 | CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST SLAVES The story of the Negro, |  |
CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST SLAVES
DURING a recent visit to Baltimore, Maryland,
chance threw in my way a facsimile
copy of an old Baltimore newspaper, the
Maryland Journal, the first number of which was
published August 20, 1773. This paper contained
one or two items of news, and several advertisements
that were peculiarly interesting to me. One of these
advertisements, which attracted my attention, was
about as follows:
TEN POUNDS REWARD
RAN away, on the 6th of July last, from the subscriber, living in Bond's
forest, within eight miles of Joppa, in Baltimore County, an Irish
Servant Man, named Owen M'Carty, about 45 years old, 5 feet 8 inches
high, of a swarthy complexion, has long black hair, which is growing a
little grey, and a remarkable scar under the right eye. He had on and
took with him when he went away, a short brown coat, made of country
manufactured cloth, lined with red flannel, with metal buttons, oznabrigs
trowsers patched on both knees, a white shirt, an old pair of shoes, and an
old felt hat. He was a soldier in some part of America about the time of
Braddock's defeat, and can give a good description of the country. Whoever
takes up the said Servant and brings him to Alexander Cowan, or
John Clayton, Merchants, in Joppa, or to the subscriber, if he is taken in
the County, shall receive FIVE POUNDS, and if out of the County, the above-mentioned
TEN POUNDS, as a reward and consideration for his trouble
and expense. Barnard Reilly.
Until a short time ago the condition of bondage
had always been associated in my mind, as in the
minds of most coloured people in this country, with a
black skin. I had heard, as most schoolboys have
heard, that centuries ago there had been white slaves
in England and that in other parts of Europe slavery
and serfdom had lasted to a much later period than
in England. I remember reading somewhere the
story of Pope Gregory who, seeing some beautiful
English slaves exposed for sale in the Forum at Rome,
was so impressed by their sad condition that he determined
to undertake the conversion of Britain.
These events, however, all belong to a remote past.
I never had the least idea until I began to investigate
the subject that any human being except the Indian
and the Negro had ever been bought and sold, and
in other respects treated as property in America.
The fact is, however, that, although Negro slaves were
brought to Jamestown, only twelve years after the
first settlement there, the system of white servitude
had preceded black slavery in both the Plymouth
and Virginia colony. Most of the work on the
plantations and elsewhere was performed at first by
white servants who were imported from England and
sold like other merchandise in the markets of the
colony. The historian, Bancroft, says of this matter:
Conditional servitude, under indentures or covenants, had
from the first existed in Virginia. The servant stood to his master
in the relation of a debtor, bound to discharge the cost of emigration
creditors. Oppression early ensued: men who had been transported
into Virginia at the expense of eight or ten pounds, were
sometimes sold for forty, fifty, or even threescore pounds. The
supply of white servants became a regular business, and a class of
men, nicknamed "spirits," used to delude young persons, servants,
and idlers, into embarking for America, as to a land of spontaneous
plenty. White servants came to be an article of traffic. They were
sold in England to be transported, and in Virginia were sold to the
highest bidder; like Negroes they were to be purchased on shipboard,
as men buy horses at a fair. In 1672 the average price in
colonies where five years of service were due, was ten pounds
while a Negro was worth twenty or twenty-five pounds.[1]
It has often been said that the almshouses and the
prisons were emptied to furnish labourers for the
colonies of Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia.
But it was not merely the destitute and the outcast
that were sold into servitude in the English colonies
in America. Many of these persons were political
prisoners and persons of quality.
"So usual," according to the same historian, "was
this manner of dealing in Englishmen that not the
Scots only, who were taken in the field of Dunbar,
were sent into involuntary servitude in New England,
but the Royalist prisoners of the battle of Worcester;
the leaders in the insurrection of Penruddock were
shipped to America."
At other times large numbers of Irishmen were sold
into servitude in different parts of America.
