Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 31)

P. Vinogradoff, Villainage in England, chapter 1.

"Serfdom is met with for the last time in the statute-book of England under Richard II. By reason of the thriving condition of the towns, many villeins who had betaken themselves thither, partly with the consent of their owners and partly in secret, became free. If a slave remained a year and a day in a privileged town without being reclaimed in the interval, he became free. The wars carried on against France, the fact that serf-labour had become more expensive than that of free-men, thus rendering emancipation an 'economical' consideration, and finally, frequent uprisings, contributed to diminish the number of these poor helots. How rapidly serfdom must have fallen away may be inferred from the fact that the rebels under Wat Tyler, in 1381, clamored for the removal of serfdom; the followers of Jack Cade, in 1450, for everything else save the abolition of slavery. … The few purchasable slaves under the Tudors were met with only on the property of the churches, the monasteries, and the bishoprics. This slavery was often of a voluntary nature. On the king's domains bondmen were only emancipated by Elizabeth in 1574. The last traces of personal slavery, and of a subject race permanently annexed to the soil, are met with in the reign of James I. As a rule, it may be assumed that, with the Tudors, serfdom disappeared in England."

E. Fischel, The English Constitution, book 1, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: F. Hargrave, Argument in the Case of James Sommersett (Howell's State Trials, volume 20).

W. R. Brownlow, Slavery and Serfdom in Europe, lectures 3-4.

See, also, MANORS.

SLAVERY: France. Villeinage.

On the condition of the servile classes in Gaul during the first five or six centuries after the barbarian conquest.

See GAUL: 5-10TH CENTURIES.

"In the Salic laws, and in the Capitularies, we read not only of Servi, but of Tributarii, Lidi, and Coloni, who were cultivators of the earth, and subject to residence upon their lord's estate, though not destitute of property or civil rights. Those who appertained to the demesne lands of the crown were called Fiscalini. … The number of these servile cultivators was undoubtedly great, yet in those early times, I should conceive, much less than it afterwards became. … The accumulation of overgrown private wealth had a natural tendency to make slavery more frequent. … As the labour either of artisans or of free husbandmen was but sparingly in demand, they were often compelled to exchange their liberty for bread. In seasons, also, of famine, and they were not unfrequent, many freemen sold themselves to slavery. … Others became slaves, as more fortunate men became vassals, to a powerful lord, for the sake of his protection. Many were reduced into this state through inability to pay those pecuniary compositions for offences which were numerous and sometimes heavy in the barbarian codes of law; and many more by neglect of attendance on military expeditions of the king, the penalty of which was a fine called Heribann, with the alternative of perpetual servitude. … The characteristic distinction of a villein was his obligation to remain upon his lord's estate. … But, equally liable to this confinement, there were two classes of villeins, whose condition was exceedingly different. In England, at least from the reign of Henry II., one only, and that the inferior species, existed; incapable of property, and destitute of redress, except against the most outrageous injuries. … But by the customs of France and Germany, persons in this abject state seem to have been called serfs, and distinguished from villeins, who were only bound to fixed payments and duties. … Louis Hutin, in France, after innumerable particular instances of manumission had taken place, by a general edict in 1315, reciting that his kingdom is denominated the kingdom of the Franks, that he would have the fact to correspond with the name, emancipates all persons in the royal domains upon paying a just composition, as an example for other lords possessing villeins to follow. Philip the Long renewed the same edict three years afterwards; a proof that it had not been carried into execution. … It is not generally known, I think, that predial servitude was not abolished in all parts of France till the revolution. In some places, says Pasquier, the peasants are taillables à volonté, that is, their contribution is not permanent, but assessed by the lord with the advice of prud'hommes, resseants sur les lieux, according to the peasant's ability. Others pay a fixed sum. Some are called serfs de poursuite, who cannot leave their habitations, but may be followed by the lord into any part of France for the taille upon their goods. … Nor could these serfs, or gens de mainmorte, as they were sometimes called, be manumitted without letters patent of the king, purchased by a fine.-Recherches de la France, l. iv., c. 5. Dubos informs us that, in 1615, the Tiers État prayed the king to cause all serfs (hommes de pooste) to be enfranchised on paying a composition, but this was not complied with, and they existed in many parts when he wrote."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 2, part 2, and foot-note (volume 1).

"The last traces of serfdom could only be detected [at the time of the Revolution] in one or two of the eastern provinces annexed to France by conquest; everywhere else the institution had disappeared; and indeed its abolition had occurred so long before that even the date of it was forgotten. The researches of archæologists of our own day have proved that as early as the 13th century serfdom was no longer to be met with in Normandy."

A. de Tocqueville, State of Society in France before the Revolution of 1789, book 2, chapter 1.

{2916}

SLAVERY: Germany.

"As the great distinction in the German community was between the nobles and the people, so amongst the people was the distinction between the free and the servile. Next to those who had the happiness to be freeborn were the Freedmen, whom the indulgence or caprice of their masters relieved from the more galling miseries of thraldom. But though the Freedman was thus imperfectly emancipated, he formed a middle grade between the Freeman and the Slave. He was capable of possessing property; but was bound to pay a certain rent, or perform a certain service, to the lord. He was forbidden to marry without the lord's assent; and he and his children were affixed to the farm they cultivated. … This mitigated servitude was called 'Lidum,' and the Freedman, Lidus, Leud, or Latt. The Lidus of an ecclesiastical master was called Colonus. … A yet lower class were the Slaves, or Serfs [Knechte] who were employed in menial or agricultural services; themselves and their earnings being the absolute property of their master, and entirely at his disposal. The number of these miserable beings was gradually increased by the wars with the Sclavonic nations, and the sale of their prisoners was one great object of traffic in the German fairs and markets. But a variety of causes combined to wear out this abominable system; and as civilization advanced, the severities of slavery diminished; so that its extinction was nearly accomplished before the 14th century."

Sir R. Comyn, History of the Western Empire, chapter 27 (volume 2).

"The following table will show that the abolition of serfdom in most parts of Germany took place very recently. Serfdom was abolished:

1. In Baden, in 1783. 2. In Hohenzollern, in 1804. 3. In Schleswig and Holstein, in 1804. 4. In Nassau, in 1808. 5. In Prussia, Frederick William I. had done away with serfdom in his own domains so early as 1717.

The code of the Great Frederick … was intended to abolish it throughout the kingdom, but in reality it only got rid of it in its hardest form, the 'leibeigenschaft,' and retained it in the mitigated shape of 'erbunterthänigkeit.' It was not till 1809 that it disappeared altogether.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1807-1808.

6. In Bavaria serfdom disappeared in 1808. 7. A decree of Napoleon, dated from Madrid in 1808, abolished it in the Grand-duchy of Berg, and in several other smaller territories, such as Erfurt, Baireuth, &c. 8. In the kingdom of Westphalia, its destruction dates from 1808 and 1809. 9. In the principality of Lippe Detmold, from 1809. 10. In Schomburg Lippe, from 1810. 11. In Swedish Pomerania, from 1810, also. 12. In Hessen Darmstadt, from 1809 and 1811. 13. In Wurtemberg, from 1817. 14. In Mecklenburg, from 1820. 15. In Oldenburgh, from 1814. 16. In Saxony for Lusatia, from 1832. 17. In Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, only from 1833. 18. In Austria, from 1811.

So early as in 1782, Joseph II. had destroyed 'leibeigenschaft;' but serfage in its mitigated form of 'erbunterthänigkeit,' lasted till 1811."

A. de Tocqueville, State of Society in France before 1789, note D.

SLAVERY: Hungary and Austria: A. D. 1849. Completed emancipation of the peasantry.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1849-1859.

SLAVERY: Ireland: 12th Century. The Bristol Slave-trade.

See BRISTOL: 12TH CENTURY.

SLAVERY: Moslem relinquishment of Christian slavery.

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1816.

SLAVERY: Papal doctrine of the condemnation of the Jews to perpetual bondage.

See JEWS: 13-14TH CENTURIES.

SLAVERY: Poland.

"The statements of the Polish nobles and their historians, to the effect that the peasant was always the hereditary property of the lord of the manor are false. This relation between eleven million men and barely half a million masters is an abuse of the last two hundred years, and was preceded by one thousand years of a better state of things. Originally the noble did not even possess jurisdiction over the peasant. It was wielded by the royal castellans, and in exceptional cases was bestowed on individual nobles, as a reward for distinguished services. … Those peasants were free who were domiciled according to German law, or who dwelt on the land which they themselves had reclaimed. It was owing to the feudal lords' need of labourers, that the rest of the peasants were bound to the soil and could not leave the land without permission. But the peasant did not belong to the lord, he could not be sold. … The fact that he could possess land prevented him from ever becoming a mere serf. … It is remarkable that the Polish peasant enjoyed these privileges at a time when villeinage existed in all the rest of Europe, and that his slavery began when other nations became free. Villeinage ceased in Germany as early as the 12th and 13th centuries, except in Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and Lusetia, which had had a Slavonic population. … In Poland it began in the 16th century. The kings were forced to promise that they would grant the peasant no letters of protection against his lord [Alexander, 1505; Sigismund I., 1543; Sigismund III., 1588]. Henceforth the lord was to have the right of punishing his disobedient subjects at his own discretion. … Without the repeal of a single statute favourable to the peasants, it became a fundamental principle of the constitution, that 'Henceforth no temporal court in existence can grant the peasant redress against his lord, though property, honour, or life be at stake.' The peasant was thus handed over to an arbitrary power, which had no limit, except that which the excess of an evil imposes on the evil itself. … There was no help for the peasant save in the mercy of his lord or in his own despair. The result was those terrible insurrections of the peasants—the very threat of which alarmed the nobles—the ruin of landed property, and the failure of those sources from which a nation should derive its prosperity and its strength."

