Volume I Part 32 (1/2)
[412] Ethiope, p. 12.
[413] Bolingbroke, pp. 346-348.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE COLONY OF MARYLAND.
1634-1775.
MARYLAND UNDER THE LAWS OF VIRGINIA UNTIL 1630.--FIRST LEGISLATION ON THE SLAVERY QUESTION IN 1637-38.--SLAVERY ESTABLISHED BY STATUTE IN 1663.--THE DISCUSSION OF SLAVERY.--AN ACT Pa.s.sED ENCOURAGING THE IMPORTATION OF NEGROES AND WHITE SERVANTS IN 1671.--AN ACT LAYING AN IMPOST ON NEGROES AND WHITE SERVANTS IMPORTED INTO THE COLONY.--DUTIES IMPOSED ON RUM AND WINE.--TREATMENT OF SLAVES AND PAPISTS.--CONVICTS IMPORTED INTO THE COLONY.--AN ATTEMPT TO JUSTIFY THE CONVICT-TRADE.--SPIRITED REPLIES.--THE LAWS OF 1723, 1729, 1752.--RIGHTS OF SLAVES.--NEGRO POPULATION IN 1728.--INCREASE OF SLAVERY IN 1756.--NO EFFORTS MADE TO PREVENT THE EVILS OF SLAVERY.--THE REVOLUTION NEARING.--NEW LIFE FOR THE NEGROES.
Up to the 20th of June, 1630, the territory that at present const.i.tutes the State of Maryland was included within the limits of the colony of Virginia. During that period the laws of Virginia obtained throughout the entire territory.
In 1637[414] the first a.s.sembly of the colony of Maryland agreed upon a number of bills, but they never became laws. The list is left, but nothing more. The nearest and earliest attempt at legislation on the slavery question to be found is a bill that was introduced ”_for punishment of ill servants_.” During the earlier years of the existence of slavery in Virginia, the term ”servant” was applied to Negroes as well as to white persons. The legal distinction between slaves and servants was, ”servants for a term of years,”--white persons; and ”servants for life,”--Negroes. In the first place, there can be no doubt but what Negro slaves were a part of the population of this colony from its organization;[415] and, in the second place, the above-mentioned bill of 1637 for the ”_punishment of ill servants_”
was intended, doubtless, to apply to Negro servants, or slaves. So few were they in number, that they were seldom referred to as ”slaves.” They were ”servants;” and that appellation dropped out only when the growth of slavery as an inst.i.tution, and the necessity of specific legal distinction, made the Negro the only person that was suited to the condition of absolute property.
In 1638 there was a list of bills that reached a second reading, but never pa.s.sed. There was one bill ”_for the liberties of the people_,”
that declared ”all Christian inhabitants (slaves only excepted) to have and enjoy all such rights, liberties, immunities, privileges and free customs, within this province, as any natural born subject of England hath or ought to have or enjoy in the realm of England, by force or virtue of the common law or statute law of England, saving in such cases as the same are or may be altered or changed by the laws and ordinances of this province.”[416] There is but one mention made of ”slaves” in the above Act, but in none of the other Acts of 1638.
There are certain features of the Act worthy of special consideration.
The reader should keep the facts before him, that by the laws of England no Christian could be held in slavery; that in the Provincial governments the laws were made to conform with those of the home government; that, in specifying the rights of the colonists, the Provincial a.s.semblies limited the immunities and privileges conferred by the Magna Charta upon British subjects, to Christians; that Negroes were considered heathen, and, therefore, denied the blessings of the Church and State; that even where Negro slaves were baptized, it was held by the courts in the colonies, and was the law-opinion of the solicitor-general of Great Britain, that they were not _ipso facto_ free;[417] and that, where Negroes were free, they had no rights in the Church or State. So, while this law of 1638 did not say that Negroes _should_ be slaves, in designating those who were to enjoy the rights of freemen, it excludes the Negro, and thereby fixes his condition as a slave by implication. If he were not named as a freeman, it was the intention of the law-makers that he should remain a bondman,--the exception to an established rule of law.[418]
In subsequent Acts reference was made to ”servants,” ”fugitives,”
”runaways,” etc.; but the first statute in this colony establis.h.i.+ng slavery was pa.s.sed in 1663. It was ”_An Act concerning negroes and other slaves_.” It enacts section one:--
”All negroes or other slaves within the province, and all negroes and other slaves to be hereafter imported into the province, shall serve _durante vita_; and all children born of any negro or other slave, shall be slaves as their fathers were for the term of their lives.”
Section two:--
”And forasmuch as divers freeborn _English_ women, forgetful of their free condition, and to the disgrace of our nation, do intermarry with negro slaves, by which also divers suits may arise, touching the issue of such women, and a great damage doth befall the master of such negroes, for preservation whereof for deterring such free-born women from such shameful matches, _be it enacted_, &c.: That whatsoever free-born woman shall intermarry with any slave, from and after the last day of the present a.s.sembly, shall serve the master of such slave during the life of her husband; and that all the issue of such free-born women, so married, shall be slaves as their fathers were.”
