh, _The Present State of Virginia_ (1865); _Journal of Negro History_, edited by Carter G. Woodson (The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History); Lauber, Almon Wheeler, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times Within Present Limits of the United States_ (Columbia University Studies, Volume LIV (1913)); Washburn, Emory, _Massachusetts and Its Early History: Slavery as it once prevailed in Massachusetts_; McCormac, E. I., _White Servitude in Maryland 1634-1820_ (J. H. U. Studies, Twenty-second Series, 1904); Moore, George H., _Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts_ (1866); Work, Monroe N., _Negro Year Book, An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro_; Neill, E. D., _History of the Virginia Company of London, 1604-24_ (1869) and _Virginia Carolorum, 1625-85_; Nell, Wm. C., _Colored Patriots of the American Revolution_ (1855); Nieboor, Herman Jeremias, _Slavery as an Industrial Institution_ (1900); Palfrey, John Gorham, _History of New England_, Five Volumes (1892); Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell, _American Negro Slavery_ (1918); _Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New England_, edited by John Russell Bartlett (1856-65); Rivers, William James, _A Sketch of the History of South Carolina to the Close of the Proprietary Government by the Revolution of 1719_ (1856); Russell, John H., _The Free Negro in Virginia 1619-1865_ (J. H. U. Studies, Thirty-first Series, 1913); Steiner, Bernard C., _History of Slavery in Connecticut_ (J. H. U. Studies, Series Eleven, 1893); Stevens, William Bacon, _A History of Georgia from its First Discovery by Europeans to the Adoption of the Present Constitution in 1798_ (1848); Stroud, George M., _A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of America_ (1827); Thwaites, Ruben Gold, _The Colonies, 1492-1750_; Turner, Edward Raymond, _The Negro in Pennsylvania 1693-1861_ (1910); _Winthrop's Journal: "History of New England" 1630-1649_, Three Volumes. Edited by James Kendall Hosmer.

[1] Many historians have substituted "slave" for "Negro." Russell, _Free Negroes in Virginia_, p. 16. White servants are also called slaves. Doyle, _History of English Colonies in America_, II, p. 387; Stevens, _History of Georgia_, pp. 289, 294.

[2] Several years before 1619, Negroes in England were sentenced to work in the colonies. "Two Moorish thieves [negroes] in London were sentenced to work in the American colonies. And they said no, they would rather die at once." Brown adds: "I do not know whether they were sent to Virginia or not." (_The First Republic in America_, p. 219. See also postnote 14.) Again, "I do not know that these negroes were the first brought to the colony of Virginia. I do not remember to have seen any contemporary account which says so. The accounts which we have even of the voyages of the company's ships are very incomplete, and we have scarcely an idea of the private trading voyages which would have been most apt to bring such 'purchas' to Virginia." Pory wrote in September, 1619: "'In these five months of my continuance here, there have come at one time or another eleven sail of ships into this river.' If he meant that these eleven ships came in after he did, at least three of them are not accounted for in our annals." Washburn, _Slavery as it once prevailed in Massachusetts_, pp. 198, 327.

[3] Nell, _Colored Patriots of the American Revolution_, p. 59.

[4] Rivers, _History of South Carolina_, p. 113; Buckingham, _Slave States of America_, I, p. 19.

[5] _The Journal of Negro History_, III, p. 33; Work, _Negro Year Book_, p. 152. "The second settler in Alabama was a Negro."

[6] Ballagh gives an interesting and the most reliable account of this ship and these Negroes. (_History of Slavery in Virginia_, p. 8.) A heated controversy took place over what should be done with the Negroes. "And so the people of her were all disposed of for the year to the use of the company till it could be truly known to whom the right lyeth." Brown, _The First Republic in America_, pp. 359, 368, 391, 325-27.

[7] Thwaites, _The Colonies_, p. 98.

[8] Daniels, _In Freedom's Birthplace_, p. 7.

[9] _New International Encyclopedia_, p. 166.

[10] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 32.

[11] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 31.

[12] Washburn holds that the moral stamina of sturdy people seeking freedom argued against enslavement. _Slavery as it once prevailed in Mass._, p. 194.

[13] "If twenty negroes came in 1619, as alleged, their increase was very slow, for according to a census of 16th of February, 1624, there were but twenty-two then in the colony." Neill, _Hist. of the Va. Co._, p. 72.

"When the census was taken in January, 1625, there were only twenty persons of the African race in Virginia...." _Virginia Carolorum_, pp. 15, 16, 22, 33, 40, 59, 225; Brown, _The Genesis of Am._, II, p. 987.

[14] Ballagh, _History of Slavery in Virginia_, pp. 9-10.

[15] The group brought over in 1638 by Menefie was an unusually large number: "Menefie was now the leading merchant. On April 19, 1638, he entered 3,000 acres of land on account of 60 transports, of whom 23 were, as he asserts, 'negroes, I brought out of England.'" _Virginia Carolorum_, p. 187 note; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia_, p. 91 note.

[16] "Intended insurrections of negroes in 1710, 1722, 1730, bear witness to their alarming increase...." _White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia_, p. 92 note.

[17] Brackett, _The Negro in Md._, p. 38.

[18] Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, pp. 18-20.

[19] Henry, _Police Control of the Slave in S. C._, p. 3.

[20] Post, p. 262, note 10.

[21] Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, pp. 1-3.

[22] Moore, _Notes on the History of Slavery in Mass._, pp. 5, 48; Palfrey, _Hist. of N. E._, p. 30.

[23] "They have store of children, and are well accommodated with Servants;----of these some are English, others Negroes: of the English there are can eat till they sweat, and work till they freeze; and of the females they are like Mrs. Wintus paddocks, very tinder fingered in cold weather." _Account of Two Voyages to N. E._, pp. 28, 139-140.

[24] Moore, _Notes on the Hist. of Slavery in Mass._, pp. 48-49.

[25] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Virginia_, pp. 2, 3, 34.

[26] "The main ideas on which servitude was based originated in the early history of Virginia as a purely English colonial development before the other colonies were formed. The system was adopted in them with its outline already defined, requiring only local legislation to give it specific character...." (Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia_, p. 9.) The status of servitude, customary and legal, similar to that given the Negroes in Virginia is as a rule met with in several of the colonies.

[27] Post, p. 254, note 33.

[28] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 28, 29, 34.

[29] White servitude had recognition in statute law by 1630-36 in Massachusetts, by 1643 in Connecticut, by 1647 in Rhode Island, by 1619 in Virginia, by 1637 in Maryland, by 1665 in North Carolina, by 1682 in Pennsylvania, and by 1732 in Georgia. Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 36, 37. Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 18, 19, 22, 29.

[30] Statutory recognition of slavery by the American colonies occurred as follows: Massachusetts, 1641; Connecticut, 1650; Virginia, 1661; Maryland, 1663; New York and New Jersey, 1664; South Carolina, 1682; Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, 1700; North Carolina, 1715; and Georgia, 1755. Prior to these dates the legal status of all subject Negroes was that of servants, and their rights, duties, and disabilities were regulated by legislation the same as, or similar to, that applied to white servants. Ballagh, _Hist. of Servitude in Va._, pp. 34, 35.

[31] Russell, _The Free Negroes in Va._, p. 29.

[32] Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p. 25; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 30, 31.

[33] Ante, note 30: "It was but natural then that they should be absorbed in a growing system which spread to all the colonies and for nearly a century furnished the chief supply for colonial labor." Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Colony of Va._, pp. 14, 27, 49. Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 32.

[34] The Company secured servants for the colony. Stevens, _History of Ga._, p. 290; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 15.

[35] The Trustees of Georgia held out on account of philanthropic motives. See Du Bois, _Suppression of the Slave Trade_, pp. 7, 8, 26; Declaration of one of the trustees, Stevens, _Hist. of Ga._, p. 287.

[36] Moore, _Notes on the History of Slavery in Mass._, p. 50. Du Bois, _Suppression of African Slave Trade_, p. 15.

[37] In Providence in 1633, "it was recommended that twenty or thirty negroes be introduced for public work, and that they be separated among various families of officers and industrious planters to prevent the formation of plots. Some of these negroes received wages and purchased their freedom, and the length of servitude seems to have been dependent on the time of conversion to Christianity." Lefroy, _The History, of the Bermudaes_, p. 219. Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 29, 30, notes.

The Dutch dealt with the early Negroes in a similar way. "In practice the heavy duty imposed by the Company seems to have discouraged any large importation. As a natural consequence, too, most of those imported seem to have been in the employment of the Company. Thus we learn that the fort at New Amsterdam was mainly built by negro labor. The Company seems wisely to have made arrangements whereby its slaves should be gradually absorbed in the free population. In 1644 an ordinance was passed emancipating the slaves of the Company after a fixed period of service." Doyle, _Eng. Cols. in Am._, IV, p. 49.

[38] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 33.

[39] Carroll, _Hist. Coll._, I, p. 27.

[40] _Ibid._, p. 29.

[41] _Ibid._, p. 29.

[42] Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 16, 23; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 29 notes; Brown, _The First Republic in Am._, p. 326.

Thomas Jefferson said, "the right to these negroes was common, or, perhaps they lived on a footing with the whites, who, as well as themselves, were under absolute direction of the president." Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, p. 24.

[43] _Ibid._, 23, 24; Ballagh, _History of Slavery in Va._, 28, 31; Phillips, _Am. Negro Slavery_, p. 75.

[44] Henning, I, pp. 146, 226.

[45] The first time the term "slave" is used in the statutes was in these words: "If the Indians shall bring in any children as gages of their good and quiet intentions to us, ... that we will not use them as slaves." Henning, I, p. 296.

[46] In Henning, _Statutes_ I, p. 540, it is said: "That _if_ the said Dutch or other foreigners shall import any negroes, they the said Dutch or others shall, for the tobacco really produced by the sale of the said negro, pay only the impost of two shillings per hogshead, the like being paid by our own nation."

[47] Henning, II, p. 26.

[48] Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, p. 20, note 13.

[49] _Ibid._, pp. 23, 24; Hotten, _List of Immigrants to Am._, pp. 202, etc.

The "_Lists of the Living and Dead in Virginia_, Feb. 16th, 1623," shows that there were twenty or more Negroes in the Colony; these Negroes are referred to as servants not slaves. _Col. Records of Va._, p. 37, etc.

[50]

"Captain Francis West, His Muster. ********** Servants ********** John Pedro, A Neger, aged 30, in the _Swan_, 1623." Va. Carolorum, p. 15.

"Muster of Sir George Yeardley, Kt. ********** Servants ********** Thomas Barnett, 16, in the _Elsabeth_, 1620 Theophilus Bereston, in the _Treasuror_, 1614 Negro Men, 3. Negro Women, 5. Susan Hall, in the _William_ and _Thomas_, 1608" Ibid., p. 16.

"Muster of Capt. William Tucker, Elizabeth City. ********** Servants ********** Antoney, Negro Isabell, Negro William, theire child, baptised" Ibid., p. 40; see a muster also on page 22.

"On the 25 of January, 1624-5, a muster of Mr. Edward Bennett's servants at Wariscoyak was taken, and the number was twelve, two of whom were negroes." _Va. Carolorum_, 225 note. See also Brown, _The Genesis of Am._, II, 987.

[51] _Virginia Carolorum_, pp. 33, 34; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Virginia_, p. 30.

[52] Russell, _The Free Negro in Virginia_, pp. 24, 26, 32.

[53] _Ibid._, pp. 26, 29.

[54] _Ibid._, pp. 25, 26.

[55] _Ibid._, pp. 22, 28, 34; Bruce, _Econ. Hist. of Virginia_, II, pp. 52, 53.

NEGRO SERVITUDE AND ITS PRIORITY IN OTHER COLONIES

Slavery received statutory recognition in the colony of Maryland in 1663, and in North Carolina in 1715. White servitude had long existed in these colonies, receiving statutory recognition in Maryland as early as 1637, and in North Carolina in 1665. Servitude, therefore, had ample time for local definition "before slavery entered upon either its customary or legal development."[1] Ballagh holds that in these colonies, also, Negro servitude historically preceded slavery.[2] In Maryland, particularly, along with Virginia and Massachusetts, the "circumstances surrounding the enactments defining slavery" indicate a natural transition from Negro servitude to slavery. Since servitude existed in these states, it seems probable, from analogy with conditions in other parts of the country, that the early Negroes in these colonies were servants.[3]

Negro servitude preceded Negro slavery in Massachusetts. This servitude existed legally and underwent a period of development. After the recognition of slavery in 1641, Negro servitude continued along with slavery and in a more pronounced manner.[4] The early inhabitants of Massachusetts were hostile to the introduction of slavery. This attitude was, perhaps, responsible for the milder form which Negro bondage first assumed, for "the facts of history ... seem to establish this conclusion, that slavery never was in harmony with the public sentiment of the colony."[5] The Salem ship, the _Desire_, brought to the Colony, February 26, 1638, "some cotton, tobacco, and negroes." This cargo had been taken on by Mr. Pierce of the _Desire_, at Providence Island, evidently in exchange for fifteen Indian boys and two women, taken as prisoners in the Pequod War.[6] At this time, it was common to purchase servants from shipmasters and merchants, and so it is not certain that the Negroes brought back by Mr. Pierce were slaves. At Providence, moreover, Negroes had the status of servants.[7] When Josselyn visited New England in 1638-39, he saw in Boston servants, English and Negroes.[8] In 1641, after the adoption of the Body of Liberties, a master of a ship brought two Negroes for sale into slavery, but was compelled by the court to give them up. These Negroes were then sent back to their native country. In 1646, the General Court passed an act "against the heinous and crying sin of man-stealing." In this colony "slaves" testified against white men in court and, for a long time after 1652, served in the militia.[9] Again, beginning with 1700, Judge Sewall and the Quakers started their memorable work against slavery. Charles Sumner said concerning slavery in Massachusetts: "Her few slaves were merely for a term of years, or for life."[10]

The Bond of Liberty, adopted in 1641, evidently made provision for servitude.[11] Negroes were held as servants under this provision. During the entire colonial period until 1791, they were rated as polls, as, for example, in the tax laws, in 1718, which provided that "all Indian, negro and mulatto servants _for a term of years_ were to be numbered and rated as Polls, and not as Personal Estate."[12]

Prior to 1700, moreover, Negroes had the status of servants in Pennsylvania. In the region of the Delaware River, which became a part of Pennsylvania, the Dutch had a few Negroes with them in 1636. In 1639, also, a number of Negroes worked under the New Netherlands Company on the South River.[13] It is not definitely known that these Negroes were servants, although the circumstances indicate that they were. The same is true of the Negroes in the employment of the Dutch during this very early period. Provision was apparently made for their gradual absorption by the free population. As late as 1663, there existed laws which "granted them a qualified form of freedom, working alternate weeks, one for themselves, one for the Company."[14] Among the Swedes, also, in the region of the Delaware, were a number of Negroes. Just after Rising had come to the region as head of the Swedish Company, in 1654, he issued an ordinance that "after a certain period Negroes should be absolutely free." In Penn's charter to the Free Society of Traders, in 1682, there was a provision that if the inhabitants "held blacks they should make them free at the end of fourteen years...." Benjamin Furley, also, vigorously opposed holding Negroes longer than eight years.[15] The Friends of Germantown in 1688, made strong protests against slavery; and in 1693, George Keith declared that the masters should let the Negroes go free after a reasonable term of service.[16] Later on, children of white mothers and slave fathers became servants for a term of years, and the same was true of the children of free Negro mothers and slave fathers.[17]

After 1700, Negro servants were a common and well-recognized class in Pennsylvania. Negroes who were "unable or unwilling to support themselves" were bound by the court for the term of one year.[18] All children of free Negroes were bound out until twenty-one or twenty-four years. Mulatto children "who were not slaves for life" were bound out "until they were twenty-eight years of age." The abolition act of 1780 provided among other things that "all future children of registered slaves should become servants until they were twenty-eight."[19] And again, Negroes manumitted could indenture themselves until twenty-eight.

Negro servants were generally subject to the laws which governed the white servitude; but they were subject further to other laws which gave to the Negro servants a status between that of the white servants and Negro slaves. Negro servants were apprenticed for a longer period than white servants; and such servants were object of a considerable interstate traffic, people from other states selling them into Pennsylvania. They were often apprenticed and generally given some form of freedom dues. So entrenched was Negro servitude here that in 1780 there were probably a greater number of servants in Pennsylvania than slaves.[20]

In Rhode Island Negro servitude preceded and passed into slavery.[21] Although as early as 1652 the practice of buying Negroes for service or slaves for life existed in this colony, this was not sanctioned by law. On the other hand, white servitude was clearly recognized in statute law of 1647.[22] In 1652 the legally established servitude, as well as the attitude of the colonists, undoubtedly influenced the passing of a law to prohibit slavery and provide for servitude. This law said: "Whereas, there is a common course practiced amongst English men to buy negers, to that end they may have them for service or slaves forever; for the preventinge of such practices among us, let it be ordered, that no blacke mankind or white being forced by covenant bond, or otherwise, to serve any man or his assighness longer than ten yeares, or until they come to bee twentie four yeares of age, if they bee taken in under fourteen, for the time of their cominge within the liberties of this Collinie. And at the end or terme of ten yeares to sett them free, as the manner is with the English servants. And that man that will not let them goe free, or shall sell them away elsewhere, to that end that they may bee enslaved to others for a long time, he or they shall forfeit to the Collonie forty pounds."[23] Although this law was enforced for a time, it soon became a dead letter, for after 1708, when slavery received sanction by statute, buying and selling Negroes was practiced generally.[24]

The first few Negroes in Connecticut were servants along with a few Indian and white servants. It was due, no doubt, to the paucity of the Negroes--there were in 1680 not above thirty in the colony--that they became servants. However, as this number increased, their status became gradually that of slaves by custom. Because of the fear of treachery from the Negro and Indian servants, the General Court, in 1680, ordered that "neither Indian nor negar servants shall be required to train, watch or ward in the Colony."[25] Evidently some of the servants very early had served out their time and had been freed, for by a law, in 1690, "Negro, mulatto, or Indian servants," "suspected persons" and free Negroes who were found wandering could be taken up and brought before a magistrate.[26] An act in 1711 made provision for the care of Negro servants and others who came to want after they had served out their time. "An act relating to slaves, and such in particular as shall happen to become servants for life, enacts that all slaves set at liberty by their owners, and all negro, mulatto, and Spanish Indians, who are servants to masters for time, in case they shall come to want after they shall be so set at liberty or the time of their service be expired, they shall be relieved at the cost of their masters." In fact, slavery of the "absolute, rigid kind" never existed to any extent in Connecticut.[27]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Ballagh, pp. 36-37.

[2] _Ibid._, 32.

[3] _Ibid._, 37; Beatty, _The Free Negroes in the Carolinas before 1860_, p. 3.

The children, resulting from the intermixture and intermarriage of the races were likewise servants in these two colonies. Stroud, _Laws Relating to Slavery_, pp. 8-9.

[4] Servitude was recognized in statute law in this colony by 1630-36. Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 32, 33, 36.

[5] Washburn, _Slavery as It Once Prevailed in Mass._, p. 193.

[6] Providence Isle was "an island in the Caribbean, off the Nicaraguan coast. In 1630 Charles I granted it, by a patent similar to that of Massachusetts, to a company of Englishmen, mostly Puritans, who held it till 1641, when the Spaniards captured it." Winthrop's _Journal_, II, pp. 227, 228, 260; Moore, _Notes on the Hist. of Slavery in Mass._, p. 5.

[7] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, note 2, quoted from _Calendar State Papers_, pp. 160, 168, 229.

[8] Ante, p. 252, note 23.

[9] Washburn, _Slavery as It Once Prevailed in Mass._, pp. 208, 215.

[10] Nell, _Colored Patriots in Am. Rev._, p. 37.

[11] "There shall _never_ be _any_ Bond Slavery, Villinage, or Captivity among us, unless it be lawful Captives taken in just Wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves, or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God, established in Israel concerning such persons, doth morally require. This exempts none from servitude, who shall be judged thereto by authority." _Massachusetts Hist. Coll._, 28, p. 231; Palfrey, _Hist. of New England_, II, p. 30

[12] Moore, _Notes on Slavery in Mass._, pp. 62, 63-64, 248.