Count von Moltke, Poland: an Historical Sketch, chapter 4.

SLAVERY: Rome, Italy, and the Church.

"It is perhaps hardly surprising that the city of Rome should, even down to the 16th century, have patronised slavery, and it was only natural that the rest of Italy should follow the example of the metropolis of Christianity. The popes were wont to issue edicts of slavery against whole towns and provinces: thus for instance did Boniface VIII. against the retainers of the Colonnas.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1204-13481;

Clement V. against the Venetians; Sixtus IV. against the Florentines; Gregory XI. against the Florentines;

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1375-1378.

Julius II. against the Bolognese and Venetians; and the meaning of it was, that anyone who could succeed in capturing any of the persons of the condemned was required to make slaves of them. The example of Rome encouraged the whole of Italy, and especially Venice, to carry on a brisk trade in foreign, and especially female slaves. The privilege which had sprung up in Rome and lasted for some years, by virtue of which a slave taking refuge on the Capitol became free, was abolished in 1548 by Paul III. upon the representation of the Senate. {2917} Rome, of all the great powers of Europe, was the last to retain slavery. Scholasticism having undertaken in the 13th century to justify the existing state of things, a theological sanction was discovered for slavery; Ægidius of Rome, taking Thomas Aquinas as his authority, declared that it was a Christian institution, since original sin had deprived man of any right to freedom."

J. I. von Döllinger, Studies in European History, p. 75.

See, also, CATTANI.

SLAVERY: Russia. Serfdom and Emancipation.

"In the earliest period of Russian history the rural population was composed of three distinct classes. At the bottom of the scale stood the slaves, who were very numerous. Their numbers were continually augmented by prisoners of war, by freemen who voluntarily sold themselves as slaves, by insolvent debtors, and by certain categories of criminals. Immediately above the slaves were the free agricultural labourers, who had no permanent domicile, but wandered about the country and settled temporarily where they happened to find work and satisfactory remuneration. In the third place, distinct from these two classes, and in some respects higher in the social scale, were the peasants properly so called. These peasants proper, who may be roughly described as small farmers or cottiers, were distinguished from the free agricultural labourers in two respects: they were possessors of land in property or usufruct, and they were members of a rural Commune. … If we turn now from these early times to the 18th century, we find that the position of the rural population has entirely changed in the interval. The distinction between slaves, agricultural labourers, and peasants has completely disappeared. All three categories have melted together into a common class, called serfs, who are regarded as the property of the landed proprietors or of the State. 'The proprietors [in the words of an imperial ukaze of April 15, 1721] sell their peasants and domestic servants not even in families, but one by one, like cattle, as is done nowhere else in the whole world.'" At the beginning of the 18th century, while the peasantry had "sunk to the condition of serfs, practically deprived of legal protection and subject to the arbitrary will of the proprietors, … they were still in some respects legally and actually distinguished from the slaves on the one hand and the 'free wandering people' on the other. These distinctions were obliterated by Peter the Great and his immediate successors. … To effect his great civil and military reforms, Peter required an annual revenue such as his predecessors had never dreamed of, and he was consequently always on the look-out for some new object of taxation. When looking about for this purpose, his eye naturally fell on the slaves, the domestic servants, and the free agricultural labourers. None of these classes paid taxes. … He caused, therefore, a national census to be taken, in which all the various classes of the rural population … should be inscribed in one category; and he imposed equally on all the members of this category a poll-tax, in lieu of the former land-tax, which had lain exclusively on the peasants. To facilitate the collection of this tax the proprietors were made responsible for their serfs; and the 'free wandering people' who did not wish to enter the army were ordered, under pain of being sent to the galleys, to inscribe themselves as members of a Commune or as serfs to some proprietor. … The last years of the 18th century may be regarded as the turning-point in the history of serfage. Up till that time the power of the proprietors had steadily increased, and the area of serfage had rapidly expanded. Under the Emperor Paul we find the first decided symptoms of a reaction. … With the accession of Alexander I. in 1801 commenced a long series of abortive projects of a general emancipation, and endless attempts to correct the more glaring abuses; and during the reign of Nicholas no less than six committees were formed at different times to consider the question. But the practical result of all these efforts was extremely small."

D. M. Wallace, Russia, chapter 29.

"The reign of Alexander II. [who succeeded Nicholas in 1855], like that of Alexander I., began with an outburst of reform enthusiasm in the educated classes. … The serfage question, which Nicholas had always treated most tenderly, was raised in a way that indicated an intention of dealing with it boldly and energetically. Taking advantage of a petition presented by the Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian provinces, praying that their relations with their serfs might be regulated in a more satisfactory way—meaning, of course, in a way more satisfactory for the proprietors—the Emperor authorized committees to be formed in that part of the country 'for ameliorating the condition of the peasants,' and laid down the general principles according to which the amelioration was to be effected. … This was a decided step, and it was immediately followed by one still more significant. His Majesty, without consulting his ordinary advisers, ordered the Minister of the Interior to send to the Governors all over European Russia copies of the instructions forwarded to the Governor-General of Lithuania, praising the supposed generous, patriotic intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that, perhaps, the landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar desire. The hint was, of course, taken, and in all provinces where serfage existed emancipation committees were formed. … There were, however, serious difficulties in the way. The emancipation was not merely a humanitarian question, capable of being solved instantaneously by an Imperial ukase. It contained very complicated problems, affecting deeply the economic, social, and political future of the nation. … It was universally admitted that the peasants should not be ejected from their homes, though their homesteads belonged legally to the proprietors; but there was great diversity of opinion as to how much land they should in future enjoy, by what tenure they should in future hold it, and how the patriarchal, undefined authority of the landlords should be replaced. … The main point at issue was whether the serfs should become agricultural labourers dependent economically and administratively on the landlords, or should be transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors. The Emperor gave his support to the latter proposal, and the Russian peasantry acquired privileges such as are enjoyed by no other peasantry in Europe."

Alexander II. (Eminent Persons: Biographies, reprinted from The Times).

{2918}

"On the 3d of March, 1861 (February, 19, O. S.), the emancipation act was signed. The rustic population then consisted of 22,000,000 of common serfs, 3,000,000 of appanage peasants, and 23,000,000 of crown peasants. The first class were enfranchised by that act: and a separate law has since been passed in favor of these crown peasants and appanage peasants, who are now as free in fact as they formerly were in name. A certain portion of land, varying in different provinces according to soil and climate, was affixed to every 'soul'; and government aid was promised to the peasants in buying their homesteads and allotments. The serfs were not slow to take this hint. Down to January 1, 1869, more than half the enfranchised male serfs have taken advantage of this promise: and the debt now owing from the people to the crown (that is, to the bondholders) is an enormous sum."

W. H. Dixon, Free Russia, chapter 51.

"Emancipation has utterly failed to realize the ardent expectations of its advocates and promoters. The great benefit of the measure was purely moral. It has failed to improve the material condition of the former serfs, who on the whole are [1888] worse off than they were before the Emancipation. The bulk of our peasantry is in a condition not far removed from actual starvation—a fact which can neither be denied nor concealed even by the official press."

Stepniak, The Russian Peasantry, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: A. Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, part 1, book 7.

SLAVERY: Modern: Indians. Barbarity of the Spaniards in America, and humane labors of Las Casas.

