Read Ebook: Slavery in Pennsylvania A Dissertation Submitted to the Board of University Studies of the Johns Hopkins University in Conformity with the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1910 by Turner Edward Raymond

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 162 lines and 44127 words, and 4 pages

Transcriber's Notes

Footnotes were numbered consecutively , beginning anew with each chapter. They have been renumbered here in a single sequence to facilitate searches.

In this version, for smoother reading and more convenient reference, notes have been moved to the end of the chapter where their reference appears.

Please consult the Transcriber's note at the end of this text for any other textual issues, and their resolution.

SLAVERY IN PENNSYLVANIA

A DISSERTATION

SUBMITTED TO THE BOARD OF UNIVERSITY STUDIES OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY IN CONFORMITY WITH THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, 1910

EDWARD RAYMOND TURNER

THE LORD BALTIMORE PRESS

THE INTRODUCTION OF NEGROES INTO PENNSYLVANIA.

There were negroes in the region around the Delaware river before Pennsylvania was founded, in the days of the Dutch and the Swedes. As early as 1639 mention is made of a convict sentenced to be taken to South River to serve among the blacks there. In 1644 Anthony, a negro, is spoken of in the service of Governor Printz at Tinicum, making hay for the cattle, and accompanying the governor on his pleasure yacht. In 1657 Vice-director Alricks was accused of using the Company's oxen and negroes. Five years later Vice-director Beekman desired Governor Stuyvesant to send him a company of blacks. In 1664 negroes were wanted to work on the lowlands along the Delaware. A contract was to be made for fifty, which the West India Company would furnish. In the same year, when the English captured New Amstel, afterward New Castle, the place was plundered, and a number of negroes were confiscated and sold. From Peter Alricks several were taken; of these eleven were restored to him. At least a few were living on the shores of the Delaware River in 1677. A year later an emissary was sent by the justices of New Castle to request most urgently permission to import negroes from Maryland.

Up to this time restrictive legislation had been largely frustrated. It had encountered not only the disapproval of certain classes in Pennsylvania, but the powerful opposition of the African Company, which could count on the decisive interposition of the Lords of Trade. The Assembly accordingly submitted the acts long after they had been passed, and made new laws before the old ones had been disallowed. Nevertheless the number of blacks in the colony had steadily increased, and in 1721 was estimated to be somewhere between twenty-five hundred and five thousand. The wrath of the white laborers was correspondingly increased, and in this year they presented to the Assembly a petition asking for a law to prevent the hiring of blacks. The Assembly resolved that such a law would be injurious to the public and unjust to those who owned negroes and hired them out, but the restrictions on importing them were maintained. In 1725-1726 the five pound duty was imposed again, and in the same year five pounds extra was placed upon every convict negro brought into the colony. This became law by lapse of time.

A few years later the great efforts made in the last French and Indian War caused loud complaints again about enlisting servants. It was feared that people would be driven to the necessity of providing themselves with negro slaves, as property in them seemed more secure. This is probably just what occurred, for the increase of negroes is said to have been alarming. As a result restrictive legislation was tried again in 1761, when the duty was made ten pounds. The law was carried only after considerable effort. While the bill was in the hands of the governor a petition was sent to him, signed by twenty-four merchants of Philadelphia, who set forth the scarcity and high price of labor, and their need of slaves. After two months' contest the bill was passed. One provision of the act was that a new settler need not pay the duty if he did not sell his slave within eighteen months. In 1768 this act was renewed. In 1773 it was made perpetual, the former law having been found to be of great public utility; but the duty was raised to twenty pounds. Once more the act became law by lapse of time.

The act of 1773 was the last one which the Assembly passed to limit the importation of negroes. Not only was the duty sufficiently high, now, but its presence was hardly needed. A silent but powerful movement was overthrowing slavery in Pennsylvania; and in a short time the outbreak of the Revolutionary War brought the traffic to an end. Shortly thereafter, in 1780, the state did what England had never permitted while she held authority: forbade the importation of slaves entirely.

