Chapter CDX: Act 8: Parliament 1. repeated in Act 99. Parliament 7 (7)

"In the Salic laws, and in the Capitularies, we read not only
of Servi, but of Tributarii, Lidi, and Coloni, who were
cultivators of the earth, and subject to residence upon their
lord's estate, though not destitute of property or civil
rights. Those who appertained to the demesne lands of the
crown were called Fiscalini. … The number of these servile
cultivators was undoubtedly great, yet in those early times, I
should conceive, much less than it afterwards became. … The
accumulation of overgrown private wealth had a natural
tendency to make slavery more frequent. … As the labour either
of artisans or of free husbandmen was but sparingly in demand,
they were often compelled to exchange their liberty for bread.
In seasons, also, of famine, and they were not unfrequent,
many freemen sold themselves to slavery. … Others became
slaves, as more fortunate men became vassals, to a powerful
lord, for the sake of his protection. Many were reduced into
this state through inability to pay those pecuniary
compositions for offences which were numerous and sometimes
heavy in the barbarian codes of law; and many more by neglect
of attendance on military expeditions of the king, the penalty
of which was a fine called Heribann, with the alternative of
perpetual servitude. … The characteristic distinction of a
villein was his obligation to remain upon his lord's estate. …
But, equally liable to this confinement, there were two
classes of villeins, whose condition was exceedingly
different. In England, at least from the reign of Henry II.,
one only, and that the inferior species, existed; incapable of
property, and destitute of redress, except against the most
outrageous injuries. … But by the customs of France and
Germany, persons in this abject state seem to have been called
serfs, and distinguished from villeins, who were only bound to
fixed payments and duties. … Louis Hutin, in France, after
innumerable particular instances of manumission had taken
place, by a general edict in 1315, reciting that his kingdom
is denominated the kingdom of the Franks, that he would have
the fact to correspond with the name, emancipates all persons
in the royal domains upon paying a just composition, as an
example for other lords possessing villeins to follow. Philip
the Long renewed the same edict three years afterwards; a
proof that it had not been carried into execution. … It is not
generally known, I think, that predial servitude was not
abolished in all parts of France till the revolution. In some
places, says Pasquier, the peasants are taillables à volonté,
that is, their contribution is not permanent, but assessed by
the lord with the advice of prud'hommes, resseants sur les
lieux, according to the peasant's ability. Others pay a fixed
sum. Some are called serfs de poursuite, who cannot leave
their habitations, but may be followed by the lord into any
part of France for the taille upon their goods. … Nor could
these serfs, or gens de mainmorte, as they were sometimes
called, be manumitted without letters patent of the king,
purchased by a fine.-Recherches de la France, l. iv., c. 5.
Dubos informs us that, in 1615, the Tiers État prayed the king
to cause all serfs (hommes de pooste) to be enfranchised on
paying a composition, but this was not complied with, and they
existed in many parts when he wrote."

_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 2, part 2, and foot-note (volume 1)._

"The last traces of serfdom could only be detected [at the
time of the Revolution] in one or two of the eastern provinces
annexed to France by conquest; everywhere else the institution
had disappeared; and indeed its abolition had occurred so long
before that even the date of it was forgotten. The researches
of archæologists of our own day have proved that as early as
the 13th century serfdom was no longer to be met with in
Normandy."

_A. de Tocqueville,
State of Society in France before the Revolution of 1789,
book 2, chapter 1._

{2916}

SLAVERY:
Germany.

"As the great distinction in the German community was between
the nobles and the people, so amongst the people was the
distinction between the free and the servile. Next to those
who had the happiness to be freeborn were the Freedmen, whom
the indulgence or caprice of their masters relieved from the
more galling miseries of thraldom. But though the Freedman was
thus imperfectly emancipated, he formed a middle grade between
the Freeman and the Slave. He was capable of possessing
property; but was bound to pay a certain rent, or perform a
certain service, to the lord. He was forbidden to marry
without the lord's assent; and he and his children were
affixed to the farm they cultivated. … This mitigated
servitude was called 'Lidum,' and the Freedman, Lidus, Leud,
or Latt. The Lidus of an ecclesiastical master was called
Colonus. … A yet lower class were the Slaves, or Serfs
[Knechte] who were employed in menial or agricultural
services; themselves and their earnings being the absolute
property of their master, and entirely at his disposal. The
number of these miserable beings was gradually increased by
the wars with the Sclavonic nations, and the sale of their
prisoners was one great object of traffic in the German fairs
and markets. But a variety of causes combined to wear out this
abominable system; and as civilization advanced, the
severities of slavery diminished; so that its extinction was
nearly accomplished before the 14th century."

_Sir R. Comyn,
History of the Western Empire,
chapter 27 (volume 2)._

"The following table will show that the abolition of serfdom
in most parts of Germany took place very recently. Serfdom was
abolished:

1. In Baden, in 1783.
2. In Hohenzollern, in 1804.
3. In Schleswig and Holstein, in 1804.
4. In Nassau, in 1808.
5. In Prussia, Frederick William I. had done away with serfdom
in his own domains so early as 1717.

The code of the Great Frederick … was intended to abolish it
throughout the kingdom, but in reality it only got rid of it
in its hardest form, the 'leibeigenschaft,' and retained it in
the mitigated shape of 'erbunterthänigkeit.' It was not till
1809 that it disappeared altogether.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1807-1808.

