Development of negro slavery; treaty of Utrecht.
Anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia.
Long before the end of the seventeenth century, Virginia and Maryland had begun to protest against the policy of sending criminals from England,[144] and as negro slaves became more numerous white servitude was greatly diminished. The rapid increase of negroes began toward the end of the century, and an immense impetus was given it by the asiento clause of the treaty of Utrecht in 1713. By way of indemnifying herself for the cost of the War of the Spanish Succession, victorious England bade Spain and France keep their hands off from Africa, while she monopolized for herself the slave-trade. We are reminded by Mr. Lecky that this was the one clause in the treaty that seemed to give the most general satisfaction; and while an eminent prelate affixed his name to the treaty and a magnificent Te Deum by Handel was sung in the churches, it occurred to nobody to denounce as unchristian a national scheme for kidnapping thousands of black men and selling them into slavery.[145] Before 1713 the part which English ships had taken in the slave-trade was comparatively small; and it is curious now to look back and think how Marlborough and Eugene at Blenheim were unconsciously cutting out work for Grant and Sherman at Vicksburg. In 1700 there were probably 60,000 Englishmen and 6,000 negroes in Virginia; by 1750 there were probably 250,000 whites and 250,000 blacks, while during that same half century the peopling of the Carolinas was rapidly going on.[146] This portentous increase of the slave population presently began to awaken serious alarm in Virginia. Attempts were made to restrict the importation of negroes, and at the time of the Revolutionary War the humanitarian spirit of the eighteenth century showed itself in the rise of a party in favour of emancipation. In 1784 Thomas Jefferson announced the principle upon which Abraham Lincoln was elected to the presidency in 1860, the prohibition of slavery in the national domain; Jefferson attempted to embody this principle in an ordinance for establishing territorial government west of the Alleghanies. In 1787 George Mason denounced the “infernal traffic” in flesh and blood with phrases quite like those which his grandchildren were to resent when they fell from the lips of Wendell Phillips. The life of the anti-slavery party in Virginia was short. After the abolition of the African slave-trade in 1808 had increased the demand for Virginia-bred slaves in the states farther south, the very idea of emancipation faded out of memory.
Theory that negroes were non-human.
I have already remarked upon the approval with which negro slavery was by many people regarded in the days of Queen Elizabeth. To bring black heathen within the pale of Christian civilization was deemed a meritorious business.[147] But there were people who took a lower and coarser view of the matter. They denied that the negro was strictly human; it was therefore useless to try to make him a Christian, but it was right to make him a beast of burden, like asses and oxen.[148] This point of view was illustrated in the remark made by a lady of Barbadoes, noted for her exemplary piety, to Godwyn, the able author of “The Negro’s and Indian’s Advocate;” she told him that “he might as well baptize puppies as negroes.”[149] This line of thought was pursued to all sorts of grotesque conclusions. Some held that mulattoes were made half human by the infusion of white blood, and might accordingly be baptized. Others deemed it poor economy to baptize the slave, since it would be incumbent on the master to feed Christians better than heathen, and so flog them less. And there were yet others who had heard the doctrine that Christians ought not to be held in bondage, and feared lest baptism should be judged equivalent to emancipation.[150] This notion was at first so prevalent in Virginia that in 1667 it was enacted: “Whereas some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners made partakers of the blessed sacrament of baptisme, should by vertue of their baptisme be made ffree; It is enacted and declared by this grand assembly and the authority thereof, that the conferringe of baptisme doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or ffreedom; that diverse masters, ffreed from this doubt, may more carefully endeavour the propagation of christianity by permitting children, though, slaves, or those of greater growth if capable, to be admitted to that sacrament.”[151]
Negroes as real estate.
During the seventeenth century the slave was regarded as personal property, but a curious statute of 1705 declared him to be for most purposes a kind of real estate. He could be sold, however, without the registry of a deed; he could be recovered by an action of trover; and he was not reckoned a part of the property qualification which entitled his master to the political privileges of a freeholder.[152]
Taxes on slaves.
In the system of taxation white servants and negro slaves played an important part. The primary tax upon all landholders was the quit-rent of a shilling for every fifty acres, payable at Michaelmas. This quit-rent was at first collected in the name of the Company, but after 1624 in the King’s name; and the proceeds were devoted to various public uses. It was always an unpopular tax, inasmuch as there was no feasible way (as now-a-days with our blessed tariffs) of making dullards believe that “the foreigner paid it,” and there were frequent complaints of delinquency. Another tax was the duty of two shillings upon every hogshead of tobacco exported. A third was the tax upon slaves and servants. At the close of the seventeenth century adult negroes were valued at from £25 to £40, and children at £10 or £12; there seems to have been little if any difference between the prices of men and women.[153] The taxation of slave property was equitable, inasmuch as it bore most heavily upon those best able to pay.
Treatment of slaves.