"When Columbus came to Hispaniola on his second voyage [1493], with 17 ships and 1,500 followers, he found the relations between red men and white men already hostile, and in order to get food for so many Spaniards, foraging expeditions were undertaken, which made matters worse. This state of things led Columbus to devise a notable expedient. In some of the neighbouring islands lived the voracious Caribs. In fleets of canoes they would swoop upon the coasts of Hispaniola, capture men and women by the score, and carry them off to be cooked and eaten. Now Columbus wished to win the friendship of the Indians about him by defending them against these enemies, and so he made raids against the Caribs, took some of them captive, and sent them as slaves to Spain, to be taught Spanish and converted to Christianity, so that they might come back to the islands as interpreters, and thus be useful aids in missionary work. It was really, said Columbus, a kindness to these cannibals to enslave them and send them where they could be baptized and rescued from everlasting perdition; and then again they could be received in payment for the cargoes of cattle, seeds, wine, and other provisions which must be sent from Spain for the support of the colony. Thus quaintly did the great discoverer, like so many other good men before and since, mingle considerations of religion with those of domestic economy. It is apt to prove an unwholesome mixture. Columbus proposed such an arrangement to Ferdinand and Isabella, and it is to their credit that, straitened as they were for money, they for some time refused to accept it. Slavery, however, sprang up in Hispaniola before anyone could have fully realized the meaning of what was going on. As the Indians were unfriendly and food must be had, while foraging expeditions were apt to end in plunder and bloodshed, Columbus tried to regulate matters by prohibiting such expeditions and in lieu thereof imposing a light tribute or tax upon the entire population of Hispaniola above 14 years of age. As this population was dense, a little from each person meant a good deal in the lump. The tribute might be a small piece of gold or of cotton, and was to be paid four times a year. … If there were Indians who felt unable to pay the tribute, they might as an alternative render a certain amount of personal service in helping to plant seeds or tend cattle for the Spaniards. No doubt these regulations were well meant, and if the two races had been more evenly matched, perhaps they might not so speedily have developed into tyranny. As it was, they were like rules for regulating the depredations of wolves upon sheep. Two years had not elapsed before the alternative of personal service was demanded from whole villages of Indians at once. By 1499 the island had begun to be divided into repartimientos, or shares. One or more villages would be ordered, under the direction of their native chiefs, to till the soil for the benefit of some specified Spaniard or partnership of Spaniards; and such a village or villages constituted the repartimiento of the person or persons to whom it was assigned. This arrangement put the Indians into a state somewhat resembling that of feudal villenage; and this was as far as things had gone when the administration of Columbus came abruptly to an end." Queen Isabella disapproved, at first, of the repartimiento system, "but she was persuaded to sanction it, and presently in 1503 she and Ferdinand issued a most disastrous order. They gave discretionary power to Ovando [who succeeded Columbus in the governorship] to compel Indians to work, but it must be for wages. They ordered him, moreover, to see that Indians were duly instructed in the Christian faith. … The way in which Ovando carried out the order about missionary work was characteristic. As a member of a religious order of knights, he was familiar with the practice of encomienda, by which groups of novices were assigned to certain preceptors to be disciplined and instructed in the mysteries of the order. The word encomienda means 'commandery' or 'preceptory,' and so it came to be a nice euphemism for a hateful thing. Ovando distributed Indians among the Spaniards in lots of 50 or 100 or 500, with a deed worded thus: 'To you, such a one, is given an encomienda of so many Indians, and you are to teach them the things of our holy Catholic Faith.' In practice, the last clause was disregarded as a mere formality, and the effect of the deed was simply to consign a parcel of Indians to the tender mercies of some Spaniard, to do as he pleased with them. If the system of repartimientos was in effect serfdom or villenage, the system of encomiendas was unmitigated slavery. Such a cruel and destructive slavery has seldom, if ever, been known. The work of the Indians was at first largely agricultural, but as many mines of gold were soon discovered they were driven in gangs to work in the mines. … In 1500 Ovando was recalled. … Under his successor, Diego Columbus, there was little improvement. The case had become a hard one to deal with. {2919} There were now what are called 'vested rights,' the rights of property in slaves, to be respected. But in 1510 there came a dozen Dominican monks, and they soon decided, in defiance of vested rights, to denounce the wickedness they saw about them." Generally, the Spaniards who enjoyed the profit of the labor of the enslaved Indians hardened their hearts against this preaching, and were enraged by it; but one among them had his conscience awakened and saw the guiltiness of the evil thing. This was Bartolomé de Las Casas, who had joined the colonists at Hispaniola in 1502 and who had entered the priesthood in 1510. He owned slaves, whom he now set free, and he devoted himself henceforth to labors for the reformation of the system of slavery in the Spanish colonies. In 1516 he won the ear of Cardinal Ximenes, who appointed a commission of Hieronymite friars "to accompany Las Casas to the West Indies, with minute instructions and ample powers for making investigations and enforcing the laws. Ximenes appointed Las Casas Protector of the Indians, and clothed him with authority to impeach delinquent judges or other public officials. The new regulations, could they have been carried out, would have done much to mitigate the sufferings of the Indians. They must be paid wages, they must be humanely treated and taught the Christian religion. But as the Spanish government needed revenue, the provision that Indians might be compelled to work in the mines was not repealed. The Indians must work, and the Spaniards must pay them. Las Casas argued correctly that so long as this provision was retained the work of reform would go but little way. Somebody, however, must work the mines; and so the talk turned to the question of sending out white labourers or negroes. … At one time the leading colonists of Hispaniola had told Las Casas that if they might have license to import each a dozen negroes, they would coöperate with him in his plans for setting free the Indians and improving their condition. … He recalled this suggestion of the colonists, and proposed it as perhaps the least odious way out of the difficulty: It is therefore evident that at that period in his life he did not realize the wickedness of slavery so distinctly in the case of black men as in the case of red men. … In later years he blamed himself roundly for making any such concessions. Had he 'sufficiently considered the matter,' he would not for all the world have entertained such a suggestion for a moment. … The extensive development of negro slavery in the West Indies … did not begin for many years after the period in the career of Las Casas with which we are now dealing, and there is nothing to show that his suggestion or concession was in any way concerned in bringing it about." The fine story of the life and labours of Las Casas,—of the colony which he attempted to found on the Pearl Coast of the mainland, composed of settlers who would work for themselves and not require slaves, and which was ruined through the wicked lawlessness of other men,—of the terrible barbarians of the "Land of War" whom he transformed into peaceful and devoted Christians,—cannot be told in this place. His final triumphs in the conflict with slavery were:

1. In 1537, the procuring from Pope Paul III. of a brief "forbidding the further enslavement of Indians under penalty of excommunication."

2. In 1542, the promulgation of the New Laws by Charles V., the decisive clause in which was as follows: "'We order and command that henceforward for no cause whatever, whether of war, rebellion, ransom, or in any other manner, can any Indian be made a slave.'

This clause was never repealed, and it stopped the spread of slavery. Other clauses went further, and made such sweeping provisions for immediate abolition that it proved to be impossible to enforce them. … The matter was at last compromised by an arrangement that encomiendas should be inheritable during two lives, and should then escheat to the crown. This reversion to the crown meant the emancipation of the slaves. Meanwhile such provisions were made … that the dreadful encomienda reverted to the milder form of the repartimiento. Absolute slavery was transformed into villenage. In this ameliorated form the system continued."

J. Fiske, The Discovery of America, chapter 11 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Sir A. Helps, Spanish Conquest in America.

Sir A. Helps, Life of Las Casas.

G. E. Ellis, Las Casas (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 2, chapter 5).

H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1, chapter 5.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1442-1501. Its beginning in Europe and its establishment in Spanish America.

"The peculiar phase of slavery that will be brought forward in this history is not the first and most natural one, in which the slave was merely the captive in war, 'the fruit of the spear,' as he has figuratively been called, who lived in the house of his conqueror and laboured at his lands. This system culminated among the Romans; partook of the fortunes of the Empire; was gradually modified by Christianity and advancing civilization; declined by slow and almost imperceptible degrees into serfage and vassalage; and was extinct, or nearly so, when the second great period of slavery suddenly uprose. This second period was marked by a commercial character. The slave was no longer an accident of war. He had become the object of war. He was no longer a mere accidental subject of barter. He was to be sought for, to be hunted out, to be produced; and this change accordingly gave rise to a new branch of commerce. Slavery became at once a much more momentous question than it ever had been, and thenceforth, indeed, claims for itself a history of its own."

Sir A. Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History of Slavery, book 1, chapter 1.

"The first negroes imported into Europe after the extinction of the old pagan slavery were brought in one of the ships of Prince Henry of Portugal, in the year 1442. There was, however, no regular trade in negroes established by the Portuguese; and the importation of human beings fell off, while that of other articles of commerce increased, until after the discovery of America. Then the sudden destruction of multitudes of Indians in war, by unaccustomed labour, by immense privations, and by diseases new to them, produced a void in the labour market which was inevitably filled up by the importation of negroes. Even the kindness and the piety of the Spanish monarchs tended partly to produce this result. {2920} They forbade the enslaving of Indians, and they contrived that the Indians should live in some manner apart from the Spaniards; and it is a very significant fact that the great 'Protector of the Indians,' Las Casas, should, however innocently, have been concerned with the first large grant of licenses to import negroes into the West India Islands. Again, the singular hardihood of the negro race, which enabled them to flourish in all climates, and the comparative debility of the Indians, also favoured this result. The anxiety of the Catholic Church for proselytes combined with the foregoing causes to make the bishops and monks slow to perceive the mischief of any measure which might tend to save or favour large communities of docile converts."-

Sir A. Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History of Slavery, book 21, chapter 5 (volume 4).

The first notice of the introduction of negro slaves in the West Indies appears in the instructions given in 1501 to Ovando, who superseded Columbus in the governorship.

Sir A. Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, and its Relation to the History of Slavery, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1562-1567. John Hawkins engages England in the traffic.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1562-1567.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1609-1755. In colonial New York.

"From the settlement of New York by the Dutch in 1609, down to its conquest by the English in 1664, there is no reliable record of slavery in that colony. That the institution was coeval with the Holland government, there can be no historical doubt. During the half-century that the Holland flag waved over the New Netherlands, slavery grew to such proportions as to be regarded as a necessary evil. … The West India Company had offered many inducements to its patroons. And its pledge to furnish the colonists with 'as many blacks as they conveniently could,' was scrupulously performed. … When New Netherlands became an English colony, slavery received substantial official encouragement, and the slave became the subject of colonial legislation. … Most of the slaves in the Province of New York, from the time they were first introduced, down to 1664, had been the property of the West India Company. As such they had small plots of land to work for their own benefit, and were not without hope of emancipation some day. But under the English government the condition of the slave was clearly defined by law and one of great hardships. On the 24th of October, 1684, an Act was passed in which slavery was for the first time regarded as a legitimate institution in the Province of New York under the English government." After the mad excitement caused by the pretended Negro Plot of 1741 (see NEW YORK: A. D. 1741) "the legislature turned its attention to additional legislation upon the slavery question. Severe laws were passed against the Negroes. Their personal rights were curtailed until their condition was but little removed from that of the brute creation. We have gone over the voluminous records of the Province of New York, and have not found a single act calculated to ameliorate the condition of the slave."

