The Journal of Negro History, Volume 8, 1923

by Various

FOOTNOTES:

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

[1] Many historians have substituted "slave" for "Negro." Russell, Free Negroes in Virginia, p. 16. White servants are also called slaves. Doyle, History of English Colonies in America, II, p. 387; Stevens, History of Georgia, pp. 289, 294.

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

[3] Nell, Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, p. 59.

[4] Rivers, History of South Carolina, p. 113; Buckingham, Slave States of America, I, p. 19.

[5] The Journal of Negro History, III, p. 33; Work, Negro Year Book, p. 152. "The second settler in Alabama was a Negro."

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

[7] Thwaites, The Colonies, p. 98.

[8] Daniels, In Freedom's Birthplace, p. 7.

[9] New International Encyclopedia, p. 166.

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

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

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

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

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

[14] Ballagh, History of Slavery in Virginia, pp. 9-10.

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

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

[17] Brackett, The Negro in Md., p. 38.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[25] Ballagh, Hist. of Slavery in Virginia, pp. 2, 3, 34.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[32] Turner, The Negro in Penn., p. 25; Ballagh, Hist. of Slavery in Va., pp. 30, 31.

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

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

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

[36] Moore, Notes on the History of Slavery in Mass., p. 50. Du Bois, Suppression of African Slave Trade, p. 15.

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

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

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

[39] Carroll, Hist. Coll., I, p. 27.

[40] Ibid., p. 29.

[41] Ibid., p. 29.

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

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

[43] Ibid., 23, 24; Ballagh, History of Slavery in Va., 28, 31; Phillips, Am. Negro Slavery, p. 75.

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

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

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

[47] Henning, II, p. 26.

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

[49] Ibid., pp. 23, 24; Hotten, List of Immigrants to Am., pp. 202, etc.

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

[50]

"Captain Francis West, His Muster.
**********
Servants
**********

John Pedro, A Neger, aged 30, in the Swan, 1623."

Va. Carolorum, p. 15.

"Muster of Sir George Yeardley, Kt.
**********
Servants
**********

Thomas Barnett, 16, in the Elsabeth, 1620
Theophilus Bereston, in the Treasuror, 1614
Negro Men, 3.
Negro Women, 5.
Susan Hall, in the William and Thomas, 1608"

Ibid., p. 16.

"Muster of Capt. William Tucker, Elizabeth City.
**********
Servants
**********

Antoney, Negro
Isabell, Negro
William, theire child, baptised"

Ibid., p. 40; see a muster
also on page 22.

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

[51] Virginia Carolorum, pp. 33, 34; Ballagh, Hist. of Slavery in Virginia, p. 30.

[52] Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, pp. 24, 26, 32.

[53] Ibid., pp. 26, 29.

[54] Ibid., pp. 25, 26.

[55] Ibid., pp. 22, 28, 34; Bruce, Econ. Hist. of Virginia, II, pp. 52, 53.