¹ Democracy in America (New York, 1948), I, 358–60.Google Scholar

² Most recently, Oscar, and Handlin, Mary, “The Origins of the Southern Labor System”, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Series, VII (04, 1950), 199–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Slave and Citizen; The Negro in the Americas (New York, 1947).Google Scholar

⁴ Freyre, Gilberto, Brazil: An Interpretation (New York, 1945), pp. 96–101Google Scholar; Pierson, Donald, Negroes in Brazil (Chicago, 1942), pp. 330–6.Google Scholar

⁵ Handlin, “Origins of Southern Labor”, p. 203.

⁶ Virtually all historians of the institution agree on this. See Phillips, U. B., American Negro Slavery (New York, 1933), pp. 74–77Google Scholar; Ballagh, J. C., History of Slavery in Virginia (Baltimore, 1902), pp. 28–35.Google Scholar More recently, however, Ames, Susie, Studies of the Virginia Eastern Shore in the Seventeenth Century (Richmond, 1940), pp. 101–10Google Scholar and Craven, W. F., Southern Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 1607–1689 (Baton Rouge, 1949), pp. 217–9Google Scholar have more than suggested that it is possible that slavery existed in Virginia almost from the very beginning of the Negro's history in America.

⁷ Maryland Archives, I, 451.Google Scholar

⁸ Ibid, II, 335.

⁹ Hening, W. W., Statutes at Large; being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia… (Richmond, 1809), II, 266.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Hurd, Jonn C., Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States (Boston, 1858–1861), I, 163Google Scholar, points out that the trade “in negroes as merchandise was … recognized as legitimate by European governments, without any direct sanction from positive legislation, but rested on the general customs among nations, known both in municipal and international private law”. Furthermore, he reported that none of the colonies ever found it necessary to pass laws legalizing slavery. He quotes from the Connecticut Code of 1821: “Slavery was never directly established by statute; but has been indirectly sanctioned by various statutes and frequently recognized by courts, so that it may be said to have been established by law.” I, 212 n.

¹¹ The Handlins, “Origins of Southern Labor”, pp. 203–4, have argued that in the early years slavery meant nothing more than a low form of labor and that it had no basis in law. This is true insofar as statute law is concerned, but, as will appear later, in practice quite a different situation obtained.

¹² The Handlins, “Origins of Southern Labor”, pp. 203–4, argue that the continental colonies could not have learned about a different status for Negroes from that of white servants from the slave trade because, they say, “the company of Royal Adventurers referred to their cargo as ‘Negers’, ‘Negro-servants’, ‘Servants… from Africa’, or ‘Negro Persons’ but rarely as slaves.” They overlook, however, abundant references to Negro slaves in the correspondence of the contemporary Royal African Company. Thus in 1663 a warrant for that company refers to “negro slaves” as a part of its monopoly. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, V, 121Google Scholar; see also p. 204. In that same year the Privy Council wrote that the Spanish were “seeking to trade with our island of Barbada for a supply of Negro Slaves…”. And then the letter referred to a “supply of Negro Servants”, and later still “for every Negro Person a Slave” and then “all such Negro Slaves”. Donnan, K., Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade, (Washington, 1930), I, 161–2.Google Scholar

¹³ Quoted in Donnan, , Slave Trade, I, 125.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See particularly, Lauber, Almon, Indian Slavery in Colonial Times Within the Present Limits of the United States (New York, 1913)Google Scholar, Chap. IV.

¹⁵ Newton, A. P., The Colonising Activities of the English Puritans (New Haven, 1914), p. 258.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Ibid., p. 260.

¹⁷ Newton, A. P., The European Nations in the West Indies, 1493–1688 (London, 1933), pp. 173–4.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, I, 249.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Ibid., pp. 277–8.

²⁰ Ibid., pp. 278–9.

²¹ Lefroy, J. H., Memorials of the Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermudas or Somers Islands, 1515–1685 (London, 1877), I, 127.Google Scholar

²² Ibid., I, 308–9.

²³ Ibid., I, 505. Cases in 1676 and 1685 indicate that this practice of dividing the children became the standard practice under slavery in a colony where the parcels of slaves were so small that few masters could have a spouse on their plantations for each of his adult Negroes. Ibid., II, 427, 547–8.

²⁴ Ibid., I, 539. Emphasis added.