Because the number of slaves brought to America
has made a profound impression upon the
world, but from all that I have been able to learn, the
sufferings endured by these unfortunate Irish bond-servants
during the course of the long voyages to
America were frequently as hard as those of the
slaves. "The crowded exportation of Irish Catholics,"
Bancroft remarks, "was a frequent event, and
was attended by aggravations hardly inferior to the
usual atrocities of the African slave-trade."
In 1685, when nearly a thousand prisoners were
condemned to transportation for taking part in the
insurrection of Monmouth, "men of influence at
court scrambled for the convicted insurgents as a
merchantable commodity."
Bond-servitude as it existed in the English colonies
was in many respects peculiar and unlike any form
of servitude which had existed among English people.
The first bond-servants were sent out by the London
company, the company by which the Virginia colony
was founded. It was not intended that servants
should be transferred from one master to another.
But the depressed condition of agriculture following
the massacre of 1622, according to James Ballagh,
compelled planters to sell their servants and thereafter
"made the sale of servants a very common practice
among both officers and planters."
For instance, in 1623, George Sandys, the treasurer
of Virginia, was forced to sell the only remaining
plantation, for one hundred and fifty pounds of
tobacco.
"Gradually," says Mr. Ballagh, "the legal personality
of the servant was lost sight of in the disposition
to regard him as a chattel and a part of the
personal estate of the 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 estates, and was disposed
of both by will and deed along with the rest of
the property."[2]
At the same time there grew up a systematic speculation
in servants both in England and in Virginia.
A servant could be transported to America for from six
to eight pounds and sold for from forty to sixty pounds.
London and Bristol were the chief markets for young
men and women who were sold to shipowners who
transported them to America and sold them.[3]
The
number of servants imported who were obtained in
this and other ways was, from 1650 to 1675, when the
trade began to decline, considerable. The number
from 1664 amounted to 1,500 a year. And it is
said that the number sent from England to the
colonies and the West Indies amounted to 15,000
a year.
It was surprising to me to learn that a little more
than two hundred years ago Englishmen sold the
prisoners taken in their, civil wars in much the same
way that the African people captured and sold people
of their own race. But the knowledge of these facts
has helped me to understand that when Negro
slavery began in this country the condition of the
African slaves was not so exceptional as it afterward
became and as it now seems.
Under the conditions I have referred to, the gradual
transition from white servitude to Negro slavery,
which took place during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, came about naturally and easily.
At first the condition of the Negro slave was in most
respects like that of the white servant, except that
one was a servant for a fixed period of years and the
other was a servant for life. As time went on, however,
the two things, black slavery and white servitude,
began to grow apart. The condition of the
white servant was continually improved, and the
condition of the black slave grew steadily worse.
The same thing which took place in Virginia took
place in other Southern colonies. Finally, at the
close of the eighteenth century Negro slavery had
Southern colonies.[4]
Speaking of the causes which brought white servitude
to an end in North Carolina, Dr. John Spencer
Bassett, formerly Professor of History and Political
Science in Trinity College, N. C., says:
The incoming of Negro slaves, who, when the experimental
stage was passed, were seen to be cheaper than the white servants,
was probably the most powerful of all the causes of the decreased
importation of bond-servants. The rivalry was between the whites
and the blacks. The blacks won. It is impossible not to see in
this an analogous process to that by which Negro slavery supplanted
Indian slavery in the West Indies. The abuses connected with
Indian slavery touched the conscience of the people, and the
Negroes who could better stand slavery were introduced to replace
it. The abuses connected with white slavery touched the hearts
of the British people, and again the Negro was called in to bear
the burden of the necessary labour. In each case it was a survival
of the fittest. Both Indian slavery and white servitude were to go
down before the black man's superior endurance, docility, and
labour capacity.[5]
I have referred at some length to conditions of
white servitude in the English colonies before
the introduction of the Negro slaves in order to
illustrate how easily and naturally the transition was
But I confess these facts have for me another and a
different interest. It is important that the people
of my race should not gain the idea that, because they
were once in slavery, their situation is wholly exceptional.