6. In Bavaria serfdom disappeared in 1808.
7. A decree of Napoleon, dated from Madrid in 1808, abolished
it in the Grand-duchy of Berg, and in several other smaller
territories, such as Erfurt, Baireuth, &c.
8. In the kingdom of Westphalia, its destruction dates from
1808 and 1809.
9. In the principality of Lippe Detmold, from 1809.
10. In Schomburg Lippe, from 1810.
11. In Swedish Pomerania, from 1810, also.
12. In Hessen Darmstadt, from 1809 and 1811.
13. In Wurtemberg, from 1817.
14. In Mecklenburg, from 1820.
15. In Oldenburgh, from 1814.
16. In Saxony for Lusatia, from 1832.
17. In Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, only from 1833.
18. In Austria, from 1811.

So early as in 1782, Joseph II. had destroyed
'leibeigenschaft;' but serfage in its mitigated form of
'erbunterthänigkeit,' lasted till 1811."

_A. de Tocqueville,
State of Society in France before 1789, note D._

SLAVERY: Hungary and Austria: A. D. 1849.
Completed emancipation of the peasantry.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1849-1859.

SLAVERY: Ireland: 12th Century.
The Bristol Slave-trade.

See BRISTOL: 12TH CENTURY.

SLAVERY: Moslem relinquishment of Christian slavery.

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1816.

SLAVERY: Papal doctrine of the condemnation of the Jews to perpetual bondage.

See JEWS: 13-14TH CENTURIES.

SLAVERY: Poland.

"The statements of the Polish nobles and their historians, to
the effect that the peasant was always the hereditary property
of the lord of the manor are false. This relation between
eleven million men and barely half a million masters is an
abuse of the last two hundred years, and was preceded by one
thousand years of a better state of things. Originally the
noble did not even possess jurisdiction over the peasant. It
was wielded by the royal castellans, and in exceptional cases
was bestowed on individual nobles, as a reward for
distinguished services. … Those peasants were free who were
domiciled according to German law, or who dwelt on the land
which they themselves had reclaimed. It was owing to the
feudal lords' need of labourers, that the rest of the peasants
were bound to the soil and could not leave the land without
permission. But the peasant did not belong to the lord, he
could not be sold. … The fact that he could possess land
prevented him from ever becoming a mere serf. … It is
remarkable that the Polish peasant enjoyed these privileges at
a time when villeinage existed in all the rest of Europe, and
that his slavery began when other nations became free.
Villeinage ceased in Germany as early as the 12th and 13th
centuries, except in Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and Lusetia,
which had had a Slavonic population. … In Poland it began in
the 16th century. The kings were forced to promise that they
would grant the peasant no letters of protection against his
lord [Alexander, 1505; Sigismund I., 1543; Sigismund III.,
1588]. Henceforth the lord was to have the right of punishing
his disobedient subjects at his own discretion. … Without the
repeal of a single statute favourable to the peasants, it
became a fundamental principle of the constitution, that
'Henceforth no temporal court in existence can grant the
peasant redress against his lord, though property, honour, or
life be at stake.' The peasant was thus handed over to an
arbitrary power, which had no limit, except that which the
excess of an evil imposes on the evil itself. … There was no
help for the peasant save in the mercy of his lord or in his
own despair. The result was those terrible insurrections of
the peasants—the very threat of which alarmed the nobles—the
ruin of landed property, and the failure of those sources from
which a nation should derive its prosperity and its strength."

_Count von Moltke,
Poland: an Historical Sketch,
chapter 4._

SLAVERY:
Rome, Italy, and the Church.

"It is perhaps hardly surprising that the city of Rome should,
even down to the 16th century, have patronised slavery, and it
was only natural that the rest of Italy should follow the
example of the metropolis of Christianity. The popes were wont
to issue edicts of slavery against whole towns and provinces:
thus for instance did Boniface VIII. against the retainers of
the Colonnas.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1204-13481;

Clement V. against the Venetians; Sixtus IV. against the
Florentines; Gregory XI. against the Florentines;

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1375-1378.

Julius II. against the Bolognese and Venetians; and the
meaning of it was, that anyone who could succeed in capturing
any of the persons of the condemned was required to make
slaves of them. The example of Rome encouraged the whole of
Italy, and especially Venice, to carry on a brisk trade in
foreign, and especially female slaves. The privilege which had
sprung up in Rome and lasted for some years, by virtue of
which a slave taking refuge on the Capitol became free, was
abolished in 1548 by Paul III. upon the representation of the
Senate.
{2917}
Rome, of all the great powers of Europe, was the last to
retain slavery. Scholasticism having undertaken in the 13th
century to justify the existing state of things, a theological
sanction was discovered for slavery; Ægidius of Rome, taking
Thomas Aquinas as his authority, declared that it was a
Christian institution, since original sin had deprived man of
any right to freedom."

_J. I. von Döllinger,
Studies in European History,
p. 75._

See, also, CATTANI.

SLAVERY: Russia.
Serfdom and Emancipation.

"In the earliest period of Russian history the rural
population was composed of three distinct classes. At the
bottom of the scale stood the slaves, who were very numerous.
Their numbers were continually augmented by prisoners of war,
by freemen who voluntarily sold themselves as slaves, by
insolvent debtors, and by certain categories of criminals.
Immediately above the slaves were the free agricultural
labourers, who had no permanent domicile, but wandered about
the country and settled temporarily where they happened to
find work and satisfactory remuneration. In the third place,
distinct from these two classes, and in some respects higher
in the social scale, were the peasants properly so called.
These peasants proper, who may be roughly described as small
farmers or cottiers, were distinguished from the free
agricultural labourers in two respects: they were possessors
of land in property or usufruct, and they were members of a
rural Commune. … If we turn now from these early times to the
18th century, we find that the position of the rural
population has entirely changed in the interval. The
distinction between slaves, agricultural labourers, and
peasants has completely disappeared. All three categories have
melted together into a common class, called serfs, who are
regarded as the property of the landed proprietors or of the
State. 'The proprietors [in the words of an imperial ukaze of
April 15, 1721] sell their peasants and domestic servants not
even in families, but one by one, like cattle, as is done
nowhere else in the whole world.'" At the beginning of the
18th century, while the peasantry had "sunk to the condition
of serfs, practically deprived of legal protection and subject
to the arbitrary will of the proprietors, … they were still in
some respects legally and actually distinguished from the
slaves on the one hand and the 'free wandering people' on the
other. These distinctions were obliterated by Peter the Great
and his immediate successors. … To effect his great civil and
military reforms, Peter required an annual revenue such as his
predecessors had never dreamed of, and he was consequently
always on the look-out for some new object of taxation. When
looking about for this purpose, his eye naturally fell on the
slaves, the domestic servants, and the free agricultural
labourers. None of these classes paid taxes. … He caused,
therefore, a national census to be taken, in which all the
various classes of the rural population … should be inscribed
in one category; and he imposed equally on all the members of
this category a poll-tax, in lieu of the former land-tax,
which had lain exclusively on the peasants. To facilitate the
collection of this tax the proprietors were made responsible
for their serfs; and the 'free wandering people' who did not
wish to enter the army were ordered, under pain of being sent
to the galleys, to inscribe themselves as members of a Commune
or as serfs to some proprietor. … The last years of the 18th
century may be regarded as the turning-point in the history of
serfage. Up till that time the power of the proprietors had
steadily increased, and the area of serfage had rapidly
expanded. Under the Emperor Paul we find the first decided
symptoms of a reaction. … With the accession of Alexander I.
in 1801 commenced a long series of abortive projects of a
general emancipation, and endless attempts to correct the more
glaring abuses; and during the reign of Nicholas no less than
six committees were formed at different times to consider the
question. But the practical result of all these efforts was
extremely small."

_D. M. Wallace,
Russia,
chapter 29._

"The reign of Alexander II. [who succeeded Nicholas in 1855],
like that of Alexander I., began with an outburst of reform
enthusiasm in the educated classes. … The serfage question,
which Nicholas had always treated most tenderly, was raised in
a way that indicated an intention of dealing with it boldly
and energetically. Taking advantage of a petition presented by
the Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian provinces,
praying that their relations with their serfs might be
regulated in a more satisfactory way—meaning, of course, in a
way more satisfactory for the proprietors—the Emperor
authorized committees to be formed in that part of the country
'for ameliorating the condition of the peasants,' and laid
down the general principles according to which the
amelioration was to be effected. … This was a decided step,
and it was immediately followed by one still more significant.
His Majesty, without consulting his ordinary advisers, ordered
the Minister of the Interior to send to the Governors all over
European Russia copies of the instructions forwarded to the
Governor-General of Lithuania, praising the supposed generous,
patriotic intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors, and
suggesting that, perhaps, the landed proprietors of other
provinces might express a similar desire. The hint was, of
course, taken, and in all provinces where serfage existed
emancipation committees were formed. … There were, however,
serious difficulties in the way. The emancipation was not
merely a humanitarian question, capable of being solved
instantaneously by an Imperial ukase. It contained very
complicated problems, affecting deeply the economic, social,
and political future of the nation. … It was universally
admitted that the peasants should not be ejected from their
homes, though their homesteads belonged legally to the
proprietors; but there was great diversity of opinion as to
how much land they should in future enjoy, by what tenure they
should in future hold it, and how the patriarchal, undefined
authority of the landlords should be replaced. … The main
point at issue was whether the serfs should become
agricultural labourers dependent economically and
administratively on the landlords, or should be transformed
into a class of independent communal proprietors. The Emperor
gave his support to the latter proposal, and the Russian
peasantry acquired privileges such as are enjoyed by no other
peasantry in Europe."

_Alexander II.
(Eminent Persons:
Biographies, reprinted from The Times)._

{2918}

"On the 3d of March, 1861 (February, 19, O. S.), the
emancipation act was signed. The rustic population then
consisted of 22,000,000 of common serfs, 3,000,000 of appanage
peasants, and 23,000,000 of crown peasants. The first class
were enfranchised by that act: and a separate law has since
been passed in favor of these crown peasants and appanage
peasants, who are now as free in fact as they formerly were in
name. A certain portion of land, varying in different
provinces according to soil and climate, was affixed to every
'soul'; and government aid was promised to the peasants in
buying their homesteads and allotments. The serfs were not
slow to take this hint. Down to January 1, 1869, more than
half the enfranchised male serfs have taken advantage of this
promise: and the debt now owing from the people to the crown
(that is, to the bondholders) is an enormous sum."

_W. H. Dixon,
Free Russia,
chapter 51._

"Emancipation has utterly failed to realize the ardent
expectations of its advocates and promoters. The great
benefit of the measure was purely moral. It has failed to
improve the material condition of the former serfs, who on
the whole are [1888] worse off than they were before the
Emancipation. The bulk of our peasantry is in a condition not
far removed from actual starvation—a fact which can neither
be denied nor concealed even by the official press."

_Stepniak,
The Russian Peasantry,
chapter 1._

ALSO IN:
_A. Leroy-Beaulieu,
The Empire of the Tsars,
part 1, book 7._

SLAVERY: Modern: Indians.
Barbarity of the Spaniards in America, and
humane labors of Las Casas.

"When Columbus came to Hispaniola on his second voyage [1493],
with 17 ships and 1,500 followers, he found the relations
between red men and white men already hostile, and in order to
get food for so many Spaniards, foraging expeditions were
undertaken, which made matters worse. This state of things led
Columbus to devise a notable expedient. In some of the
neighbouring islands lived the voracious Caribs. In fleets of
canoes they would swoop upon the coasts of Hispaniola, capture
men and women by the score, and carry them off to be cooked
and eaten. Now Columbus wished to win the friendship of the
Indians about him by defending them against these enemies, and
so he made raids against the Caribs, took some of them
captive, and sent them as slaves to Spain, to be taught
Spanish and converted to Christianity, so that they might come
back to the islands as interpreters, and thus be useful aids
in missionary work. It was really, said Columbus, a kindness
to these cannibals to enslave them and send them where they
could be baptized and rescued from everlasting perdition; and
then again they could be received in payment for the cargoes
of cattle, seeds, wine, and other provisions which must be
sent from Spain for the support of the colony. Thus quaintly
did the great discoverer, like so many other good men before
and since, mingle considerations of religion with those of
domestic economy. It is apt to prove an unwholesome mixture.
Columbus proposed such an arrangement to Ferdinand and
Isabella, and it is to their credit that, straitened as they
were for money, they for some time refused to accept it.
Slavery, however, sprang up in Hispaniola before anyone could
have fully realized the meaning of what was going on. As the
Indians were unfriendly and food must be had, while foraging
expeditions were apt to end in plunder and bloodshed, Columbus
tried to regulate matters by prohibiting such expeditions and
in lieu thereof imposing a light tribute or tax upon the
entire population of Hispaniola above 14 years of age. As this
population was dense, a little from each person meant a good
deal in the lump. The tribute might be a small piece of gold
or of cotton, and was to be paid four times a year. … If there
were Indians who felt unable to pay the tribute, they might as
an alternative render a certain amount of personal service in
helping to plant seeds or tend cattle for the Spaniards. No
doubt these regulations were well meant, and if the two races
had been more evenly matched, perhaps they might not so
speedily have developed into tyranny. As it was, they were
like rules for regulating the depredations of wolves upon
sheep. Two years had not elapsed before the alternative of
personal service was demanded from whole villages of Indians
at once. By 1499 the island had begun to be divided into
repartimientos, or shares. One or more villages would be
ordered, under the direction of their native chiefs, to till
the soil for the benefit of some specified Spaniard or
partnership of Spaniards; and such a village or villages
constituted the repartimiento of the person or persons to whom
it was assigned. This arrangement put the Indians into a state
somewhat resembling that of feudal villenage; and this was as
far as things had gone when the administration of Columbus
came abruptly to an end." Queen Isabella disapproved, at
first, of the repartimiento system, "but she was persuaded to
sanction it, and presently in 1503 she and Ferdinand issued a
most disastrous order. They gave discretionary power to Ovando
[who succeeded Columbus in the governorship] to compel Indians
to work, but it must be for wages. They ordered him, moreover,
to see that Indians were duly instructed in the Christian
faith. … The way in which Ovando carried out the order about
missionary work was characteristic. As a member of a religious
order of knights, he was familiar with the practice of
encomienda, by which groups of novices were assigned to
certain preceptors to be disciplined and instructed in the
mysteries of the order. The word encomienda means 'commandery'
or 'preceptory,' and so it came to be a nice euphemism for a
hateful thing. Ovando distributed Indians among the Spaniards
in lots of 50 or 100 or 500, with a deed worded thus: 'To you,
such a one, is given an encomienda of so many Indians, and you
are to teach them the things of our holy Catholic Faith.' In
practice, the last clause was disregarded as a mere formality,
and the effect of the deed was simply to consign a parcel of
Indians to the tender mercies of some Spaniard, to do as he
pleased with them. If the system of repartimientos was in
effect serfdom or villenage, the system of encomiendas was
unmitigated slavery. Such a cruel and destructive slavery has
seldom, if ever, been known. The work of the Indians was at
first largely agricultural, but as many mines of gold were
soon discovered they were driven in gangs to work in the
mines. … In 1500 Ovando was recalled. … Under his successor,
Diego Columbus, there was little improvement. The case had
become a hard one to deal with.
{2919}
There were now what are called 'vested rights,' the rights of
property in slaves, to be respected. But in 1510 there came a
dozen Dominican monks, and they soon decided, in defiance of
vested rights, to denounce the wickedness they saw about
them." Generally, the Spaniards who enjoyed the profit of the
labor of the enslaved Indians hardened their hearts against
this preaching, and were enraged by it; but one among them had
his conscience awakened and saw the guiltiness of the evil
thing. This was Bartolomé de Las Casas, who had joined the
colonists at Hispaniola in 1502 and who had entered the
priesthood in 1510. He owned slaves, whom he now set free, and
he devoted himself henceforth to labors for the reformation of
the system of slavery in the Spanish colonies. In 1516 he won
the ear of Cardinal Ximenes, who appointed a commission of
Hieronymite friars "to accompany Las Casas to the West Indies,
with minute instructions and ample powers for making
investigations and enforcing the laws. Ximenes appointed Las
Casas Protector of the Indians, and clothed him with authority
to impeach delinquent judges or other public officials. The
new regulations, could they have been carried out, would have
done much to mitigate the sufferings of the Indians. They must
be paid wages, they must be humanely treated and taught the
Christian religion. But as the Spanish government needed
revenue, the provision that Indians might be compelled to work
in the mines was not repealed. The Indians must work, and the
Spaniards must pay them. Las Casas argued correctly that so
long as this provision was retained the work of reform would
go but little way. Somebody, however, must work the mines; and
so the talk turned to the question of sending out white
labourers or negroes. … At one time the leading colonists of
Hispaniola had told Las Casas that if they might have license
to import each a dozen negroes, they would coöperate with him
in his plans for setting free the Indians and improving their
condition. … He recalled this suggestion of the colonists, and
proposed it as perhaps the least odious way out of the
difficulty: It is therefore evident that at that period in his
life he did not realize the wickedness of slavery so
distinctly in the case of black men as in the case of red men.
… In later years he blamed himself roundly for making any such
concessions. Had he 'sufficiently considered the matter,' he
would not for all the world have entertained such a suggestion
for a moment. … The extensive development of negro slavery in
the West Indies … did not begin for many years after the
period in the career of Las Casas with which we are now
dealing, and there is nothing to show that his suggestion or
concession was in any way concerned in bringing it about." The
fine story of the life and labours of Las Casas,—of the colony
which he attempted to found on the Pearl Coast of the
mainland, composed of settlers who would work for themselves
and not require slaves, and which was ruined through the
wicked lawlessness of other men,—of the terrible barbarians of
the "Land of War" whom he transformed into peaceful and
devoted Christians,—cannot be told in this place. His final
triumphs in the conflict with slavery were:

1. In 1537, the procuring from Pope Paul III. of a brief
"forbidding the further enslavement of Indians under penalty
of excommunication."

2. In 1542, the promulgation of the New Laws by Charles V.,
the decisive clause in which was as follows: "'We order and
command that henceforward for no cause whatever, whether of
war, rebellion, ransom, or in any other manner, can any Indian
be made a slave.'

This clause was never repealed, and it stopped the spread of
slavery. Other clauses went further, and made such sweeping
provisions for immediate abolition that it proved to be
impossible to enforce them. … The matter was at last
compromised by an arrangement that encomiendas should be
inheritable during two lives, and should then escheat to the
crown. This reversion to the crown meant the emancipation of
the slaves. Meanwhile such provisions were made … that the
dreadful encomienda reverted to the milder form of the
repartimiento. Absolute slavery was transformed into
villenage. In this ameliorated form the system continued."

_J. Fiske,
The Discovery of America,
chapter 11 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_Sir A. Helps,
Spanish Conquest in America._

_Sir A. Helps,
Life of Las Casas._

_G. E. Ellis,
Las Casas (Narrative and Critical History of America,
volume 2, chapter 5)._

_H. H. Bancroft,
History of the Pacific States,
volume 1, chapter 5._

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1442-1501.
Its beginning in Europe and its establishment in Spanish America.

"The peculiar phase of slavery that will be brought forward in
this history is not the first and most natural one, in which
the slave was merely the captive in war, 'the fruit of the
spear,' as he has figuratively been called, who lived in the
house of his conqueror and laboured at his lands. This system
culminated among the Romans; partook of the fortunes of the
Empire; was gradually modified by Christianity and advancing
civilization; declined by slow and almost imperceptible
degrees into serfage and vassalage; and was extinct, or nearly
so, when the second great period of slavery suddenly uprose.
This second period was marked by a commercial character. The
slave was no longer an accident of war. He had become the
object of war. He was no longer a mere accidental subject of
barter. He was to be sought for, to be hunted out, to be
produced; and this change accordingly gave rise to a new
branch of commerce. Slavery became at once a much more
momentous question than it ever had been, and thenceforth,
indeed, claims for itself a history of its own."

_Sir A. Helps,
The Spanish Conquest in America,
and its Relation to the History of Slavery,
book 1, chapter 1._

"The first negroes imported into Europe after the extinction
of the old pagan slavery were brought in one of the ships of
Prince Henry of Portugal, in the year 1442. There was,
however, no regular trade in negroes established by the
Portuguese; and the importation of human beings fell off,
while that of other articles of commerce increased, until
after the discovery of America. Then the sudden destruction of
multitudes of Indians in war, by unaccustomed labour, by
immense privations, and by diseases new to them, produced a
void in the labour market which was inevitably filled up by
the importation of negroes. Even the kindness and the piety of
the Spanish monarchs tended partly to produce this result.
{2920}
They forbade the enslaving of Indians, and they contrived that
the Indians should live in some manner apart from the
Spaniards; and it is a very significant fact that the great
'Protector of the Indians,' Las Casas, should, however
innocently, have been concerned with the first large grant of
licenses to import negroes into the West India Islands. Again,
the singular hardihood of the negro race, which enabled them
to flourish in all climates, and the comparative debility of
the Indians, also favoured this result. The anxiety of the
Catholic Church for proselytes combined with the foregoing
causes to make the bishops and monks slow to perceive the
mischief of any measure which might tend to save or favour
large communities of docile converts."-

_Sir A. Helps,
The Spanish Conquest in America,
and its Relation to the History of Slavery,
book 21, chapter 5 (volume 4)._

The first notice of the introduction of negro slaves in the
West Indies appears in the instructions given in 1501 to
Ovando, who superseded Columbus in the governorship.

_Sir A. Helps,
The Spanish Conquest in America,
and its Relation to the History of Slavery,
book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1)._

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1562-1567.
John Hawkins engages England in the traffic.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1562-1567.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1609-1755.
In colonial New York.

"From the settlement of New York by the Dutch in 1609, down to
its conquest by the English in 1664, there is no reliable
record of slavery in that colony. That the institution was
coeval with the Holland government, there can be no historical
doubt. During the half-century that the Holland flag waved
over the New Netherlands, slavery grew to such proportions as
to be regarded as a necessary evil. … The West India Company
had offered many inducements to its patroons. And its pledge
to furnish the colonists with 'as many blacks as they
conveniently could,' was scrupulously performed. … When New
Netherlands became an English colony, slavery received
substantial official encouragement, and the slave became the
subject of colonial legislation. … Most of the slaves in the
Province of New York, from the time they were first
introduced, down to 1664, had been the property of the West
India Company. As such they had small plots of land to work
for their own benefit, and were not without hope of
emancipation some day. But under the English government the
condition of the slave was clearly defined by law and one of
great hardships. On the 24th of October, 1684, an Act was
passed in which slavery was for the first time regarded as a
legitimate institution in the Province of New York under the
English government." After the mad excitement caused by the
pretended Negro Plot of 1741 (see NEW YORK: A. D. 1741) "the
legislature turned its attention to additional legislation
upon the slavery question. Severe laws were passed against the
Negroes. Their personal rights were curtailed until their
condition was but little removed from that of the brute
creation. We have gone over the voluminous records of the
Province of New York, and have not found a single act
calculated to ameliorate the condition of the slave."

_G. W. Williams,
History of the Negro Race in America,
volume 1, chapter 13._

A census of the slaves in the Province of New York was made in
1755, the record of which has been preserved for all except
the most important counties of New York, Albany and Suffolk.
It shows 67 slaves then in Brooklyn.

_Doc. History of New York,
volume 3._

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1619.
Introduction in Virginia.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1619.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1638-1781.
Beginning and ending in Massachusetts.

In the code of laws called the Body of Liberties, adopted by
the General Court of Massachusetts in 1641, there is the
following provision (Article 91): "There shall never be any
Bond Slavery, Villinage, or Captivity amongst us, unless it be
lawful Captives taken in just Wars, and such strangers as
willingly sell themselves, or are sold to us. And these shall
have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of
God, established in Israel concerning such persons, doth
morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be
judged thereto by authority."

_Massachusetts Historical Society Collection,
volume 28, page 231._

"No instance has been discovered of a sale by one man of
himself to another, although the power of doing this was
recognized in the Body of Liberties. But of sales by the way
of punishment for crime, under a sentence of a court, there
are several instances recorded. … Of captives taken in war and
sold into slavery by the colony, the number appears to have
been larger, though it is not easy to ascertain in how many
instances it was done. As a measure of policy, it was adopted
in the case of such as were taken in the early Indian wars. …
It was chiefly confined to the remnants of the Pequod tribe,
and to such as were taken in the war with King Philip. …

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637, and 1676-1678.

If now we recur to negro slavery, it does not appear when it
was first introduced into the colony. … When Josslyn was here
in 1638, he found Mr. Maverick the owner of three negro
slaves. He probably acquired them from a ship which brought
some slaves from the West Indies in that year. And this is the
first importation of which we have any account. But Maverick
was not properly a member of Winthrop's Company. He came here
before they left England, and had his establishment, and lived
by himself, upon Noddle's Island. … The arrival of a
Massachusetts ship with two negroes on board, whom the master
had brought from Africa for sale, in 1645, four years after
the adoption of the Body of Liberties, furnished an
opportunity to test the sincerity of its framers, in seeking
to limit and restrict slavery in the colony. … Upon
information that these negroes had been forcibly seized and
abducted from the coast of Africa by the captain of the
vessel, the magistrates interposed to prevent their being
sold. But though the crime of man-stealing had been committed,
they found they had no cognizance of it, because it had been
done in a foreign jurisdiction. They, however, went as far
towards reaching the wrong done as they could; and not only
compelled the ship-master to give up the men, but sent them
back to Africa, at the charge of the colony. … And they made
this, moreover, an occasion, by an act of legislation of the
General Court, in 1646, 'to bear witness,' in the language of
the act, 'against the heinous and crying sin of man-stealing,
as also to prescribe such timely redress for what is past, and
such a law for the future, as may sufficiently deter all
others belonging to us to have to do in such vile and most
odious courses, justly abhorred of all good and just men.' …
In 1767 a bill to restrain the importing of slaves passed the
popular branch of the General Court, but failed in the
Council. Nor would it have availed if it had passed both
branches, because it would have been vetoed by the Governor;
acting under instructions from the Crown.
{2921}
This was shown in 1774, when such a bill did pass both
branches of the General Court, and was thus vetoed. These
successive acts of legislation were a constantly recurring
illustration of the truth of the remark of a modern writer of
standard authority upon the subject, that—'though the
condition of slavery in the colonies may not have been created
by the imperial legislature, yet it may be said with truth
that the colonies were compelled to receive African slaves by
the home government.' … The action of the government [of
Massachusetts] when reorganized under the advice of the
Continental Congress, was shown in September, 1776, in respect
to several negroes who had been taken in an English prize-ship
and brought into Salem to be sold. The General Court, having
learned these facts, put a stop to the sale at once. And this
was accompanied by a resolution on the part of the House—'That
the selling and enslaving the human species is a direct
violation of the natural rights alike vested in them by their
Creator, and utterly inconsistent with the avowed principles
on which this and the other States have carried on their
struggle for liberty.' … In respect to the number of slaves
living here at any one time, no census seems to have been
taken of them prior to 1754. … In 1708, Governor Dudley
estimates the whole number in the colony at 550; 200 having
arrived between 1698 and 1707. Dr. Belknap thinks they were
the most numerous here about 1745. And Mr. Felt, upon careful
calculation, computes their number in 1754 at 4,489. … In
1755, Salem applied to the General Court to suppress slavery.
Boston did the same in 1766, in 1767, and … in 1772. In 1773
the action of the towns was more general and decided." In
1780, the then free state of Massachusetts framed and adopted
a constitution, the opening declaration of which was that
"'all men are born free and equal, and have certain natural,
essential, and unalienable rights.' … When [the next year] the
highest judicial tribunal in the State was called upon to
construe and apply this clause, they gave a response which
struck off the chains from every slave in the commonwealth."

_E. Washburn,
Slavery as it once Prevailed in Massachusetts
(Lowell Inst. Lectures, 1869:
Massachusetts and its Early History, lecture 6)._

ALSO IN:
_W. B. Weeden,
Economic and Social History of New England,
chapters 12 and 22 (volume 2)._

_Letters and Documents relating to Slavery in Massachusetts
(Massachusetts Historical Society Collection,
Fifth Series, v. 3)._

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1652.
First Antislavery enactment in Rhode Island.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1651-1652.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1658.
Introduction of slavery in Cape Colony.

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1486-1806.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1669-1670.
Provided for in Locke's Fundamental Constitutions
for the Carolinas.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1669-1693.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1680.
Early importance in South Carolina.
Indian slavery also established.

See SOUTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1680.

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1685-1772.
Black slaves in England.

"The extensive proprietary interests which, during last
century, English merchants and members of the English
aristocracy held in the American colonies and the West Indies,
involved the possession also on their part of many slaves.
Many of these black slaves were trained to act as household
servants and personal attendants, and in this capacity
accompanied their owners when travelling. The presence of
black slaves in this country was therefore not an unfamiliar
sight; but it will perhaps startle many readers to know that
in 1764, according to the estimate of the 'Gentleman's
Magazine' of the period, there were upwards of 20,000 black
slaves domiciled in London alone, and that these slaves were
openly bought and sold on 'Change.' The newspapers of the day
represent these slaves as being upon the whole rather a
trouble to their owners. For one thing, they ceased to
consider themselves 'slaves' in this so-called 'free country';
hence they were often unwilling to work, and when forced to
labour were generally sullen, spiteful, treacherous, and
revengeful. They also frequently, as we shall find from the
press advertisements of the day, made their escape,
necessitating rewards being offered for their recapture. For
instance, in the' London Gazette' for March, 1685, there is an
advertisement to the effect that a black boy of about 15 years
of age, named John White, ran away from Colonel Kirke on the
15th inst. 'He has a silver collar about his neck, upon which
is the colonel's coat of arms and cipher; he has upon his
throat a great scar: &c. A reward is offered for bringing him
back. In the 'Daily Post' of August 4, 1720, is a similar
notice. … Again, in the 'Daily Journal' for September 28,
1728, is an advertisement for a runaway black boy. It is added
that he had the words 'My Lady Bromfield's black in Lincoln's
Inn Fields' engraved on a collar round his neck. … That a
collar was considered as essential for a black slave as for a
dog is shown by an advertisement in the 'London Advertiser'
for 1756, in which Matthew Dyer, working-goldsmith at the
Crown in Duck Lane, Orchard Street, Westminster, intimates to
the public that he makes' silver padlocks for Blacks or Dogs;
collars,' &c. … In the 'Tatler' for 1709, a black boy, 12
years of age, 'fit to wait on gentleman,' is offered for sale
at Dennis's Coffee-house, in Finch Lane, near the Royal
Exchange. From the 'Daily Journal ' of September 28, 1728, we
learn that a negro boy, 11 years of age, was similarly offered
for sale at the Virginia Coffee-house. … Again, in the 'Public
Ledger' for December 31, 1761, we have for sale 'A healthy
Negro Girl, aged about 15 years; speaks good English, works at
her needle, washes well, does household work, and has had the
small-pox.' So far these sales seem to have been effected
privately; but later on we find that the auctioneer's hammer
is being brought into play. In 1763, one John Rice was hanged
for forgery at Tyburn, and following upon his execution was a
sale of his effects by auction, 'and among the rest a negro
boy.' He brought £32. The 'Gentleman's Magazine' of the day,
commenting upon the sale of the black boy, says that this was
'perhaps the first custom of the kind in a free country.' …
The 'Stamford Mercury' for [1771] bears record that 'at a sale
of a gentleman's effects at Richmond, a Negro Boy was put up
and sold for £32.' The paper adds: 'A shocking instance in a
free country!' The public conscience had indeed for many years
been disturbed on this question, the greater number in England
holding that the system of slavery as tolerated in London and
the country generally should be declared illegal. From an
early period in last century the subject had not only been
debated in the public prints and on the platform, but had been
made matter of something like judicial decision.
{2922}
At the first, legal opinion was opposed to the manumission of
slaves brought by their masters to this country. In 1729, Lord
Talbot, Attorney-general, and Mr. Yorke, Solicitor-general,
gave an opinion which raised the whole question of the legal
existence of slaves in Great Britain and Ireland. The opinion
of these lawyers was that the mere fact of a slave coming into
these countries from the West Indies did not render him free,
and that he could be compelled to return again to those
plantations. Even the rite of baptism did not free him—it
could only affect his spiritual, not his temporal, condition.
It was on the strength of this decision that slavery continued
to flourish in England until, as we have seen, there were at
one time as many as 20,000 black slaves in London alone.
Chief-justice Holt had, however, expressed a contrary opinion
to that above given; and after a long struggle the matter was
brought to a final issue in the famous case of the negro
Somersett. On June 22, 1772, it was decided by Lord Mansfield,
in the name of the whole bench, that 'as soon as a slave set
foot on the soil of the British Islands, he became free.' From
that day to the present this has remained the law of our land
as regards slavery. The poet Cowper expressed the jubilant
feeling of the country over Lord Mansfield's dictum when he
sung: … 'Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
receive our air, that moment they are free.'"

_Black Slaves in England
(Chamber's Journal, January 31, 1891)._

ALSO IN:
_H. Greeley,
History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension or Restriction,
pages 2-3._

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1688-1780.
Beginning and growth or Antislavery sentiment
among the Quakers.
Emancipation in Pennsylvania.

"So early as the year 1688, some emigrants from Kriesheim in
Germany, who had adopted the principles of William Penn, and
followed him into Pennsylvania, urged in the yearly meeting of
the Society there, the inconsistency of buying, selling, and
holding men in slavery, with the principles of the Christian
religion. In the year 1696, the yearly meeting for that
province took up the subject as a public concern, and the
result was, advice to the members of it to guard against
future importations of African slaves, and to be particularly
attentive to the treatment of those, who were then in their
possession. In the year 1711, the same yearly meeting resumed
the important subject, and confirmed and renewed the advice,
which had been before given. From this time it continued to
keep the subject alive; but finding at length, that, though
individuals refused to purchase slaves, yet others continued
the custom, and in greater numbers that it was apprehended
would have been the case after the public declarations which
had been made, it determined, in the year 1754, upon a fuller
and more serious publication of its sentiments; and therefore
it issued, in the same year, … [a] pertinent letter to all the
members within its jurisdiction. … This truly Christian
letter, which was written in the year 1754, was designed, as
we collect from the contents of it, to make the sentiments of
the Society better known and attended to on the subject of the
Slave-trade. It contains … exhortations to all the members
within the yearly meeting of Pennsylvania and the Jerseys, to
desist from purchasing and importing slaves, and, where they
possessed them, to have a tender consideration of their
condition. But that the first part of the subject of this
exhortation might be enforced, the yearly meeting for the same
provinces came to a resolution in 1755, That if any of the
members belonging to it bought or imported slaves, the
overseers were to inform their respective monthly meetings of
it, that 'these might treat with them, as they might be
directed in the wisdom of truth.' In the year 1774, we find
the same yearly meeting legislating again on the same subject.
By the preceding resolution they, who became offenders, were
subjected only to exclusion from the meetings for discipline,
and from the privilege of contributing to the pecuniary
occasions of the Society; but by the resolution of the present
year, all members concerned in importing, selling, purchasing,
giving, or transferring Negro or other slaves, or otherwise
acting in such manner as to continue them in slavery beyond
the term limited by law or custom, were directed to be
excluded from membership or disowned. … In the year 1776, the
same yearly meeting carried the matter still further. It was
then enacted, That the owners of slaves, who refused to
execute proper instruments for giving them their freedom, were
to be disowned likewise."

_T. Clarkson,
History of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade,
volume 1, chapter 5._

In 1780 Pennsylvania adopted an act for the gradual
emancipation of all slaves within its territory, being the
first among the States to perform that great act of justice.

_W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay,
Popular History of the United States,
volume 3, chapter 7._

SLAVERY: Modern: Negro: A. D. 1698-1776.
England and the Slave-trade.
The Assiento contract with Spain.