Section three:--
”And be it further enacted, that all the issues of _English_, or other free-born women, that have already married negroes, shall serve the master of their parents, till they be thirty years of age and no longer.”[419]
Section one is the most positive and sweeping statute we have ever seen on slavery. It fixes the term of servitude for the longest time man can claim,--the period of his earthly existence,--and dooms the children to a service from which they were to find discharge only in death. Section two was called into being on account of the intermarriage of white women with slaves. Many of these women had been indentured as servants to pay their pa.s.sage to this country, some had been sent as convicts, while still others had been apprenticed for a term of years. Some of them, however, were very worthy persons. No little confusion attended the fixing of the legal status of the issue of such marriages; and it was to deter Englishwomen from such alliances, and to determine the status of the children before the courts, that this section was pa.s.sed. Section three was clearly an _ex post facto_ law: but the public sentiment of the colony was reflected in it; and it stood, and was re-enacted in 1676.
Like Virginia, the colony of Maryland found the soil rich, and the cultivation of tobacco a profitable enterprise. The country was new, and the physical obstructions in the way of civilization numerous and formidable. Of course all could not pursue the one path that led to agriculture. Mechanic and trade folk were in great demand. Laborers were scarce, and the few that could be obtained commanded high wages.
The Negro slave's labor could be made as cheap as his master's conscience and heart were small. Cheaper labor became the cry on every hand, and the Negro was the desire of nearly all white men in the colony.[420] In 1671 the Legislature pa.s.sed ”_An Act encouraging the importation of negroes and slaves into_” the colony, which was followed by another and similar Act in 1692. Two motives inspired the colony to build up the slave-trade; viz., to have more laborers, and to get something for nothing. And, as soon as Maryland was known to be a good market for slaves, the traffic increased with wonderful rapidity. Slaves soon became the bone and sinew of the working-force of the colony. They were used to till the fields, to fell the forests, to a.s.sist mechanics, and to handle light crafts along the water-courses. They were to be found in all homes of opulence and refinement; and, unfortunately, their presence in such large numbers did much to lower honorable labor in the estimation of the whites, and to enervate women in the best white society. While the colonists persuaded themselves that slavery was an inst.i.tution indispensable to the colony, its evil effects soon became apparent. It were impossible to engage the colony in the slave-trade, and escape the bad results of such an inhuman enterprise. It made men cruel and avaricious.
It was the motion of individuals to have legislative encouragement tendered the venders of human flesh and blood; but the time came when the government of the colony saw that an impost tax upon the slaves imported into the colony would not impair the trade, while it would aid the government very materially. In 1696 ”_An Act laying an imposition on negroes, slaves and while persons imported_” into the colony was pa.s.sed. It is plain from the reading of the caption of the above bill, that it was intended to reach three cla.s.ses of persons; viz., Negro servants, Negro slaves, and white servants. The word ”imported” means such persons as could not pay their pa.s.sage, and were therefore indentured to the master of the vessel. When they arrived, their time was hired out, if they were free, for a term of years, at so much per year;[421] but if they were slaves the buyer had to pay all claims against this species of property before he could acquire a fee simple in the slave. Some historians have too frequently misinterpreted the motive and aim of the colonial Legislatures in imposing an impost tax upon Negroes and other servants imported into their midst. The fact that the law applied to white persons does not aid in an interpretation that would credit the makers of the act with feelings of humanity. A people who could buy and sell wives did not hesitate to see in the indentured white servants property that ought to be taxed. Why not? These white servants represented so many dollars invested, or so many years of labor in prospect! So all persons imported into the colony of Maryland, ”Negroes, slaves, and white persons,” were taxed as any other marketable article. A swift and remorseless civilization against the stolid forces of nature made men indiscriminate and cruel in their impulses to obtain. Public sentiment had been formulated into law: the law contemplated ”servants and slaves” as chattel property; and the political economists of the Province saw in this species of property rich gains for the government. It was condition, circ.u.mstances, that made the servant or slave; but at length it was nationality, color.
When, on the threshold of the eighteenth century, ”white indentured”
servants were rapidly ceasing to exist under color or sanction of law, religious bigotry and ecclesiastical intolerance joined hands with the supporters of Negro slavery in a crusade[422] against the Irish Catholics. In 1704 the Legislature pa.s.sed ”_An Act imposing three pence per gallon on rum and wine, brandy and spirits, and twenty s.h.i.+llings per poll for negroes, for raising a supply to defray the public charge of this province, and twenty s.h.i.+llings, per poll, on Irish servants, to prevent the importing too great a number of Irish papist into this province_.” Although this Act was intended to remain on the statute-books only three years, its life was prolonged by a supplemental Act, and it disgraced the colony for twenty-one years. As in New York, so here, the government regarded the slave and Papist with feelings of hatred and fear. The former was only suited to a condition of perpetual bondage, the latter to be ostracized and driven out from before the face of the exclusive Protestants of that period.
Both were cruelly treated; one on account of his face, the other on account of his faith.
”Unfortunately for the professors of the Catholic religion, by the force of circ.u.mstances which it is not necessary to detail, their religious persuasions became identified, in the public mind, with opposition to the principles of the revolution. Their political disfranchis.e.m.e.nt was the consequence. Charles Calvert, the deposed proprietary, shared the common fate of his Catholic brethren. Sustained and protected by the crown in the enjoyment of his mere private rights, the general jealousy of Catholic power denied him the government of the province.”[423]