G. W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, volume 1, chapter 13.

A census of the slaves in the Province of New York was made in 1755, the record of which has been preserved for all except the most important counties of New York, Albany and Suffolk. It shows 67 slaves then in Brooklyn.

Doc. History of New York, volume 3.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1619. Introduction in Virginia.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1619.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1638-1781. Beginning and ending in Massachusetts.

In the code of laws called the Body of Liberties, adopted by the General Court of Massachusetts in 1641, there is the following provision (Article 91): "There shall never be any Bond Slavery, Villinage, or Captivity amongst 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 Historical Society Collection, volume 28, page 231.

"No instance has been discovered of a sale by one man of himself to another, although the power of doing this was recognized in the Body of Liberties. But of sales by the way of punishment for crime, under a sentence of a court, there are several instances recorded. … Of captives taken in war and sold into slavery by the colony, the number appears to have been larger, though it is not easy to ascertain in how many instances it was done. As a measure of policy, it was adopted in the case of such as were taken in the early Indian wars. … It was chiefly confined to the remnants of the Pequod tribe, and to such as were taken in the war with King Philip. …

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637, and 1676-1678.

If now we recur to negro slavery, it does not appear when it was first introduced into the colony. … When Josslyn was here in 1638, he found Mr. Maverick the owner of three negro slaves. He probably acquired them from a ship which brought some slaves from the West Indies in that year. And this is the first importation of which we have any account. But Maverick was not properly a member of Winthrop's Company. He came here before they left England, and had his establishment, and lived by himself, upon Noddle's Island. … The arrival of a Massachusetts ship with two negroes on board, whom the master had brought from Africa for sale, in 1645, four years after the adoption of the Body of Liberties, furnished an opportunity to test the sincerity of its framers, in seeking to limit and restrict slavery in the colony. … Upon information that these negroes had been forcibly seized and abducted from the coast of Africa by the captain of the vessel, the magistrates interposed to prevent their being sold. But though the crime of man-stealing had been committed, they found they had no cognizance of it, because it had been done in a foreign jurisdiction. They, however, went as far towards reaching the wrong done as they could; and not only compelled the ship-master to give up the men, but sent them back to Africa, at the charge of the colony. … And they made this, moreover, an occasion, by an act of legislation of the General Court, in 1646, 'to bear witness,' in the language of the act, 'against the heinous and crying sin of man-stealing, as also to prescribe such timely redress for what is past, and such a law for the future, as may sufficiently deter all others belonging to us to have to do in such vile and most odious courses, justly abhorred of all good and just men.' … In 1767 a bill to restrain the importing of slaves passed the popular branch of the General Court, but failed in the Council. Nor would it have availed if it had passed both branches, because it would have been vetoed by the Governor; acting under instructions from the Crown. {2921} This was shown in 1774, when such a bill did pass both branches of the General Court, and was thus vetoed. These successive acts of legislation were a constantly recurring illustration of the truth of the remark of a modern writer of standard authority upon the subject, that—'though the condition of slavery in the colonies may not have been created by the imperial legislature, yet it may be said with truth that the colonies were compelled to receive African slaves by the home government.' … The action of the government [of Massachusetts] when reorganized under the advice of the Continental Congress, was shown in September, 1776, in respect to several negroes who had been taken in an English prize-ship and brought into Salem to be sold. The General Court, having learned these facts, put a stop to the sale at once. And this was accompanied by a resolution on the part of the House—'That the selling and enslaving the human species is a direct violation of the natural rights alike vested in them by their Creator, and utterly inconsistent with the avowed principles on which this and the other States have carried on their struggle for liberty.' … In respect to the number of slaves living here at any one time, no census seems to have been taken of them prior to 1754. … In 1708, Governor Dudley estimates the whole number in the colony at 550; 200 having arrived between 1698 and 1707. Dr. Belknap thinks they were the most numerous here about 1745. And Mr. Felt, upon careful calculation, computes their number in 1754 at 4,489. … In 1755, Salem applied to the General Court to suppress slavery. Boston did the same in 1766, in 1767, and … in 1772. In 1773 the action of the towns was more general and decided." In 1780, the then free state of Massachusetts framed and adopted a constitution, the opening declaration of which was that "'all men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights.' … When [the next year] the highest judicial tribunal in the State was called upon to construe and apply this clause, they gave a response which struck off the chains from every slave in the commonwealth."

E. Washburn, Slavery as it once Prevailed in Massachusetts (Lowell Inst. Lectures, 1869: Massachusetts and its Early History, lecture 6).

ALSO IN: W. B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, chapters 12 and 22 (volume 2).

Letters and Documents relating to Slavery in Massachusetts (Massachusetts Historical Society Collection, Fifth Series, v. 3).

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1652. First Antislavery enactment in Rhode Island.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1651-1652.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1658. Introduction of slavery in Cape Colony.

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1486-1806.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1669-1670. Provided for in Locke's Fundamental Constitutions for the Carolinas.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1669-1693.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1680. Early importance in South Carolina. Indian slavery also established.

See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1680.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1685-1772. Black slaves in England.

"The extensive proprietary interests which, during last century, English merchants and members of the English aristocracy held in the American colonies and the West Indies, involved the possession also on their part of many slaves. Many of these black slaves were trained to act as household servants and personal attendants, and in this capacity accompanied their owners when travelling. The presence of black slaves in this country was therefore not an unfamiliar sight; but it will perhaps startle many readers to know that in 1764, according to the estimate of the 'Gentleman's Magazine' of the period, there were upwards of 20,000 black slaves domiciled in London alone, and that these slaves were openly bought and sold on 'Change.' The newspapers of the day represent these slaves as being upon the whole rather a trouble to their owners. For one thing, they ceased to consider themselves 'slaves' in this so-called 'free country'; hence they were often unwilling to work, and when forced to labour were generally sullen, spiteful, treacherous, and revengeful. They also frequently, as we shall find from the press advertisements of the day, made their escape, necessitating rewards being offered for their recapture. For instance, in the' London Gazette' for March, 1685, there is an advertisement to the effect that a black boy of about 15 years of age, named John White, ran away from Colonel Kirke on the 15th inst. 'He has a silver collar about his neck, upon which is the colonel's coat of arms and cipher; he has upon his throat a great scar: &c. A reward is offered for bringing him back. In the 'Daily Post' of August 4, 1720, is a similar notice. … Again, in the 'Daily Journal' for September 28, 1728, is an advertisement for a runaway black boy. It is added that he had the words 'My Lady Bromfield's black in Lincoln's Inn Fields' engraved on a collar round his neck. … That a collar was considered as essential for a black slave as for a dog is shown by an advertisement in the 'London Advertiser' for 1756, in which Matthew Dyer, working-goldsmith at the Crown in Duck Lane, Orchard Street, Westminster, intimates to the public that he makes' silver padlocks for Blacks or Dogs; collars,' &c. … In the 'Tatler' for 1709, a black boy, 12 years of age, 'fit to wait on gentleman,' is offered for sale at Dennis's Coffee-house, in Finch Lane, near the Royal Exchange. From the 'Daily Journal ' of September 28, 1728, we learn that a negro boy, 11 years of age, was similarly offered for sale at the Virginia Coffee-house. … Again, in the 'Public Ledger' for December 31, 1761, we have for sale 'A healthy Negro Girl, aged about 15 years; speaks good English, works at her needle, washes well, does household work, and has had the small-pox.' So far these sales seem to have been effected privately; but later on we find that the auctioneer's hammer is being brought into play. In 1763, one John Rice was hanged for forgery at Tyburn, and following upon his execution was a sale of his effects by auction, 'and among the rest a negro boy.' He brought £32. The 'Gentleman's Magazine' of the day, commenting upon the sale of the black boy, says that this was 'perhaps the first custom of the kind in a free country.' … The 'Stamford Mercury' for [1771] bears record that 'at a sale of a gentleman's effects at Richmond, a Negro Boy was put up and sold for £32.' The paper adds: 'A shocking instance in a free country!' The public conscience had indeed for many years been disturbed on this question, the greater number in England holding that the system of slavery as tolerated in London and the country generally should be declared illegal. From an early period in last century the subject had not only been debated in the public prints and on the platform, but had been made matter of something like judicial decision. {2922} At the first, legal opinion was opposed to the manumission of slaves brought by their masters to this country. In 1729, Lord Talbot, Attorney-general, and Mr. Yorke, Solicitor-general, gave an opinion which raised the whole question of the legal existence of slaves in Great Britain and Ireland. The opinion of these lawyers was that the mere fact of a slave coming into these countries from the West Indies did not render him free, and that he could be compelled to return again to those plantations. Even the rite of baptism did not free him—it could only affect his spiritual, not his temporal, condition. It was on the strength of this decision that slavery continued to flourish in England until, as we have seen, there were at one time as many as 20,000 black slaves in London alone. Chief-justice Holt had, however, expressed a contrary opinion to that above given; and after a long struggle the matter was brought to a final issue in the famous case of the negro Somersett. On June 22, 1772, it was decided by Lord Mansfield, in the name of the whole bench, that 'as soon as a slave set foot on the soil of the British Islands, he became free.' From that day to the present this has remained the law of our land as regards slavery. The poet Cowper expressed the jubilant feeling of the country over Lord Mansfield's dictum when he sung: … 'Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs receive our air, that moment they are free.'"