The real reason for the passage of these laws is not always clear. They may have been passed either to keep negroes out, or to raise revenue for the government. An analysis of the laws themselves seems to show that both of these purposes were constantly in mind. When, however, they are taken in connection with matters which they themselves do not mention, namely, the predominance of the Quakers in the colonial Assembly together with the abhorrence which they felt for the slave-trade and later for slavery itself, it becomes probable that the predominant motive was restriction. It is also probable that while the obtaining of revenue was the obvious motive in many of these acts, yet revenue was so raised precisely because Pennsylvania desired to keep negroes out; that imported slaves were taxed largely for reasons similar to those which caused the Stuarts to tax colonial tobacco, and which lead modern governments to tax spirituous liquors and opium. It may be added that Pennsylvania always held, both in colonial times and afterwards, that England forced slavery upon her. That there was much justice in this complaint the failure of the earlier legislation goes far to sustain.

The negroes imported were brought sometimes in cargoes, more often a few at a time. They came mostly from the West Indies, many being purchased in Barbadoes, Jamaica, Antigua, and St. Christophers. As a rule they were imported by the merchants of Philadelphia, and, being received in exchange for grain, flour, lumber, and staves, helped to make up the balance of trade between Philadelphia and the islands. A few seem to have been obtained directly from Africa. When so brought, however, they were found to be unable to endure the winter cold in Pennsylvania, so that it was considered preferable to buy the second generation in the West Indies, after they had become acclimated. Some were brought from other colonies on the mainland, particularly those to the south. At times Pennsylvania herself exported a few to other places. The prices paid in the colony naturally fluctuated from time to time in accordance with supply and demand, and varied within certain limits according to the age and personal qualities of each negro. The usual price for an adult seems to have been somewhere near forty pounds.

As to the number of negroes in Pennsylvania at different times during the colonial period almost any estimate is at best conjecture. Not only are there few official reports, but these reports, in the absence of any definite census, are of little value. Apparently one of the best estimates was that made in 1721, which stated the number of blacks at anywhere between 2,500 and 5,000. In 1751 it was at least widely believed that there were in Philadelphia 6,000, and it is asserted that the total number in Pennsylvania including the Lower Counties was 11,000. It is probable that the same number was not much exceeded in Pennsylvania proper at any time before 1790. In these estimates no attempt was made to distinguish the free from the slaves. The number of slaves, it is true, was very near the total at both these periods, but after the middle of the century it began dwindling as the number of negro servants and free men increased. In 1780 a careful estimate placed the slaves at 6,000. According to the Federal census of 1790 the number of negroes in Pennsylvania was 10,274.

Of these negroes the great majority throughout the slavery period were located in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania, in and around Philadelphia. There were many in Bucks, Chester, Lancaster, Montgomery, and York counties. There were negroes near the site of Columbia by 1726. John Harris had slaves by the Susquehanna as early as 1733. In 1759 Hugh Mercer wrote from the vicinity of Pittsburg asking for two negro girls and a boy. The tax-lists and local accounts reveal their presence in many other places. Doubtless a few might be traced wherever white people settled permanently. In general it may be said that they were owned in the English, Welsh, and Scotch-Irish communities. The Germans as a rule held no slaves.

Where negroes were owned they were for the most part evenly distributed, there being few large holdings. In rare instances a considerable number is recorded as belonging to one man, and the iron-masters generally had several. The tax-lists, however, indicate that the average holding was one or two, except in Philadelphia among the wealthier classes where it was double that number.

The character of slavery in Pennsylvania was in many respects unique, but in no way was this so true as in connection with the number of negroes held. Generally speaking, the farther south a section lay the more slaves did it possess. Thus there were fewer in New England than in the middle colonies; there were fewer there than in the South. But to this rule Pennsylvania was an exception, for it had fewer negroes than New Jersey, and not half so many as New York. This was due to two sets of causes: the first, ethical; the second, economic. The first of these are easily understood. They resulted from the character of many of the people who settled Pennsylvania, their dislike for slavery, and their refusal to hold slaves. The second are not so easily traceable, but were doubtless more powerful in their influence, for they were owing to the character of Pennsylvania's industrial growth.

The plantation system, which is most favorable to the increase of slavery, never appeared in Pennsylvania. During the whole of the eighteenth century the activities of the colony developed along two lines not favorable to negro labor: small farming, and manufacturing and commerce. The small farms were almost always held by people who were too poor to purchase slaves, at least for a long while, and the kind of farming was not such as to make slavery particularly profitable. In commerce no large number of negroes was ever employed, while manufacturing demanded a higher grade of labor than slaves could give. It is true that in some cases where there was an approach to the factory system, and where the work was rough and needed little skill, slaves could answer every purpose. For this reason at the old ironworks negroes were in demand. As a rule, however, this was not the case. It was because of its industrial character that Pennsylvania was peculiarly the colony of indentured white servants.