[13] "A judgment is obtained, before the authorities at Manhattan, against one Coinclisse, for wounding a soldier at Fort Amsterdam. He is condemned to serve the company along with the blacks, to be sent by the first ship to South River, pay a fine to the fiscal, and damages to the wounded soldier. This seems to be the first intimation of blacks being in this part of the country.... Director Van Twiller having been charged, after Kiet's arrival, with mismanagement.... Another witness asserts he had in his custody for Van Twiller, at Fort Hope and Nassau, twenty-four to thirty goats, and that three negroes bought by the director in 1636 were since employed in his private service." Hazard, _Annals of Penn._, pp. 49-50; Turner, _The Free Negro in Penn._, p. 1.

It is noteworthy that the Negroes among the Dutch were generally under the supervision of the Company or worked for officers of the Company.

[14] Ante, p. 255, note 37.

[15] "Let no blacks be brought in directly, and if any come out of Virginia, Maryld. (or elsewhere erased) in families that have formerly brought them elsewhere Let them be declared (as in the west jersey constitutions) free at 8 years end." Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p. 21, notes 13, 14.

[16] _Ibid._, p. 66.

[17] _Ibid._, pp. 24, 25; Stroud, _Laws Relating to Slavery_, pp. 9-10.

[18] Hurd, _The Law of Freedom and Bondage_, I, 290; Turner, _The Free Negro in Penn._, p. 92.

[19] "On the 1st of March, 1780, before the war of the Revolution was closed, the Assembly of Pennsylvania passed an act declaring that negro and mulatto children whose mothers were slaves, and who were born after the passage of the act, should be free, and that slavery as to them should be forever abolished. But it was declared that such children should be held as servants, under the same terms as indentured servants, until the age of twenty-eight, when they should be free...." Watson, _Annals of Philadelphia and Penn. in Olden Times_, pp. 468-469.

[20] _Ibid._, pp. 93, 94, 98, 101.

[21] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 32.

[22] _Ibid._, p. 36.

[23] R. I., _Col. Rec._, I, p. 243.

[24] Du Bois, _Suppression of the Slave Trade_, p. 34.

[25] Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, I, p. 270; Steiner, _Hist. of Slavery in Conn._, p. 12.

[26] Conn., _Col. Rec._, XV, p. 40.

[27] Stroud, _Laws Relating to Slavery_, p. 11, note; Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, p. 271.

THE TRANSITION FROM WHITE SERVITUDE TO SLAVERY

Let us now direct our attention to the change from servitude to slavery. It is well to note here, however, that white servitude did not embrace the chief features of slavery. Nieboer defines a slave as "a man who is the property or possession of another man, and forced to work for him." Again, "slavery is the fact that one man is the property or possession of another."[1] White servitude lacked the final and formal feature of "property," namely complete "possession," and consequently never included either perpetual service or the transmission of servile condition to offspring, although during the first half of its development in the colonies, servitude tended to assume the character of slavery.[2][3]

The servitude that existed up to 1619 underwent change until it finally crystallized into indented servitude. The conditions were not as bad as the testimony of colony servants and observers of the period would indicate, and yet where there were so many references to it the condition evidently obtained.[4] In enlisting new settlers for the colonies, the Company "issued broadsides and pamphlets, with specious promises, which, however honest its purpose, were certainly never fulfilled."[5] In Virginia in 1613, colonists of 1607 who had served out the term of their original five-year contract were either retained in servitude or granted a tenancy burdened with oppressive and unfair obligations. The changed land policy of 1616 brought upon the colony servants further disadvantages. Before March, 1617, when the men of the Charles City Hundred demanded and were granted their "long desired freedom from that general and common servitude," no freedom had been granted to the colonists. After this until 1619, it was only through "extraordinary payment" that freedom was obtained.[6] Many of these colonists of Virginia, moreover, were retained in servitude until 1624 when the Company dissolved.[7]

Other incidents, growing out of the servant's role, tended to make the condition of servitude more rigid. In order to make the system of labor under the Company successful, Lord Delaware, in 1610, organized the colony into a "labor force under commanders and overseers"; and close watch over the men and their work was accordingly maintained. "The colonists were marched to their daily work in squads and companies under officers, and the severest penalties were prescribed for a breach of discipline or neglect of duty. A persistent neglect of labor was to be punished by galley service from one to two years. Penal servitude was also instituted; for 'petty offences' they worked 'as slaves in irons for a term of years'"; and there were whipping, "hangings, shooting, breaking on the wheel, and even burning alive."[8]

It may be observed from references made to this early servitude that, generally, it was harsh. We read: "Having most of them served the colony six or seven years in that 'general slavery'"; "'three years slavery' to the colony"; "noe waye better than slavery"; "rather than be reduced to live under like government we desire his Magestie that Commissioners may be sent over with authority to hang us"; and "Sold as a d---- slave."[9] Undoubtedly, these references are not all true; yet, they are not altogether false. At least they indicate that the conditions of this servitude approached slavery.[10] Out of these, informal "slavery" and unsettled conditions of early servitude, indented servitude developed.

As a general rule, every advantage was taken of the servant by the servant-dealers and masters. Opportunity to hold the servant longer than the period allowed by law or to extend his service was not infrequently seized upon, for the laxity of the system and the need of labor in the colonies made this a natural consequence. During the first period of servitude, the term of service in many cases was not prescribed in the indentures; and sometimes servants were brought over without indentures, or with only verbal contracts.[11] Thus trouble about the length of their term of service arose, especially in connection with the servants who did not have indentures. Circumstances indicate that in the interpretation of law and the facts, the master generally triumphed.[12] It was in 1638-39 that Maryland took the first definite step to prevent unfair treatment of servants by their masters. In 1654 it became necessary again to pass a law determining the servant's age and length of service. Virginia enacted similar measures in 1643 and 1657. Still, when the servants were ignorant, "which was usually the case," or could not speak the English language, the master took advantage of their shortcomings.[13] Notwithstanding the repeated efforts of the courts and assembly to protect the servant in his relation to the master, the lucrative practice of extending a servant's term, which became customary in the case of Indian and Negro servants, proved a significant factor in the degradation of white servitude.

Under the system of servitude, the conduct of the servant necessarily bore a close relation to the interests of the master. When the servant stole, ran away, "unlawfully assembled" or "plotted," indulged in fornication, spent unusual time in social intercourse, or was secretly married, the master as a rule suffered some loss. And for protection of the master, methods of punishment were resorted to, the character, definiteness, and attendant circumstances of which tended to reduce the servant to the status of a slave.

As the servant had no money with which to pay fines, some other method of punishment had to be used. Corporal punishment of a harsh character appears to have been established. Practiced at first by individuals, it soon became a general custom, and finally found its way into the laws of the colonies. During the period prior to indented servitude, instances of severe whipping of servants are numerous.[14] The first colony law which gave the master the privilege of regulating the servant's conduct in this manner, however, appeared in 1619.[15] Corporal punishment then gradually gained ground and won sanction by the colonial courts. A law in Virginia provided in 1662 "for the erecting of a whipping post in every county" and the General Assembly of this colony, in 1688, reassured the master of his right to whip the servant. All along this right was so much abused[16] that it was restrained in Virginia. In 1705 an act ordered the master not to whip the servant "immoderately"; and to whip a Christian white servant naked, an order from a justice of peace had to be obtained.[17] Several other colonies similarly restrained the right to whip.[18]

Another method of punishment that gradually hardened the conditions of servitude was the addition of time to the term of the servant. This evidently originated in the custom of the Company to prescribe as penalty for offense "service to the colony in public work."[19] This method of punishment was extensively used throughout the colonies. Sometimes the length of additional service was left to the discretion of the master, but this was so abused that the government saw fit to make regulations, which, however, themselves were not free from harshness.[20]

At first the servants undoubtedly enjoyed the right of marriage, but as this proved a source of much inconvenience and loss to the master, since the men servants lost time, stole food and other provisions, and the women servants lost time during pregnancy and in rearing children, laws restricting marriage of servants were enacted in the colonies. In Virginia, in 1643, this right was legally restricted. When the servants were secretly married, in some cases the man had to "serve out his or their tyme or tymes with his or their masters--after serve his master a complete year more for such offense committed" while the woman-servant had to double her time of service.[21] In other cases, as in North Carolina, the servants were required to serve one year.[22] Further restriction of the right of marriage appeared in Virginia in 1662. When a woman-servant and a Negro slave were married in Maryland, the woman was, in some instances, reduced to slavery, as she was required to serve her master during the life of her husband.[23] The effect of this law was, in certain instances, to complete practically the transition from servitude to slavery. Children resulting from such marriages were either made slaves for life, or required to serve until they were thirty years of age. Fornication also was made punishable by an addition of time. The woman-servant, who gave birth to illegitimate offspring, received an addition of time of one and a half to two and a half years.[24] When the offspring was by a Negro, mulatto, or Indian, she was required to serve the colony or the master for an additional time of four, five, or seven years. The children in these cases were bound out for thirty-one years.[25] With marriage restricted as it was, the family life of the servants was likely to be disorderly. Morals of servants were notably loose, and masters sometimes took advantage of their position to corrupt their servants still further.[26]

The servants were also restricted in political affairs. In the earliest period of servitude in the colonies, servants, as "inhabitants," enjoyed with the other "inhabitants" whatever suffrage there was.[27] Later on, however, this rare privilege dwindled to _nil_. For the "first sixteen years of the settlement" in Massachusetts the servants exercised the franchise.[28] In Virginia they voted until 1646 and the freedservant until 1670.[29] In Maryland in 1636, in the first assembly of the colony, only "freemen" seemed to hold sway.[30] Disfranchisement became the rule, however, after the middle of the seventeenth century.[31] The very noticeable scarcity of information on the servant's exercise of the suffrage seems to suggest that as a matter of understanding he did not enjoy the franchise. Evidently there prevailed a certain suspicion concerning not only the servant's ability to use the suffrage, but also his proper use of it; and this attitude was also always fairly pronounced toward the recently freedservant.[32]

The final remedy of the servant, then, was flight. From the beginning of indented servitude, the servants invariably deserted their master's service. While in all cases they did not run away on account of abuses, the practice brought on abuses and other incidents which, during the first part of servitude, became more and more intolerable.

The number of runaways increased as the servants continued coming in. It was comparatively easy for them to escape to the more northern colonies, since the country about them was convenient for hiding and clandestine traveling; and the fugitives themselves, on account of having no physical characteristics distinguishable from those of the other colonists, could not easily be identified.[33] Thus North Carolina became popularly known as the "Refuge of Runaways" and that colony, Maryland, and the Dutch plantations were to fugitive servants what Massachusetts, Ohio, and Canada were later to runaway slaves.[34] The "under-ground railroad," too, had a forerunner in the early period of indentured servitude.[35] Methods of dealing with the runaways necessarily grew more strict, and precautions similar to those of slavery inevitably appeared. "Unlawful assembling," "plotting," and tentative insurrections became a source of apprehension.[36] Then came methods of pursuit, return, and punishment of the fugitives. Sometimes the master made the pursuit; at other times the sheriff and his posse did it; and often the constable with a search warrant went in quest of the fugitive. Everyone who traveled was required to have a pass or a certificate of freedom to show his status;[37] and this no doubt afforded the servants a means of using forgery to facilitate their escape to freedom.[38] Again, whenever it was possible, advertisements for runaways were put in the newspapers.[39] During this time, too, there were enacted colonial statutes providing for the return of fugitives by one colony to the other. Colonial governments often accused each other of unduly holding and protecting the runaways.[40]

The greatest abuses in servitude occurred in the punishment of fugitive servants. These abuses, moreover, gradually increased in number and intensified in character.[41] The expense of the servant's capture, return, and loss of time from work, and the desire to prevent running away led to stringent punishment and evident abuses.[42] In Virginia before 1643, some runaways were punished with "additional terms from two to seven years, served in irons, to the public."[43] The act of 1643 in Virginia provided that runaways from their "master's service shall be lyable to make satisfaction by service at the end of their tymes by indenture (vizt.) double the tyme of service soe neglected, and in some cases more if the commissioners ... find it requisite and convenient."[44] The laws of 1639 and of 1641-42 made running away in Maryland punishable with death, but the proprietor or governor could commute this penalty to servitude of seven years or less.[45] Corporal punishment, too, scathed the fugitives.[46]

Plainly, then, the fugitive servant tended to assimilate the status of the servant to that of the slave and tended to become mere property. The servant could be transferred as property from one person to another, for from the beginning his services were bought and sold. The custom of purchasing and disposing of apprentices and servants was early practiced in Virginia and out of this practice grew the more definite and far-reaching custom of signing the servant's contract. Begun in 1623, it was resented by servants and deprecated by England; and yet with no question of its legality, the selling of servants' time became a common practice.[47] Later on, upon securing the servant in England, the indenture was often made out to the shipmaster or his assigns, and the servant was sold by him to the planters in America. To sell the servants, merchants were sometimes invited on board the ship, where they could look over the human cargo and select those who were desirable. Often it happened that the servants were brought over without indentures. They were made to believe that their lot would be made easy by the master who would buy them.[48] These, too, were sold by the captain to the highest bidder.[49] That the servants were dealt with in this way eventually made the indentures as a rule negotiable, and this led to further degradation of the servants' status. The theory that the servant's time was property was tenable as late as 1756 in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, for during the war with the French and Indians, when the governments and officers were recruiting the servants of the masters, the masters protested, resisted, and won.[50]

The servant, then, gradually became property, not principally because of a tendency to consider the Negro servant as such, but because of the incidents necessarily arising from the methods which had to be used to make white servitude possible in the colonies. These methods, then, the custom of using them, and finally the tentative legal sanction of them, were fairly well practiced before the Negro's arrival and long before he was considered as chattel.[51]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nieboer, _Slavery as an Industrial Institution_, p. 42.

[2] Doyle, _Hist. of Eng. Col. in Am._, p. 385.

[3] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 42.

[4] McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, pp. 9, 60, 61, 63.

[5] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 15.

[6] _Ibid._, pp. 19, 31, 24.

[7] "We see, then, that the colonist, while in theory only a Virginia member of the London Company, and entitled to equal rights and privileges with other members or adventurers, was, from the nature of the case, practically debarred from exercising these rights.... He was kept by force in the colony, and could have no communication with his friends in England.... Under the arbitrary administration of the Company and of its deputy governors he was as absolutely at its disposal as a servant at his master's. His conduct was regulated by corporal punishment or more extreme measures. He could be hired out by the Company to private persons, or by the Governor for his personal advantage." _Ibid._, p. 26.

[8] _Ibid._, p. 23.

[9] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 23, 24, 25, 43 note.

[10] McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, pp. 48, 49.

[11] _Ibid._, pp. 38, 43; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 40, 49.

[12] "Where no contract but a verbal one existed there was always room for controversy between master and servant, each trying to prove an agreement that would be to his advantage." _Ibid._, p. 50.

[13] "Where the servants were ignorant, which was usually the case, it was to the advantage of the master that there should be no written contract, as there was then a chance of extending the term of service." McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 44.

"The Palatines and other German races, who, in the later years formed nearly all of the servant population, knew little of the laws and language and were an easy prey to the abuses of traders and harsh masters. They had been used to very little liberty at home and were slow to assert their rights in America." _Ibid._, p. 61.

[14] Ante, p. 268.

[15] Henning, _Statutes at Large_, I, pp. 127, 130, 192; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 45.

[16] _Ibid._, p. 77.

[17] _Ibid._, pp. 58, 59.

[18] Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, p. 81.

[19] "In this we have the germ of addition of time, a practice which later became the occasion of a very serious abuse of the servants rights by the addition of terms altogether incommensurate with the offenses for which they were imposed." Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 45.

[20] Henning, _Statutes at Large_, I, p. 438, II, p. 114, III, pp. 87, 140, 450; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 57.

[21] Henning, _Statutes at Large_, p. 257; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 50-51.

[22] Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, p. 34.

[23] "Instead of preventing such marriages, this law enabled avaricious and unprincipled masters to convert many of their servants to slaves. While this act continued in force, it did more to lower the standard of servitude than any other law passed during the whole period." McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, pp. 68-69.

[24] Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p. 30; Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, p. 83; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 57.

[25] _Ibid._, 57; Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, pp. 83-84; Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p. 30; McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 70.

[26] "If she should be delivered of a child by her master during this period she should be sold by the church wardens for the benefit of the church for one year after the term of service.... Here again there was no punishment for the seducing master. It is also evident that the sin of the servant would be an advantage of the master, since he would thereby secure her service for a longer period. We have not the least evidence that such a thing did happen, yet it is possible that a master might for this reason have compassed the sin of his serving-woman." Bassett, _Slavery and Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, pp. 83-84.

"By the acts giving the master additions of time for the birth of a bastard child to his servant a premium was actually put upon immorality, and there appear to have been masters base enough to take advantage of it." Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 79.

The master also encouraged marriage between servants and Negroes. McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 68.

[27] Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, I, p. 228 note.

[28] _Ibid._, p. 255.

[29] _Ibid._, pp. 232, 254; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 93.

[30] Hurd, _Law of Freedom and Bondage_, I, p. 248.

[31] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 90.

[32] "Thus the liberated servant became an idler, socially corrupt, and often politically dangerous." Doyle, _Eng. Cols in Am._, I, p. 387.

"By the temporary disfranchisement of the servant during his term, common after the middle of the 17th century, a serious public danger was avoided. There could be no guarantee, of the judicious exercise of the suffrage with this class who, for the most part, had never enjoyed the privilege before. Their servitude may be regarded as preparing them for a proper appreciation of suffrage when obtained, and the duties of citizenship...." Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 90 note.

[33] "To facilitate discovery, habitual runaways had their hair cut 'close around their ears' and 'were branded on the cheek with the letter R.'" Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 55 note.

[34] _Ibid._, pp. 53-54.

[35] McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 53.

[36] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 53, 60.

[37] _Ibid._, p. 54; McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 54.

[38] _Ibid._, p. 55.

[39] _Ibid._, p. 50.

[40] _Ibid._, pp. 52-53; Bassett, _Slavery and White Servitude in the Col. of N. C._, p. 79; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 54.

[41] McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 54.

[42] "Statute after statute was passed regulating the punishment and providing for the pursuit and recapture of runaways; but although laws became severer and finally made no distinction in treatment of runaway servants and slaves, it was impossible to entirely put a stop to the habit so long as the system itself lasted." _Ibid._, p. 56; Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 52, 57.

[43] _Ibid._, p. 57.

[44] _Ibid._, pp. 57-58; Henning, _Statutes at Large_, II, p. 458.

[45] McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, pp. 51-52.

[46] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, p. 59.

[47] "As a result, (my comma) the idea of the contract and of the legal personality of the servant was gradually lost sight of in the disposition to regard him as a chattel and a part of the personal estate of his master, which might be treated and disposed of very much in the same way as the rest of the estate. He became thus rated in inventories of estate, and was disposed of both by will and by deed along with the rest of the property." Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 43, 44.

[48] Eddis, _Letters from Am._, p. 72.

[49] Example of the advertisement of the arrival of a servantship: "Just Arrived in the Sophia, Alexander Verdeen, Master, from Dublin, Twenty stout, healthy Indented Men Servents Whose Indentures will be disposed of on reasonable Terms, by the Captain on board, or the subscribers ..., etc." McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 42.

[50] _Ibid._, pp. 39, 40, 42, 52, 85-89.

[51] Ballagh, _White Servitude in the Col. of Va._, pp. 31, 33, 68; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 39-40; Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 46-47.

THE GRADUAL TRANSITION OF NEGRO SERVITUDE INTO NEGRO SLAVERY

The status of the Negro in British America was at first that of a servant. He was not held for life, but set at liberty after a term of service. It was his service, not himself, that was the property or chattel of another, and his offspring was not subject to servitude. Again, he had privileges similar to and in some cases identical with those of the other servants; in many cases the rules which governed other servants governed him as well. In short, the Negro was not the "absolute possession" of another.[1] Moreover, it was some years before he became a slave. Distinctly during this time, his status went through a gradual process of transition inevitable in the development of subjection in the colonies.[2]

"Servant" becomes "servant for life" and "perpetual servant" in colonial laws. The progress of extending the Negro servant's term is generally observed in the language of the laws of the colonies. It appears that as the servants went into slavery, "what is termed perpetual was substituted for limited service, while all the predetermined incidents of servitude, except such as referred to ultimate freedom, continued intact." Later the terms "servant for life," "perpetual servant" and "bond servant" were used interchangeably with "slave" and the words "servant" and "slave" and their liabilities were joined in the same enactments.[3] It was some time before the word "slave" was clearly and definitely used, and the servant who became slave lost all the earmarks of a servant.[4]

The practice of holding the servant after the expiration of his term was more characteristic of black servitude than white. As the Negroes increased in numbers, this practice increased. As white servitude declined, the assurance of labor waned. The extension of the Negro's term, then, for a few years longer and eventually to life service appeared a logical as well as a necessary step for the masters to take.[5] Moreover, since the public was often led to believe that when at liberty the Negroes were an uncontrollable and probably dangerous element of the population, extension of their terms in servitude gradually gained public approval.[6] Hence, the Negro servant was held whenever the occasion demanded and the opportunity presented itself.