Black Slaves in England (Chamber's Journal, January 31, 1891).

ALSO IN: H. Greeley, History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension or Restriction, pages 2-3.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1688-1780. Beginning and growth or Antislavery sentiment among the Quakers. Emancipation in Pennsylvania.

"So early as the year 1688, some emigrants from Kriesheim in Germany, who had adopted the principles of William Penn, and followed him into Pennsylvania, urged in the yearly meeting of the Society there, the inconsistency of buying, selling, and holding men in slavery, with the principles of the Christian religion. In the year 1696, the yearly meeting for that province took up the subject as a public concern, and the result was, advice to the members of it to guard against future importations of African slaves, and to be particularly attentive to the treatment of those, who were then in their possession. In the year 1711, the same yearly meeting resumed the important subject, and confirmed and renewed the advice, which had been before given. From this time it continued to keep the subject alive; but finding at length, that, though individuals refused to purchase slaves, yet others continued the custom, and in greater numbers that it was apprehended would have been the case after the public declarations which had been made, it determined, in the year 1754, upon a fuller and more serious publication of its sentiments; and therefore it issued, in the same year, … [a] pertinent letter to all the members within its jurisdiction. … This truly Christian letter, which was written in the year 1754, was designed, as we collect from the contents of it, to make the sentiments of the Society better known and attended to on the subject of the Slave-trade. It contains … exhortations to all the members within the yearly meeting of Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, to desist from purchasing and importing slaves, and, where they possessed them, to have a tender consideration of their condition. But that the first part of the subject of this exhortation might be enforced, the yearly meeting for the same provinces came to a resolution in 1755, That if any of the members belonging to it bought or imported slaves, the overseers were to inform their respective monthly meetings of it, that 'these might treat with them, as they might be directed in the wisdom of truth.' In the year 1774, we find the same yearly meeting legislating again on the same subject. By the preceding resolution they, who became offenders, were subjected only to exclusion from the meetings for discipline, and from the privilege of contributing to the pecuniary occasions of the Society; but by the resolution of the present year, all members concerned in importing, selling, purchasing, giving, or transferring Negro or other slaves, or otherwise acting in such manner as to continue them in slavery beyond the term limited by law or custom, were directed to be excluded from membership or disowned. … In the year 1776, the same yearly meeting carried the matter still further. It was then enacted, That the owners of slaves, who refused to execute proper instruments for giving them their freedom, were to be disowned likewise."

T. Clarkson, History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, volume 1, chapter 5.

In 1780 Pennsylvania adopted an act for the gradual emancipation of all slaves within its territory, being the first among the States to perform that great act of justice.

W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, Popular History of the United States, volume 3, chapter 7.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1698-1776. England and the Slave-trade. The Assiento contract with Spain.

After the opening of the slave trade to the English by Hawkins, in 1562-1564, "the traffic in human flesh speedily became popular. A monopoly of it was granted to the African Company, but it was invaded by numerous interlopers, and in 1698 the trade was thrown open to all British subjects. It is worthy of notice that while by the law of 1698 a certain percentage was exacted from other African cargoes for the maintenance of the forts along that coast, cargoes of negroes were especially exempted, for the Parliament of the Revolution desired above all things to encourage the trade. Nine years before, a convention had been made between England and Spain for supplying the Spanish West Indies with slaves from the island of Jamaica, and it has been computed that between 1680 and 1700 the English tore from Africa about 300,000 negroes, or about 15,000 every year. The great period of the English slave trade had, however, not yet arrived. It was only in 1713 that it began to attain its full dimensions. One of the most important and most popular parts of the Treaty of Utrecht was the contract known as the Assiento, by which the British Government secured for its subjects during thirty years an absolute monopoly of the supply of slaves to the Spanish colonies. The traffic was regulated by a long and elaborate treaty, guarding among other things against any possible scandal to the Roman Catholic religion from the presence of heretical slave-traders, and it provided that in the 30 years from 1713 to 1743 the English should bring into the Spanish West Indies no less than 144,000 negroes, or 4,800 every year; that during the first 25 years of the contract they might import a still greater number on paying certain moderate duties, and that they might carry the slave trade into numerous Spanish ports from which it had hitherto been excluded. {2923} The monopoly of the trade was granted to the South Sea Company, and from this time its maintenance, and its extension both to the Spanish dominions and to her own colonies, became a central object of English policy. A few facts will show the scale on which it was pursued From Christmas 1752 to Christmas 1762 no less than 71,115 negroes were imported into Jamaica. In a despatch written at the end of 1762, Admiral Rodney reports that in little more than three years 40,000 negroes had been introduced into Guadaloupe. In a discussion upon the methods of making the trade more effectual, which took place in the English Parliament in 1750, it was shown that 46,000 negroes were at this time annually sold to the English colonies alone. A letter of General O'Hara, the Governor of Senegambia, written in 1766, estimates at the almost incredible figure of 70,000 the number of negroes who during the preceding fifty years had been annually shipped from Africa. A distinguished modern historian, after a careful comparison of the materials we possess, declares that in the century preceding the prohibition of the slave trade by the American Congress, in 1776, the number of negroes imported by the English alone, into the Spanish, French, and English colonies can, on the lowest computation, have been little less than three millions, and that we must add more than a quarter of a million, who perished on the voyage and whose bodies were thrown into the Atlantic."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of English in the 18th Century, chapter 5 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: G. Bancroft, History of the United States. (Author's last revision), part 3, chapter 16 (volume 2).

D. Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, volume 4, pages 141-157.

See, also, UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714; AIX LA CHAPELLE: THE CONGRESS; ENGLAND: A. D. 1739, 1741; GEORGIA: A. D. 1738-1743; ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1580-1777.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1713-1776. Maintained in the American colonies by the English Crown and Parliament.

"The success of the American Revolution made it possible for the different states to take measures for the gradual abolition of slavery and the immediate abolition of the foreign slave-trade. On this great question the state of public opinion in America was more advanced than in England. … George III. … resisted the movement for abolition with all the obstinacy of which his hard and narrow nature was capable. In 1769 the Virginia legislature had enacted that the further importation of negroes, to be sold into slavery, should be prohibited. But George III. commanded the governor to veto this act, and it was vetoed. In Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence, this action of the king was made the occasion of a fierce denunciation of slavery, but in deference to the prejudices of South Carolina and Georgia the clause was struck out by Congress. When George III. and his vetoes had been eliminated from the case, it became possible for the States to legislate freely on the subject."

J. Fiske, T/w Critical Period of American History, page 71.

"During the regal government, we had at one time obtained a law which imposed such a duty on the importation of slaves as amounted nearly to a prohibition, when one inconsiderate assembly, placed under a peculiarity of circumstance, repealed the law. This repeal met a joyful sanction from the then sovereign, and no devices, no expedients, which could ever after be attempted by subsequent assemblies, and they seldom met without attempting them, could succeed in getting the royal assent to a renewal of the duty. In the very first session held under the republican government, the assembly passed a law for the perpetual prohibition of the importation of slaves. This will in some measure stop the increase of this great political and moral evil, while the minds of our citizens may be ripening for a complete emancipation of human nature."

T. Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, query 8.

"It has been frequently stated that England is responsible for the introduction of negro slavery into British America; but this assertion will not stand the test of examination. … It is, however, true that from a very early period a certain movement against it may be detected in some American States, that there was, especially in the Northern Provinces, a great and general dislike to the excessive importation of negroes, and that every attempt to prohibit or restrict that importation was rebuked and defeated by England. … The State Governors were forbidden to give the necessary assent to any measures restricting it, and the English pursued this policy steadily to the very eve of the Revolution."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 5 (volume 2).

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1717. Introduction into Louisiana.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1717-1718.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1735-1749. Questioned early in Georgia. Slavery prohibited at the beginning, and finally introduced.

See GEORGIA: A. D. 1735-1749.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1741. The pretended Negro Plot in New York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1741.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1756. Extent and distribution in the English American colonies.

"The number of African slaves in North America in 1756, the generation preceding the Revolution, was about 292,000. Of these Virginia had 120,000, her white population amounting at the same time to 173,000. The African increase in Virginia had been steady. In 1619 came the first 20, and in 1649 there were 300. In 1670, there were 2,000. In 1714, there were 23,000. In 1756, there were 120,000. The 172,000 who, in addition to these, made up the African population of America, were scattered through the provinces from New England to Georgia."

J. E. Cooke, Virginia, page 367.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1769-1785. The ending of slavery in Connecticut and New Hampshire.

"For the New England States the Revolution was the death knell of slavery and of the slave-trade protected by the law [see action in Massachusetts and Rhode Island detailed above and below]. … In New Hampshire the institution died a natural death. As Belknap said in 1792, 'Slavery is not prohibited by any express law. … Those born since the constitution was made [1776] are free.' Although the legal status of the negro was somewhat different, he was practically treated in the same manner in New Hampshire that he was treated in Rhode Island. Connecticut did not change her royal charter into a state constitution until 1818, and her slaves were freed in 1784. The slave-trade in New England vessels did not cease when the state forbade it within New England territory. It was conducted stealthily, but steadily, even into the lifetime of Judge Story. Felt gives instances in 1785, and the inference is that the business was prosecuted from Salem."