²⁵ Ibid., II, 30.

²⁶ Ibid., II, 95–6.

²⁷ Ibid., II, 293. As late as 1662 the perpetual character of slavery for Negroes was being obscured by their serving for ninety-nine years. See Ibid., n, 166, 184.

²⁸ Ligon, Richard, A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados (London, 1657), p. 43.Google Scholar

²⁹ Ibid., p. 46.

³⁰ Quoted in Morris, Richard B., Government and Labor in Early America (New York, 1946), p. 499.Google Scholar As early as 1633, on the island of Tortuga, the separation of whites, servants or no, from Negroes was in evidence. At a time of anarchy on the island, “The eighty-odd Englishmen in the island had formed a council among themselves for the government of the colony and to keep in subjection the one hundred and fifty negroes, twenty-seven of whom were the company's property”. Newton, , Colonising Activities, p. 214.Google Scholar

³¹ Hening, , Statutes, I, 146.Google Scholar

³² Ibid., I, 552.

³³ Maryland Archives, I, 80.Google Scholar

³⁴ It is not known whether there were any Negroes in Maryland at that date. Brackett, J. R., The Negro in Maryland (Baltimore, 1889), p. 26 found no evidence of Negroes before 1642.Google Scholar

³⁵ Handlin, “Origins of Southern Labor”, p. 210; Hening, , Statutes, I, 411, 539.Google Scholar This is not to say that some Negroes were not indentured servants, for there is evidence to show that limited service was enjoyed by some black men. This was true even during the period after the recognition of slavery in the statutes. In October, 1673, for instance, the Council and General Court of Virginia ordered that “Andrew Moore A Servant Negro”, who asserted he was to serve only five years, and who had the support of several “oathes”, was declared free. Moreover, his erstwhile master was compelled to “pay him Corne and Clothes According to the custome of the country” and 400 pounds of tobacco and cask for the Negro's service since his time expired and to “pay costs”. Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia, edited by Mcllwaine, H. R. (Richmond, 1924), p. 354.Google Scholar

³⁶ Hening, , Statutes, I, 257Google Scholar; Maryland Archives, I, 80.Google Scholar

³⁷ William and Mary Quarterly, Second Series, IV (07, 1924), 147.Google Scholar

³⁸ Maryland Archives, I, 233.Google Scholar

³⁹ Handlin, “Origins of Southern Labor”, p. 209, implies that these early restrictions were later repealed. “Until the 1660's”, the Handlins write, “the statutes o n the Negroes were not at all unique. Nor did they add u p to a decided trend.” In substantiation of this point they instance the “fluctuations” in the Negro's right to bear arms. Their cited evidence, however, does not sustain this generalization. Four references to the statutes of Virginia are made; of these four, only two deal with arms bearing. The first one, that referred to in the text above, indicates that Negroes were not to be armed. The other reference is at best an ambiguous statement about who is taxable and which of the taxables are to serve in the militia. It in no wise constitutes either a repeal or even a contradiction of the earlier statute, which, therefore, must be presumed to be controlling. Their evidence for “fluctuations” in the right of Indians to bear arms suffers from the same weakness of sources. The two statutes they cite merely confirm the right of certain Indians to possess guns and deny them to other Indians. No “fluctuation” in rights is involved.

⁴⁰ Hening, , Statutes, I, 242, 292, 455Google Scholar; Maryland Archives, I, 342.Google Scholar The statement in Handlin, “Origins of Southern Labor”, p. 217 n, that the “first sign of discrimination was in 1668 when white but not Negro women were exempt”, is therefore erroneous.

⁴¹ In his well-known pamphlet, emigrant, Leah and Rachel (London, 1656), p. 12Google Scholar, John Hammond casts some interesting light on contemporary opinion regarding women who worked in the fields in Virginia. “The Women are not (as is reported) put into the ground to work, but occupie such domestique imployments and housewifery as in England … yet some wenches that are nasty, beastly and not fit to be so imployed are put into the ground…”

⁴² Minutes of the Council, p. 466.

⁴³ Ibid., p. 467.

⁴⁴ Catterall, , Judicial Cases, I, 57 n.Google Scholar Mrs. Catterall does not think any Negroes came under this agreement, but the language itself testifies to an accepted special status for Negroes at that time.

