1647-1775.
Colonial Government in Rhode Island, May, 1647.—An Act passed to abolish Slavery in 1652, but was never enforced.—An Act specifying what Times Indian and Negro Slaves should not appear in the Streets.—An Impost-Tax on Slaves (1708).—Penalties imposed on Disobedient Slaves.—Anti Slavery Sentiment in the Colonies receives Little Encouragement.—Circular Letter from the Board of Trade to the Governor of the English Colonies, relative to Negro Slaves.—Governor Cranston's Reply.—List of Militia-Men, including White and black Servants.—Another Letter from the Board of Trade.—An Act preventing Clandestine Importations and Exportations of Passengers, Negroes, or Indian Slaves.—Masters of Vessels required to report the Names and Number of Passengers to the Governor.—Violation of the Impost-Tax Law on Slaves punished by Severe Penalties.—Appropriation by the General Assembly, July 5, 1715, from the Fund derived from the Impost Tax, for the paving of the Streets of Newport.—An Act passed disposing of the Money raised by Impost-Tax.—Impost-Law repealed, May, 1732.—An Act relating to freeing Mulatto and Negro Slaves passed 1728—An Act passed preventing Masters of Vessels from carrying Slaves out of the Colony, June 17, 1757.—Eve of the Revolution.—An Act prohibiting Importation of Negroes into the Colony in 1774.—The Population of Rhode Island in 1730 and 1774.
INDIVIDUAL Negroes were held in bondage in Rhode Island from the time of the formation of the colonial government there, in May, 1647, down to the close of the eighteenth century. Like her sister colonies, she early took the poison of the slave-traffic into her commercial life, and found it a most difficult political task to rid herself of it. The institution of slavery was never established by statute in this colony; but it was so firmly rooted five years after the establishment of the government, that it required the positive and explicit prohibition of law to destroy it. On the 19th of May, 1652, the General Court passed the following Act against slavery. It is the earliest positive prohibition against slavery in the records of modern nations.
"Whereas, there is a common course practiced amongst English men to buy negers, to that end they may have them for service or slaves forever; for the preventinge of such practices among us, let it be ordered, that no blacke mankind or white being forced by covenant bond, or otherwise, to serve any man or his assighnes longer than ten yeares, or until they come to bee twentie-four yeares of age, if they bee taken in under fourteen, from the time of their cominge within the liberties of this Collonie. And at the end or terme of ten yeares to sett them free, as the manner is with the English servants. And that man that will not let them goe free, or shall sell them away elsewhere, to that end that they may bee enslaved to others for a long time, hee or they shall forfeit to the Collonie forty pounds."[450]
The above law was admirable, but there was lacking the public sentiment to give it practical force in the colony. It was never repealed, and yet slavery flourished under it for a century and a half. Mr. Bancroft says, "The law was not enforced, but the principle lived among the people."[451] No doubt the principle lived among the people; but, practically, they did but little towards emancipating their slaves until the Revolutionary War cloud broke over their homes. There is more in the statement Mr. Bancroft makes than the casual reader is likely to discern.
The men who founded Rhode Island, or Providence Plantation as it was called early, were of the highest type of Christian gentlemen. They held advanced ideas on civil government and religious liberty. They realized, to the full, the enormity of the sinfulness of slavery; but while they hesitated to strike down what many men pronounced a necessary social evil, it grew to be an institution that governed more than it could be governed. The institution was established. Slaves were upon the farms, in the towns, and in the families, of those who could afford to buy them. The population of the colony was small; and to manumit the slaves in whom much money was invested, or to suddenly cut off the supply from without, was more than the colonists felt able to perform. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.
For a half-century there was nothing done by the General Court to check or suppress the slave-trade, though the Act of 1652 remained the law of the colony. The trade was not extensive. No vessels from Africa touched at Newport or Providence. The source of supply was Barbadoes; and, occasionally, some came by land from other colonies. Little was said for or against slavery during this period. It was a question difficult to handle. The sentiment against it was almost unanimous. It was an evil; but how to get rid of it, was the most important thing to be considered. During this period of perplexity, there was an ominous silence on slavery. The conservatism of the colonists produced the opposite in the Negro population. They began to think and talk about their "rights." The Act of 1652 had begun to bear fruit. At the expiration of ten years' service, slaves began to demand their freedom-papers. This set the entire Negro class in a state of expectancy. Their eagerness for liberty was interpreted by the more timid among the whites as the signal for disorder. A demand was made for legislation that would curtail the personal liberties of the Negroes in the evenings. It is well to produce the Act of Jan. 4, 1703, that the reader may see the similarity of the laws passed in the New-England colonies against Negroes:—
"An Act to restrict negroes and Indians for walking in unseasonable times in the night, and at other times not allowable.
"Voted, Be it enacted by this Assembly and the authority thereof, and it is hereby enacted, If any negroes or Indians, either freemen, servants, or slaves, do walk in the streets of the town of Newport, of any other town in this Collony, after nine of the clock of the night, without a certificate from their masters, or some English person of said family with them, or some lawfull excuse for the same, that it shall be lawfull for any person to take them up and deliver them to a Constable, to be secured, or see them secured, till the next morning, and then to be brought before some Justice of the Peace in said town, to be dealt withall, according to the recited Act, which said Justice shall cause said person or persons so offending, to be whipped at the publick whipping post in said town, not exceeding fifteen stripes upon their naked backs, except their incorrigible behavior require more. And all free negroes and free Indians to be under the same penalty, without a lawful excuse for their so being found walking in the streets after such unseasonable time of night.
"And be it further enacted, All and every house keeper, within said town or towns or Collony, that shall entertain men's servants, either negroes or Indians, without leave of their masters or to whom they do belong, after said set time of the night before mentioned, and being convicted of the same before any one Justice of the Peace, he or they shall pay for each his defect five shillings in money, to be for the use of the poor in the town where the person lives; and if refused to be paid down, to be taken by distraint by a warrant to any one Constable, in said town; any Act to the contrary notwithstanding."[452]
It is rather remarkable that this Act should prohibit free Negroes and free Indians from walking the streets after nine o'clock. In this particular this bill had no equal in any of the other colonies. This act seemed to be aimed with remarkable precision at the Negroes as a class, both bond and free. The influence of free Negroes upon the slaves had not been in harmony with the condition of the latter; and the above Act was intended as a reminder, in part, to free Negroes and Indians. It went to show that there was but little meaning in the word "free," when placed before a Negro's name. No such restriction could have been placed upon the personal rights of a white colonist; for, under the democratical government of the colony, a subject was greater than the government. No law could stand that was inimical to his rights as a freeman. But the free Negro had no remedy at law. He was literally between two conditions, bondage and freedom.