W. B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, volume 2, pages 834-835.

{2924}

"Connecticut was one of the first colonies to pass a law against the slave-trade. This was done in 1769. The main cause of the final abolition of slavery in the State was the fact that it became unprofitable. In 1784 the Legislature passed an Act declaring that all persons born of slaves, after the 1st of March in that year, should be free at the age of 25. Most of those born before this time were gradually emancipated by their masters, and the institution of slavery had almost died out before 1806."

E. B. Sanford, History of Connecticut, page 252.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1774. The bringing of slaves into Rhode Island prohibited.

"Africans had been brought to the shores of this colony in the earliest of the vessels in which the commerce of Newport had reached across the Atlantic. Becoming domesticated within the colony, the black population had in 1730 reached the number of 1,648, and in 1774 had become 3,761. How early the philanthropic movement in their behalf, and the measures looking towards their emancipation, had gained headway, cannot be determined with accuracy. It is probable that the movement originated with the Society of Friends within the colony. But little progress had been made towards any embodiment of this sentiment in legislative enactment, however, until the very year of the First Continental Congress, when at the direct instance of Stephen Hopkins (himself for many years an owner of slaves, though a most humane master), the General Assembly ordained [June, 1774] 'that for the future no negro or mulatto slave shall be brought into the colony,' and that all previously enslaved persons on becoming residents of Rhode Island should obtain their freedom. 'In this decided action,' once more, as has been so often seen to be the case with movements led by Stephen Hopkins, 'Rhode Island,' says Arnold, 'took the lead of all her sister colonies.'"

W. E. Foster, Stephen Hopkins, part 2, pages 98-100.

ALSO IN: W. D. Johnston, Slavery in Rhode Island, part 2.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1776-1808. Antislavery sentiment in the Southern (American) States. The causes of its disappearance.

Jefferson's "'Notes on Virginia' were written in 1781-2. His condemnation of slavery in that work is most emphatic. 'The whole commerce between master and slave,' he says, 'is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this and learn to imitate it. … The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. With what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one-half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots and these into enemies—destroys the morals of the one part and the amor patriæ of the other? … Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis—a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God; that they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just—that His justice cannot sleep forever.' … On the practical question, 'What shall be done about it?' Mr. Jefferson's mind wavered; he was in doubt. How can slavery be abolished? He proposed, in Virginia, a law, which was rejected, making all free who were born after the passage of the act. And here again he hesitated. What will become of these people after they are free? … He thought they had better be emancipated and sent out of the country. He therefore took up with the colonization scheme long before the Colonization Society was founded. He did not feel sure on this point. With his practical mind he could not see how a half million of slaves could be sent out of the country, even if they were voluntarily liberated; where they should be sent to, or how unwilling masters could be compelled to liberate their slaves. While, therefore, he did not favor immediate emancipation, he was zealous for no other scheme. … Mr. Jefferson, in August, 1785, wrote a letter to Dr. Richard Price, of London, author of a treatise on Liberty, in which very advanced opinions were taken on the slavery question. Concerning the prevalence of anti-slavery opinions at that period, he says: 'Southward of the Chesapeake your book will find but few readers concurring with it in sentiment on the subject of slavery. From the mouth to the head of the Chesapeake, the bulk of the people will approve its theory, and it will find a respectable minority, a minority ready to adopt it in practice; which, for weight and worth of character, preponderates against the greater number who have not the courage to divest their families of a property which, how·ever, keeps their consciences unquiet. Northward of the Chesapeake you may find, here and there, an opponent to your doctrine, as you find, here and there, a robber and murderer, but in no greater number. In that part of America there are but few slaves, and they can easily disencumber themselves of them; and emancipation is put in such train that in a few years there will be no slaves northward of Maryland. In Maryland I do not find such a disposition to begin the redress of this enormity as in Virginia. These [the inhabitants of Virginia] have sucked in the principles of liberty, as it were, with their mothers' milk, and it is to these I look with anxiety to turn the fate of this question. Be not, therefore, discouraged.'" M. Brissot de Warville visited Washington, at Mount Vernon, in 1788, and conversed with him freely on the subject of slavery. "This great man declared to me," he wrote in his narrative, afterwards published, "that he rejoiced at what was doing in other States on the subject [of emancipation—alluding to the recent formation of several state societies]; that he sincerely desired the extension of it in his own State; but he did not dissemble that there were still many obstacles to be overcome; that it was dangerous to strike too vigorously at a prejudice which had begun to diminish; that time, patience, and information would not fail to vanquish it."

W. F. Poole, Anti-Slavery Opinions before the year 1800, pages 25-35, and foot-note.

{2925}

"In Virginia all the foremost statesmen—Washington, Jefferson, Lee, Randolph, Henry, and Madison, and Mason—were opposed to the continuance of slavery; and their opinions were shared by many of the largest planters. For tobacco-culture slavery did not seem so indispensable as for the raising of rice and indigo; and in Virginia the negroes, half-civilized by kindly treatment, were not regarded with horror by their masters, like the ill-treated and ferocious blacks of South Carolina and Georgia. After 1808 the policy and the sentiments of Virginia underwent a marked change. The invention of the cotton-gin, taken in connection with the sudden prodigious development of manufactures in England, greatly stimulated the growth of cotton in the ever-enlarging area of the Gulf states, and created an immense demand for slave-labour, just at the time when the importation of negroes from Africa came to an end. The breeding of slaves, to be sold to the planters of the Gulf states, then became such a profitable occupation in Virginia as entirely to change the popular feeling about slavery. But until 1808 Virginia sympathized with the anti-slavery sentiment which was growing up in the northern states; and the same was true of Maryland. … In the work of gradual emancipation the little state of Delaware led the way. In its new constitution of 1776 the further introduction of slaves was prohibited, all restraints upon emancipation having already been removed. In the assembly of Virginia in 1778 a bill prohibiting the further introduction of slaves was moved and carried by Thomas Jefferson, and the same measure was passed in Maryland in 1783, while both these states removed all restraints upon emancipation. North Carolina was not ready to go quite so far, but in 1786 she sought to discourage the slave-trade by putting a duty of £5 per head on all negroes thereafter imported."

J. Fiske, The Critical Period of American History, page 73.

ALSO IN: T. Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, query 18.

J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapters 16-17 (volume 1.

J. R. Brackett, The Status of the Slave, 1775-1789 (Essays in Constitutional History).

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1777. Prohibited by the organic law of Vermont.

See VERMONT: A. D.1777-1778.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1781. Emancipation in Massachusetts.

See, SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1638-1781.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1787. The compromises in the Constitution of the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AM.: A. D. 1787.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1787. Exclusion forever from the Northwest Territory of the United States.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1787.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1790. Guaranteed to Tennessee.

See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1785-1796.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1791-1802. The Revolt of the Haytian blacks, under Toussaint L' Ouverture, and the ending of slavery on the island.

See HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1792. The institution entrenched in the Constitution of the new state of Kentucky.

See KENTUCKY: A. D. 1789-1792.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1792-1807. Earliest measures for the suppression of the slave-trade.

"In 1776 the first motion against the trade was made in the English parliament; and soon leading statesmen of all parties, including Fox, Burke, and Pitt, declared themselves in favour of its abolition. In 1792 the Danish King took the lead in the cause of humanity by absolutely prohibiting his subjects from buying, selling, and transporting slaves; and at last, in 1807, the moral sense of the British public overrode the vested interests of merchants and planters; parliament, at Lord Grenville's instance, passed the famous act for the Abolition of the Slave trade; and thenceforward successive British governments set themselves steadily by treaty and convention to bring other nations to follow their example. … In 1794 the United States prohibited their subjects from slave-trading to foreign countries, and in 1807 they prohibited the importation of slaves into their own."

C. P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies, volume 2, pages 67-68.

ALSO IN: T. Clarkson, History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1799. Gradual emancipation enacted in New York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1799.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1806. Act of the English Parliament against the slave-trade.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1806-1812.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1815. Declaration of the Powers against the slave-trade.

The following are passages from the Declaration against the Slave Trade, which was signed by the representatives of the Powers at the Congress of Vienna, February 8, 1815: "Having taken into consideration that the commerce known by the name of 'the Slave Trade' has been considered by just and enlightened men of all ages as repugnant to the principles of humanity and universal morality; … that at length the public voice, in all civilized countries, calls aloud for its prompt suppression; that since the character and the details of this traffic have been better known, and the evils of every kind which attend it, completely developed, several European Governments have, virtually, come to the resolution of putting a stop to it, and that, successively all the Powers possessing Colonies in different parts of the world have acknowledged, either by Legislative Acts, or by Treaties, or other formal engagements, the duty and necessity of abolishing it: That by a separate Article of the late Treaty of Paris, Great Britain and France engaged to unite their efforts at the Congress of Vienna, to induce all the Powers of Christendom to proclaim the universal and definitive Abolition of the Slave Trade: That the Plenipotentiaries assembled at this Congress … declare, in the face of Europe, that, considering the universal abolition of the Slave Trade as a measure particularly worthy of their attention, conformable to the spirit of the times, and to the generous principles of their august Sovereigns, they are animated with the sincere desire of concurring in the most prompt and effectual execution of this measure, by all the means at their disposal. … The said Plenipotentiaries at the same time acknowledge that this general Declaration cannot prejudge the period that each particular Power may consider as most desirable for the definitive abolition of the Slave Trade. Consequent]y, the determining the period when this trade is to cease universally must be a subject of negociation between the Powers; it being understood, however, that no proper means of securing its attainment, and of accelerating its progress, are to be neglected."

