This work is a doctoral dissertation of Vanderbilt University. The author entered upon this study to show to what extent the southern people "sought to perpetuate, not slavery, but the same method of controlling the emancipated Negro which was in force under the slavery regime, the difficulties which were met with from without and the measure of success attained." He was not long in discovering that the laws on the statute books did not adequately answer the question. It was necessary, therefore, to determine to what extent these laws were in force and what extra-legal method may have been resorted to in a system so flexible as slavery.
One of the first influences discovered was the Barbadian slave code and then the evolution of slave control from that of the white indentured servant. Soon then the status of the slave as interpreted by the court was that of no legal standing in these tribunals. The overseer is then presented as a Negro driver, referred to in contemporary sources. The author devotes much space to the patrol system, the various kinds of punishment, the court for the trial of slaves, the relations between the Negroes and the whites, the question of trading with slaves, slaves hiring their time, the slave trade, the stealing, harboring and kidnapping of free Negroes, the runaway slaves, the Seamen Acts, the gatherings of Negroes, slave insurrections, the abolition of incendiary literature, the prohibition of the education of the blacks, manumission, and the legal status of the free Negro.
The author shows by his researches that although amended somewhat, the slave code agreed upon in 1740 continued as a part of the organic law. At times some effort was made to ameliorate the condition of the blacks. The kidnapping of free Negroes, at first permitted, was later declared a crime, the murder of a Negro by a white man, which until 1821 was punishable only by a fine, was then made a capital offence, the court for the trial of Negroes became more inclined to be just, the privileges of trading and hiring their time, although prohibited by law, became common, and some efforts were made to give the blacks religious instruction. At the same time the Negro suffered from reactionary measures restricting their emancipation, prohibiting free Negroes from entering the State, and proscribing their education. The author can see why the rich planters for financial reasons supported this system, but wonders why non-slaveholders who formed the majority of the white population, "should have assisted in upholding and maintaining the slavery status of the Negro with its attendant inconveniences, such a patrol service, when they must have been aware in some measure, at least, that as an economic regime it was a hindrance to their progress."
In this study the author found nothing "to indicate that there was any movement or any serious discussion of the advisability of abolishing slavery or devising any plan that would eventually lead to it." In that State there never were many anti-slavery inhabitants. The Quakers who came into the State soon left and the Germans, who at first abstained from slavery, finally yielded. There probably was an academic deprecation of the evils of the institution but hardly any tendency toward agitation; and if there had been such, the promoters would not have secured support among the leading people. A few men like Judge O'Neall favored the emancipation of worthy slaves, but the agitation from without gave this sentiment no chance to grow. Yet the author is anxious not to leave the impression that, had it not been for outside interference, slavery in South Carolina would have been modified. This would not have happened, he contended, because unlike the States of North Carolina and Virginia, South Carolina did not find slaves less valuable. The condition of the slave in the upper country was better than that in the low lands, but no section of the State showed signs of abolition.
This work is a well-documented dissertation. It has an appendix containing valuable documents, and a critical bibliography of the works consulted. It could have been improved by digesting documents which appear almost in full throughout the work. Another defect is that it has no index.
C. B. Walter.
Gouldtown. By William Steward, A.M., and Rev. Theophilus G. Steward, D.D. J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1913. 237 pages. $2.50.
There are hundreds of thousands of mulattoes in the United States. Anyone interested in this group of the American people will find many illuminating and suggestive facts in Gouldtown. It is the history of the descendants of Lord Fenwick, who was a major in Oliver Cromwell's army, and of Gould a Negro man. Fenwick's will of 1683 contains the following: "I do except against Elizabeth Adams of having any ye leaste part of my estate, unless the Lord open her eyes to see her abdominable transgression against him, me and her good father, by giving her true repentance, and forsaking yt Black yt hath been ye ruin of her, and becoming penitent for her sins; upon yt condition only I do will and require my executors to settle five hundred acres of land upon her." Elizabeth did not forsake this Negro by the name of Gould and the remarkable mulatto group of Gouldtown is the result of this marriage. Gouldtown is a small settlement in southwest New Jersey.
In 1910 there were 225 living descendants from this union scattered throughout the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific; many in Canada, others in London, Liverpool, Paris, Berlin and Antwerp. For over 200 years these descendants have married and inter-married with Indian, Negro and White with no serious detriment except the introduction of tuberculosis into one branch of the family by an infusion of white blood. It is interesting to note that crime, drunkenness, pauperism or sterility has not resulted from these two hundred years of miscegenation. Thrift and intelligence, longevity and fertility have been evident. In every war except the Mexican, the community has been represented; one member of the group became a bishop in the A.M.E. Church; one, chaplain in the United States army, and many, now white, are prominent in other walks of life. Several golden weddings have been celebrated. Several have reached the age of a hundred years while many seem not to have begun to grow old until three score years have been reached.
If one enters into the spirit of Gouldtown, and reads hastily the dry, Isaac-begat-Jacob passages, the study moves like the story of a river that loses itself in the sands. "Samuel 3rd. when a young man went to Pittsburgh then counted to be in the far west and all trace of him was lost." "Daniel Gould ... in early manhood went to Massachusetts, losing his identity as colored." Such expressions are typical of the whole study. A constant fading away, a losing identity occurs. The book is clearly the story of the mulatto in the United States.