It is important that we should bear in mind,
when we are disposed to become discouraged, that
other races have had to face, at some time in their
history, difficulties quite as great as ours. In
America Negro slavery succeeded white servitude
and it seems probable if the Negro had not been
discovered and brought to this country as a labourer
the system of white servitude would have lasted in
this country a great deal longer than it actually did.
I was interested in noting in what I have read concerning
the relations of the races at this early period
that the first distinctions made between the black man
and the white man were not on the ground of race and
colour, but on that of religion. That is no doubt
characteristic of a time when people were divided by
religion rather than by race. The Negroes were
"heathen," and the law distinguished between those
who were Christians and those who were not. For
instance, the law declared that no Christian could be
made a slave for life. The white bondmen were
usually referred to as "servants," or "Christian servants,"
and were in this way distinguished from
slaves. "The right to enslave a Negro" says Professor
Bassett, "seems to have been based on the
notion throughout all Christendom that it was wrong
for one Christian to enslave another, and that as soon
as a pagan was baptised he could be no longer held
as a slave. This prevented, for many years, the
work of Christianising the Negroes. So strong was
this feeling that it was necessary in several of the
colonies to pass laws expressly stating that the condition
of the slave was not changed when he was
taken into church.[6]
On the other hand, as the white servant was a
Christian, the principle was gradually established
that he could only be held in servitude by Christians,
or those "who were sure to give him Christian
usage!" "Thus free Negroes, mulattoes, or Indians,"
says Mr. Ballagh, "although Christians, were
incapacitated from holding white servants, as also
were infidels, 'such as Jews, Moors, and Mohammedans.'
Where a white servant was sold to them,
or his owner had intermarried with them, the servant
became ipso facto free."[7]
It is a curious fact that one of the first laws passed
discriminating against the Negro because of his
race took away from him the right to hold a white
man in bondage.
In Virginia and Maryland it was one hundred and
Negro slavery. In other Southern colonies, Negro
slavery, introduced from the West Indies, was almost
from the first the only form of labour known on the
plantations.
In South Carolina an effort was made to re-establish
serfdom, as it had existed one hundred years
before in England, and as it still existed in Europe.
In Georgia it was hoped, by prohibiting slavery, to
establish a system of free labour. But in both cases
the effort failed.
General Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia,
declared that slavery was "contrary to the teachings
of the gospel and opposed to the fundamental law of
England," and when it was proposed to introduce
slavery into the colony he declared that "he declined
to permit so horrid a crime." But within fifteen
years from the founding of the colony slavery was fully
established there and the law against it had been
repealed.
The fact seems to be that the white "servants,"
such as the company was able to obtain from England,
were not fitted to withstand the climate. Rev.
William B. Stevens, formerly Professor of History
in the University of Georgia, says that strenuous
efforts were made to import white servants but
"many escaped to Carolina. . . . Even the
German servants so often pointed to as patterns of
industry and sobriety were complained of as being
quitting their masters', who 'were compelled
to resort to corporal punishment or other summary
means to bring them to obedience.'"
In one of the several documents prepared at that
time, setting forth "the true state of the colony," it is
said that so general was the sickness during the
summer months that "hardly one-half of the servants
or working people were even able to do their
masters or themselves the least service; and the
yearly sickness of each servant, generally speaking,
cost his master as much as would have maintained
a Negro for four years."
With the introduction of the rice planting the
necessity of employing Africans was doubled. So
difficult did the first settlers find the task of clearing
the land and planting and harvesting the rice that
one writer declares the "white servants would have
exhausted their strength in clearing a spot for their
own graves, and every plantation would have served
no other purpose than a burying ground to its
European cultivators."[8]
No doubt the black man withstood the climate,
particularly in the states of the Lower South and
the West Indies, and did the rough pioneer work
that was required at that time better than the white
man did or could. Even to-day in most of the West
Indies, in many parts of South America, and in some
lands of the Yazoo Delta, the Negro is almost the
only man who labours with his hands. But even
with Negro labour the work of clearing the forests
and planting the crops was carried on in those early
days with great loss of life. During the whole
period of slavery plantations in the West Indies, in
South America, and in some parts of the United States
the plantations had to be constantly recruited with
fresh levies from Africa to carry on the cultivation
of the soil.