In illustrating the gradual transition into slavery through repeated holding and attempts at holding the Negro servants for life, court cases of Virginia may be taken as typical. Brass, a Negro, whose master, a ship captain, had died, was, upon being threatened with enslavement, assigned by the General Court in 1625 as servant to the governor of the colony instead of as slave to the company of his late master's ship.[7] John Punch, who ran away in company with three white servants, was adjudged by the court, in 1640, to serve his master the "time of his natural life" while the white servants were given four additional years to serve. Anthony Johnson, a Negro to whom attention has already been called, owned a large tract of land on the Eastern Shore. In 1640 he became involved in a suit for holding John Castor, another Negro, seven years overtime. It appears that Castor was set free. Later, however, Johnson brought suit against Robert Parker, a white man, for harboring Castor as if he were a free man; and the court decided that Castor return to his master, Johnson, evidently for service for life. Sometime before 1644, a mulatto boy named Emanuel, a servant, was sold "as a slave forever" but later was adjudged by the Assembly "no slave and but to serve as other Christian servants do." In 1673, a servant, who had been unlawfully detained beyond his five-year period, won judgment against his master, George Light; the Negro servant was set free and received his freedom dues from the master.[8] In 1674 Philip Cowan petitioned the governor for freedom on the ground that Charles Lucas kept him three years overtime and then compelled him by threats to sign an indenture for twenty years.[9]

Other indications of holding the Negro servant may be shown. In Pennsylvania, Negro servants were invariably given a longer term of service than the white servants and often held after the expiration of the term;[10] so extensive was the practice of holding these servants that, in 1682 and 1693, laws were enacted against it.[11] In Georgia a road to slavery was paved by extending the servants' terms. Negroes were brought out of North Carolina into Georgia by white servants who, becoming tired of servitude, had these blacks serve out their unexpired terms with the Georgia masters. As this worked well the masters lengthened the term of the Negro servants to life.[12] In fact, on account of the reciprocal influence of white servitude and Negro servitude, wherever white servants were taken advantage of and held longer, Negro servants were subjected to harsher treatment and longer extension of term.

The mulatto class in the colonies constituted an element through which transition of Negro servitude into slavery is apparent. As the mulattoes were looked upon as the result of an "abominable mixture" of the races and as representing a troublesome element in society, local laws and colonial statutes were gradually enacted to check and control them.[13] The statutes first aimed at serving as a deterrent upon the women, and hence arose the doctrine of _partus sequitur ventrem_, which imposed the mother's status upon the offspring. However, the first statute to this effect, the act of 1662 in Virginia, was largely enacted because of fornication of Englishmen and Negro women.[14] Statutes enunciating this doctrine were enacted in the other colonies as follows: Maryland, 1663; Massachusetts, 1698; Connecticut and New Jersey, 1704; Pennsylvania and New York, 1706; South Carolina, 1712; Rhode Island, 1728; and North Carolina, 1741.[15] Thus not only Negro mulattoes, that is, the offspring of white men and Negro women, were prevented from becoming servants, but those who were already either freemen or servants were gradually reduced to slavery. To check the growth of the mulatto class, particularly through the intermixture and intermarriage of Negro men and white women, a Virginia law in 1691 provided that the woman be fined, or sold into service for five years, or given five years of added time, and the mulatto be bound out for thirty years.[16] In Maryland, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, similar laws were passed.[17] The mulatto, then, in one case was reduced from freeman and servant to slave, and in the other case made a servant for thirty or more years.[18] Thus the debasing of the status of the mulatto helped the transition to slavery.

Just as the fugitive white servant repeatedly gave occasion, through incidents growing out of his capture, return, and deterrence, to lower the status of the servant until it assumed the character of slavery, so the fugitive Negro servant made his lot harder and influenced the extension of his term to perpetuity. The Negro servant, unlike either the Indian or white servant, obviously had little to tempt him to run away from his master; his physical characteristics made detection easy, there was no free Negro population to which he could escape, the unfamiliar country around him held but poor prospects for his making a livelihood more easily than under his master, and the strangeness of his situation undoubtedly had much to do with his acceptance of it. Yet the Negro as a servant did run away. It is very probable that the practice of running away to the Indians began when he was a servant.[19] Again, it appears that he ran away not infrequently in company with white servants. In Virginia, in 1640, John Punch, a Negro servant, ran away in company with two white servants. The three were overtaken in Maryland and brought back to Virginia for trial. The court ordered that the white servants' terms be lengthened four years, and that Punch, the Negro servant, "shall serve his master or his assigns for the time of his natural life."[20]

The transition of servitude to slavery, moreover, is distinctly noticed in the change in the conception of property in the service of the Negro to that of property in his person.[21] Like that of the white and Indian servants, the Negro's service through contract, implied and expressed, was owned by the master. This ownership, however, consisted of only the right of the master to the service of the servant. Gradually, as this service necessarily became involved in wills, estates, taxation, and business transactions, the person of the servant instead of his service came more and more to be regarded, both in custom and in law, as property, so that eventually the servant, himself, was considered personal estate. Thus he was "rated in inventories of estates, was transferable both _inter vivos_ and by will, descended to the executors and administrators, and was taxable." While he was now a "contractual person," he still retained such incidents of personality as rights of limited protection, personal freedom, and possession of property.[22] As the service of the servant became more and more regarded and treated as a form of property, his personality was completely lost sight of, and his term was extended to the time of his natural life.[23] Easily, then, the Negro servant regarded at first a part of the personal estate came at length to be regarded as a chattel real.

T. R. DAVIS

WALDEN COLLEGE, NASHVILLE, TENN.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Ante, p. 266.

[2] Local conditions and circumstances dictated and directed the form of subjection. For this same reason, both servitude and slavery differed in different sections of the country. Nieboer brings out the local character of subjection when he holds that slavery does not exist as formally among fishing and hunting peoples as among agricultural and that subjection is milder in an open country than in a closed. Nieboer, _Slavery as an Industrial Institution_, p. 55.

[3] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 37.

[4] It is not meant that all Negroes became servants and then slaves. Many Negroes became servants and followed the course of servants while others became slaves and remained slaves. At any period, however, during his first three-quarter century at least in the colonies, the most pronounced status of the Negro consisted of a cross-section of a transition from servitude to slavery.

[5] On the significance of the expiration of the white servant's term, Bruce has this to say: "Unless the planter had been careful to make provision against their departure by the importation of other laborers, he was left in a helpless position without men to reap his crops or to widen the area of his new grounds.... Perhaps in a majority of cases, his object was to obtain laborers whom he might substitute for those whose term were on the point of expiring. It was this constantly recurring necessity which must have been the source of much anxiety and annoyance as well as heavy pecuniary outlay, that led the planters to prefer youths to adults among the imported English agricultural servants, for while their physical strength might have been less, yet the periods for which they were bound extended over a longer time." Bruce, _Econ. Hist. of Va._, II, pp. 58-59.

[6] Ballagh, _Hist, of Slavery in Va._, pp. 37-38. "Negro servants were sometimes compelled by threats and browbeating to sign indentures for longer terms after they had served out their original terms." (Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, p. 33.) Indian servants, too, were held and reduced to slaves whenever possible. Lauber, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times_, pp. 196-201.

[7] Ballagh, _Hist, of Slavery in Va._, pp. 29, 30, 31.

[8] Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 32, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38-39.

[9] "Petition of a negro for redress To the Rt. Hon'ble Sir William Berkeley, Knt., Goverr and Cap. Genl of Virga, with the Hon. Councell of State. The Petiti'on of Phillip Corven, a negro, in all humility showeth: That yor petr being a servant to Mrs. Annye Beazley, late of James, City County, widow, deed. The said Mrs. Beazley made her last will and testament in writing, under her hand and seal, bearing date of April, An Dom. 1664, ... that yor petr by the then name of negro boy Philip, should serve her cousin, ... the terme of eight yeares ... and then should enjoy his freedom and be paid three barrels of corne and a sute of clothes." Cowen was sold, it appears, to Lucas who kept him and forced him to sign the long indenture. Palmer, _Calendar of State Papers_, I, p. 10.

Russell corrects "Corven" to "Cowan," _The Free Negro in Va._, p. 34.

[10] "This practice of holding negroes for a longer term than white persons, which lasted for a longer time than had originally been contemplated, since it was allowed to apply to negroes brought into Pennsylvania from other states, bade fair to perpetuate itself and last longer still." Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, pp. 93, 95, 99-100.

[11] _Ibid._, 95.

[12] Stevens, _Hist. of Ga._, I, p. 306.

[13] Henning, _Statutes at Large_, pp. 145, 146, 252, 433, 551, 552; _Ibid._, II, 115; _Ibid._, III, 87, 453; Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 57; Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, pp. 112-113; McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, pp. 67-70.

[14] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 57; McCormac, _White Servitude in Md._, p. 67.

[15] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 39.

[16] _Ibid._, pp. 57-58.

[17] Stroud, _Laws Relating to Slavery_, pp. 8-9; Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, pp. 24-25, 92; Moore, _Notes on the Hist. of Slavery in Mass._, p. 54.

[18] The transition is exhibited in another case still more completely. "This position rendered them especially eligible for gross purposes, both in their intimate contact with the negroes and in their relations to their employers. The law had unwittingly set a premium upon immorality, as the female mulatto not only added an additional term to her period of service, but her offspring was by a law of 1723 in its turn forced to serve the master until the age of thirty-one years. Such mulatto servants, then, were scarcely better off as to prospective freedom than the negro slave. Custom tended to reduce them to a state of slavery. About the middle of the eighteenth century (circa 1765) the practice arose of actually disposing of their persons by sale, both in the colony and without, as slaves. So flagrant was the practice that further legislation was demanded to check the illegal proceeding by appropriate penalties. It would appear that the offenders were those who were entitled to the mulattoes only as servants, but used the power of intimidation or deceit, which could be easily practiced in the case of minor bastards born in their service." Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 59-60.

[19] From the very first, the Indians and Negroes as servants came in contact. Also, there seems to have been a "common bond of union" between Indians and Negroes. Again the colony laws concerning runaway servants generally took care of the Negro and Indian servants in the same act. Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 128-129; Lauber, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times_, pp. 218, 220-221.

[20] Russell, _The Free Negro in Va._, pp. 29-30.

[21] "With the change of the status of servitude to the status of slavery, certain of the attributes of the former condition were continued and connected with the latter chief of these, and the fundamental idea on which the change was effected, was the conception of property right which, from the idea of the ownership of an individual's service resting upon contract implied or expressed, came to be that of ownership of an individual's person." Lauber, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times_, p. 215.

[22] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, pp. 39-40.

[23] Lauber, _Indian Slavery in Colonial Times_, pp. 226, 227, 230; Turner, _The Negro in Penn._, p. 25. "With the loss of the ultimate right to freedom, the contractual element and the incidents essential to it were swept away, and as the idea of personality was obscured, the conception of property gained force, so that it became an easy matter to add incidents more strictly defining the property right and insuring its protection."

THREE ELEMENTS OF AFRICAN CULTURE

The passion for self expression is one of the most potent factors in social development. No problem of social philosophy yields to a satisfactory solution where the passion for expression is not regarded as a requisite factor. This principle is operative in the life of the individual, the race, and the nation. All human achievements are directly traceable to some inward urge, and evolution, as a theory, is but the universalization of this principle. Civilization, whether in its more perfected stages or whether in its manifestations that are crude and rudimentary, is essentially a measure of human expression. The inward urge that drives mankind onward has a variety of manifestations and the difference in the number of these manifestations is the measure of differences between various civilizations, and between civilization and barbarism or savagery. The impulse that moves the saintly worshipper in St. Peter's to kiss the rosary as he kneels low-bowed and earnest before the high altar is the same that moves the aborigine in Zululand to dance in frenzied ecstacies around his devil-bush. That there are various degrees of self-expression, with a maximum in this nation and age, and a minimum in that, is a fact that is as undeniable as it is obvious; but that there are impulses of cultural possibilities which are lavished upon some races while totally withheld from others is a thesis which finds no sanction in history or archaeology.

Archaeology is the guiding light in which we grope in our attempt to explore the life of ancient man. In Europe and in Asia we have unearthed numerous evidences of prehistoric cultures. There may have been surprise at the antiquity and variety but certainly not at the location, for it was highly probable that the present high civilization of Europe and Asia had risen from the ruins of older ones; yet it cannot be longer doubted that when archaeology as a searchlight was turned upon Africa there was occasion of surprise when that Dark Land yielded evidences of a civilization that antedated the arrival of the European. It would be just as hard to designate the African cultures as purely Negro as to designate the European cultures as purely Teuton. However, a study of African culture promises richer results when it can be identified with certain Negro tribes or such Negroid tribes as have a large extraction of Negro blood. The findings of archaeology have not only a backward look but also a meaning for the future and especially is this true of African cultures, which not only throw light upon the past of the black man but may also become prophetic of his future. It shall be the purpose of this treatise to analyze the African cultures so as to disclose their essential elements and to compare these elements with their counterparts in European cultures.

Once attention had been directed towards Africa, there arose numerous archaeological expeditions and especially noteworthy were the findings of those from Germany and England, the two European countries which had the most ambitious schemes of colonization. In details there is not always agreement among the various archaeological explorers; but, in the main, there is a unanimity that is marvelous and especially is this true when there is evidenced such keen rivalry that is at bottom doubtless economic.

What are the essential elements of civilization? What are the cultural manifestations which constitute the _sine qua non_ of human progress? What is the "irreducible minimum" of civilization? A studied answer must include ethics, art and government, for without any one of these no social order can claim for itself an approach to civilization. The cultures of nations and races must be expressive of these cardinal elements of social expression. In investigating African cultures and their essential elements it is deemed best to dwell at greatest length on the positive aspects of these cultural manifestations. To attempt a negative exposition of the primitive cultures of any people will not reveal any worthwhile criterion of its worth especially when the scope of investigation is limited to three essential elements of culture. If ethics, art and government constitute the irreducible minimum of civilization which is manifested in certain cultural aspects, it is clear at the outset that specialization in ethics, art and government is the measure of a people's advancement.

I. ETHICS

Of the African peoples let us consider first their ethics. It can hardly be doubted that it was an important step in man's upward journey when he reached what anthropologists have called "the dawn of mind" but it was no less momentous an event when there was within him the dawn of morality. Morality is the highest defensive weapon which mankind can wield. So important has it become in the struggle for existence that, to man, the highest form of greatness is a moral greatness. That the highest civilizations of history have been grounded in moral strength has become an historical postulate, but what of the races and nations that live beyond their pale? Were the Africans in their crude and primitive surroundings moral beings? Tillinghast and Beauvais would doubtless answer in the negative. The former in his _The Negro in Africa and America_ is loud in his criticism of the ethical standards of the African, in fact he seriously doubts the advisability of saying that the tribes of Africa have an awakened moral sense. Frobenius, however, comes forward with an assertion to the contrary, asserting: "I cannot do otherwise than say, that these human creatures are the chastest and most ethically disposed of all the national groups in the world which have become known to me."[1] In justice to the other "national groups" we may say that Frobenius here doubtless overdraws the virtues of the Yoruban tribes, yet his assertions when taken with ever so much reserve would lead to the conclusion that the Africans have considerable moral sense. Frobenius leaves no doubt that the Yorubans are a mixed people, although certain degrees of mixtures of people are found everywhere; and the fact that they are mixed alone will not vitiate the validity of Yoruban civilization as a phase of African culture. Roscoe in writing of the Baganda tribes has been as careful to impress us with their blackness as Frobenius has been to indicate the Yoruban mixture. He says: "Sex profligacy is open and thought to be no wrong. They thought it no moral wrong to indulge the sex desire."[2] Yet Roscoe further says: "The most stringent care was exercised by the king and chiefs, but it proved inefficient to keep the sexes apart, while horrible punishment meted out to the delinquents when caught seemed to lend zest to the danger incurred."[3] The significant thing in Roscoe's account is not the open sex profligacy but the "stringent care exercised by kings and chiefs" and the "horrible punishment meted out to offenders." After all, there is abundant evidence that even in Baganda there is some ethical standard.

Roscoe continues: "Theft is not common among the people for they were deterred from stealing by fear of punishment which was certain to follow."[4] The very fact that there was fear of punishment is indicative of some conception of social morality. Fear as a preventive of crime is not the most commendable incentive to morality, but it is one that must be employed in all civilizations; for man is first an animal then a moral being. The fear referred to does not prove that the Baganda has the highest type of morality, but it proves that they have a type and this is significant for primitive peoples. The low standard in anything may be prophetic of higher ones which are approachable only by means of the lower ones as stepping stones. This is true in art, science and religion. The fact that the Bagandas were "hospitable and liberal and that real poverty did not exist"[5] shows the presence of a social consciousness which in many ways evidences a standard of ethics. According to Roscoe the thief was killed on the spot, death for adultery was certain;[6] yet he attempts to maintain his thesis as to their lack of morality in these words: "The moral ideas of the people are crude, it was not wrongdoing but detection that they feared; men were restrained from committing crimes through fear of the power of the gods."[7] It is obvious that "detection" is to be feared only where there are detectives and these are present only when they have been called forth in response to some social demands.

There is still other light to be turned on the ethical status of the African tribes. Bent, more sympathetic towards the natives of Mashonaland, delivers himself thus: "Not only has Khama established his reputation for honesty; but he is supposed to have inoculated his people with the same virtue. I must say that I looked forward with great interest to seeing a man with so wide a reputation for integrity and enlightenment as Khama in South Africa. Somehow one's spirit of skepticism is on the alert on such occasions and especially when a Negro is the case in point; and I candidly admit that I advanced towards Palapwe fully prepared to find Ba Mangwato a rascal and hypocrite and I left his capital after a week's stay there one of his fervent admirers."[8] But Dent adds: "Doubtless on the traversed roads and large centers where they are brought into contact with traders and would-be civilizers of the race, these people become thieves and vagabonds, but in their primitive state the Makalangas are naturally honest, exceedingly courteous in manner."[9]

It is plain to the impartial critic that judged by our ethical standards the peoples commended above would fall far short; but this is no less true with the earliest civilization of historic times. Standards not only vary from age to age but from people to people. In arguing to support the thesis that in Africa the lowliest tribes had some ethical standard, it is not necessary to prove that these standards compare favorably or unfavorably with those of modern times. Such is beside the question and with the testimony of the English and German archaeologists before us we are safe in saying that the African tribes had an ethical standard and thus the potentials of a civilization based upon morality. Neither can it be proved that the ethical standards of the tribes of Baganda, Mashonaland and Yoruba are without worth because they differ in so many particulars from our own. Later we shall attempt to show just why there is such disparity between their ethics and ours. Furthermore, it is not necessary to prove that ethical contacts with Europeans affords no basis for the tribesmen but it is reasonable to suppose that the ethics of the African tribes had possibilities the same as the earliest nations of Europe and Asia; and if contacts with Europeans be argued against the proposition that the Africans evolved an ethical standard, the same argument may be used to bedim the glory of our own civilization.

We, therefore, contend that whatever possibilities lie with the people who can evolve an ethical standard surely must lie with the African. It is true that the happy faculty of coordinating ethics with ideals has made nations great and civilizations splendid, and that such faculty evidenced itself in the long-dark continent of Africa. The principle of evolution is just as operative in the world of ethics as in the world of physical sciences. Ethics must grow and outgrown ethics is ethics notwithstanding. The most rabid critic does not deny to Africa ethical origins, but such authorities as Tillinghast and Beauvais would deny their practical worth. These men criticize the standard rather than deny that there are ethical manifestations of culture. Ellwood in his Sociology and Social Problems contends that the regulation of sex relations has been the greatest achievement of man. Granting the truth of this statement, we have evidences that the African made desperate efforts to regulate sex relations both by a kind of public opinion and by punishment; for Roscoe says: "It was looked upon as a great disgrace to a family if a girl was with child prior to marriage."[10] We are certain that there was "marriage" and this itself is an indication that an attempt had been made to regulate the all-important matter of sex. Roscoe further held that "the marriage vow was binding."[11] Both those writers who commended the ethics of the Africans and those who belittled their standard, then, are essentially agreed to the fact of their ethics. Although there were wide variations in the standards of different tribes, we are abundantly justified in assuming that the ethics of the Africans was as susceptible to improvement as our own. The more advanced standards were prophetic of still more advanced ones.