⁴⁵ Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, edited by McDwaine, H. R. (Richmond, 1914), II, 34.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ibid., II, 34–5. His plea, however, was turned down, the Assembly not knowing “any Reason why the Publick should be answerable for the inadvertency of the Buyer…”

⁴⁷ Russell, John H., The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619–1865 (Baltimore, 1913), p. 36.Google Scholar Russell concludes from his survey of inventories of estates for this early period that Negroes were valued from 20 to 30 pounds sterling, “while white servants of the longest term … receive a valuation of not more than £15 sterling”. Ibid., p. 35. Catterall, , Judicial Cases, I, 58 nGoogle Scholar, upon concluding her investigation of inventories of estates, picked 1644 as the date at which “‘servant’ standing alone, had generally become synonomous with ‘white servant’ and “negro” with “negro slave”, …”

⁴⁸ Catterall, , Judicial Cases, IV, 9.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Russell, , Free Negro in Virginia, pp. 34–5.Google Scholar He also reports the instance of a Negro by the name of John Casor who was claimed, in 1655, as a “Negro for his life”, but he was rescued from such a status by two witnesses testifying that he had an indenture. Ibid., pp. 32–3.

⁵⁰ Minutes of the Council, p. 504. Handlin, “Origins of Southern Labor”, p. 216, in arguing the late development of a different status for Negroes as compared with whites in Virginia, says: “As late as the 1660's the law had not even a word to describe the children of mixed marriages. But two decades later, the term mulatto is used…” Such a statement is obviously misleading, for though the Handlins presumably mean statute law, the decisions of the General Court were also “law”. The Oxford English Dictionary cites references for the word “mulatto” for 1595, 1613 and 1657.

⁵¹ Ames, , Eastern Shore, p. 105.Google Scholar

⁵² Craven, , Southern Colonies, p. 219.Google Scholar

⁵³ See especially Russell, , Free Negro in Virginia, pp. 36–9.Google Scholar See also Brackett, , Negro in Maryland, p. 37.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ An indication that even freedom for the Negro carried certain disabilities is afforded by an instance reported by Ames, , Eastern Shore, p. 107Google Scholar from the Northampton County court records of 1654. For contempt of authority and abuse of certain persons, Anthony Longoe, a Negro, was ordered, almost twenty years after his release from service, to receive “thirty lashes now applied, and tomorrow morning thirty lashes more”.

⁵⁵ A year earlier, 1659/60, a statute dealing with trade with the Dutch promised remission of a ten shilling tax if “the said Dutch or other forreiners shall import any negro slaves…”. This is the first reference in the Virginia statutes to Negroes as slaves. Hening, , Statutes, I, 540.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Hening, , Statutes, II, 26.Google Scholar The equivalent Maryland statute (1663) referred to “Negroes and other Slaves, who are incapeable of makeing Stisfaction [sic] by Addition of Tyme…” Maryland Archives, I, 489.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Hening, , Statutes, II, 170Google Scholar: Maryland Archives, I, 533–4.Google Scholar Handlin, “Origins of Southern Labor”, p. 215 sees the genesis of these prohibitions in concern over status rather than in objection to racial intermarriage. This seems to be true for Maryland. But in speaking of the Virginia circumstances they write: “It was to guard against the complications of status that the laws after 1691 forbade ‘spurious’ or illegitimate mixed marriages of the slave and the free…” Actually, however, the Virginia statute of 1691 (Hening, , Statutes, III, 87Google Scholar) clearly aimed at the prevention of “abominable mixture and spurious issue” by forbidding marriage of “English or other white man or woman being free” with “a negro, mulatto or Indian man or woman bond or free”. (Emphasis added.)

⁵⁸ Hening, , Statutes, II, 270.Google Scholar The working out of the exact legal status of slave property, however, was a slow one. A Virginia law of 1705 (Hening, , Statutes, III, 333–4Google Scholar), declared “Negro, Mulatto and Indian Slaves… to be real estate”, but there were a number of exceptions which suggest the later chattel nature of property in slaves. In South Carolina slaves were decreed to be real estate in 1690 and not until 1740 were they said to be legally chattels. Hurd, , Law of Freedom, I, 297, 303.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Hening, , Statutes, II, 481–2.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Like Virginia, Maryland developed its slave law and status long before the Negroes had become an important aspect of the labor force. As late as 1712, Negroes made up only slightly more than 20 per cent of the population. Brackett, , Negro in Maryland, pp. 38–9.Google Scholar If Virginia was slow in bringing her slave practices out into the open air of the statute books, the same could not be said of Carolina. In the Fundamental Constitutions, drawn up in 1669, it is stated in article CX that “Every freeman of Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion or religion so ever”.

⁶¹ Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, Third Series, III, 231.Google Scholar There is no doubt that there were Negroes at this time in Massachusetts, for in 1638 Winthrop reported that Capt. Peirce brought back from Old Providence “some cotton, and tobacco and negroes…” Winthrop, John, History of New England, Savage, James, ed. (Boston, 1853), I, 305.Google Scholar

⁶² Some events of 1645 indicate that those few words were of crucial importance to t he Puritans. That year some Negroes were brought to Massachusetts by a Captain Smith and they were ordered by the Gereral Court to be returned to Africa on the ground that their importation constituted “the hainous and crying sinn of man-stealing”. But this was manstealing only because Smith and his men had captured the Negroes in a raid, instead of buying them from traders. Records of Massachusetts, III, 48, 58, 84.Google Scholar

⁶³ Very early in New England history the concept of perpetual servitude - one of the distinguishing marks of slavery - appears in the records. In 1637 Roger Williams, in pleading for the lives of the captured Indians during the Pequot War, alludes to “perpetuall slaverie” as an alternative to their execution. Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, Fourth Series, VI, 214.Google Scholar The will of John Winthrop, written in 1639, deeded to his son Adam “my island” and “also my Indians there and my boat and such household as is there” Winthrop, Robert C., Life and Letters of John Winthrop (Boston, 1869), II, 252.Google Scholar Though at least three white men were sentenced to “slavery” in Massachusetts in the early years, in at least two cases this did not, in fact, amount to perpetuity, for they appear t o have been released in a short time. The use of the word as a special form of service, however, is most interesting. Records of Massachusetts, I, 246, 310, 269.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, Fourth Series, VI, 65.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Records of the Colony of Plymouth (Boston, 1859), IX, 71.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ John Cotton in 1651 clearly distinguished between slavery and servitude. He wrote Cromwell in that year in regard to the Scottish prisoners sent to New England, that “we have been desirous… to make their yoke easy… They have not been sold for slaves to perpetuall servitude, but for 6, or 7 or 8 yeares, as we do our owne”. Quoted in Moore, George H., Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts (New York, 1866), p. 17 n.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Records of the Colony of Rhode Island… (Providence, 1856), I, 243.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Quoted in Weeden, William B., Economic and Social History of New England (Boston, 1891), p. 149 n.Google Scholar It was officially reported in 1680 by Connecticut colony that three or four “Blacks” were imported each year from the Barbados, and that they usually sold for £22 apiece. This was much more than the going price for servants. Public Records of the Colony oof Connecticut (Hartford, 1850–1890), III, 298.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Quoted in Greene, Lorenzo, The Negro in Colonial New England, 1620–1776 (New York, 1942), p. 172.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Records of Massachusetts, III, 268, 397.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Records of Connecticut, III, 298,1, 349.Google Scholar

⁷² Quoted in Palfrey, , History of New England, III, 298.Google Scholar

⁷³ Hurd, , Law of Freedom, I, 262.Google ScholarGreene, , Negro in New England, pp. 65–6Google Scholar, says that in 1670 slavery in Massachusetts became legally inheritable, for in that year the word “strangers” owas dropped from the Body of Liberties as a description of those who might be enslaved.

⁷⁴ Records of Connecticut, III, 298.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Quoted in Steiner, Bernard C., History of Slavery in Connecticut (Baltimore, 1893), p. 18.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Records of Connecticut, IV, 40.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Hurd, , Law of Freedom, I, 262–3.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Ibid., I, 263, Massachusetts had prohibited marriages between whites and Negroes, mulattoes and Indians in 1692. Lauber, , Indian Slavery, p. 253.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Hurd, , Law of Freedom, I, 263.Google Scholar Rhode Island, too, in 1728, provided that before a Negro or mulatto could be manumitted, security had to given that he would not become a public charge. Hurd, , Law of Freedom, I, 276.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Greene, , Negro in New England, p. 312.Google Scholar