After doing all this pioneer work, making it possible
for other human beings to live and prosper there,
one cannot wonder that the Negro thinks it a little
strange that Italians and people from other parts of
Europe and even Asia are invited into the South and
granted privileges that even the Negro himself does
not enjoy. Having performed a service so necessary
and so important for the white man at a time and
under circumstances such as other persons could
not or would not have performed it, it is not strange
if the Negro feels that, at least, the Southern people
ought to deal more kindly with him than with any
foreign race which, after nearly three hundred years
of occupation by the white man and the black man,
has just begun to enter this country.
Among the early colonists of the Carolinas were the
Moravians and the Salzburgers, who were opposed
to slavery upon religious grounds. These people
Negro slaves. At length, however, they received a
message from the head of the church of Europe to
the effect that if they took slaves with the purpose of
receiving them into the church and leading them to
Christ, not only was this not a sin, but it might
prove a blessing.[9]
It is an interesting fact which I learned when I
visited their community a few years ago, that the first
person baptised among the Moravians of Salem,
N. C., was a Negro. The Moravians of Salem
are still among the black man's warmest friends.
I might add that, so far as I know, the Moravian
is the only religious sect whose missionaries ever
voluntarily sold themselves into bondage, as did
Leonard Dober and Tobias Leupoldt at San Crux
in the West Indies, that they might evangelise their
fellow slaves.
This desire to Christianise the African and give him
the benefit of a higher civilisation was frequently,
during slavery, offered as an excuse for importing
African labourers to this country and holding them
in slavery.
People differ, and will always differ no doubt, as
to whether the desire to civilise the African was a
sufficient excuse for bringing him to America, at the
cost of so much suffering and expense. For my own
part, I am disposed to believe that it was worth all
man is here and permanently settled in the midst of
the white man's civilisation, there can be no good
reason for depriving him of the benefits of being
here. If any race other than the Anglo-Saxon has
earned a right to live in this country and to enjoy
the opportunities of American civilisation, it seems
to me the Negro has earned that right.
One who has not studied the economic conditions
under which the first slaves lived and laboured cannot
understand the enormous service that the Negro
performed for the civilisation of America during these
early and pioneer days.
The Indian, both in North and South America, was
pressed into the service of the white man, but he
was not equal to the task and perished under the
hard conditions in which he was compelled to labour.
Concerning the value of the Negro in Brazil,
Heinrich Handlemann, the German historian of
that country, says: "The service of the African
under conditions as they then existed was, in fact,
indispensable. On the other hand, the Indians,
either as slaves or as free labourers, were always
poor labourers, without industry and without
persistence."
In Brazil, in Cuba, and in other portions of the
West Indies, one Negro as a labourer was counted
equal to four Indians.[10]
It seems to be equally true that no part of the white
race was equal to the task which the Negro performed
in the forests and in the sugar, rice, and cotton fields
of the far South. Repeated attempts were made to
bring in white labourers to perform the work of the
Negro, but without success.
In his history of Louisiana, Gayarré mentions the
fact that about 1718 John Law, the author of the
great speculation in Louisiana lands, agreed to bring
1,600 Germans to Louisiana and settle them on a
concession of twelve miles square granted to him
on the Arkansas River. Other grants were made
upon the same terms. In accordance with the
terms of the grant the Mississippi Company, of which
Law was the head, sent out a number of German
peasants, but they were soon swept away by the
climate. Several different attempts of this kind
were made and when they failed it was determined
to bring Negroes direct from Africa. Vessels were
accordingly sent out and brought back cargoes of
Negro slaves, who were distributed among the
inhabitants. By 1728 there were 2,600 Negroes in
the colony and lands were rising in value.
