[45] MS. Assessment Books, Chester Co., 1765, p. 197; 1768, p. 326; 1780, p. 95; MS. Assessment Book, Phila. Co., 1769. As early as 1688 Henry Jones of Moyamensing had thirteen negroes. MS. Phila. Wills, Book A, 84. An undated MS. entitled “A List of my Negroes” shows that Jonathan Dickinson had thirty-two. Dickinson Papers, unclassified. An owner in York County is said to have had one hundred and fifty. 3 Pa. Arch., XXI, 71. This is probably a misprint.
[46] In 1790 the numbers were as follows: New York, 21,324 slaves, 4,654 free, total 25,978; New Jersey, 11,423 slaves, 4,402 free, total 15,825; Pennsylvania, 3,737 slaves, 6,537 free, total 10,274.
[47] On Pennsylvania’s amazing commercial and industrial activity see Anderson, Historical and Chronological Deductions of the Origin of Commerce, etc. (1762), III, 75–77.
[49] See below, chapters [IV] and [V].
[50] See below, ibid.
[51] Nevertheless slavery took root in the western counties, and lingered there longer than anywhere else in Pennsylvania.
[52] Throughout this work the fundamental distinction between the words “slave” and “servant,” as used in the text, is that “slave” denotes a person held for life, “servant” a person held for a term of years only.
[53] Cf. O’Callaghan, Voyages of the Slavers St. John and Arms of Amsterdam, etc., 100, for a bill of sale, 1646. Sprinchorn, Kolonien Nya Sveriges Historia, 217.
[54] MS. Record of the Court at Upland in Penn., Sept. 25, 1676.