THE policy of arming the Negroes early claimed the anxious consideration of the leaders of the colonial army during the American Revolution. England had been crowding her American plantations with slaves at a fearful rate; and, when hostilities actually began, it was difficult to tell whether the American army or the ministerial army would be able to secure the Negroes as allies. In 1715 the royal governors of the colonies gave the Board of Trade the number of the Negroes in their respective colonies. The slave population was as follows:—
NEGROES. | NEGROES.
New Hampshire 150 |Maryland 9,500
Massachusetts 2,000 |Virginia 23,000
Rhode Island 500 |North Carolina 3,700
Connecticut 1,500 |South Carolina 10,500
New York 4,000 | ------
New Jersey 1,500 | Total 58,850
Pennsylvania and Delaware 2,500 |
Sixty years afterwards, when the Revolution had begun, the slave population of the thirteen colonies was as follows:—
NEGROES. | NEGROES.
Massachusetts 3,500 |Maryland 80,000
Rhode Island 4,373 |Virginia 165,000
Connecticut 5,000 |North Carolina 75,000
New Hampshire 629 |South Carolina 110,000
New York 15,000 |Georgia 16,000
New Jersey 7,600 | -------
Pennsylvania 10,000 | Total 501,102
Delaware 9,000 |
Such a host of beings was not to be despised in a great military struggle. Regarded as a neutral element that could be used simply to feed an army, to perform fatigue duty, and build fortifications, the Negro population was the object of fawning favors of the white colonists. In the Non-Importation Covenant, passed by the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, on the 24th of October, 1774, the second resolve indicated the feeling of the representatives of the people on the question of the slave-trade:—
"2. We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported after the first day of December next; after which time, we will wholly discontinue the slave-trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it."[520]
It, with the entire covenant, received the signatures of all the delegates from the twelve colonies.[521] The delegates from the Southern colonies were greatly distressed concerning the probable attitude of the slave element. They knew that if that ignorant mass of humanity were inflamed by some act of strategy of the enemy, they might sweep their homes and families from the face of the earth. The cruelties of the slave-code, the harsh treatment of Negro slaves, the lack of confidence in the whites everywhere manifested among the blacks,—as so many horrid dreams, harassed the minds of slaveholders by day and by night. They did not even possess the courage to ask the slaves to remain silent and passive during the struggle between England and themselves. The sentiment that adorned the speeches of orators, and graced the writings of the colonists, during this period, was "the equality of the rights of all men." And yet the slaves who bore their chains under their eyes, who were denied the commonest rights of humanity, who were rated as chattels and real property, were living witnesses to the insincerity and inconsistency of this declaration. But it is a remarkable fact, that all the Southern colonies, in addition to the action of their delegates, ratified the Non-Importation Covenant. The Maryland Convention on the 8th of December, 1774; South Carolina Provincial Congress on the 11th January, 1775; Virginia Convention on the 22d March, 1775; North Carolina Provincial Congress on the 23d of August, 1775; Delaware Assembly on the 25th of March, 1775 (refused by Gov. John Penn); and Georgia,—passed the following resolves thereabouts:—
"1. Resolved, That this Congress will adopt, and carry into execution, all and singular the measures and recommendations of the late Continental Congress.
"4. Resolved, That we will neither import or [nor] purchase any slave imported from Africa or elsewhere after this date."
Meetings were numerous and spirited throughout the colonies, in which, by resolutions, the people expressed their sentiments in reference to the mother country. On the 18th of July, 1774, at a meeting held in Fairfax Court-House, Virginia, a series of twenty-four resolutions was presented by George Washington, chairman of the committee on resolutions, three of which were directed against slavery.