Early attempts were made to introduce German
labourers into some of the more tropical states of
Brazil, but they "perished wholesale of famine and
hardships of all kinds." In 1764, 400 exiled
Acadians were settled in the region known as St.
Nicholas, Haiti, but they were unable to stand the
the same time 2,400 Germans founded there the
state of Bombardopolis, but they met the same fate.
Some of them accompanied the Acadians to Louisiana,
where traces of them still remain. The others
who survived were soon absorbed by the black population
about them and it is said that some of their
descendants of mixed blood may still be found
inhabiting the district.[11]
The history of the first attempt to settle German
peasants in Louisiana reminds me of an interesting
story told by George W. Cable in his book of "Strange
True Stories of Louisiana." The incidents to which
I refer occurred in connection with another and later
German immigration, when some poor people were
sent over, not as settlers, but as labourers, to
Louisiana.
Some time early in the last century a shipload of
these Germans arrived in New Orleans. Many of
them were respectable people who had paid their
own way to America. Others had been sent over
with the understanding that they were to work out
their passage after they reached this country. The
journey was a hard one; there had been a great deal
of sickness, and, as was often the case among those
early immigrants, many of them had died. When
they arrived in port they were sold, much after the
fashion of the bond-servants of Virginia, for a period
those who had paid their way and were entitled to
their freedom were sold with the rest. Among
these was a little girl, who had lost both her father
and mother on the journey to America. She was
sold as a servant, upon the landing of the ship, and
years passed before her friends again got any trace
of her. She was at this time a slave. She had no
memory of her parents, nor of a time when she had
been free. She believed herself to be a Negro and
called herself a "yellow gal." Her resemblance to
her mother was, however, so great that her friends
began proceedings to secure her freedom, and after
a long trial, lasting years, her identity was finally
established and she was freed.
One thing that made it difficult to prove that she
was free was the fact that at this time so many others
of the slaves in Louisiana were as white as she. It
was testified that the man who owned her had
several other slaves upon his plantation who were
white.
I mention this story here because it is one of the
curious facts that have happened in connection with
African slavery and because it illustrates how close
the servitude of the white man brought him to the
condition of the Negro slave. To a very large extent
the curse of slavery rested not merely upon the
African but upon every man who worked with his
hands.
In the same way and to the same extent the uplifting
of the Negro in the South means the uplifting of
labour there; for the cause of the Negro is the cause
of the man who is farthest down everywhere in the
world. Educate him, give him character, and make
him efficient as a labourer, and every other portion of
the community will be lifted higher. Degrade the
Negro, hold him in peonage, ignorance, or any other
form of slavery and the great mass of the people in
the community will be held down with him. It is
not possible for one man to hold another man down
in the ditch without staying down there with him.
Bristol, which was the last to give up the practice of selling bond-servants
to the English colonies in America, had been six hundred years before, at the
time of the Norman Conquest, the chief stronghold of the slave-trade. At that
time any one who had more children or more servants than he could keep, took
them to the market-place at Bristol. A historian of that time, William of
Malmesbury, says that it was no uncommon thing to behold young girls exposed
for sale in the Bristol market, in the days when Ireland was the greatest mart
for English slaves.—Greene's "Short History of the English People," Vol. I.,
p. 110. "History for Ready Reference," Lamed, Vol. I., p. 317.
The condition of the apprenticed servants in Virginia differed from that of
slaves chiefly in the duration of their bondage, and the laws of the colony favoured
their early enfranchisement. . . . Had no other form of servitude been known
in Virginia than such as had been tolerated in Europe, every difficulty would have
been promptly obviated by the benevolent spirit of colonial legislation. But a
new problem in the history was now to be solved. For the first time the Ethiopian
and the Caucasian races were to meet together in nearly equal numbers beneath
a temperate zone.—Bancroft, "History of the United States," Vol. I., pp. 176,
177.
"Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina," Johns Hopkins
University Studies, p. 77.
| CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST SLAVES The story of the Negro, | |