L. Hertslet, Collection of Treaties and Conventions, volume 1, page 11.

{2926}

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1816-1849. The organization of the American Colonization Society. The founding of Liberia.

"Samuel J. Mills organized at Williams College, in 1808, for missionary work, an undergraduate society, which was soon transferred to Andover, and resulted in the establishment of the American Bible Society and Board of Foreign Missions. But the topic which engrossed Mills' most enthusiastic attention was the Negro. The desire was to better his condition by founding a colony between the Ohio and the Lakes; or later, when this was seen to be unwise, in Africa. On going to New Jersey to continue his theological studies, Mills succeeded in interesting the Presbyterian clergy of that State in his project. Of this body one of the most prominent members was Dr. Robert Finley. Dr. Finley succeeded in assembling at Princeton the first meeting ever called to consider the project of sending Negro colonists to Africa. Although supported by few save members of the seminary, Dr. Finley felt encouraged to set out for Washington in December 1816, to attempt the formation of a colonization society. Earlier in this same year there had been a sudden awakening of Southern interest in colonization. … The interest already awakened and the indefatigable efforts of Finley and his friend Colonel Charles Marsh, at length succeeded in convening the assembly to which the Colonization Society owes its existence. It was a notable gathering. Henry Clay, in the absence of Bushrod Washington, presided, setting forth in glowing terms the object and aspirations of the meeting. … John Randolph of Roanoke, and Robert Wright of Maryland, dwelt upon the desirability of removing the turbulent free-negro element and enhancing the value of property in slaves. Resolutions organizing the Society passed, and committees appointed to draft a Constitution and present a memorial to Congress. … With commendable energy the newly organized Society set about the accomplishment of the task before it. Plans were discussed during the summer, and in November two agents, Samuel J. Mills and Ebenezer Burgess, sailed for Africa to explore the western coast and select a suitable spot. … Their inspection was carried as far south [from Sierra Leone] as Sherbro Island, where they obtained promises from the natives to sell land to the colonists on their arrival with goods to pay for it. In May they embarked on the return voyage. Mills died before reaching home. His colleague made a most favorable report of the locality selected, though, as the event proved, it was a most unfortunate one. After defraying the expenses of this exploration the Society's treasury was practically empty. It would have been most difficult to raise the large sum necessary to equip and send out a body of emigrants; and the whole enterprise would have languished and perhaps died but for a new impelling force. … Though the importation of slaves had been strictly prohibited by the Act of Congress of March 2, 1807, no provision had been made for the care of the unfortunates smuggled in in defiance of the Statute. They became subject to the laws of the State in which they were landed; and these laws were in some cases so devised that it was profitable for the dealer to land his cargo and incur the penalty. The advertisements of the sale of such a cargo of 'recaptured Africans' by the State of Georgia drew the attention of the Society and of General Mercer in particular to this inconsistent and abnormal state of affairs. His profound indignation shows forth in the Second Annual Report of the Society, in which the attention of the public is earnestly drawn to the question; nor did he rest until a bill was introduced into the House of Representatives designed to do away with the evil. This bill became a law on March 3, 1819. … The clause which proved so important to the embryo colony was that dealing with the captured cargoes: 'The President of the United States is hereby authorized to make such regulations and arrangements as he may deem expedient for the safe-keeping, support, and removal beyond the limits of the United States, of all such negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color as may be so delivered and brought within their jurisdiction; and to appoint a proper person or persons residing upon the coast of Africa as agent or agents for receiving the negroes, mulattoes, or persons of color, delivered from on board vessels seized in the prosecution of the slave trade by commanders of the United States armed vessels.' The sum of $100,000 was appropriated for carrying out the provisions of the Act. President Monroe determined to construe it as broadly as possible in aid of the project of colonization. After giving Congress, in his message, December 20, 1818, fair notice of his intention, no objection being made, he proceeded to appoint two agents, the Rev. Samuel Bacon, already in the service of the Colonization Society, and John P. Bankson as assistant, and to charter the ship Elizabeth. The agents were instructed to settle on the coast of Africa, with a tacit understanding that the place should be that selected by the Colonization Society. … For the expenses of the expedition $33,000 was placed in the hands of Mr. Bacon. Dr. Samuel A. Crozier was appointed by the Society as its agent and representative; and 86 negroes from various states—33 men, 18 women, and the rest children, were embarked. On the 6th of February, 1820, the Mayflower of Liberia weighed anchor in New York harbor, and, convoyed by the U. S. sloop-of-war Cyane, steered her course toward the shores of Africa. The pilgrims were kindly treated by the authorities at Sierra Leone, where they arrived on the 9th of March; but on proceeding to Sherbro Island they found the natives had reconsidered their promise, and refused to sell them land. While delayed by negotiations the injudicious nature of the site selected was disastrously shown. The low marshy ground and the bad water quickly bred the African fever, which soon carried off all the agents and nearly a fourth of the emigrants. The rest, weakened and disheartened, were soon obliged to seek refuge at Sierra Leone. In March, 1821, a body of 28 new emigrants under charge of J. B. Winn and Ephraim Bacon, reached Freetown in the brig Nautilus. Winn collected as many as he could of the first company, also the stores sent out with them, and settled the people in temporary quarters at Fourah Bay, while Bacon set out to explore the coast anew and secure suitable territory. An elevated fertile and desirable tract was at length discovered between 250 and 300 miles S. E. of Sierra Leone. This was the region of Cape Montserado. It seemed exactly suited to the purposes of the colonists, but the natives refused to sell their land for fear of breaking up the traffic in slaves; and the agent returned discouraged. Winn soon died, and Bacon returned to the United States. In November, Dr. Eli Ayres was sent over as agent, and the U. S. schooner Alligator, commanded by Lieutenant Stockton, was ordered to the coast to assist in obtaining a foothold for the colony. Cape Montserado was again visited; and the address and firmness of Lieutenant Stockton accomplished the purchase of a valuable tract of land. {2927} The cape upon which the settlers proposed to build their first habitations consists of a narrow peninsula or tongue of land formed by the Montserado River, which separates it from the mainland. Just within the mouth of the river lie two small islands, containing together less than three acres. To these, the Plymouth of Liberia, the colonists and their goods were soon transported. But again the fickle natives repented the bargain, and the settlers were long confined to 'Perseverance Island,' as the spot was aptly named. … After a number of thrilling experiences the emigrants, on April 25, 1822, formally took possession of the cape, where they had erected rude houses for themselves; and from this moment we may date the existence of the colony. Their supplies were by this time sadly reduced; the natives were hostile and treacherous; fever had played havoc with the colonists in acclimating; and the incessant downpour of the rainy season had set in. Dr. Ayres became thoroughly discouraged, and proposed to lead them back to Sierra Leone. Then it was that Elijah Johnson, an emigrant from New York, made himself forever famous in Liberian history by declaring that he would never desert the home he had found after two years' weary quest! His firmness decided the wavering colonists; the agents with a few faint-hearted ones sailed off to America; but the majority remained with their heroic Negro leader. The little band, deserted by their appointed protectors, were soon reduced to the most dire distress, and must have perished miserably but for the arrival of unexpected relief. The United States Government had at last gotten hold of some ten liberated Africans, and had a chance to make use of the agency established for them at so great an expense. They were accordingly sent out in the brig Strong under the care of the Rev. Jehudi Ashmun. A quantity of stores and some 37 emigrants sent by the Colonization Society completed the cargo. Ashmun had received no commission as agent for the colony, and expected to return on the Strong; under this impression his wife had accompanied him. But when he found the colonists in so desperate a situation he nobly determined to remain with them at any sacrifice. … On the 24th of May, 1823, the brig Oswego arrived with 61 new emigrants and a liberal supply of stores and tools, in charge of Dr. Ayres, who, already the representative of the Society, had now been appointed Government Agent and Surgeon. One of the first measures of the new agent was to have the town surveyed and lots distributed among the whole body of colonists. Many of the older settlers found themselves dispossessed of the holdings improved by their labor, and the colony was soon in a ferment of excitement and insurrection. Dr. Ayres, finding his health failing, judiciously betook himself to the United States. The arrival of the agent had placed Mr. Ashmun in a false position of the most mortifying character. … Seeing the colony again deserted by the agent and in a state of discontent and confusion, he forgot his wrongs and remained at the helm. Order was soon restored but the seeds of insubordination remained. The arrival of 103 emigrants from Virginia on the Cyrus, in February 1824, added to the difficulty, as the stock of food was so low that the whole colony had to be put on half rations. This necessary measure was regarded by the disaffected as an act of tyranny on Ashmun's part; and when shortly after the complete prostration of his health compelled him to withdraw to the Cape De Verde Islands, the malcontents sent home letters charging him with all sorts of abuse of power, and finally with desertion of his post! The Society in consternation applied to Government for an expedition of investigation, and the Rev. R. R. Gurley, Secretary of the Society, and an enthusiastic advocate of colonization, was despatched in June on the U. S. schooner Porpoise. The result of course revealed the probity, integrity and good judgment of Mr. Ashmun; and Gurley became thenceforth his warmest admirer. As a preventive of future discontent a Constitution was adopted at Mr. Gurley's suggestion, giving for the first time a definite share in the control of affairs to the colonists themselves. Gurley brought with him the name of the colony—Liberia, and of its settlement on the Cape—Monrovia, which had been adopted by the Society on the suggestion of Mr. Robert Goodloe Harper of Maryland. He returned from his successful mission in August leaving the most cordial relations established throughout the colony. Gurley's visit seemed to mark the turning of the tide, and a period of great prosperity now began." The national independence of the commonwealth of Liberia was not assumed until 1847, when the first President of the Republic, Joseph J. Roberts, was elected.