II. ART

What a man admires is an infallible index to his innermost soul. Whether in the adornment of some temple or the crude markings upon primitive pottery, man is ever striving to express himself in his labors. Strange to say that though the passion for self-expression is dominant in human activities, the art of expression is still in its infancy. We may divide human artifacts into two classes, namely, those of utility and those of aestheticism. That the latter has a form of utility we should in no case deny but as to the utility of aesthetics we deem it beside the point here to discuss. When we use the term "art" in this treatise it will have the specific meaning of the attempt on the part of man to express his emotions; or his attempt to satisfy the aesthetic cravings in the soul. That there are such cravings is a fact which is universally conceded. That there are many evidences of such attempts among all civilized lands none will deny. That man's attempts at artistic expression is a criterion of his civilization is an historic fact. There can be no civilization without its concomitants of aesthetics. Man seeks beauty for beauty's sake, and he alone of the animals gives evidence of such propensity to a pronounced degree. In song, upon canvas, and in marble, humanity has poured forth its innermost soul of sentiments inexpressibly sublime. There is no passion, no object that has not at some time inflamed the soul and moved some mortal to the abode of the gods.

What have the explorers in Darkest Africa found to indicate that the Africans loved the beautiful? What have the Africans to show as specimens of fine art? The music of Negro peoples has become proverbial. In so far as song is an expression of aesthetic propensities the African abundantly qualifies as a lover of art. Whether the strength of a Wagner or the melody of a Beethoven; whether the melody of a southern plantation or a concert in Symphony Hall, the principle of the music is the same. The crude instruments of which the explorer tells us are mute testimonials of the African's attempts to express himself in song and music. There were to be found in the Bagandaland, according to Roscoe, drums for dancing and the "royal" drum was elaborately decorated, thus showing a combination of sight and soul appreciation for beauty. He said that the harp and stringed fife were also found in this same tribe. The pottery found in this region was glazed and figures painted thereon indicated beyond doubt artistic design of no mean order. The basketry had various figures worked through the skillful manipulation of the bark fibres. Roscoe asserts that polychrome paintings were much in evidence among the Baganda tribes and their work in ivory corresponded favorably with the same kind of work found in Europe during the Neolithic Age. Whether fine art was indigenous is not a pertinent question but the significant thing is that Roscoe found these tribes actually giving expression to what seemed to be a well-developed sense of the beautiful.

When Bent reached the ruined city of Zimbabwe, he found the natives playing upon one-stringed instruments with gourds as resonators and he avers that "the sound was plaintive if not sweet."[12] That a mode of dress is primitive is no proof that it lacks taste and a subtle refinement. This is amply illustrated by the striking beauty of Egyptian costumes which now again grace the modern stage. Though four thousand years have elapsed since Egypt basked in the pristine glory that was hers, we have many evidences that what was pretty then is not ugly now. This is no less true of the remnants of those who saw the sun of glory shine upon Mashonaland. In remarking about their apparel Roscoe is positive in the assertion that "their dress evidences taste when not contaminated with a hybrid civilization."[13] Like the Cretans, they displayed artistic tendencies to the extent the simplest tool bore evidences of ornamentation. If such tendency in the Cretans was indicative of the artistic temperament, a similar tendency in the Africans must be similarly interpreted.

According to Roscoe, definite stages are well defined and can be definitely traced in their paintings. At first the themes were things and later they were men and the human body as a design for the artist is clearly portrayed. There was a "breast and furrow" type of painting that marked almost every object with which they had to do. The piano with iron keys was very much like such instruments found in Egypt. The Jews' harp was found in many quarters. There can be no doubt that music had its place in the life of the Mashonaland. But music is a fine art and its value lies largely if not wholly in its appeal to our aesthetic natures. What can be the meaning of such evidences of love of music among the African tribes? Can it not be interpreted as their response to the appeal of the beautiful?

Of the great defensive walls of Zimbabwe Bent says: "The fort is a marvel with its tortuous and well-guarded approaches; its walls bristling with monoliths and round towers, its temple decorated with tall weird-looking birds, its huge decorated bowls. The only parallel that I have seen were the long avenues of menhirs near Carnac in Brittany. One cannot fail to recognize the vastness and power of this ancient race, their greatness of constructive ingenuity and their strategic skill."[14] Of course, there is evidence that the present inhabitants of those ruined cities were not the tribes that once ruled mightily in these regions. Bent himself holds that such high culture must have come from another people. The very fact that the present population seems so far below the level of culture that once prevailed there is the only evidence upon which Bent predicates his argument that another race than the Negroes were the bearers of this great culture. However, it is hardly probable that the level of culture was foreign to the Negroes who lived in the palmy days of Zimbabwe. There must have been an overlapping of cultures even if we grant that another race produced the culture of this region. It is hardly probable that a dominant race would have wholly abdicated in favor of the natives and it is still less probable that the natives could have dislodged a race so strongly fortified. It is highly probable that the same race of people could have produced the peoples who occupied the level of these two very different cultures. No one supposes that the inhabitants of Athens today are equal to the Greeks of the days of Pericles. Yet they are connected with the same great race.

Aside from the ancient walls and temples reputed to be the products of a genius foreign to the tribes of today, Bent comments favorably upon the art such as is the product of the modern inhabitant. With regard to a beautiful bowl he says: "The work displayed in executing these bowls, the careful rounding of edges, the exact execution of the circle, the fine pointed tool marks and the subjects they chose to depict point to a race having been far advanced in artistic skill." Hunting scenes are numerous and in the processions of men, animals are often put in to make for relief, sometimes a bird is introduced for the same effect. It is quite singular that in one of the hunting scenes the sportsman is a Hottentot. Sculptoring was usually done in soapstone and the bird upon the post is a subject which is frequently depicted. The drawings found by Bent in the Mazoe Valley were simple yet beautifully executed. The magnificent hand-made pottery is decorated in patterns of red and black which colors are obtained from hemolite and plumbogo. If we turn with Bent to Mtokoland and see in the Mtoko's kraal the drawings of the Bushmen, "we can trace distinctly three different periods of execution. The first is crude and now faint representation of unknown life; the second is deeper in color and admirably executed and partly on top of this latter are animals of the best period of this art in red and yellow. The third is an inartistic representation of human beings which evidently belongs to a period of decadence and in the execution of this work the colors invariably are red, yellow and black."[15]

What significance has this manifestation of art? What coloring does it give to the cultural development of Africa? It simply means that the African like other peoples enjoys the finer sentiments that make life worth living. Among the writers there is as much unanimity on the question of African art as there is on African ethics. All told, it goes to show that in the essentials of culture the tribes of Africa are not entirely wanting and there are many close parallels between the cultural development in Africa and that in Neolithic Europe. What difference there is is one of degree and not of kind. While Lady Lugard's work savored more of politics than of archaeology, it cannot be doubted that her vote may be cast on the side of those who contend that the cultural manifestations of the African are pronounced when their background is considered. Though crude and rudimentary, though often hidden beneath brutal superstitions, there is always a cultural norm with brilliant possibilities for social betterment. At best we can be no more than fundamentally right or fundamentally good, and this lends color to the claim of the African to real culture.

III. GOVERNMENT

Much has been said about the feeble government which the African sets up. More has been said of his innate inability in matters of civic importance. The matter of government is important, for it is doubtful if there can be any approach to any civilization worthy of the name without some stable form of government. It is generally conceded that the democratic form of government is the best developed stage of the body politic; but this form even at present is far from realization. While it is a great and inspiring ideal, its presupposition is that people are capable of self-government and in many cases this is a supposition that is not based on fact and cannot be corroborated in practice. If democracy is the highest form, absolute monarchy may be the lowest form. Yet monarchy is a form of government and despite the low esteem in which it is held within recent years, it must be admitted that for ages monarchical government was the guardian and custodian of civilization. It is more necessary to have some government than it is to have good government.

Africa is no exception to this rule. Frobenius goes so far as to say that the government in the Yorubaland was fashioned after a republic.[16] With superior and subordinate officials the Yorubans had the semblance of an orderly government. There was the king with a senate which filled the function of cabinet as well. At the court were counsellors-at-law and attorneys for the state. Says Frobenius: "Before the advent of Mohammedanism, forms of civilization of equal value and significance must have been operative in the Soudan."[17] "In fact," he continues, "the government was excellent and I was delighted with the simple administration of the law and official summary punishment in Makwa."[18] Of the Great Benin tribes Roth says: "If theft is seldom heard of here, of murder we hear still less.[19] When the Arabs first visited Negroland by the western route in the eighth and ninth centuries of our era, they found the black kings of Ghana in the height of their prosperity. But the black kings of Ghana had long passed into oblivion when Edris, one of the greatest kings of Bornu, was making gunpowder for the musketeers of his army contemporary with Queen Elizabeth."[20]

El Bekri, a Spanish Arab and author of Tarikh-es-Soudan says of Mansa Musa one of the nobles of Ghana: "He was distinguished by his ability and holiness of life. The justice of his administration was such that it still lives."[21] Three hundred years later a Songhay said of him: "As a pious and equitable prince, he was unequalled for virtue and uprightness."[22]

The duration of the Soudanese empires, moreover, will bear comparison with that of others which are better known to fame. Ghana enjoyed an independent existence of about eleven hundred years--that is, a period nearly equivalent to the period of existence of the British Empire from the abolition of the Saxon Heptarchy to the present day. Melle which succeeded Ghana had a shorter national life of about two hundred and fifty years. Songhay counted its kings in regular succession from 700 to 1591--a period which almost equals the life of the Roman Empire from the foundation of the republic before the Christian era to the downfall of the empire in the second half of the fifth century. The duration of Bornu was less reputable.

The civilization represented by these empires was no doubt, if judged by modern standards, exceedingly imperfect. "The principle of freedom, as we understand it, was probably unknown; authority rested upon force of arms; industrial life was based upon slavery; social life was founded on polygamy. Side by side with barbaric splendor there was primeval simplicity. Luxury for the few took the place of comforts for the many. Study was devoted to what seems to us unprofitable ends. Yet the fact that civilization, far in excess of anything which the nations of northern Europe possessed at the earlier period of Soudanese history, existed with stability enough to maintain empire after empire through a known period of about 1500 years in a portion of the world which mysteriously disappeared in the sixteenth century from the comity of modern nations."[23]

Bent holds that "three hundred years before the Portuguese came to this country the natives were ruled over by a chief with the dynastic name of Nonomapata. From the evidence brought forward we are well within the range of probability when we say that in various parts of Africa there has been a very close approach to well-ordered government dating from ancient days. That these governments are non-existent today can not be laid to their discredit nor to their faulty organization. It is a fact that the earth has not produced the government that could very long defy the ravages of time. A journey down the wreckstrewn highway of the ages will reveal the dry bones of a thousand empires and it is not surprising that the humbler states of Africa can be numbered among them. The fact that there are evidences of decadent states in tribal Africa has its parallel in various parts of Europe today."

We have shown that archaeological research has revealed that the darkness in Africa has not been from time immemorial. We have found that the "_quod novi ex Africa_" is obsolete in an archaeological sense. We have brought forward testimony deduced from reliable sources that Africa is not without an historic past. We have further shown that in eastern, central and western Africa the natives not only exhibit now these cultural manifestations, but also there is revealed abundant evidence of a prehistoric culture that compares favorably with the earlier cultures of Europe. We are candid enough to admit that in standard the cultures of Africa are inferior to our own, but we must also admit that the present high standards in our own ethics, art and government have not always prevailed and that there is a past to these standards which is not always assuring.

There is one question that demands an answer before we have concluded. It is a question that is as reasonable as it is vexatious. Why have not the nations of Africa kept pace with other mightier countries? Why is Africa at present suffering political dissection which would have been impossible had she fully developed the cardinal elements of ethics, art and government? Why is there no help for her dismemberment which constitutes the pity of the age? The answer to these questions is obvious when we shall have considered, first, one of the fundamental propositions in human psychology. The rise of one nation may hinder the rise of the other. It is not improbable that an accentuated civilization in Europe might have retarded civilization in Africa. We do know that the slave trade had a tremendous effect on their fortunes. When once a group makes unusual progress and by its ambition destroys the bridge over which it passed, it cannot be doubted that its ambitions considerably alter the fortunes of others at its mercy. Lady Lugard cannot be gainsaid when she asserts thus with regard to the slave trade: "Through the chaos of these conflicting interests, the practice of slave-raiding, carried on alike by the highest and lowest, ran like the poison of a destructive sore, destroying every possibility of peaceful and prosperous development."[24]

There may be further asked the question why did not Africa rise as did the other peoples and make her exploitation impossible. We are forced to turn from social to natural factors. The geography of Europe is quite different from that of Africa. When wave after wave of migrants left the Iranian plains and turned west and east and south, it is clear that those who turned into Africa had an endless journey before them ere they had to the margin come. Of great mountain ranges there were none. On the monotonous plains of Africa the cultural extensions must have been horizontal. The races that went into Europe were more quickly stayed in their onward march by the coldness of the north. Not only this but they were in the midst of a mountainous country where tribes and peoples could drift into human eddies and there remain out of the current of human activities for ages. Not only might they remain aloof from the busy thoroughfare of migrating myriads but within each eddy there was the possibility of a growth in culture in its simpler aspects. By and by, the culture of one eddy was crossed with the culture of other eddies that had developed in other cultural directions or farther in the same direction. In time there was by reason of the northern limit of Europe a rebound of the population and this was also a rebound of cultures. The various crosses and modification of cultures made it more probable that civilized progress would be accelerated. The culture of Europe was, by reason of the physical geography, a heterogeneous culture, while that of Africa was necessarily homogeneous in view of the geography of that continent.

In support of my contention I refer to Ripley who says: "The remarkable prehistoric civilization of Italy is due to the union of cultures, one from Hallstatt region having entered from the west via the Danube, the other coming from the southeast by sea being distinctly Mediterranean. From the fusion of these cultures came the Umbrian and Etruscan civilizations." Ripley further contends that the ancient high civilization of Mesopotamia was possible because it was a point of convergence of immigration and invasion. Civilization has always been accentuated at points where cultures could cross.[25] There are few or none such points in Africa; hence the retardation of cultures there. As Lady Lugard said, the slave trade aggravated the cultural disadvantages which grew out of the physical geography of Africa, and because of its monotony of environment there has been little or no cross fertilization of cultures, the indispensable requisite to cultural development.[26]

GORDON BLAINE HANCOCK

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Frobenius, _The Voice of Africa_, 673.

[2] _Baganda, Their Customs and Beliefs_, 10.

[3] _Ibid._

[4] Roscoe, _Baganda_, 12.

[5] _Ibid._, 120.

[6] _Ibid._, 263.

[7] _Ibid._, 267.

[8] Bent, _Mashonaland_, 22.

[9] _Ibid._, 53.

[10] Roscoe, _The Baganda_, 79.

[11] _Ibid._

[12] Bent, _Ruined Cities of Mashonaland_, 18.

[13] _Ibid._, 37.

[14] Bent, _Ruined Cities of Mashonaland_, 113.

[15] _Ibid._, 292.

[16] Frobenius, _Voice of Africa_, 180.

[17] _Ibid._, 360.

[18] _Ibid._, 388.

[19] Roth, _Great Benin_, 86.

[20] _Ibid._, 82.

[21] Roth, _Great Benin_, 128.

[22] _Ibid._, 129.

[23] _Ibid._, 217.

[24] Lugard, _A Tropical Dependency_.

[25] Ripley, _Races of Europe_.

[26] Lugard, _A Tropical Dependency_.

METHODISM AND THE NEGRO IN THE UNITED STATES

The first converted Negro Methodist was baptized by John Wesley. November 29, 1758, he wrote in his diary: "I rode to Wandsworth, and baptized two Negroes belonging to Mr. Gilbert, a gentleman lately from Antigua. One of these was deeply convinced of sin; the other is rejoicing in God, her savior, and is the first African Christian I have known. But shall not God, in his own time, have these heathen also for his inheritance?"[1] Eight years later (1766) the first Methodist congregation of five met in the private house of Philip Embury, in New York. One of that number was Betty, a Negro servant girl.

In 1816, fifty years after that first service in New York, the Methodists in the United States numbered 214,235 communicants. Of these 171,931 were white and 42,304, or nearly one-fourth, were Negroes. Two interesting facts are, that of these 42,304 Negro members, 30,000 or nearly three-fourths were in the South, and gathered principally from the slave population.[2]

These figures indicate the faithfulness of early Methodism to the Negro, whether bond or free. These words and spirit of Freeborn Garrettson only illustrate those of Coke, Asbury, and their associates. Under divine guidance, Garrettson had freed his slaves. He says: "I often set apart times to preach to the blacks, ... and precious moments have I had, while many of their sable faces were bedewed with tears, their withered hands of faith stretched out, and their precious souls made white in the blood of the Lamb."[3]

In 1786 Asbury organized the first Sunday School in the United States in the house of David Crenshaw, Maryland.[4] Both Negro and white youth attended. One of the first converts in that school was a Negro, John Charleston, who afterwards became a noted preacher.[5] Four years later the Conference provided for Sunday Schools for white and black children, with text books and volunteer teachers; and all ministers were directed to use diligence in gathering the sons and daughters of Ham into societies, and administer among them full discipline of the church. In 1800 the ordination of Negroes was authorized. Where the colored membership was large, and it was desired, especially in the cities and larger towns, separate services and churches were provided. The policy of the church, as to the association of the races in worship, is indicated by the following from the report of the Board of Missions in South Carolina, in 1832: "As a general rule for our circuits and stations, we deem it best to include the colored people in the same pastoral charge with the whites, and to preach to both classes in one congregation, as our practice has been. The gospel is the same to all men, and to enjoy its privileges in common promotes good-will."[6] There were many eminently successful Negro local preachers, whose services were very acceptable to white congregations. During these first fifty years all the Negro societies or classes were under the direct care of white churches and pastors.

At the close of the first half century of Methodism in America what is known as African Methodism had its beginning. Difficulties arose as to church seating and pastoral service, and in New York there was dissatisfaction concerning proposed legislation on church property. The outcome was a distinct and successful movement in favor of separate Negro Methodist denominations. At Wilmington, Delaware, in 1813, the Union American Methodist Episcopal Church was organized. In 1815 the African Methodist Episcopal Church had its beginning in Philadelphia and five years later the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was organized in New York. The conviction underlying these separate Negro denominations is, that there is less opportunity for friction on account of race prejudice, whether among whites or blacks, and freer and better opportunities for the development of self-help and racial capabilities.[7]

The organization of African Methodism, independent of white control or association, in the North, was the most striking event previous to 1844, when the white Methodist hosts, North and South, were to be divided. In the South the chief event of interest, outside of faithful work of itinerants in preaching to the slave population in connection with regular pastorates, was the successful founding of plantation missions. Thus far the converts had been chiefly among the more favored or house-servant class. Beyond these were vast multitudes, probably four-fifths of the two million slaves of that day, where intellectual and moral paganism reigned. Philanthropists, both in and outside of the various churches, saw and recognized the necessity of some movement beyond the regular church work, to carry the blessings of Christian civilization into the gloom of this darker Africa in America. Methodists led in this important work.

The plan adopted was to send missionaries to the plantations, to be supported by the planters themselves, who were friendly to the work. Doctor (afterwards Bishop) Capers was the apostle of this forward movement. The importance of these efforts of this churchman are attested on a modest stone over the grave of the Bishop, at Columbia, South Carolina, by these words, "Founder of Missions to the Slaves." Under his guidance heroic itinerants were found to brave the dangers of disease and bodily discomfort, and go into the swamps and plantation cabins on a mission as holy as that which sent Cox to Africa and Carey to India. Not a few of them died as martyrs, but the places of those who fell were quickly filled. Volunteers would arise in the annual conferences and say to the Bishops, "Here are we, send us." This language is one of a sample of all: "We court no publicity; we seek no gain; we dread no sickness in going after the souls of these blacks for whom Christ died. If we may save some of them from going down to the pit, and succeed in pointing their steps to the heavenly city, all will be well."[8]

The greatest success was in South Carolina, where, in 1839, at the end of ten years, seventeen missionaries were employed. There were 97 appointments, embracing 234 plantations and 6,556 church members, to whom preaching and the sacraments were regularly given. They had also under regular catechetical instruction 25,025 Negro children.