Furthermore, ethical and economic influences interacted with subtle and powerful force. Barring all other considerations, the cost of a slave was a considerable item, not to be afforded by a struggling settler; hence slavery never attained magnitude on the frontier. Before 1700 Pennsylvania was all frontier; hence it had very few negroes. In the period from 1700 to about 1750 the country between the Delaware and the Susquehanna was filled up, and the early conditions largely disappeared. It was then that the greatest number of negroes was introduced. In the period between the middle of the century and the Revolution this older country became well developed and prosperous; farms became larger and better cultivated; there were numerous respectable manufacturers and wealthy merchants. These men could easily afford to have slaves, and large importations might have been expected; but there was no great influx of negroes. Economic conditions were favorable, but ethical influences worked strongly against it. In this eastern half of Pennsylvania two racial elements predominated: the Germans and the English Quakers. The Germans had abstained from slave-holding from the first; the Quakers were now coming to abhor it. The same play of causes was seen again in the "old West." After 1750 in the mountains and valleys beyond the Susquehanna the earlier frontier conditions were lived over again. Here the settlers were largely Scotch-Irish, and had no dislike for slavery, but as yet the conditions of their life did not favor it. When finally western Pennsylvania passed out of the frontier stage, and its inhabitants could purchase negroes, the days of slavery in Pennsylvania were nearly over. For all of these reasons from first to last Pennsylvania's slave population remained small.

FOOTNOTES:

MS. Ancient Records of Philadelphia, 28 7th mo., 1702.

In a MS. entitled "William Penn's Memorial to the Lords of Trade relating to several laws passed in Pensilvania," assigned to the year 1690 in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, but probably belonging to a later period, is the following: "These ... Acts ... to Raise money ... to defray publick Exigences in such manner as after a Mature deliberaon they thought would not be burthensom particularly in the Act for laying a Duty on Negroes" ... MS. Pa. Miscellaneous Papers, 1653-1724, p. 24.

In 1790 the numbers were as follows: New York, 21,324 slaves, 4,654 free, total 25,978; New Jersey, 11,423 slaves, 4,402 free, total 15,825; Pennsylvania, 3,737 slaves, 6,537 free, total 10,274.

See below, p. 41.

Nevertheless slavery took root in the western counties, and lingered there longer than anywhere else in Pennsylvania.

LEGAL STATUS OF THE SLAVE.

It is probable that slavery existed among the Dutch of New Netherland, and possibly among the Swedes along the Delaware. In 1664 their settlements passed under English authority. To regulate them the so-called "Duke of York's Laws" were promulgated. Meanwhile around the estuary of the Delaware English colonists were settling with their negroes. In 1676, five years before Penn set out for his territories, the Duke's laws seem to have been obeyed in part of the Delaware River country. In these laws servants for life are explicitly mentioned. In them it is also ordained that no Christian shall be held in bond slavery or villenage. This latter may be a tacit permission to hold heathen negroes as slaves.

Not much can be based upon the Duke of York's laws since their meaning upon this latter point is doubtful. Moreover, when Penn founded his colony they were superseded after a short time by laws enacted in Pennsylvania assemblies. In the years following at first no act was passed recognizing slavery, but that some slaves were held there is apparent. Numerous little pieces of evidence may be accumulated indicating that there were negroes who were not being held as servants for a term of years, nor does anything appear to indicate that this was looked upon as illegal. In 1685 William Penn, writing to his steward at Pennsbury, said that it would be better to have blacks to work the place, since they might be held for life. In the same year by the terms of a recorded deed a negro was sold to a new master "forever." Three years later the Friends of Germantown issued their celebrated protest against slavery, while in 1693 George Keith denounced the practice of enslaving men and holding them in perpetual bondage. Meanwhile no law was made authorizing slavery in the colony, and no court seems to have been called upon to decide whether slavery was legal. It is not until 1700 that a statute was passed bearing upon the subject. In that year a law for the regulation of servants contains a section designed to prevent the embezzlement by servants of their masters' goods. This section asserts that the servant if white shall atone for such theft by additional servitude at the end of his time sufficient to pay for double the value of the goods; but if black he shall be severely whipped in the most public place of the township. It is probable that the law was so worded because it had come to be seen that there were few cases in which a negro could give satisfaction by additional time at the end of his term, since negroes were being held for life. If such be the case, this law may be said to contain the formal recognition of slavery in the colony.