J. H. T. McPherson, History of Liberia (Johns Hopkins University Studies, series 9, number 10), chapters 2-3 and 5.

ALSO IN: S. Wilkeson, History of the American Colonies in Liberia.

A. H. Foote, Africa and the American Flag, chapters 10-11.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1818-1821. The opening struggle of the American conflict. The Missouri Compromise.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1821-1854. Emancipation in New Granada, Venezuela and Ecuador.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1821-1854.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1823. Abolition in Central America.

See CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1871.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1825. Bolivar's Emancipation in Bolivia.

See PERU: A. D. 1825-1826.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1827. Final Emancipation in New York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1827.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1828-1832. The rise of the Abolitionists in the United States. Nat Turner's Insurrection.

While the reign of Andrew Jackson [1828-1836] paved the way on which the slave-holding interest ascended to the zenith of its supremacy over the Union, there arose, at the same time, in the body of the abolitionists, the enemy which undermined the firm ground under the feet of that same slave-holding interest. The expression, 'abolition of slavery,' is to be met with even before the adoption of the constitution. But the word 'abolitionism,' as descriptive of a definite political programme, occurs for the first time in this period. … The immediate precursor, and, in a certain sense, the father of the abolitionists, was Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, born in New Jersey. In Wheeling, West Virginia, where he learned the saddler's trade, he had ample opportunity to become acquainted with the horrors of slavery, as great cargoes of slaves, on their way to the southern states, frequently passed the place. {2928} Lundy had been endeavoring for some years to awaken an active interest among his neighbors in the hard lot of the slaves, when the Missouri question brought him to the resolve to consecrate his whole life to their cause. In 1821, he began to publish the 'Genius of Universal Emancipation,' which is to be considered the first abolition organ. The 19th century can scarcely point to another instance in which the command of Christ, to leave all things and follow him, was so literally construed and followed. Lundy gave up his flourishing business, took leave of his wife and of his two dearly beloved children, and began a restless, wandering life, to arouse consciences everywhere to a deeper understanding of the sin and curse of slavery. In the autumn of 1829 he obtained, as associate publisher of his sheet, William Lloyd Garrison, a young litterateur, born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, who, from the position of a poor apprentice to a tradesman, rose to be a type-setter, and from being a type-setter to be a journalist. The removal of Garrison from New England to Baltimore, where Lundy was then publishing the 'Genius,' was an event pregnant with consequences. Garrison had long been a zealous enemy of slavery, but had hitherto seen the right way of doing away with the evil in the efforts of the colonization society. What he now saw of slavery and its effects with his own eyes produced a complete revolution in his views in a few months. He not only recognized the impossibility of preventing the extension of slavery by colonizing the free negroes in Africa, to say nothing of gradually doing away with it altogether, but he became convinced also that the leading spirits of the colonization society purposely sought to induce the philanthropists of the north to enter on a wrong course, in the interests of slavery. Hence his own profession of faith was, henceforth, 'immediate and unconditional emancipation.' His separation from the more moderate Lundy, which was rendered unavoidable by this course, was hastened by an outside occurrence. The captain of a ship from New England took on board at Baltimore a cargo of slaves destined for New Orleans. Garrison denounced him on that account with passionate violence. The matter was carried before the court, and he was sentenced to prison and to pay a money fine for publishing a libelous article and for criminally inciting slaves to insurrection. After an imprisonment of seven weeks, his fine was paid by a New York philanthropist, Arthur Tappan, and Garrison left the city to spread his convictions by means of public lectures through New England. Although his success was not very encouraging, he, in January, 1831, established a paper of his own in Boston, known as 'The Liberator.' He was not only its publisher, and sole writer for it, but he had to be his own printer and carrier. His only assistant was a negro. … In one year, Garrison had found so many who shared his views, that it was possible to found the 'New England Anti-Slavery Society' in Boston [January, 1832]. The example was imitated in other states. The movement spread so rapidly that as early as December, 1833, a 'national' anti-slavery convention could be held in Philadelphia. The immediate practical result of this was the foundation of the 'American Anti-Slavery Society.' … In the same year that Garrison raised the standard of unconditional abolitionism in Boston, an event happened in Virginia, which, from the opposite side, contributed powerfully to lead the slavery question over into its new stage of development. In August, 1831, an uprising of slaves, under the leadership of Nat Turner, occurred in Southampton county. It was, however, quickly subdued, but cost the life of 61 white persons, mostly women and children. The excitement throughout the entire south, and especially in Virginia and the states contiguous to it, was out of all proportion with the number of the victims and the extent of the conspiracy."

H. von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, volume 2, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: W. P. and F. J. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison: The Story of his Life, volume 1, chapters 6-9.

S. J. May, Recollections of the Anti-Slavery Conflict, pages 1-90.

G. L. Austin, Life and Times of Wendell Phillips, chapter 3.

O. Johnson, William Lloyd Garrison and his Times, chapters 1-5.

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, chapter 1.

B. Tuckerman, William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for the Abolition of Slavery.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1829-1837. Emancipation in Mexico, resisted in Texas. Schemes of the American slave power for acquiring that state.

See TEXAS: A. D. 1824-1836; and MEXICO: A. D. 1829-1837.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1834-1838. Emancipation in the British colonies.

"The abolition of slavery, as Fox had said, was the natural consequence of the extinction of the slave trade; and in 1833 the act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British colonies was passed. The law was to take effect from the first of August 1834, but the slaves were to be apprenticed to their former owners till 1838 and in the case of agricultural slaves till 1840, and £20,000,000 sterling were voted as compensation to the slave-holders at the Cape, in Mauritius, and in the West Indies. As a matter of fact, however, two colonies, Antigua and the Bermudas, had the good sense to dispense with the apprenticeship system altogether, and in no case was it prolonged beyond 1838. … When Burke wrote, there were, according to his account, in the British West Indies at least 230,000 slaves against at the most 90,000 whites. In 1788 it is stated that there were 450,000 negroes in the British sugar colonies. At the last registration prior to emancipation, after British Guiana and Trinidad had become British possessions, the number of slaves was given at some 674,000."

C. P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies, volume 2, pages 68-69.

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1832-1833.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1836. The Atherton Gag.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1836.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1840-1847. The Liberty Party and the Liberty League.

"Nothing affords more striking evidence of the gravity and difficulties of the antislavery struggle [in the United States] than the conflicting opinions and plans of the honest and earnest men engaged in it. … The most radical difference was that which separated those who rejected from those who adopted the principle of political action. The former were generally styled the 'old organization,' or Garrisonian Abolitionists; the latter embraced the Liberty Party and those antislavery men who still adhered to the Whig and Democratic parties." In 1847 the Liberty Party became divided, and a separate body was formed which took the name of the Liberty League, and which nominated Gerrit Smith for President, with Elihu Burritt for Vice-President. "As distinguished from the other wing, it may be said that the members of the Liberty League were less practical, more disposed to adhere to theories, and more fearful of sacrificing principle to policy."

H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 2, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: W. Birney, James G. Birney and his Times, chapter 29.

See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840, and 1844.

{2929}

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1840-1860. The Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad was the popular designation given [in the United States] to those systematic and co-operative efforts which were made by the friends of the fleeing slave to aid him in eluding the pursuit of the slave-hunters, who were generally on his track. This 'institution,' as it was familiarly called, played an important part in the great drama of slavery and anti-slavery. By its timely and effective aid thousands were enabled to escape from the prison-house of bondage. … The practical working of the system required 'stations' at convenient distances, or rather the houses of persons who held themselves in readiness to receive fugitives, singly or in numbers, at any hour of day or night, to feed and shelter, to clothe if necessary, and to conceal until they could be despatched with safety to some other point along the route. There were others who held themselves in like readiness to take them by private or public conveyance. … When the wide extent of territory embraced by the Middle States and all the Western States east of the Mississippi is borne in mind, and it is remembered that the whole was dotted with these 'stations,' and covered with a network of imaginary routes, not found, indeed, in the railway guides or on the railway maps; that each station had its brave and faithful men and women, ever on the alert to seek out and succor the coming fugitive, and equally intent on deceiving and thwarting his pursuers; that there were always trusty and courageous conductors waiting, like the 'minute-men' of the Revolution, to take their living and precious freights, often by unfrequented roads, on dark and stormy nights, safely on their way; and that the numbers actually rescued were very great, many counting their trophies by hundreds, some by thousands, two men being credited with the incredible estimate of over 2,500 each,—there are materials from which to estimate, approximately at least, the amount of labor performed, of cost and risk incurred on the despised and deprecated Underground Railroad, and something of the magnitude of the results secured."