In 1844, when the division of American Methodism became inevitable, these plantation missions were in the full tide of success. They were maintained and rejoiced in by the whole Methodist Episcopal Church. Their chief support, however, came from Methodists and other friends in the South. In the year mentioned there were 68 missions in nine of the Southern States, with 80 missionaries and 22,063 members. In that year, white southern conferences paid $22,379.25 to this work. It is estimated that the conferences in the South gave for this cause $200,000 during fifteen years, up to 1844.[9]

The "Brother in Black," however, brought the republic an irrepressible conflict, ending in frightful civil war. So, too, it must be said, that in Methodism, for nearly a century Negro slavery was the occasion of discussion and legislation, and at last of division, which Calhoun considered the beginning of the dismemberment of the Union. Methodism grew with the colonies, and at the close of the American Revolution had 84 preachers and 15,000 members in its societies. It was the first organized American church that officially gave its benediction, through Washington, to the young republic. Its spirit and itinerant system kept its organizations on the front wave of every movement of population. Its mission was salvation to rich and poor alike, regardless of race. Its only test of membership was "a sincere desire to flee from the wrath to come." Peoples of every station in life, bond and free, educated and illiterate, rich and poor, political friends and antagonists, were alike attracted by the impassioned appeals of her apostolic missionaries. Her form of government brought into annual and quadrennial conferences all questions of polity or principle involved in administration. Other churches might relegate important questions of discipline to individual societies; Methodism could not. Every important matter must be settled by a majority vote of representatives of the whole church.

On doctrines there were no divisions. Not so as to questions relating to African slavery. As to the abstract right and wrong of that institution, for many years there was but little division among Methodists. Later some in the South talked of the "divine institution," and occasionally a Northern man claimed that a Christian might buy and sell slaves without sin. The legislation of the church, however, was clear and explicit to this effect: "Slavery is contrary to the laws of God and man, and wrong and hurtful to society." All buying and selling of slaves, then, was forbidden.[10] Gradually the irrepressible conflict began in the church. The Northern section more and more taught that slavery was wrong, and could in no way be excused or tolerated by the church of Christ, without partaking of its sin. The South held that slavery was a civil institution, approved by the word of God, and that the church was not responsible for its existence or its abuses. The duty of the church in its relation to slavery was taught to be loyalty to civil government, as represented by national and State laws, and to give the gospel as far as possible to both master and slave.

For more than half a century the largest growth of the church had been in the Southern States, and Southern views as to slavery modified legislation in relation to that institution. On the other hand, with the development of the West and Northwest, the balance of legislative influence shifted northward until in the historic General Conference of 1844, Bishop Andrews of Georgia, having become related to slavery by marriage, was requested by a vote of 111 to 69 "to desist from the exercise of his episcopal office so long as this impediment remained."[11] Then followed the inevitable division, and the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Only seventeen years later the Civil War began and Southern Methodist hosts gave their sympathies, prayers, votes, money and sons to the Army of Gray; while Methodists in the North, to quote the words of Lincoln, "sent more prayers to heaven and soldiers to the field" for the Army in Blue, than any other Christian church. Thus may people of God of like faith have diverse consciences and differ, first, in sentiment and policies, then in conviction and duty, and at last prayerfully face each other at the cannon's mouth in deadly combat.

The years from 1844 to 1846 were indeed momentous in the history of the American Methodism in its relation to the Negro. That little company of five in New York in seventy-eight years had in 1845 come to be a multitude of 1,139,583 communicants, whose presence and spiritual energy were felt in every community of the republic, North, South, East and West. Of that membership, 150,120 were Negroes, chiefly in the South, and mostly gathered from among the slave population. But now there was to be division, the North to be more and more anti-slavery and the South to be more and more pro-slavery.

Then followed three Methodist divisions as related to the Negro: First, the African organizations already mentioned, with their chief strength in the Eastern States; and second, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with a total membership of 447,961 in 1846. Of these 118,904 were Negro slaves with few exceptions. This church occupied all the territory of the Southern States exclusively, except along the border. Methodists in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia, including the Baltimore and part of the Philadelphia Annual Conferences, and also many members along the border farther west, did not join in the Southern movement. In the third place, then, there remained in the Methodist Episcopal Church still (1846) a total membership of 644,558. Of these 30,516 were Negroes, of whom about 20,000 were slaves.

The following twenty years were crowded with far-reaching events in church and state, as affecting the Negro. Each of the three divisions of Methodism had its place according to its convictions during that twenty years of agitation and war. The distinctly Negro organizations in the North, while having slaves in their own communions, were, of course, anti-slavery in principle, and sought in every way to advance the cause of abolitionism. Outside of Maryland and Delaware they had no churches in the South, except one in New Orleans and one in Louisville. A church organized in Charleston was driven out, after an attempted Negro insurrection. Permission was given by the mayor of St. Louis to one of its ministers to preach in that city, but the permit was afterwards recalled on learning the sentiments of his church.[12]

During this period of twenty years the Methodist Episcopal Church had wonderful growth throughout the North and West in membership, church buildings, publishing interests, educational institutions, and in social and moral power. Her entire membership rose from 644,294 to 1,032,184. Her Negro membership, however, steadily declined. In 1846 it numbered, as we have seen, 30,516, while in 1865 at the close of the Civil War there were only 18,139. Shut away from the large Negro populations of the South, and confronted with aggressive African Methodism among the smaller Negro population in the North calling for separation from the whites in ecclesiastical organization and government, the field of operation of the Methodist Episcopal Church was necessarily proscribed among Africa's sons and daughters. She was, however, faithful to her trust and retained her Negro membership in church and conference relations, and, as the years went by, became more and more permeated with sentiments of antagonism to slavery, both as related to the church and the nation.

To this branch of Methodism, moreover, belongs the honor of establishing the first Methodist institution of higher learning for the education of colored people. In 1855 the Cincinnati Annual Conference appointed the Rev. John F. Wright as agent "to take incipient steps for a college for colored people." In two years Wilberforce University, near Xenia, Ohio, was established, with fifty-two acres of land and large and commodious buildings. The next year the Visiting Committee of the Conference reported the school in a flourishing condition, and said: "The examinations showed conclusively that the minds of the present class of students are capable of a very high degree of cultivation." Under the presidency of Rev. R. S. Rust the school was successful until financial embarrassment compelled suspension in 1863. One reason given was the War, and the consequent difficulty of obtaining funds from the South. From the beginning, the friendly co-operation of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was encouraged and received. Fortunately the leaders of that denomination were able to assume the indebtedness which was a nominal sum as compared with the value of the property. The lands and buildings were transferred with the good wishes and prayers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, ministry, and people, and Wilberforce University became, and continues to be, the chief educational center of African Methodism in the United States.[13]

Freed from all embarrassments from connectional relations with abolition sentiment the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, prospered in its way. Her territory was rapidly extending westward and southwestward, population and wealth were increasing, and slavery being embedded in the national and state constitutions, pro-slavery sentiment prevailed without question. Her total membership from 1846 to 1861 advanced from 449,654 to 703,295. This was, in fifteen years, an increase of 162,749. Dividing this increase by races, we find that among white people the growth was from 330,710 in 1846 to 493,459 in 1861, being an increase of 162,749. During the same period the Negro membership went from 118,904 to 209,836, being an increase of 90,932. Efforts to increase the slave membership in connection with the regular charges were continued with encouraging results, and the plantation mission work among the slaves was prosecuted with gratifying success. The largest figures were reached in 1861, when there were 329 Negro missions throughout the South, with 327 missionaries and 66,559 members. It is estimated that the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, from 1844 to 1864, when freedom came, expended $1,800,000 in plantation work among the slaves.[14]

The sudden emancipation of almost 4,000,000 Negro slaves meant new and tremendous responsibilities for the loyal and philanthropic people of the Northern States. The churches and benevolent organizations of the South had all shared largely in the demoralization caused by the Civil War, and were without financial resources. Neither was it reasonable to expect that the Southern people would do for free Negroes what they had done for them when slaves, much less enter upon the absolutely necessary missionary movement, to prepare the newly enfranchised for the responsibilities incident to freedom.

For more than half a century, outside of what the general and State governments have done or attempted to do, the tide of philanthropic and Christian aid for the Negro has gone Southward, and will continue as long as needed. How many million dollars have been expended by churches, educational boards and individual philanthropists has not been computed. Neither has anyone attempted to measure the results of the work of the many consecrated men and women, who have given and are still giving their lives for the uplift of the Negro race since emancipation. The results are manifest. Already the advance of this people since freedom in morality, intellectual development and economic success has no parallel, in the same time, in the history of any other race.

The Methodist Episcopal Church and the two large branches of African Methodism were in the fore-front of this movement from the beginning. The African Methodist Episcopal Church had at first its chief increase in the South along the Atlantic Coast, especially in South Carolina and Florida. Bishop Arnett, the statistician of that denomination, estimates that 75,000 of the Negro membership of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, transferred their church relations to that denomination. The African Zion Church as a factor in the South had its beginning in North Carolina and Alabama. It is estimated that at least 25,000 of the Southern Negro members united with this branch. Both of these sections of African Methodism have continued to prosecute their work of evangelization and education throughout the South, as well as the North, and continue powerful factors in the evangelistic forces of American Methodism as related to the Negro. In 1921-22 the membership of the African Methodist Episcopal Church was 550,776; and that of the African M. E. Zion Church was 412,328.[15]

The policy of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, toward the Negro Freedmen took definite form in 1866. At the General Conference held that year at New Orleans, provision was made for the organization of its remaining Negro membership into "separate congregations and districts, and annual conferences." If the colored people should desire, and two or more Negro annual conferences be formed, a separate ecclesiastical autonomy would be granted. The reasons for the organization of this new separate Negro Methodism are given in its Book of Discipline over the signature of its first four Bishops. They say that the Southern Methodist Conference "found that, by revolution and the fortunes of war, a change had taken place in our political and social relations, which made it necessary that a like change should also be made in our ecclesiastical relations." The result was that, in 1871, the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of America was organized to be composed exclusively of Negroes, and officered entirely by members of this race. Here we have the beginning of a third large section of African Methodism. The new organization started with 80,000 members made up of nearly all who still remained in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

It would be very interesting to speculate as to the probable results, could the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, have continued its work among the Freedmen, which it had for years carried forward with such excellent results among the slaves. But it is no part of this paper to criticize or philosophize. This branch of Methodism, second in numbers and influence in the nation, with all but 30,000 of its members in the South, now has 2,239,151 members, a few of whom are Negroes.

Commencing with 1883, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, took definite and forward steps for the education of the Negro. A Board of Trustees was appointed in co-operation with the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1884, Paine Institute was founded at Augusta, Georgia, and contributions of over $90,000 have been contributed to that school. Lane College, Jackson, Tennessee, has also been aided. The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church has seven schools with an enrollment of 2,509 and an annual income of $113,830. Fifty-seven students of theology are taught in two schools and college courses are offered in several of their institutions.

We have yet to speak of the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church. When freedom came, as we have seen, this church had (1864) 18,139 Negro members principally in Maryland, Delaware and adjacent territory. The Negro membership in this branch of Methodism now (1923) in the United States is 385,444.

As the way opened during and following the Civil War to reach the masses of the South both white and Negro, the Methodist Episcopal Church extended its work of reorganization southward among both races. Her Bishops and other church officials organized missions and conferences and opened up schools. Each benevolent society of the church aided financially. The support of pastors was supplemented by the Missionary Society; the Board of Church Extension aided in building houses of worship; the Sunday School Union and Tract Society gave their co-operation, and the Freedmen's Aid and the Southern Educational Society, now the Board of Education for Negroes, and the Woman's Home Missionary Society developed the educational work. In 1864, the Negro work in Maryland, Delaware and adjacent territories was organized into the Washington and Delaware Annual Conferences. In the other border States where the Negro membership was small, the preachers with their congregations were admitted into white conferences. With unwavering and magnificent purpose for over half a century, with fraternity and co-operation for all other churches in the same field, and impelled by a conviction of duty to needy millions irrespective of race, this branch of Methodism has gone forward with its work of education and evangelization irrespective of race. The results have been very remarkable. The white membership has grown on what was slave territory from 87,804 in 1860 to 475,641 in 1922; while the Negro membership in the same territory has increased from 18,139 in 1864 to 370,477 in 1922.

Following the wishes of both races the policy of separate conferences, churches and schools has been carried out in the South. There are several strong Negro churches in white conferences in the North. The New Conference elected Dr. W. H. Brooks, one of its Negro pastors, a delegate to the General Conference in 1920. The Methodist Episcopal Church has thirty-seven annual conferences in the Southern States with properties in parsonages, churches, schools of different grades, hospitals, and the like valued at $63,495,130.00. In 1856 the property of this church of all kinds in the same territory was less than $2,000,000. Seventeen of these conferences include the work among white people, and nineteen, the work among Negroes; and each group of conferences covers the Southern States from Delaware to Texas.

The twenty annual conferences in the South among Negroes have properties in parsonages and churches valued at $19,767,430. There are also thirty-two Negro institutions of learning in these twenty conferences with enrollment of 8,868 and lands with buildings and equipment valued at $6,522,642. The outstanding professional and collegiate institutions for Negroes are Gammon Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, and colleges in several of the principal cities of the South. The total church properties named above, in Negro Methodist Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church on former slave territory, is $25,218,230.00. These conferences raised $1,500,000 during three years from 1870 to 1872 for general church work at home and in foreign fields outside of pastoral and other local church expenses.[16]

There is no separation on account of race in annual conferences, churches or schools in the Methodist Episcopal Church, except as desired and requested by those interested. As the result of many petitions and extended discussions the General Conference, which met in 1876, in Baltimore, passed a law that the annual conferences in the Southern States which had both Negro and white members could separate, provided each group voted in favor of it. Under this action with few exceptions the division was made, where desired. The same law prevails in reference to churches and schools. The nineteen Negro conferences have ninety-two delegates in the General Conference, the law-making body for the whole church. These delegates have representation in all legislation. One or more Negro ministers or laymen are on each of the general boards of the church--publication, education, missions--home and foreign, Epworth League, and the like. Nearly a score of able and effective Negro men and women are official representatives of the general church boards in their work among the Negro conferences.

Six Negroes have been elected bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Four were missionary bishops, with full episcopal authority on the continent of Africa. Of these Bishop Scott remains and is on the retired list. In their fields these bishops were not subordinate but coordinate with general superintendents. Their episcopal work was of the same type as that of William Taylor, James Thoburn, Oldham, Warne, and Hartzell, white missionary bishops in Africa and India.

The General Conference in 1920 elected Robert E. Jones and Matthew W. Clair general superintendents. The former has his episcopal residence in New Orleans and the latter in Liberia. They preside in turn at the semiannual conferences of the Board of Bishops and will preside at the General Conference in 1924.

The great mass of Negro Christians in the United States will continue to prefer churches made up of their own race. This is natural and on the whole the best for many reasons. On the other hand, the door of every church of Christ should be open for all. At present in twenty-nine white Protestant churches in the United States with a total membership of over 4,000,000, there are 579,690 Negro members. Nearly three-fourths of that membership are in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

The total Negro Methodist Church membership in the United States is 1,756,714. Of that number 1,330,409 are in the African Methodist Episcopal, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion and the Colored Methodist Episcopal Churches; 385,444 in the Methodist Episcopal Church and 41,961 in seven smaller African bodies. If we multiply the total membership by 2-1/2 we have 4,557,117, which represents, approximately, the enrolled membership and constituency of Negro Methodism in the United States.

JOSEPH C. HARTZELL.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The fact that John Wesley organized a Sunday-school in Savannah, Ga., in 1736, is recorded on a bronze tablet seen near the entrance of the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral in Savannah.

[2] _Minutes of the Methodist Conference._

[3] Matlack, _Slavery and Methodism_, 29. Coke's _Journal_, 12, 13-14.

[4] One celebrated Negro, known as "Black Harry," was Bishop Asbury's travelling companion. When for any reason the Bishop could not fill an appointment the people were pleased to hear him. Matlack, _Methodism_, 29.

[5] _Minutes of the Methodist Conference, 1832._

[6] _Ibid._

[7] Arnett, _Budget_; Woodson, _History of the Negro Church_, chapter IV.

[8] Wightman, _Life of William Capers_, 295-296.

[9] _Minutes of the Methodist Conference, 1844._

[10] _Minutes of the Methodist Conference, 1784_; McTyeire, _History of Methodism_, 28.

[11] _Minutes of the Methodist Conference, 1844._

[12] Tanner, _African Methodism_, 72.

[13] _Special Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education_, 1871, pp. 372-373.

[14] _Minutes of the Methodist Conference._

[15] The A. M. E. Church has Wilberforce University, Xenia, Ohio, with enrollment of 1,070 and an annual income of $145,000. This church has ten other schools with an enrollment of 4,448, several of which have college classes. The total annual income of all these schools is $309,820.00. There are also theological classes at several centers with total enrollment of 156.

The A. M. E. Z. Church has seven schools with an attendance of 2,128 and an annual income of $43,331.00. The leading school of this church is Livingstone College in North Carolina, with an attendance of 504 students and an annual income of $13,633.

[16] Gammon Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Ga., has seven professors, 142 students, buildings and equipment $145,000 and an endowment of $500,000. Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tenn., ranks A among medical colleges in the United States, has 43 teachers, 646 students, $350,000 in grounds and equipment and $560,000 in endowments and has graduated two thirds or more of the Negro physicians, dentists and pharmacists in the United States. Eleven colleges under the Board of Education for Negroes has 248 teachers; an enrollment of 4,326. Only a small proportion are below the eighth grade in scholarship.

NOTES ON THE SLAVE IN NOUVELLE-FRANCE

The French Canadian historian, François-Xavier Garneau, in his _Histoire du Canada_, says: "Nous croyons devoir citer ici une résolution qui honore le gouvernement français: c'est celle qu'il avait prise de ne pas encourager l'introduction des esclaves en Canada, cette colonie que Louis XIV préférait à toutes les autres à cause du caractère belliqueux de ses habitants; cette colonie qu'il voulait former à l'image de la France, couvrir d'une brave noblesse et d'une population vraiment nationale, catholique, française sans mélange de races. En 1688, il fût proposé d'y avoir des nègres pour faire la culture. Le ministère répondit qu'il craignait qu'ils n'y périssent par le changement de climat et que le projet ne fût inutile. Cela anéantit pour ainsi dire une entreprise qui aurait frappé notre société d'une grande et terrible plaie. Il est vrai que dans le siècle suivant, on étendit à la Louisiane le code noir des Antilles; il est vrai qu'il y eut ici des ordonnances sur la servitude: neanmoins l'esclavage ne régnait point en Canada: à peine y voyait-on quelques esclaves lors de la conquête. Cet événement en accrut un peu le nombre un instant; ils disparurent ensuite tout à fait."[1]

In another place speaking of the proposal of Denonville, the Governor, and De Champigny, the Intendant, at Quebec, in 1688 to introduce Negro slaves by reason of the scarcity and dearness of domestic and agricultural labor, and the refusal in 1689 of the minister to permit, Garneau says: "C'était assez pour faire échouer une entreprise, qu'aurait greffé sur notre société grande et terrible plaie paralyse la force d'une portion considerable de l'Union Americaine, l'esclavage, cette plaie inconnue sous notre ciel du Nord."[2]

This language has been considered by some--rather heedlessly be it said--to indicate that Garneau thought that Negro slavery did not exist in French Canada, but a careful examination of his actual words will show that he denied only the prevalence "l'esclavage ne régnait point en Canada," not the existence. Slavery was not so widespread in Canada as to become a curse, "a great and terrible plague," "paralyzing energy."

If there were any doubt as to the existence of Negro (and other) slavery in Canada before the British Conquest, it would be dispelled by the document printed in the latest Report of the Archivist of the Province of Quebec.[3] These are Notarial Acts (Actes notariés) preserved in the Archives at Quebec and are of undoubted authenticity; they range from September 13, 1737 to August 15, 1795, the first 14 being before the capture of Quebec in 1759, the last 3 after that event.

The first document is the sale of a Negro[4] called Nicolas by Joseph de la Tesserie, S. de la Chevrotière, ship-captain, to François Vederique of Quebec, ship-captain, for 300 livres.[5] The Negro was about 30 years of age and the Act was passed before midday, September 13, 1757.