The legal development of this slavery was rapid and brief. As it was not created by statutory enactment, so some of its most important incidents were never alluded to in the laws. The Assembly of Pennsylvania, unlike that of Virginia, never seems to have thought it necessary to define the status of the slave as property, the consequences of slave baptism, or the line of servile descent. Some of these questions had been settled in other colonies before the founding of Pennsylvania, and there the results seem to have been accepted. Accordingly the steps in the development are neither obvious nor distinct. They rest not so much upon statute as upon court decisions interpreting usage, and in many cases the decisions do not come until the end of the slavery period. Notwithstanding all this there was a development, which may be said to fall into three periods. They were, first, the years from 1682 to 1700, when slavery was slowly diverging from servitude, which it still closely resembled; second, from 1700 to 1725-1726, when slavery was more sharply marked off from servitude; and third, the period from 1725-1726 to 1780, when nothing was added but some minor restrictions.

During the earliest years slavery in Pennsylvania differed from servitude in but little, save that servitude was for a term of years and slavery was for life. It may be questioned whether at first all men recognized even this difference. Many of Penn's first colonists were men who embarked upon their undertaking with high ideals of religion and right, and whose conception of what was right could not easily be reconciled with hopeless bondage. The strength of this sentiment is seen in the well known provision of Penn's charter to the Free Society of Traders, 1682, that if they held blacks they should make them free at the end of fourteen years, the blacks then to become the Company's tenants. It is the motive in Benjamin Furley's proposal to hold negroes not longer than eight years. It is particularly evident in the protest made at Germantown in 1688. It is seen in George Keith's declaration of principles in 1693. And it gave impetus to the movement among the Friends, which, starting about 1696, led finally to the emancipation of all their negroes.

Accordingly at first there may have been some negroes who were held as servants for a term of years, and who were discharged when they had served their time. There is no certain proof that this was so, and the probabilities are rather against it, but the conscientious scruples of some of the early settlers make it at least possible. In the growth of the colony, however, this feeling did not continue strong enough to be decisive. Economic adjustment, an influx of men of different standards, and motives of expediency, perhaps of necessity, made the legal recognition of an inferior status inevitable. Against this the upholders of the idea that negroes should be held only as servants, for a term of years, waged a losing fight. It is true they did not desist, and in the course of one hundred years their view won a complete triumph; but their success came in abolition, and in overthrowing a system established, long after they had utterly failed to prevent the swift growth and the statutory recognition of legal slavery for life and in perpetuity.

Aside from this one fundamental difference the incidents of each status were nearly the same. The negro held for life was subject to the same restrictions, tried in the same courts, and punished with the same punishments as the white servant. So far as either class was subject to special regulation at this time it was because of the laws for the management of servants, passed in 1683 and 1693, which concerned white servants equally with black slaves. These restrictions were as yet neither numerous nor detailed, being largely directed against free people who abetted servants in wrong doing. Thus, servants were forbidden to traffic in their masters' goods; but the only penalty fell on the receiver, who had to make double restitution. They were restricted as to movement, and when travelling they must have a pass. If they ran away they were punished, the white servant by extra service, the black slave by whipping, but this different punishment for the slave was not enacted until 1700, the beginning of the next period. Whoever harbored them was liable to the master for damages. The relations between master and servant were likewise simple. The servant was compelled to obey the master. If he resisted or struck the master, he was punished at the discretion of the court. On the other hand the servant was to be treated kindly.

The period, then, prior to 1700 was characteristically a period of servitude. The laws spoke of servants white and black. The regulations, the restrictions, the trials, the punishments, were identical. There was only the one difference: white servants were discharged with freedom dues at the end of a specified number of years; for negroes there was no discharge; they were servants for life, that is, slaves.

In the period following 1700 this difference gradually became apparent, and made necessary different treatment and distinct laws. This resulted from a recognition of the dissimilarity in character between property based on temporary service and that based on service for life. In the first place perpetual service gave rise to a new class of slaves. At first the only ones in Pennsylvania were such negroes as were imported and sold for life. But after a time children were born to them. These children were also slaves, because ownership of a negro held for life involved ownership of his offspring also, since, the negro being debarred by economic helplessness from rearing children, all of his substance belonging to his master, the master must assume the cost of rearing them, and might have the service of the children as recompense. This was the source of the second and largest class of slaves. The child of a slave was not necessarily a slave if one of the parents was free. The line of servile descent lay through the mother. Accordingly the child of a slave mother and a free father was a slave, of a free mother and a slave father a servant for a term of years only. The result of the application of this doctrine to the offspring of a negro and a white person was that mulattoes were divided into two classes. Some were servants for a term of years; the others formed a third class of slaves.

In the second place perpetual service gave to slave property more of the character of a thing, than was the case when the time of service was limited. The service of both servants and slaves was a thing, which might be bought, sold, transferred as a chattel, inherited and bequeathed by will; but in the case of a slave, the service being perpetual, the idea of the service as a thing tended to merge into the idea of the slave himself as a thing. The law did not attempt to carry this principle very far. It never, as in Virginia, declared the slave real estate. In Pennsylvania he was emphatically both person and thing, with the conception of personality somewhat predominating. Yet there was felt to be a decided difference between the slave and the servant, and this, together with the desire to regulate the slave as a negro distinguished from a white man, was the cause of the distinctive laws of the second period.

The years from 1700 to 1725-1726 are marked by two great laws which almost by themselves make up the slave code of Pennsylvania. The first, passed in 1700 and passed again in 1705-1706, regulated the trial and punishments of slaves. It marked the beginning of a new era in the regulation of negroes, in that, subjecting them to different courts and imposing upon them different penalties, it definitely marked them off as a class distinct from all others in the colony. In 1725-1726 further advance was made. Not only was the negro now subjected to special regulation because he was a slave, but whether slave or free he was now made subject to special restrictions because he was a negro. While some of these had to do with movement and behavior, the most important forbade all marriage or intercourse with white people. These laws must be examined in detail.

From the very first was seen the inevitable difficulty involved in punishing the negro criminal as a person, and yet not injuring the master's property in the thing. The result of this was that masters were frequently led to conceal the crimes of their slaves, or to take the law into their own hands. The solution was probably felt to be the removal of negroes from the ordinary courts. It is said, also, that Penn desired to protect the negro by clearly defining his crimes and apportioning his punishments. Accordingly he urged the law of 1700.

Under this law negroes when accused were not to be tried in the regular courts of the colony. They were to be presented by the Courts of Quarter Sessions, but the cases were to be dealt with by special courts for the trial of negroes, composed of two commissioned justices of the peace and six substantial freeholders. On application these courts were to be constituted by executive authority when occasion demanded. Witnesses were to be allowed, but there was to be no trial by jury. In such courts it was doubtless easier to regard the slave as property, and do full justice to the rights of the master.

Something was still wanting, however, for in case the slave criminal was condemned to death, the loss fell entirely on the master. From the earliest days of the colony owners had been praying for relief from this. In 1707 the masters of two slaves petitioned the governor to commute the death sentence to chastisement and transportation, and thus save them from pecuniary loss. The petition was granted. Such commutation was frequently sought, and in the special courts it could be more readily granted. The real solution, however, was discovered in 1725-1726, when it was ordained that thereafter if any slave committed a capital crime, immediately upon conviction the justices should appraise such slave, and pay the value to the owner, out of a fund arising principally from the duty on negroes imported.

These laws continued in force until 1780, and down to that time slaves were removed from the jurisdiction of the regular courts of the province; although after 1776 it was asserted that the clause about trial by jury in the new state constitution affected slaves as well as free men; and a slave was actually so tried in 1779. Whether this view prevailed in all quarters it is impossible to say. In the next year the abolition act did away with the special courts entirely.

The law of 1700, which marked the differentiation of slaves from servants, marked also the beginning of discrimination. For negroes there were to be different punishments as well as a different mode of trial. Murder, buggery, burglary, or rape of a white woman, were to be punished by death; attempted rape by castration; robbing and stealing by whipping, the master to make good the theft. This law was repeated in 1705-1706, except that the punishment for attempted rape was now made whipping, branding, imprisonment, and transportation, while these same penalties were to be imposed for theft over five pounds. Theft of an article worth less than five pounds entailed whipping up to thirty-nine lashes. For white people at this time, whether servants or free, there was a different code.