The fourth, September 25, 1743, evidences a sale of five Negro slaves, two men and three women and girls[6] then in the house of "la dame Cachelièvre," the vendor being Charles Réaume, merchant of l'Isle Jésus near Montreal, the purchaser Louis Cureux dit Saint-Germain, for 3000 livres.

The seventh, January 27, 1748, is the sale of a Negro[7] slave called Robert, 26 to 27 years of age, by Damelle Marie-Anne Guérin, widow of Nicolas Jacquin Philibert, merchant of Quebec, to Pierre Gautier, sieur de la Veranderie, for 400 livres in cash or bills payable by the Treasurer of the Navy having currency in the country as money--the Negro to be delivered on the first demand "avec seulement les hardes qu'il se trouvera avoir lors de la livraison et trois chemises."[8]

The eighth, June 6, 1749, evidences the sale by Amable-Jean-Joseph Came, Esquire, sieur de St. Aigne, officer in the troops in Quebec (a detachment from the troops of L'Isle Royale), to Claude Pécaudy, Esquire, sieur de Contrecoeur, Captain of the troops (a detachment of the Navy) in garrison at Montreal, of a Negro woman, Louison, about 17 years old, for 1000 livres.

The tenth, May 26, 1751, gives us the sale by Jacques Damien of Quebec to Louis Dunière, Jr., of a Negro, Jean Monsaige "pour le servir en qualité d'esclave," for 500 livres. But as "le dit nègre paraissant absent du jour d'hier soir, pour par le dit ... Denière disposer du dit nègre comme chose à luy appartenant le prenant le dit ... Dunière sur ses risques, périls et fortune, sans que le dit ... Dunière puisse tenir à aucune" and it is expressly provided "le dit ... Damiens sic cède, quitte et transporte au dit ... Dunière sans aucune garantie le dit nègre pour par le dit ... Dunière en disposer ainsy qu'il avisera." What a tragedy lies underneath these words![9]

The thirteenth, May 4, 1757, is a sale by Estienne Dassier, formerly Captain in the Navy, then living "en sa maison, rue de Buade," Quebec, to Ignace-François Delzenne, merchant-goldsmith, living "en sa maison, rue de la Montagne," of a Negro, Pierre, about 18 years of age, whom the purchaser had had in his house since the previous November. The Negro is sold for 1192 livres, 600 in cash, 592 in a fortnight, whatever happens to the Negro who is now to be at the risk of Delzenne, the purchaser. The purchaser as security hypothecates all his property movable and immovable. He also expresses his knowledge of and satisfaction with the condition of the Negro.[10] On July 1, 1757, Dassier acknowledges payment of the 592 livres.

These are all sales of Negros during the French regime; there are two instances of sales of Mulattoes in this period, but there are five of the sale of Indian slaves, Panis (fem. Panise).[11]

The second act, September 14, 1737, is the sale by Hugues Jacques Péan, Seigneur of Livaudière, Chevalier of the Military Order of St. Louis, Town Major of Quebec, to Joseph Chavigny de la Chevrotière, captain and proprietor of the ship _Marie-Anne_ then in the roads of Quebec, of an Indian girl Thérèse of the Renarde Nation, about thirteen or fourteen, and not baptized.[12] The purchaser had seen her, admitted her soundness in life and limb (le connait pour être same et n'être estropiée en aucune façon) and paid 350 livres for her. The vendor was to keep the "sauvagesse" until the departure of the purchaser, not later than the end of the coming month, but not to guarantee against accident, sickness or death, binding himself only to treat her humanely and as he had been doing.

The third, October 1, 1737, gives the sale by Augustin Bailly, Cadet in the troops of the marine residing ordinarily at Saint-Michel in the Parish of Saint-Anne de Varennes, to Joseph de Chavigny de la Chevrotiètre, Sieur de la Tesserie,[13] Captain in the Navy, of an Indian (male) of the Patoqua Nation, age not given, bought by Bailly on the ninth of May preceding from Jean-Baptiste Normandin dit Beausoleil according to a contract passed before Loyseau, Notary at Montreal. The price was 350 livres, 250 in money and 100 paid with two barrels (barriques) of molasses.[14]

The ninth is the sale, September 27, 1749, by Jean-Baptiste Auger, merchant of Montreal but then in Quebec, to Joseph Chavigny, Sieur de la Tesserie, of an Indian girl (une panise) of about 22 years of age named and called Joseph for baptism, price 400 livres, Island money,[15] which the purchaser promises and agrees to send to be invested in pepper (?) and coffee for the account and at the risk of the vendor, Auger, by the first ship leaving Martinique for Canada, the pepper (?) and coffee to be addressed by the purchaser, de la Tesserie, to Voyer, a merchant at Quebec for the account of Auger. De la Tesserie hypothecates all his goods as security. The eleventh, November 4, 1751, is the sale by Jacques-François Daguille, merchant, of Montreal but then in Quebec, to Mathieu-Theodoze de Vitre, Captain in the Navy, of an Indian girl (une panise) about ten or eleven, called Fanchon but not yet baptized,[16] price 400 livres cash.

The twelfth, September 8, 1753, sale by Marie-Josephe Morisseaux, wife and agent of Gilles Strouds of Quebec, then at Nontagamion, to Louis Philippe Boutton, Captain of the Snow,[17] _Picard_, of an Indian girl (une sauvagesse panise de nation nommée Catiche) of about twenty years of age, price 700 livres payable on delivery, "with her clothes and linen as they all are."

The fifth, December 27, 1744, is a contract by Jean-Baptiste Vallée of Quebec, rue de Sault-au-Matelot, the owner of a Negro, commonly called Louis Lepage, whom Vallée certifies as belonging to him, and to be faithful and well-behaved. Vallée hires him to François de Chalet, Inspector General of the Compagnie des Indes to serve him as a sailor for the whole remaining term of de Chalet's tenure of the Ports of Cataraqui (Katarakouye, _i.e._, now Kingston, Ontario) and Niagara (on the east side of the river). The Negro is to serve as a sailor on the boats of the ports. Vallée undertakes to send him from Quebec on the first demand of de Chalet to serve him and his representative in all legitimate and proper ways, not to depart without written leave, etc. The amount to be paid to Vallée was 25 livres per month, de Chalet in addition to furnish the sailor a jug (pot) of brandy and a pound of tobacco a month, and for his food, two pounds of bread and half a pound of pork a day.[18]

The sixth act is a petition, April 27, 1747, to the Lieutenant Civil and Criminal of Quebec by Louis Parent, merchant of Quebec, asking him to direct Lamorille, Sr., and Jugon who had by judgment, April 25, 1747, been named as arbitrators, for the valuation of a Negro, named Neptune, part of the estate of the late Sieur de Beauvais, that they should proceed with their valuation--Chaussegros de Léry to be present if he wished, but if not, the two to proceed without him. A direction was given by Boucault to meet at his place the next day at 2 P. M. and a certificate by Vallet, the bailiff (huissier) to the Superior Council at Quebec, is filed that he had served Chaussegros de Léry, La Morille, Sr., and Jugon.

The first instance here recorded of sale of a slave after the Conquest by the British was November 14, 1778. This, the fourteenth document copied, evidences a sale by George Hipps, merchant butcher, living in his house, rue Sainte-Anne in Upper Town, Quebec, to the Honorable Hector-Theophile Cramahé, Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, of a mulatto slave called Isabella or Bell about fifteen years old.[19] She had been already received in Cramahé's house, and he declared himself satisfied with her. She had been the property of Captain Thomas Venture who had sold her at auction to Hipps. The price paid by Cramahé was £50 Quebec money, equal to 200 Spanish piastres; and Hipps acknowledged payment in gold and silver. Cramahé undertakes to feed, lodge, entertain, and treat the slave humanely.

The next, the fifteenth, April 20, 1779, is the sale of the same mulatto girl, Isabella or Bell, by Cramahé to Peter Napier, Captain in the Navy, then living at Quebec, with her clothes and linen for 45 livres, Quebec or Halifax money. Napier undertakes to treat the slave humanely.[20]

The sixteenth, August 15, 1795, is the first written in English, all the preceding being in French. It is dated August 15, 1795 and is sale by Mr. Dennis Dayly of Quebec, tavern-keeper, to John Young, Esquire, of the same place, merchant, of "a certain Negroe boy or lad called Rubin" for £70 Halifax currency. Dayly had bought the boy from John Cobham, of Quebec, September 6, 1786.[21]

The last, the seventeenth, is the most pleasant of all to record. John Young appeared, June 8, 1797, before Charles Stewart and A. Dumas, Notaries Public, in the former's office with the lad Rubin, and declared that he bought him from Mr. Dennis Dayly, August 15, 1795. He, as an encouragement to honesty and assiduity in Rubin, declared in the presence of the Notary, Charles Stewart, that if Rubin would faithfully serve him for seven years, he would give him his full and free liberty, and in the meantime would maintain and clothe him suitably and give him two and sixpence a month pocket money, but if he got drunk or absented himself from his service or neglected his master's business, he would forfeit all right to freedom. This was explained to Rubin, "who accepted with gratitude the generous offer." All parties, including the Notaries, signed the act, Rubin Young by his mark, so that the slave by good conduct and refraining from drunkenness would achieve his freedom, June 8, 1804.

I have discovered certain Court proceedings copied in the Canadian Archives at Ottawa,[22] which have not been made public in any way and which are of great interest in this connection. A short historical note will enable my readers to understand the proceedings more clearly.

After the Conquest of Canada, 1759-60, for a few years the country was under military rule. The three Districts of French times, Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers, were retained, each with its Governor or Lieutenant Governor. To administer justice, the officers of militia in each Parish, generally speaking, were constituted courts of first instance with an appeal to a council of the superior officers in the British Army in the city, this court having also original jurisdiction.

On July 20, 1762, a council sat, as of original jurisdiction, composed of Lieut. Col. Beckwith, Captains Falconer, Suby, Dunbar and Osbourne, to hear the plea of a poor Negro called André against a prominent merchant of Montreal, Gershon Levy. The proceedings, recorded in French, are somewhat hard to decipher after a hundred and sixty years have elapsed but well repay the labor of examination.

André asked to be accorded his liberty, claiming that Levy had bought him of one Best, but that Best had the right to his services for only four years which had now expired. Levy appeared and claimed that André could not prove his allegation, but that he (Levy) had bought him from Best in good faith and without any knowledge of the alleged limitation of the right to his services. Of course, Best could sell only the right he had and it became a simple question of fact. The court heard the parties, ordered André to remain with his alleged master until he had proved by witnesses or by certificate that he "had been bound to the said Best for four years only, after the expiry of which time he was to have his liberty."

The following year, April 20, 1763, the council sat again to hear the case. Lieut. Col. Beckwith again presided, and Captains Fraser, Dunbar, Suby and Davius sat with him. The parties were again heard and witnesses were called by André; but they were "not sufficient"--and "the Council ordered that the Decree of July 20, last, shall be executed according to its tenor; and in consequence, that the said Negro André remain in the possession of the said Levy until he has produced other evidence or has proved by baptismal extract or the official certificate of a magistrate of the place where he was born that he was free at the moment of his birth."[23] Although these courts continued until the coming into force of purely civil administration of justice, September 17, 1764, I do not find that André made another attempt to secure his liberation from the service of Le Sieur Gershon Levy, negotiant.

I am indebted to my friend, Mr. R. W. McLachlan, F. R. S. C., of the Archives of the District of Montreal, for a memorandum of the following sales of which a record exists in Montreal:

1784, December 16, James McGill of Montreal for and in the name of Thomas Curry of L'Assomption in the Province of Quebec, sold to Solomon Levy of Montreal, merchant, for £100 Quebec currency, a Negro man Caesar and a Negro woman, Flora.

1785, February 20, Hugh McAdam of Saratoga sends by his friend John Brown to James Morrison of Montreal, merchant, "a Negro woman named Sarah" to sell. "She will not drink and so far as I have seen, she is honest."[24]

1785, March 9, Morrison sells Sarah to Charles Le Pailleur, Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas, for £36.

1785, January 11, John Hammond of Saratoga, farmer, sold to Paul l'Archeveque dit La Promenade, gentleman, a mulatto boy called Dick, 6 years old, for £30 Quebec currency.[25]

1785, April 26, sale by William Ward of Newfane, County of Windham, State of Vermont, to P. William Campbell in open market at Montreal of three Negroes, Tobi (aged 26), Sarah (aged 21) and child for $425. These had been bought with another Negro, Joseph, a year older than Sarah, from Elijah Cady of Kinderhook, County of Albany, State of New York, for £250.[26]

1789, June 6, James Morrison who had sold Sarah for McAdam to Charles Le Pailleur, bought her for himself and sold her to Joseph Anderson of Montreal, gentleman, for £40.[27] The purchase from Le Pailleur is evidenced in French; it was for £36.

1790, December 23, Guillaume Labart, Seigneur, living at Terrebonne, sold to Andrew Todd, merchant of Montreal, a young panis called Jack, about 14 years of age, for £25.

1792, August 10, "Joshuah Stiles, late of Litsfield in the county of Birkshire, Massachusetts, at present in Montreal," sold to Daniel Carberry of Montreal, hair-dresser, a Negro boy named Kitts, aged 15 years, for the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars each of the value of five shillings Halifax currency.

1793, July 11, Jean Rigot, master hair-dresser, living on Boulevard St. Antoine, sold a mulatto slave boy, Pierre, aged 16, to Sir Charles Chaboille, merchant of the Upper Country (_i.e._, Niagara, Detroit, Michillimackinac), for $200 Spanish, each worth s.5 Halifax currency. Rigot had raised the boy from infancy (l'ayant élevé de bas age).

1793, July 27, William Byrne, formerly captain in the King's Royal Regiment of New York, in a letter of May 29, 1793, having promised his adopted son, Phillip Byrne, on his marriage to Mary Josephine Chêne, daughter of Charles Chêne of Detroit, to give him a Negro boy, Tanno, aged 16, and a Negro woman, Rose, aged 28, carried out his promise by Deed of Gift, July 27, 1793, but he stipulates for "half the young ones"!!

1795, December 15, François Dumoulin, merchant of the Parish of Ste. Anne, Island of Montreal, sells to Meyer Michaels, merchant of Montreal, a mulatto named Prince, aged about 18, for £50.

1796, November 22, John Turner, Sr., merchant, sold to John Brooks, a Negro man named Joegho, aged 36, for £100, Quebec currency, and a Negro woman, Rose, aged 25, for £50.

1797, August 25, Thomas Blaney (attorney for Jervis George Turner, a soldier in the 2d Batt. Royal Canadian Volunteers) and Mary Blaney, his wife, sold to Thomas John Sullivan, tavernkeeper, a Negro man named Manuel, aged about 33, for £36.[28]

1781, August 9, sale per inventory of the estate of the late Naethan Hume, "one pany boy, Patrick, sold to McCormick for £32."

Perhaps this paper may well close with the following:

1781, October 31, a Negro, named York Thomas, a freeman, indentured himself for three years to Phillip Peter Nassingh, a Lieutenant in his Majesty's 2d Battalion, New York, for and in consideration, the said Nassingh to provide the said servant with meat, drink, washing, lodging, and apparel, both linen and woolens, and all other necessaries, in sickness and in health, mete and convenient for such a servant, during the term of three years and at the expiration of the said term, shall give the said York Thomas, one new suit of apparel, above his then clothing, and £6 Halifax currency.

WILLIAM RENWICK RIDDELL

OSGOODE HALL, Toronto, Dec. 23, 1922

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Quoted by the Archivist of Quebec in the work cited (infra) at p. 109, from F. X. Garneau, _Histoire du Canada_, 4th Ed., Vol. II, p. 167. See note 2 for translation.

[2] F. X. Garneau, _Histoire du Canada_, 1st Ed., Vol. II, p. 447. Andrew Bell, _History of Canada_, Montreal, 1862 (translated from Garneau's work). Vol. I, p. 440, treats the statement of Garneau somewhat slightingly. His translation reads: "In 1689, it was proposed to introduce Negroes to the colony. The French ministry thought the climate unsuitable for such an immigration and the project was given up. Thus did Canada happily escape the terrible curse of Negro Slavery." Bell's note, pp. 440, 441, shows that he understood what the facts actually were.

The translation of the two passages follows:

"We think we should mention here a determination which is honorable to the French Government. It is the resolve not to encourage the introduction of slaves into Canada, the colony which Louis XIV preferred to all the others by reason of the warlike character of its inhabitants--the colony which he wished to make in the image of France, to fill with a brave noblesse and a population truly national, Catholic, French, without an admixture of foreign races. In 1688, it was proposed to have Negroes there as farm laborers: the minister replied that he feared that they would die there by the change of climate, and that the project would be futile. That, so to speak, destroyed forever an enterprise which would have struck our society with a great, and terrible plague. It is true that in the succeeding century, the _Code Noir_ of the Antilles was extended into Louisiana, it is true that there were ordinances as to slavery there; but, nevertheless, slavery did not prevail in Canada. There were scarcely any slaves at the time of the conquest. That event increased the number of them a little; they later disappeared entirely."

"That was sufficient to wreck a scheme which would have engrafted in our society that great and terrible plague which paralyzes the energies of so considerable a part of the American Union, slavery, that plague unknown under our northern sky."

It will be seen that Garneau does not say or suggest that slavery was entirely unknown in French Canada, but only that it did not "reign" (ne régnait point), _i.e._, was not prevalent; that while there were a few sporadic cases, the disease was not endemic, and it did not become a plague.

For the proposal of 1688-9, see my _The Slave in Canada_, pp. 1, 2 and notes (JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY, Vol. V, No. 3, July 1920, and published separately by The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History Washington, 1920).

[3] _Rapport de L'Archiviste de la Province de Quebec pour 1921-1922_ ... Ls--A. Proulx Imprimeur de Sa Majeste le Roi /1922: large 8 vo., pp. 452. This Report is well printed on good paper, with excellent arrangement and faultless proof reading; both in form and in matter it is a credit to the able and learned Archivist, M. Pierre-Georges Roy, Litt.D., F. R. S. Can., and to the Government of Quebec. To anyone with a knowledge of French, the publications of this Department are of inestimable value on the early history of that part of Canada.

[4] "Le nommé Nicolas, neigre de nation" was present with vendor and purchaser before the Notaries, Boisseau and Barolet, in the office of the latter at Quebec. The Vendor says that he had acquired the Negro from Sieur de St. Ignace de Vincelotte.

[5] From the official Report of General James Murray, Governor of Quebec, to the Home Government June 5, 1762, it appears that he considered the livre worth 2 shillings sterling, about 48 cents.

General Murray's Report will be found in Drs. Shortt and Doughty's _Documents relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1759-1791_, Ottawa, 1918 (2d. Edit.), pp. 47-81. It is, however, quite clear that the evaluation is too high. The livre was the old French monetary unit which was displaced by the franc. In the first ordinance passed by the civil government at Quebec, the ordinance of September 14, 1764, the value of a French crown or six livre piece was fixed at 6/8, making the livre 13-1/3 pence sterling (about 26 cents). The Ordinance of March 29, 1777, 17 George 3, c. IX, made the "french crown or piece of six livres _tournois_" worth 5/6; and the same value was assigned to it in Upper Canada by the Act (1796) 36 George 3, c. I, s. 1 (U. C.)--the livre was worth not far from 20 cents of our present money. This was the livre tournois. The livre of Paris was also in use until 1667 and was worth a quarter more than the livre tournois.

[6] "Cinq neigres esclaves dont deux hommes et trois femmes et filles"--names and ages not given; but the slaves are identified by the statement that the purchaser had seen them "chez la dame Cachelièvre." The witnesses were Louis Lambert and Nicolas Bellevue of Quebec and the Notary was Pinguet. The vendor, Réaume, signed but the purchaser St. Germain did not, "ayant déclaré ne sçavoir écrire ni signer."

[7] "Negre esclave"--the spelling vacillates between "neigre," "negre," and "nègre." I have not found the first form in French literature; the word comes from the mediaeval "Niger." See Du Cange, _sub voc._ The word no doubt had the usual variations; modern French has only the last form, _i.e._, nègre. My French Canadian friends cannot help me as to the spelling; but they tell me of a French Canadian saying "Un plan de negre" meaning "Un plan qui n'a ni queue ni tête," but this is probably only jealousy.

[8] "With only the clothes he stands in at the time of delivery and three shirts." "Shirt" has no gender in French.

[9] Dunière receives the right to dispose of the Negro, Jean Monsaige, as his own property, but Damien does not undertake delivery: The slave being absent since the previous evening (perhaps like Eliza knowing of a proposed sale), Dunière takes all the risk of obtaining him without recourse to anyone in case of failure; and Damien sells him without any warranty. This and the fifth are the only instances, until the seventeenth, of a Negro having a family name. The notaries are Barolet and Panet.

[10] The purchaser undertakes all risks, the price remains payable in any event. "Laquelle somme demeure acquise au d. s. Dassier par convention expresse quelque événement qui puisse arriver au d. neigre d'en cy-devant aux risques et perils du d. s. Delzenne."

[11] As to Panis, Panise, see _The Slave in Canada_, p. 2 and note 4. The name Pani or Panis, anglicized into Pawnee, was used generally in Canada as synonymous with "Indian Slave" because the slaves were usually taken from the Pawnee tribe. It is held by some that the Panis were a tribe wholly distinct from the tribe known among the English as Pawnees, _e.g._, Drake's _History of the Indians of North America_.

[12] We are told, Littré, _Dictionnaire de la Langue Française_, 4to, Paris, 1869, _Sub voc._ Nègre: "Louis XIII se fit une peine extrême de la loi qui rendait esclaves les nègres de ses colonies; mais quand on lui eut bien mis dans l'esprit que c'était la voie la plus sûre pour les convertir, il y consentit." (Montesquieu Esp. des Lois, XV, 4) "Louis XIII was much troubled concerning the law which made slaves of the Negroes in his Colonies; but when he had become impressed with the view that that was the surest way to convert them, he consented to the law,"--the ever recurring excuse for the violation of natural right.

There was much discussion whether it was lawful to hold a fellow Christian in slavery; and it was a distinct advantage that a slave was not baptized. In 1781, the Legislature of the Province of Prince Edward Island passed an Act, 21 George 3, c. 15, expressly declaring that baptism of slaves should not exempt them from bondage. The notaries in the present case were Pinguet and Boisseau and the act was passed in the latter's office.

[13] The purchaser here is the vendor Joseph de la Tesserie, Sieur de la Chevrotière, of the first transaction--he is also the purchaser in No. 9 _post._

[14] The notaries were Pinguet and Boisseau and the act was passed in the latter's office.

[15] "Argent des Iles," West-Indian currency to be invested in Martinique. The notaries were Barolet and Panet and the act was passed in the latter's office.

[16] See note 12 supra: The notaries were Barolet and Panet and the act was passed in the latter's office.

[17] French "senaut," English "snow," a sort of vessel with two masts. The notaries were Sanguinet and Du Laurent; the act was passed in the latter's office.

[18] The notary was Barolet who signed the act as did Vallée, De Chalet, and two witnesses, Charles Prieur, Perruquier, and Jean Liquart, merchant.

[19] "L'esclave et mulatre nommée Isabella ou Bell, fille, âgée d'environ quinze ans, avec les hardes et linges à son usage." She is to obey her new master and render him faithful service. The price is expressed as "cinquante livres monnaye du cours actuel de Quebec, égale à deux cents piastres d'Espagne"--Fifty pounds Quebec currency equal to two hundred Spanish dollars. The word "livre" was in English times used for "pound." The pound in Quebec or Halifax currency was in practice about nine-tenths the value of the pound sterling.

The Ordinance of September 14, 1764, made one British shilling equal to 1s. 4d. Quebec currency, _i.e._, the Quebec shilling was 3/4 of an English shilling; the Ordinance of May 15, 1765, confirmed their valuation, making 18 British half-pence and 36 British farthings one Quebec shilling, but the Ordinance of March 29, 1777, made the British shilling only 1/1 and the British crown 5/6.

"The Seville, Mexico and Pillar Dollar" was by the Quebec Ordinance of December 14, 1764, made equal to 6/ of Quebec currency or 4/6 sterling; the Ordinance of March 29, 1777, equates "the Spanish Dollar" to 5/ Quebec currency (which was then substantially nine-tenths the value of sterling), _i.e._, 4/6 sterling; the Upper Canadian Act of 1796 equated "the Spanish milled dollar" to 5/ Provincial currency or 4/6 sterling.

The notaries in the case were Berthelot Dartigny and A. Panet, Jr.; the act was passed in Cramahé's house, rue St-Louis.

[20] The same notaries appeared and the act was passed in the same place.

[21] The notaries are A. Dumas and Charles Stewart; the act was passed in the latter's office.

[22] See the latest Report of the Archives of Canada.

The Ordinance of General James Murray establishing Military Courts in Quebec and its vicinity will be found printed in Shortt and Doughty's _Documents relating to the Constitution of Canada_, pp. 42, 44. General Gage's Ordinance established them in the District of Montreal will be found in the publication of the Archives of Canada. _Le Règne Militaire._

[23] It is to be observed that it was considered that _prima facie_ the Negro was a slave. The same rule was applied in many states (Cobb, _Law of Negro Slavery_, pp. 253 sqq.), unless the alleged slave had been in the enjoyment of freedom; but Chief Justice Strange of Nova Scotia and his successor Salter Sampson Blowers by throwing the onus upon the master did much toward the abolition of slavery in that province. See _The Slave in Canada_, pp. 105-108.

[24] I here copy the letter, _verbatim et literatum_, a delightful literary effort.

SARATOGA 20 Feby 1785. _Dr Sir_,

I send by John Brown a Negro woman Named Sarah my Right & Lawful property--which you will Pleas Dispose of with the advis of your friends.--I have Wrote Mr Thomson on the same subjet--she has no fault to my knolage She will not Drink and so fare as I have seen she is honest--many many upertunitys she has had to have shown her Dishonesty had she been so in Clined ... I am sory to give you the troble--She cost me sixty five pounds should not Lick to sell her under.--Should you not be able to get Cash you may sell her for furrs of any Kind you think will sutt our market and send them down by the Return sladges; any trobl you my be at shall Pay for these. I am Dr. Sir. Your as hurede frind &c: HUGH MCADAM

Mr. Morrison mercht. Montreal.

As to a subsequent disposition of Sarah, see sale of June 6, 1789.

[25] It is possibly the same mulatto boy, Dick, the subject of the following Bill of Sale:

THUSBERRY octrs 19. 1785.

Know all men By these presents that I William Gillchres in the County of Rutland and State of Vermount, Yoeman for and in consideration of twenty pound Law Money to you in hand paid by Joseph Barrey of Richmond in the County of Cheshier in State of New Hampshier yeoman whereof I acknoledg the receipt and barggained and sold one molate Boy six years old naimed Dick to him the said Joseph Barney and his heirs for ever, to have and to hold the said molater boy, I said William Gillchres who for myself and my heirs promise for ever to warrant socure and defend said promise against the lawful claims or demand of any person or persons in which I have set my hand, hereunto, and seal this nineteenth day of October one thousand seven hundred and eighty-six, in the eleventh year of endipendency.

(Signed) WILLIAM GILLCHRES

Signed, sealed in the presence of us (Signed) ELISHA FULLAN LUCY YEOMANS

On the back of this document were written thus the following words:

Novemer ye 15, 1786 Recevd the contents of the within bill by me Joseph Barrey 29 Nover 1786. Witness) Martin McEvoy present) John Carven Gillchress Bill of Morlato Boy nd. Dick Gun

[26] I assume New York Currency, in which case the pound was 20 York shillings or $2.50.

[27] 1787, January 10, George Brown and Sarah a Negress were married by Cave--it was probably the same Sarah.

[28] While this was in fact and in law a sale, the transaction was far more than a mere transfer of property: The Notary John Abraham Gray has the Notarial Act No. 74 which shows that Manuel, the negro man voluntarily engaged as servant, to Thomas Sullivan, under the usual conditions of servitude, for five years, at the end of which term, the said Manuel, if he should faithfully carry out his said engagement was to be emancipated and set at liberty according to due form of law, otherwise he was to remain the property of the said Sullivan.

A Notarial Act now in the possession of the Historical Society, Chicago, dated at Montreal, August 15, 1731, passed before the Notary Charles Benoit et St. Désiez, evidences the sale by Louis Chappeau to Sieur Pierre Guy, merchant, both of Montreal, of an Indian lad of the Patoka nation, aged about 10 or 12 years, for 200 livres paid in beaver and other skins. See _Report of Canadian Archives_, 1905, vol. 1, lxix.

It may be of interest to note that on pp. 476, 477 of the same report is copied a memorial (October 29, 1768) of the inhabitants and merchants of Louisiana in which they complain, _inter alia_, of D'Ulloa the Spanish Governor of Louisiana (1766-8) forbidding "the importation of negroes to the colony under the pretext that this competition would hurt an English merchant of Jamaica who had sent a vessel to D'Ulloa to confirm the contract for the importation of slaves. In creating this monopoly, he had robbed his new subjects of the means of procuring slaves cheaply...."

DOCUMENTS

BANISHMENT OF THE PEOPLE OF COLOUR FROM CINCINNATI

Prof. T. G. Steward of Wilberforce University directs attention to the following from _The Friend_ which carries an important document bearing on the Free Negroes of Ohio:

In the course of the present year, a law of this state has been brought into view, by the trustees of Cincinnati township, requiring people of colour to give bond and security not to become chargeable to the public, and for their good behaviour--also imposing a fine on those who may employ them. This law was passed upwards of twenty years ago, and I believe has remained inoperative, or nearly so, to the present year. In order that the effects and bearing of the law may be correctly understood, I subjoin the proclamation or notice by the trustees.

_To the Public_

The undersigned, trustees and overseers of the poor, of the township of Cincinnati hereby give notice, that the duties required of them, by the act of the general assembly of Ohio, entitled _An Act to Regulate Black and Mulatto Persons_, and the act amendatory thereto, will be rigidly enforced, and all black and mulatto persons, now residents of said Cincinnati township, and who emigrated to, and settled within the township of Cincinnati, without complying with the requisitions of the first section of the amended act, aforesaid, are informed, that unless they enter into bonds as the said act directs, within thirty days from this date, they may expect at the expiration of that time, the law to be rigidly enforced.

And the undersigned would further insert herein, for the information of the citizens of Cincinnati township, the third section of the amendatory act aforesaid, as follows: That if any person being a resident of this state, shall employ, harbour, or conceal any such negro or mulatto person aforesaid, contrary to the provision of the first section of this act, any person so offending, shall forfeit and pay for such an offence, any sum not exceeding one hundred dollars, one half to the informer, and the other half for the use of the poor of the township, in which such person may reside, to be recovered by action of debt before any court having competent jurisdiction, and moreover to be liable for the maintenance and support of such negro or mulatto, provided he, she, or they shall become unable to support themselves. The co-operation of the public is expected in carrying these laws into full effect.

WILLIAM MILLS, BENJAMIN HOPKINS, GEORGE LEE, Trustees of Cincinnati Township.

COMMENT

When this proclamation was issued, there were upwards of 2,000 people of colour, residing in this city, and nearly all obnoxious to the operations of the law; many of them had resided here for a considerable time, and were comfortably situated--they became unsettled and deprived of employment by this act of banishment and proscription, and much suffering and distress ensued. They deputed two of their number to select and provide a place for them to remove to, who procured a tract of land in Canada. In the meantime some of them commenced making preparations to leave the country, and as the time was very short which the trustees allowed them, they had to incur great losses in disposing of their property, selling for twenty dollars, what cost one hundred dollars. When the thirty days expired, and it was ascertained all did not, or could not comply with the requisitions of the trustees, mobs assailed them at different times, stoning their houses and destroying their property; in the progress of these disgraceful transactions one white man was killed and others wounded.

It is thought about five hundred have gone to Canada, many of these with means exceedingly limited to provide necessaries in a wilderness country, and encounter the rigours of a northern winter; one of their agents, a coloured man, informed me of an instance where twenty-eight persons had set out with a sum not exceeding twenty-five dollars. I confess my mind has been impressed with fearful apprehensions that they will greatly suffer or perish with hunger and cold! Some of them view this act of banishment with so much horror, they have told me the white people had better take them out in the commons and shoot them down, than send them to Canada to perish with hunger and cold!

_The Friend_, Nov. 28, 1829.

FIRST PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES

Prof. Steward invites attention also to the following extract from _The Friend_ published in Philadelphia April 1831, said to be the first document against slavery published in this country:

"At a General Court held at Warwick the 16th. of May 1657.

"Whereas there is a common course practiced among Englishmen, to buy negroes to that end that they may have them for service or as slaves forever; for the the preventing of such practices among us, let it be ordered, that no black mankind or white being, shall be forced by covenant, bond or otherwise, to serve any man or his assigns longer than ten years, or until they come to be twenty-four years of age, if they be taken in under fourteen, from the time of their coming within the liberties of this Colony--at the end or term of ten years to set them free as the manner is with the English servants. And that man that will not let them go free, or shall sell them away elsewhere, to that end they may be enslaved to others for a longer time, he or they shall forfeit to the Colony forty pounds."

The court that enacted this law was composed as follows: John Smith, President; Thomas Olney, General Assistant, from Providence; Samuel Gorton from Warwick; John Green, General Recorder; Randal Holden, Treasurer; Hugh Bewett, General Sergeant.

_The Friend_, April, 1831.

A NEGRO PIONEER IN THE WEST

Mr. Monroe N. Work invites attention to the fact that in an issue of December 23d, 1920, the _Advertiser Journal_ of Kent, Washington, ran the following story:

"The best and largest yield of wheat ever exhibited," grown in western Washington. It sounds like a real estate folder. And yet at the World's Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876, W. O. Bush, son of George Bush, one of the first settlers on Puget Sound, won the gold premium for wheat he grew on Bush Prairie, just south of Olympia; to this day the wheat is preserved in the Smithsonian Institute.

This record of great wheat yield is a part of the history of one of the families that came to the Northwest and had that quality that made them successful here. George Bush was the first colored man to come to this part of the country, the forerunner of the large number of useful citizens of his race who have followed with the increasing population. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1814, and with his wife from Tennessee started west in 1844.

Before coming west with his family, Bush had made a trip to this country with a number of companions, coming north along the coast from the Mexican border and suffering from the innumerable hardships of the trail, hunger and Indians. He must have liked the prospects, for it was only a short time later that we find him again headed in this direction in company with a number of other hardy pioneers.

The character that made him face the privations of immigration ingratiated him with his companions. There was an unwritten law in Oregon at that time that no colored people should be allowed to settle in that territory. When the group of which Bush was a member approached the Columbia river country and learned of the rule it was decided that if any one attempted to molest Bush all of the members of the company would fight to protect him.

The practice in Oregon was to whip the colored man and if he left after the whipping it was all right and nothing further was done, but if he did not take advantage of the opportunity to escape he was whipped again and again until he either left or died.

There is not any record of an attempt being made to molest Bush, who, with his companions, stayed at the Dalles for several months and later at Washougal at the mouth of the Cowlitz. The following year--1845--they came on to Puget Sound and settled at the head of Budds Inlet at the falls of the DesChutes and founded the town of New Market, now Tumwater.

Those who made up this party were Michael T. Simmons, James McAllister, David Kindred, Gabriel Jones and Bush. The latter decided not to settle right in Tumwater and went back onto the prairie land about four miles and took up a donation claim of 640 acres. It was on that claim that the prize wheat was grown by his oldest son thirty-two years later. There on that claim Bush died in 1863, while the great war for the freedom of his race was being waged. His widow followed him two years later.

Of their six sons, the state has heard a great deal. The eldest, W. O. Bush, was born before the couple left Missouri on their way west, and got the hard training of the pioneer. He took to farming and that he worked the prairie land where his father had settled for all it was worth is shown by the crop he took to Philadelphia. The soil of that section is a black sandy loam on a gravel base. The soil is not too thick in some parts and has a tendency to drain, particularly during the hot, dry summer.

Shortly after the formation of the state Bush was elected a member of the legislature and served two terms during 1890 and 1892. His record in the law-making body was an honorable one and that he was highly respected by the people of Thurston county was shown when they sent him to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 to look after the county's agricultural exhibit.

CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF WILBERFORCE

While at Tuskegee Institute in 1914 Mrs. Emma Castleman Bowles, who has since died, related this account of the origin of Wilberforce. This story does not agree with the account given in Bishop D. A. Payne's _African Methodist Episcopal Church_ (423 ff.). The value of the document lies mainly in the light which it throws upon the relations between wealthy slaveholders and their children of slave women. There must be much truth in the narrative, for Payne's sketch says that in 1859-60 a majority of the 207 students enrolled "are the natural children of Southern and Southwestern planters." The _Special Report of the United States Commissioner of Education_, published in 1871 (372-373), supports this statement. Mrs. Bowles' story follows:

Mrs. Emma Castleman Bowles said her father was Stephen S. Castleman, a slave holder who lived on the Yazoo River, about 150 miles from Vicksburg. He owned the Ashland plantation. She was born June 3, 1845. Her mother was a half sister of her father's wife. When Castleman married, her mother was sent to wait on her mistress. Castleman lived with both women. Castleman had two children by his wife and five by his concubine. He hired a white woman to teach Emma. This woman was paid $500 a year. Mrs. Bowles said she was not taught anything, not even to read. She spent her time playing with her half-brother and riding a pony which her father had bought for her.

In March 1858, Castleman sent his daughter Emma to Cincinnati by his brother-in-law, her half uncle, O. Leroy Ross. Here, she was emancipated and acknowledged as Castleman's daughter. Ross then brought her to Wilberforce and placed her in school.

Tawawa Springs was a summer resort for Southern slave holders. The Springs were medicinal. The Hotel Tawawa had 350 rooms, extensive grounds, elaborate water works for fountains, etc. There were several cottages on either side of the hotel. Slave holders would bring their families and slaves and live either in the hotel or in the cottages. A law was passed in Ohio forbidding the bringing of slaves into the State. Then white help and free Negro servants were used. The place declined financially and was finally sold for debt. Several planters banded together bought the place and turned it into a school for their illegitimate children by Negro women. Stephen S. Castleman was one of these men. Mrs. Bowles said this was done about 1856 or 1857.[2]

There were about nine teachers, all Yankees. The first principal was Rev. M. P. Gaddis. Richard Rust was the first President. The students, with a few exceptions, were children of slave holders.

Money was deposited in Cincinnati banks for the use of the children. President Rust was given power to draw on banks as the children needed money.

The following were named as among the slave owners who brought their children to the school. A planter named Mosley from Warren, Miss., brought seven children by three different mothers and freed them. Senator Hemphill of Virginia brought two daughters and emancipated them. A planter by the name of Smith brought eight children from Mississippi with their mother about 1859. He had a slave man and woman to wait on them. He was arrested and made to emancipate them. He bought a large tract of land for them. A brick house he built was later owned by Colonel Charles Young. The woman had lived with Smith under compulsion, and as soon as she was emancipated would have nothing more to do with him. Mrs. Bowles said that she went to school with these children and often visited the family. She had seen the mother strip herself to the waist and show how her back had been mutilated to make her submit to her master's wishes. A man named Piper came and brought 10 children and their mother. She was jet black. After the war he married her and settled in Darke County, Ohio.

General T. C. McMackin, a hotel owner of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was appointed by Castleman as his daughter's guardian. She said that she got in a fight with another school girl and was put on bread and water. She wrote her father. He had McMackin come to Wilberforce and adjust the matter. Her father, and she said the fathers generally, lavished money on their children. She had a box that held fifty silver dollars. This her father kept full of silver dollars for her to buy candy with.

Abolition was preached constantly in the school. She came to hate slavery. She had seen great cruelties inflicted on her mother and other slaves. Her mother took up with a slave man. Emma was a child, sleeping in the room. Many a night her father would come and curse the slave and compel him to leave the cabin. Then he would whip him and her mother. Whipping was on bare back from 39 to 300 lashes. Slave stripped naked and hands and feet tied to stakes driven into the ground. Stocks were also used. The lash and the stocks were both used on her mother's slave husband. They were put in the stocks at night and whipped night and morning.

Mrs. Bowles was courted in school by a class-mate, named George W. Harding, whose father was a large slave holder in Tennessee. President Rust tried to break it up. He wrote her father. Castleman wrote his daughter that he did not send her North to waste her time with a nigger. If she did not stop he would come and get her, cow hide her and bring her home and put her in the cotton field. She replied that "if her mother was good enough for him to sleep with, that a nigger was good enough for her to marry." She married Harding March 5, 1862. He had received considerable wealth from his father. When they married he had $55,000,[3] and later inherited $80,000 from his mother.

The war stopped communications with the South. As soon as the war closed, Castleman wrote to find out about his daughter and learned that she was married and the mother of two children. He wrote to her to come home and leave her niggers. If she didn't she would not get any of his property. She wrote him that he had beaten her mother and made her bear five children out of wedlock and that she would not forsake her husband and her lawfully born children.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] The school began in 1855.

[3] Harding squandered his property and died a pauper. Mrs. Harding then married another student of Wilberforce, A. J. Bowles.

COMMUNICATIONS

Mr. John W. Cromwell has addressed the Editor the following letter which may interest persons directing their attention to the record of the Negro in West Virginia:

_Dear Sir_:

While reading your _Negro Education in West Virginia_ I was reminded of my acquaintances in that State, and I thought of the striking contrast between the West Virginia of 1877 and that of 1923.

On invitation of Prof. Brackett, President of Storer College, I attended a Teachers' Institute and Educational Convention, held at Harper's Ferry, in 1877. There I first saw a gathering of young teachers, vigorous and alert, none more chivalric in bearing than the central figure in the person of John R. Clifford, at that time Principal of the Grammar School at Martinsburg. To me it was quite a contrast from dealing with the civil service of the Treasury Department at Washington on the one hand, and my experience with the young men there a few years before as I had beheld them in central Pennsylvania.

The bearing of the men was more than matched by the excellence of the women. Outstanding at the time was a young woman whom I could not at first determine whether I should rate her as a young pupil in one of the classes or one of the faculty. I soon found that she was a student teacher, also an elocutionist of grace, skill and power. So impressed was I that Storer College thenceforth was a regular place of visit during commencement season, and I soon found myself on its trustee board.

During one of these commencements, Frederick Douglass was booked to speak on John Brown; but Andrew Hunter, the prosecuting attorney who convicted John Brown, came to Harper's Ferry, and declared that Frederick Douglass should not speak in Jefferson county, where Brown was convicted and hung. He also said: "If Douglass dares to come here, I'll meet him, denounce him, and crush him!" Douglass came; so did Hunter. At the proper time, Douglass was escorted to the rostrum, and without invitation Hunter followed and took a seat close to Douglass, the master of American orators, who spoke as I never heard him before; and when through started to his seat. Hunter interrupted him, arose, and advanced toward Douglass with outstretched hand and exclaimed: "Let us shake hands," and while so doing, said: "Were Robert E. Lee here, he would shake the other," and pausing a few seconds, with all the power of his nature he said: "Let us go on!" to which Douglass replied: "IN UNION TOGETHER!" And everybody on the campus shouted--making the occasion one of dramatic as well as historic interest.

As editor of _The People's Advocate_, of Washington, D. C, the incident was sketched in bold and striking outlines for the country, and was read eagerly. It also forms an incident of one of the chapters of _The "Life and Times" of Frederick Douglass_.

In 1882, the Knights of Wise Men, with headquarters at Nashville, Tennessee, held their convention at Atlanta, Georgia. Thither went such representatives of the day as William J. Simmons, of Kentucky; Frances L. Cardozo, of Washington, D. C.; Bishop Henry M. Turner, of Georgia; Richard Gleaves, of South Carolina; John R. Lynch, of Mississippi; Robert Peel Brooks, of Virginia; Prof. J. C. Corbin, of Arkansas, and many other distinguished men interested in the order.

John R. Clifford, of Martinsburg, West Virginia, was one of the party and a most distinguished orator was he, whose masterly oration delivered in the State Capital of Georgia, with Governor Colquitt, and other state officials, was a fitting setting for the presentation of a beautiful gold-headed cane, with the convention's and his initials carved on it. Robert Peel Brooks was chosen by the delegates to present the gift.

The career of Mr. Clifford for twenty years' work as a teacher, brought him to the forefront, and he was appointed by three different W. Va. State Superintendents to hold and conduct Teachers' Institutes. Mr. Clifford holds a life-time teacher's certificate in honor of this distinguished service. He was the first colored man in West Virginia to be admitted to the bar in the early eighties. He became editor of the _Pioneer Press_ in 1882 at Martinsburg, and ran it regularly for thirty-six years, being honored with the deanship of Negro journalism a short time before the _Pioneer Press_ ceased to exist.

Mr. Clifford, single-handed and alone, filed charges against Prof. N. C. Brackett, head of Storer College, killed and wiped out Brackett's drawn color line, that barred colored people from going there as had been their privilege. He was the only colored editor in West Virginia who was a member of the State Editorial Association for twenty years, and was chosen the last year as its historian.

While defending a client sometime ago, a United States Commissioner and Mr. Clifford got into a controversy over some witnesses he wanted summoned, and it was kept up until the Commissioner demanded that he stop and go on, or he would put Clifford in jail. Undaunted he continued and gave the Commissioner to understand that just as long as he refused to summon the witnesses, he would contend for it; whereupon the Commissioner had him put in jail, where he remained for an hour and twenty-two minutes. Getting out he asked for his client, who had been tried and jailed. He was brought back. Clifford went his bond, sent him home, preferred charges against T. T. Lemen, United States Commissioner, and W. D. Brown, United States Marshal. Clifford went to the Department of Justice in Washington, D. C. proved his charges and had both put out of office and his client was set free.

He was appointed, by Senator B. K. Bruce and Frederick Douglass, Commissioner for the state of West Virginia to the New Orleans Exposition. He was elected three times President of the National Independent Political League, was chosen Principal of the Manassas Industrial School, where he and Frederick Douglass spoke on the occasion of his inauguration. He resigned because of his contention for better water.

He was the first man to impanel a colored jury in the state of West Virginia, and for so doing, was knocked down in the court room three times with deadly weights, causing the blood to run down into his shoes. When knocked down the third time, U. S. G. Pitzer, a Republican (?) prosecuting attorney, sprang on him, but with apparent superhuman skill and force, Clifford turned him at a time when there was not a soul in the court room (everybody having run out) but Pitzer & Clifford, with the latter on top, and had not Stephen Elam rushed in and pulled Clifford off of Pitzer and carried him out, death might have been the result,--Elam is still living. Later Pitzer was nominated for the Legislature, and Clifford canvassed Berkeley County on his bicycle exhibiting his bloody shirt (which he still has) and the day before the election Clifford spoke in the band-stand in the Public Square for an hour and thirty minutes, waving his bloody shirt and the following day Pitzer was defeated by 1336 votes.

He is a 33° Mason and a Past Grand Master of W. Va.; member of the American Negro Academy, and helped to shoot off the shackles from four million slaves and cement this Union on the bloody battle fields during the war of the sixties and holds an honorable discharge in proof of it.

He gives credit to the late Hon. John J. Healy of Chicago, Ill., for his early education thru the public schools of Chicago. He attended and graduated from Storer College 1875, and holds an honorary diploma from Shaw University.

JOHN W. CROMWELL.

* * * * *

Mr. Monroe N. Work, who has spent some time establishing the official roster of Negroes who served in State conventions and legislatures, has turned over for publication the following letters giving the record of Peter G. Morgan, a prominent citizen of Virginia:

MR. MONROE N. WORK, Editor _Negro Year Book_, Tuskegee Institute, Ala.

_My dear Mr. Work_:

I am extremely sorry that many pressing duties have prevented me from letting you have the information asked for in your letter under date of September 1st, bearing upon the late Peter George Morgan of Petersburg, Virginia.

I gathered from the information in possession of his sons, that he, (Peter G. Morgan) was in his day one of the most prominent colored men in the city of Petersburg. He was a carpenter by trade and followed said trade for a number of years. Later he acquired the knowledge of shoe making and became a first class shoemaker, which trade he also followed for a number of years before the Civil War. He was twice sold as a slave, and he purchased himself at $1,500 and completed the payment on the fourth of July, 1854 at the White Sulphur Springs, his master being part owner of the Springs at that time. Later on he purchased his wife, paying $1,500 for her and two small children in 1858, thereby himself becoming a slave holder. He removed to Petersburg in 1863 and continued to work at his trade as shoemaker. Meanwhile he made use of every possible opportunity to increase his knowledge of books, although he had no opportunity to attend any school. In this way he became a fairly well educated man, certainly ahead of many at that time, and at the close of the Civil War was able to train his own children and the children of his neighbors. He served in the Constitutional Convention of the State of Virginia in 1867, this latter date was given me this week by a gentleman in Richmond, who served as page in the Legislature of Virginia fifty years ago. I am enclosing a clipping which was passed into my hands a few weeks ago, which contains some of the names of those who served in this particular convention.[1]

It has occurred to me that the Rev. Dr. Bragg, of Baltimore, Maryland also served as page some time, later and perhaps he would be able to assist me in supplying correct data, provided errors are made in the dates in this correspondence.

Mr. Morgan served in the Legislature of Virginia two terms, 1869-1871, and 1871-1872.

Now, my dear Mr. Work if additional information is desired, bearing upon the late Peter George Morgan, please do not hesitate to command my services, and I shall be very glad to do my best to assist you.

With kind regards and best wishes, believe me,

Very sincerely yours, Signed: JAMES S. RUSSELL, _Principal_.

ST. PAUL NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL

LAWRENCEVILLE, VIRGINIA, October 23, 1920.

MR. MONROE N. WORK, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.

_My dear Mr. Work_:

Your very kind letter of the 18th instant has been received and contents carefully noted. I have delayed replying to your letter that I might secure definite information from the Register of the General Assembly of Virginia. My letter to you contained information from the memory of my brother-in-law and another aged gentleman, with whom I conferred regarding the information you had asked me to supply. I have just secured first hand information which contains practically the same information as given in my letter, still it comes with authority. You will note please the slight correction to be made in reference to the years he served in the Legislature of Virginia.

You have my full permission to use the matter in any way you see fit, making the slight correction in the dates the Hon. Peter G. Morgan served in the Legislature.

With kind regards and best wishes, believe me,

Sincerely yours, Signed: JAMES S. RUSSELL, _Principal_.

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA GOVERNOR'S OFFICE RICHMOND

October 22, 1920.

DR. JAMES S. RUSSELL, Archdeacon, St. Paul Normal and Industrial School, Lawrenceville, Virginia.

_My dear Dr. Russell_:

The Register of the General Assembly of Virginia, on p. 409, carries the information that Peter G. Morgan of Petersburg, was a member of the Convention of 1867-1868; was a member of the House of Delegates of Virginia at the session of 1869-70, and in 1870-71.

I hope that this is the information you desire.

Yours very truly, Signed: LEROY HODGES, _Aide to the Governor_.

THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO

Captain A. B. Spingarn has supplied the following valuable information given in these extracts from the laws of the State of New York:

May 10th, 1923.

DR. CARTER G. WOODSON, Journal of Negro History, 1216 You Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.

_My dear Dr. Woodson_:

The following extracts from the Session Laws of the State of New York for 1826 and 1832 may be of interest. I did not see mention of the latter one in your invaluable, _The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861_.

"CHAP. 145 of Laws of 1826.

AN ACT _to provide for the colored Persons who are occupants of Lots in New Stockbridge_. Passed April 11, 1826.

1. BE _it enacted by the People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly_, That it shall and may be lawful for the commissioners of the land-office to cause letters patent to be issued to the persons respectively, who have been reported by the appraisers of lands in New Stockbridge, as colored persons, for the lots set to their names as occupants, in the same manner as grants of land are authorized to be made to those who have been so reported, as white persons persons settled on said land: _Provided_ ..."

"CHAP. 136 of Laws of 1832.

AN ACT _to constitute the coloured children of Rochester a separate school_. Passes April 14, 1832.

_The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:_

1. The commissioners of common schools of the towns of Gates and Brighton, in the county of Monroe, or a majority of them, may in their discretion cause the children of colour of the village of Rochester to be taught in one or more separate schools.

2. The commissioners of common schools of the towns of Gates and Brighton, shall discharge the duties of trustees of such school, and shall apportion thereto a distributive share of the moneys for the support of common schools."

Very sincerely yours, ARTHUR B. SPINGARN.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] COPY OF CLIPPING FROM UNDESIGNATED PAPER AS MENTIONED IN ABOVE LETTER.

The Radical State Convention, which was in session in Richmond on Thursday, elected the following State Executive Committee, with Ex-Governor H. H. Wells as chairman: First district--Rufus S. Jones, Isaac Morton and Robert Norton. Second district--R. S. Greene, Peter G. Morgan and H. H. Bowden. Third district--Wm. C. Wickham, J. M. Humphreys and Langdon Boyd. Fourth district--Geo. W. Finney, John T. Hamletter and Ross Hamilton. Fifth district--Thos. J. Jackson, Alexander Rives and I. F. Wilson. Sixth district--John F. Lewis, Thos. H. Hargest and John R. Popham. Eighth district--W. B. Downey, John M. Thatcher and J. B. Sener. Ninth district--R. W. Hughes, G. G. Goodell and John W. Woest.

BOOK REVIEWS

_Piney Woods and Its Story._ By LAURENCE C. JONES, Principal of the Piney Woods Country Life School, with an introduction by S. S. McClure. (New York and Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company. Pp. 154. Price $1.50 net.)

This is a story of a Negro brought up and educated in a more favorable environment than most of the members of his race but, nevertheless, imbued with the spirit of social uplift of those of his group unfavorably circumstanced. With this vision he cast his lot in Mississippi, where he toiled against odds in the establishment and development of a school which is today an important factor in the progress of the Negroes of Mississippi.

This volume had a forerunner in a shorter story _Up Through Difficulties_. As the influence of the school extended, however, and a larger number of friends became interested in his efforts, there arose such a demand for a brief statement of the history of this institution that it was necessary to meet this with a publication in this handy form. Coming then from the heart of a man who has given his life as a sacrifice for the advancement of his oppressed people, the story has been well received by the friends of education in general, and especially by those who appreciate the arduous labors of that class of pioneers so nobly represented by the author.

And well might such a story be extensively read; for, as S. S. McClure has said in the introduction, it is a story "of Negro education, intelligence and sensitiveness, who turned his back upon everything that usually makes life worth living for people of his kind and went, without money or influence, or even an invitation, among the poorest and most ignorant of his race, for the sole purpose of helping them in every way within his power." As it has been said, it is persuasively and sincerely told. It is therefore, to quote further from Mr. McClure, "a valuable human document; a paragraph in a vital chapter of American history."

Briefly told, the story describes in detail the beginnings of the educator, his early school days, the development of his school in the midst of "Pine Knots" under the "Blue Sky," its "Log Cabin" stage, the more hopeful circumstances later attained, and its widening influence. In the chapter entitled the "Message of Hope" there is an unusually interesting account of how once during the World War the author was misunderstood by certain white persons who, from the outside, heard him at a revival urging the Negroes to battle against sin, ignorance, superstition, and poverty. Understanding some but not all of the words used by the speaker, the eavesdroppers reported him as stirring up the Negroes in the South to fight the whites. A mob was easily formed in keeping with the custom of the country, and the author was speedily picked up and thrown upon a pile of wood, when guns were cocked and primed to shoot him down before he was to be offered up. Thereupon, however, one of the mob demanded that he make a speech, by which he so convincingly disabused their minds of any such sinister intention of stirring up an insurrection among the Negroes that he was finally released and befriended rather than lynched.

* * * * *

_The Book of American Negro Poetry._ By JAMES WELDON JOHNSON. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. 1922. Pp. 217.)

A review of a book of poetry is out of place in an historical magazine unless, like the volume before us, it has an historical significance. It cannot be gainsaid that the poetry of a race passing through the ordeal of slavery, and later struggling for social and political recognition, must constitute a long chapter in its history. In fact, one can easily study the development of the mind of a thinking class from epoch to epoch by reading and appreciating its verse. It is fortunate that Mr. James Weldon Johnson has thus given the public this opportunity to study a representative number of the talented tenth of the Negro race.

The poems themselves do not concern us here to the extent of showing in detail their bearing on the history of the Negro. The student of history, however, will find much valuable information in the interesting preface of the author covering the first forty-seven pages of the volume. The biographical index of authors in the appendix, moreover, presents in a condensed form sketches of the lives of thirty-one useful and all but famous members of the Negro race. Much of this information about those who have not been in the public eye a long time is entirely new, appearing here in print for the first time.

The aim of the author is to show the greatness of the Negro as measured by his literature and art. He believes that the status of the Negro in the United States is more a question of national mental attitude toward the race than of actual conditions. "And nothing," says he, "will do more to change that mental attitude and raise his status than a demonstration of intellectual parity by the Negro through the production of literature and art."

In the effort to show "the emotional endowment, the originality and artistic conception and power of creating" possessed by the Negro, the author has begun with the Uncle Remus stories, the spirituals, the dance, the folks songs and syncopated music. He then presents the achievements of the Negro in pure literature, mentioning the works of Jupiter Hammon, George M. Horton, Frances E. Harper, James M. Bell and Albery A. Whitman. A large portion of this introduction given to the early writers is devoted to a discussion of Dunbar. He then introduces a number of poets of our own day, whose works constitute the verse herein presented. Among these are William Stanley Braithwaite, Claude McKay, Fenton Johnson, Jessie Fauset, Georgia Douglass Johnson, Annie Spencer, John W. Holloway, James Edwin Campbell, Daniel Webster Davis, R. C. Jamison, James S. Cotter, Jr., Alex Rogers, James D. Carrothers, Leslie Pinckney Hill, and W. E. B. DuBois.

* * * * *

_The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations, 1897-1909._ By JAMES FORD RHODES, LL.D., D.Litt. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922. Pp. 418.)

Fortunately Mr. Rhodes does not make the mistake of designating this as a volume continuing his history of the United States from 1850 to 1877. Like the volume recently written to treat the period from Hayes to McKinley, this one does not show the serious treatment characteristic of the earlier work of Mr. Rhodes. The author makes no introduction but enters upon the discussion of the political events which he considers as having constituted the most important facts of history during this period. In this volume Mr. Rhodes is largely concerned with the rise and fall of political chieftains, who have attained high offices in the services of the nation or with the record of those who have championed principles which have not been acceptable to the American people. The most valuable facts of the book are the bits of first-hand information which he obtained by personal contact with the statesmen of the time. From this volume, however, one gets very little more general information than he would from an observer who has closely followed the various presidential campaigns. Furthermore, there is not much discussion of the social and economic questions which have engaged the attention of the American people because of their bearing on shaping the destinies of the nation. As a narrative for ready information of men and measures of this period it is interesting, but judged from the point of view of modern historiography, the book cannot be seriously considered as a very valuable work on American history. When one has finished reading the volume he will find his mind filled with what men have done and what they have failed to accomplish, but he will not easily grasp the meaning of the forces which during the last generation have given trend to present-day developments in the United States.

Students of Negro history will wonder what mention the author has made of the rôle which the race played during this period. In any expectation of this sort they will find themselves disappointed. With the exception of references to the Booker Washington dinner at the White House, the Brownsville Affair, and the Roosevelt attitude on Negro suffrage, the race does not figure in this history. It is interesting to note Rhodes's statement to the effect (230) that Roosevelt said to him that he made a mistake in inviting Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House. With the usual bias of the author, it is not surprising that he justifies the dismissal of the Negro soldiers charged with participating in the riot at Brownsville (340). After reading this volume, one who has not lived in this country would be surprised to come here and learn that we have such a large group of citizens about whom so much was said and to whom so much was meted out during this stormy period.

* * * * *

_The Journal of John Woolman._ Edited from the Original Manuscripts, with a Biographical Introduction, by AMELIA MOTT GUMMERE. (New York: The Macmillan Company. 1922. Pp. 643.)

From the time of the first publication of the _Journal_ of this unusual man in 1774, he has been known to the world as one of its greatest characters because of his wonderful spirituality and deep interest in all members of the human family regardless of race or condition. It is decidedly fitting then that this valuable record should be reprinted and be made accessible to a larger number who will find it an inspiration to those engaged in reform and valuable in throwing light on heroism in the past.

The author, however, has another reason for the new edition of this _Journal_, inasmuch as there are many editions of the _Journal_ proper, and a multitude of publications in which Woolman's _Essays_ and appreciations of him appear. The reason is that the descendants of Woolman "have recently made accessible by presenting to learned institutions, which are glad to guard them, the manuscripts of the _Journal_ and of most of his _Essays_ as well as letters, marriage certificates of the family and other documents."

The work is arranged in chapters presenting his immigrant ancestry, his youth and education, his marriage, his participation in the slavery discussion, his Indian journey, his experiences as schoolmaster, his final tours, and his death. The book is well printed and neatly bound. It contains thirty-three interesting illustrations which decidedly enhance the value of the book. Among these should be noted the portrait of John Woolman, his birthplace, his home, important pages from his manuscripts, and his grave.