A far more important discrimination was made in 1725-1726 by the law which forbade mixture of the races. There had doubtless been some intercourse from the first. A white servant was indicted for this offence in 1677; and a tract of land in Sussex County bore the name of "Mulatto Hall." In 1698 the Chester County Court laid down the principle that mingling of the races was not to be allowed. The matter went beyond this, for in 1722 a woman was punished for abetting a clandestine marriage between a white woman and a negro. A few months thereafter the Assembly received a petition from inhabitants of the province, inveighing against the wicked and scandalous practice of negroes cohabiting with white people. It appeared to the Assembly that a law was needed, and they set about framing one. Accordingly in the law of 1725-1726 they provided stringent penalties. No negro was to be joined in marriage with any white person upon any pretense whatever. A white person violating this was to forfeit thirty pounds, or be sold as a servant for a period not exceeding seven years. A clergyman who abetted such a marriage was to pay one hundred pounds.

The law did not succeed in checking cohabitation, though of marriages of slaves with white people there is almost no record. There exists no definite information as to the number of mulattoes in the colony during this period, but advertisements for runaway slaves indicate that there were very many of them. The slave register of 1780 for Chester County shows that they constituted twenty per cent. of the slave population in that locality. It must be said that the stigma of illicit intercourse in Pennsylvania would not generally seem to rest upon the masters, but rather upon servants, outcasts, and the lowlier class of whites.

Negro slaves were subject to another class of restrictions which were made against them rather as slaves than as black men. These concerned freedom of movement and freedom of action. During the earlier years of the colony's history regulation of the movements of the slaves rested principally in the hands of the owners. The continual complaints about the tumultuous assembling of negroes, to be noticed presently, would seem to indicate that considerable leniency was exercised. But frequently white people lured them away, and harbored and employed them. The law of 1725-1726 was intended specially to stop this. No negro was to go farther than ten miles from home without written leave from his master, under penalty of ten lashes on his bare back. Nor was he to be away from his master's house, except by special leave, after nine o'clock at night, nor to be found in tippling-houses, under like penalty. For preventing these things counter-restrictions were imposed upon white people. They were forbidden to employ such negroes, or knowingly to harbor or shelter them, except in very unseasonable weather, under penalty of thirty shillings for every twenty-four hours. Finally it was provided that negroes were not to meet together in companies of more than four. This last seems to have remained a dead letter.

That this legislation failed to produce the desired effect is shown by the experience of Philadelphia in dealing with negro disorder. Such disorder was complained of as early as 1693, when, on presentment of the grand jury, it was directed that the constables or any other person should arrest such negroes as they might find gadding abroad on first days of the week, without written permission from the master, and take them to jail, where, after imprisonment, they should be given thirty-nine lashes well laid on, to be paid for by the master. This seems to have been enforced but laxly, for in 1702 the grand jury presented the matter again, and their recommendation was repeated with warmth in the year following. A few years later they urged measures to suppress the unruly negroes of the city. In 1732 the council was forced to recommend an ordinance to bring this about, and such an ordinance was drawn up and considered. Next year the Monthly Meeting of Friends petitioned, and the matter was taken up again, but nothing came of it, so that the council was compelled to observe that further legislation was assuredly needed. In 1741 the grand jury presented the matter strongly, and an explicit order was at last given that constables should disperse meetings of negroes within half an hour after sunset. The nuisance, probably, was still not abated, for in 1761 the mayor caused to be published in the papers previous legislation on the subject. Nothing further seems to have been done.

The continued failure to suppress these meetings in defiance of a law of the province, must be attributed either to the intrinsic difficulty of enforcing such a law, or to the fact that the meetings were objectionable because of their rude and boisterous character, rather than because of any positive misdemeanor. More probably still this is but one of the many pieces of evidence which show how leniently the negro was treated in Pennsylvania.

The third period, from 1726 to 1780, is distinguished more because of the lack of important legislation about the negro than through any marked character of its own. The outlines of the colony's slave code had now been drawn, and no further constructive work was done. There is, however, one class of laws which may be assigned to this period, since the majority of them fall chronologically within its limits, though they are scarcely more characteristic of it than they are of either of the two periods preceding. All of these laws imposed restrictions upon the actions of negro slaves in matters in which white people were restricted also, but the restrictions were embodied in special sections of the laws, because of the negro's inability to pay a fine: the law imposing corporal punishment upon the slave, whenever it exacted payment in money or imprisonment from others.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet