The negro in Maryland; a study of the institution of slavery

Contents

CHAP. PAGE.

I. — Introduction, - 1

II. — Indians and White Servants, 11

Introduction

We are not called on, happily, to bring up from our past politics those questions of slavery over which so many lances were broken — until arguments were ended by the sword. The object of this study is simply to trace, as clearly as possible, the growth of African slavery, as an institution, in Maryland.^

Nor will it be necessary to study the institution of slavery

^A residence of several years in Maryland has not alone fixed this limited field of inquiry. It is true, no doubt, that the lot of the slaves in Maryland was, as a rule, much better than that of those on the large plantations in the thinly settled portions of the Southern States. Thus, for instance, the system of special magistrates' courts, for trial of slaves for serious offences, was not known in Maryland. But Maryland was settled early; its slave code was rigorous ; becoming a Border State, its slave property became less secure ; the number of slaves remained large, while the free blacks became more numerous than in any other slave State ; and earnest efforts were made for colonization. A study of the growth of slavery in detail, with reference to these conditions, may be of more value to the student, to-day, than a more general, and necessarily less accurate, study in a wider field, or one directed more to the severities to which slavery made the blacks liable — which are already well known.

Any work of such a nature must be very imperfect. The writer can give only what he has gathered, and asks any person who may be interested in the subject, to communicate to him any further facts.

Baltimore, Md., 1889.

among the ancients, for the presumption is that the planters on the Chesapeake acted by their own impulses and for their own interests, with little knowledge of, or regard to, what other men had done, two thousand years before. But to begin with the settlement of Maryland, without noticing the ideas of the age concerning slavery — ideas which the settlers brought with them — would be as unfair as to begin a history of the United States without notice of the Thirteen Colonies.

The slavery of antiquity, the right to hold a person for debt, or as a captive taken in war, was based on no strict race or religious grounds. Romans enslaved captive Germans, as Germans, afterwards, in their turn, enslaved Romans. But this slavery died out in Western Europe early in the Middle Ages; and Christians ceased to enslave Christian captives. The semi-servile condition of villeinage which grew up at that time, declined quickly with the decline of the feudal system, long before the settlement of America. ^ It is significant, that just at the time when Columbus turned to the court of Spain, to become the discoverer of America, Ferdinand of Arragon had succeeded with some difficulty in bringing cer-

^ Villeinage varied somewhat in different parts of Europe, and has survived in some countries almost to our own day. In general, to all others but his lord, the serf was as a freeman. In England, villeinage died out early, the Peasants' Wars of the fourteenth century giving the death blow. The last case, we are told, in which it was pleaded in the courts was in 1618. That class distinctions may have accustomed men easily to the existence of any form of servitude is worthy of consideration, but villeinage cannot be said to have had any vital inliuence on the rise of African slavery. The only case in which we find mention, in the early records of ^Maryland, of the laws or customs of England on villeinage, as affecting slavery, is the answer of Lord Baltimore to the Lords of Trade, in 1678 (Md. Arch.,V., 267), on the subject of conversion of the blacks. A law was made, he says, to encourage baptism of slaves, "by which it was and is declared That as in former times The IJaptizeing of Villaynes in England was not taken by the Lawe of England To be a Manumission or Infranchiseing of the Villaynes Koe neither shall it be in this Provynce as to Negroes or Mulattoes," &c. See cliapter on Slaves. The Court of Appeals declared, afterwards, that slavery and vilU'inage were ciitirclv different.

Introduction. 3

tain nobles to grant freedom to their serfs, of European race and Christian faith, and was also pushing vigorously the conquest of Grenada, by which thousands of Saracens were scattered as slaves in Southern Europe.

Christians had ceased the enslavement of Christian captives, as a rule ; but the custom of ransom, of which we read in the chronicles, was a survival of slavery. The beaten warrior became subject to the terms of the victor. At the battle of Poitiers, in 1356, the English — so the old chronicler Froissart tells us — had French prisoners twice as many in number as themselves, and deemed it advisable to ransom them on the spot. Many were set at liberty and others kept ; " for whosoever made any prisoners, they were solely at his disposal, to ransom or not, as he pleased." Several of the English archers had four or six prisoners, and a number of those who could give no ransom were put to death. One Sir Edward de Roucy felled to the ground an English knight who was following him from the field. Dismounting and placing his lance on the Englishman's breast, he called on him to surrender under penalty of death, as his prisoner, rescued or not. The defeated knight surrendered, accompanied Sir Edward, and afterwards ransomed himself. At the battle of Chevy Chace, in 1388, one Sir Matthew Redman surrendered to a Scotch knight. " Rescued or not?" cried the Scot. " I consent," answered Sir Matthew, "you will take good care of me ? " " That I will," said the Scot. Then Sir Matlhew, putting up his sword, said ; *' now, what do you require of me, for I am your prisoner by fair conquest ? " "And what is it you would wish me to do," replied the Scot. " I should like," said Sir Matthew, " to return to Newcastle ; and, within fifteen days, I will come to you in any part of Scotland you shall appoint." "I agree," said his captor, "on your pledging yourself, that within three weeks you be in Edinburgh ; and wherever you may go, you acknowledge yourself as my prisoner." So they parted, and in a few moments, the Scot himself was captured by the Bishop of Durham. He philosophically exclaimed : " I have made a prisoner, and am now one myself: such is the chance of war."^ In 1441, Charles VII. of France brought a number of English prisoners to Paris. After suffering shocking treatment, those who could not pay their ransom, by far the largest number, were bound hand and foot, and thrown into the Seine. Not till the seventeenth century were agreements entered into by the nations of Europe for the regulation and exchange of prisoners.^

But it was in Christ only that all men were brethren. The captive heathen or infidel became usually the slave of his Christian conqueror. It was due chiefly to the conquest of the Spaniards over the Moors and to the rising trade of the Spaniards and Portuguese with Africa, that there grew up for Europe a new form of chattel slavery. And if the zeal of the earlier church had helped the fall of the old slavery, the zeal and bigotry of good churchmen of this age certainly had a part, conscious or unconscious, in tlie rise of the new. "Whole droves of slaves," wrote Bodin, in 1576, "are sold and that openly in all parts of Portugal, as if they were beasts."^ By the trade with Africa, negro slaves wore brought, to a limited extent, to Portugal and Spain. Prince Henry of Portugal, in 1442, insisted that negroes should be brought there; " for whatever number he should get, he would gain souls, because they might be converted to the faith, which could not be managed with the Moors."* "And certainly," adds the old chronicler, " his thought was not vain, for as soon as they had knowledge of our language, they readily became Christians." It is not necessary to dwell on the extreme zeal of the Church in that age — so well seen in the Inquisition. " It was the received opinion," says Prescott,

» Froissart, Johnes' Trans., Vol. I, 219, &c. ; II, 373. "^ For mucli of interest on this subject see Ward's Inquiry into the Law of Nations (R. Ward, London, 1795).

*The Conquerors of The New World: Sir A. Helps, pp. 28, 36.

Introduction. 5

" among good Catholics of that period, that heathen and barbarous nations were placed by the circumstance of their infidelity without the pale both of spiritual and civil rights." ^

By the discovery of America, Europeans met a people, the Indians, not akin to them in race or religion. Columbus, in his diary, speaks thus of Ferdinand and Isabella : " Your highnesses as Catholic Christians and princes, lovers and furtherers of the Christian faith, and enemies of the sect of Mahomet, and of all idolatries and heresies, thought to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the aforesaid provinces of India to see the aforesaid princes, the cities and lands, and the disposition of them and of everything about them, and the way that should be taken to convert them to the sacred faith," ^ It is true, indeed, that the conversion of the natives was steadfastly enjoined by the sovereigns, and carried out by certain of their subjects. But in the treatment of the Indians by the Spaniards we see plainly the spirit of the times. A number of Indian slaves were soon sent to Spain, some of them by Columbus. Isabella ordered back those who had not been taken in just war. The Spaniards were little suited to work the mines in the Indies. They had gone out expecting largely to pick up precious metals ; they found by experience that riches were to be won only by toil. The natives were soon impressed into their service. The matter was carried to Spain, and the right to enslave the unoifending heathen was debated there by learned men. It was finally determined that a qualified servitude would be beneficial to both Spaniard and Indian ; the former might the better work his plantation or his mine, the latter might gain from the religious and social influences of his employer. The rights

1 Ferdinand and. Isabella, Part II, ch. 8. The Mahometans enslaved captives of another faith ; Capt. John Smith was a slave among the Turks. Europe felt the converse working of her old rule, later, when the Barbary States exacted tribute, as ransoms.

2 The Conquerors of The New World, p. 102.

thus granted were terribly abused ; in a few years, from overwork and ill-treatment, the numerous populations, of men unaccustomed to toil, had dwindled away. At first, the capture of cannibal Indians had been forbidden, but as they persisted in idolatry, they too were enslaved.^

At the very beginning of the sixteenth century, permission had been given to carry to the Indies such negro slaves as had been " born in the power of Christians " — that is, negroes from Southern Europe. The rapid decrease of the Indians, and the cruelties practised on them, had roused a number of zealous friends to them, among the Spaniards. About 1511, says the chronicler Herrera, " the King of Spain issued fresh Orders for promoting the Conversion of the Indians, and their being well instructed in the Christian Religion. Nor did he take less care of the civil Government, directing among other things, that those People should not be oppressed, and that for easing of them, numbers of blacks should be carry^d

^A proclamation Avas addressed to the Indians not under the Spanish rule. They were called on to acknowledge the grant of the new world by the Pope to the Crown — a grant made in certain writings which they might see if they wished. They were to acknowledge the Churcli, the Crown, and to receive the ministration of the priests. Due time was given them to consider this. If they came under the Spanish rule, His Majesty would greet them with all love and affection and leave them their wives and children free, and give them many privileges and exemptions. But if they did not, "by the help of God I will enter with power into your land," reads the threat, " and will subdue you, and will take your wives and children and make slaves of them, and sell them as such, and take all your goods and do all the mischief I can, as to vassals that do not obey and will not receive their Lord, and I protest that all the deatli and destruction which may come from this is your fault, and not liis Majesty's or mine or that of my men." And we are told in the old chronicle, how the Spaniards would Konietiines lialt in the dark before an Indian village, and the commander would read tliis to his men and the trees of tlie forest, as a prelude to pillage and slaughter. An oflicer was afterward cmi)loyed by the King to rej)ort which of the Indians were cannibals, " barbarous People, ICnemies to ("liristiaus, and Man Eaters." Certain ones could not be determined, but it wii-s declared that those named as cannibals might be attacked, taken, and sold as slaves. (Herrera, Stevens' Trans., I, 1, 14; II, 8, G).

Introduction. 7

over to work in the Mines, because one of them (i. e. one negro slave) did more than four of the Natives." ^ The production of sugar increased the desire for negroes. Soon, with the entire sympathy of the court and by the advice of those friendly to the Indians, negroes were extensively introduced. The service of Indians was thus supplanted by African slaves.

With the demand for negro labor in the New World, the slave trade increased, and soon extended from the Portuguese and Spaniards to the Dutch and English. "Although servitude in these latter times was left off," wrote Bodin in 1576, "for about three or four hundred years, yet is it now again approved, by the great agreement and consent of almost all nations."

The early treatises on war reflect plainly, no doubt, the spirit of the times. The Spaniard Victoria, professor at Salamanca, writes, a few years before Bodin, that in wars between Christians — although, by the law of nature, warriors who surrender or are captured might be slain — the usage and custom of war, which had become a part of the law of nations, had ordered that prisoners might be redeemed by ransom. But this mitigation of the extreme rights of war was not applicable to infidels. It was not lawful to kill or carry into captivity innocent persons, and women and children were presumed to be innocent, even in wars with the Turks ; but in a war against pagans, which might be said to be perpetual and without hope of obtaining satisfaction, doubtless the women and children captured from the Saracens could be detained as slaves.^ So Ayala, the Judge Advocate of the Spanish army in the Netherlands, says in his Treatise on War, in 1581, that an ancient and laudable custom had substituted for enslavement the practice of ransoming prisoners of war ; but that the older usage still existed between Christians and such infidel nations as Turks and Saracens.^

^Herrera, Stevens' Trans., I, 9, 3.

^ Wheaton's Law of Nations, Introduction.

Albericus Gentilis, called from the continent in 1587 to be professor of civil law at Oxford, wrote that there was no slavery in wars of Christians, for such were civil wars, as all men were brothers in Christ. I do not hesitate, he adds, to say that the law of slavery is just, for it is the agreement of the law of nations. ^ Grotius, the historiographer of Holland, states in his famous work on the Rights of War and Peace, published in 1625, that even among Christians the custom still continued of keeping captives till their ransom was paid — it being generally agreed that Christian prisoners taken in war were not to be " made Slaves, so as to sell them or force them to hard Labours, or to such Miseries as are common to Slaves." And what Christians, he adds, in this case observe among themselves, the Mahometans likewise do among themselves.^ Bynkershoek, an advocate and judge at the Hague, stated in his Public Law, in 1737, that prisoners were often released even without ransom. As slavery had fallen entirely into disuse among Christians, he says, " we do not inflict it upon our prisoners. We may however, if we please, and indeed we do sometimes still exercise that right upon those who enforce it against us. Therefore the Dutch are in the habit of selling to the Spanish as slaves, the Algerians, Tunisians and Tripolitans, whom they take prisoners in the Atlantic or in the Mediterranean ; for the Dutch themselves have no slaves, except in Asia, Africa and America."^

' Thomas Aquinas pleases me, says Gentilis, in saying that slavery is natural ; not, indeed, according to first intentions by which we have all been created free, but from second intention, since nature allowed delinquents to be punished. (Albericus Gentilis: De Jure Belli, Holland's Ed., ch. IX, p. 314, &c.)

^ The right to enslave captives, says Grotius, taken in solemn war, was granted by the Law of nations for no otlier reason, tlian that the captors might be tempted to forbear the rigor allowed tliem, of killing their prisoners either in, or after, the fight. Among Christians it was generally agreed that prisoners were not to be enslaved, and that with reason, " for they arc, or should be, better instructed by the great liecomniender of every act of ciiarity." (Grotius: De Jure Belli, Barbeyrac's Trans.)

^ Bynkershoek : Quaes. Juris. Pub., Du I'onceau's Trans., Book I, ch. 3.

Introduction. 9

While scholars were writing thus in their studies, the African trade was increasing. From time immemorial, indeed, the Africans, in their inter-tribal warfare, had been accustomed to enslave their prisoners ; but the native traders must have caught from the Europeans something of the greed for riches that so strongly marked that age. It was an age of great activity and discovery. Marvellous reports came to Europe of the riches of the New World. In Florida, the Spaniards sought for the fountain of youth. Theatre-goers in London, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, heard that gold was to be had for the picking up, in America. " Why man," says one fellow, " all their dripping-pans are pure golde ... all the prisoners they take are fettered in golde; and for rubies and diamonds, they goes forth in holy-days, and gather 'hem by the sea-shore." ^ An old Spanish historian — who softens, says Prescott, the excesses of his countrymen — tells us of an Indian chief of Cuba, who, having carefully watched the Spaniards in the neighboring islands, and hearing that they were coming to Cuba to settle, called together his people. And putting them in mind of their many sufferings at the hands of the Spaniards, he told them that the Spaniards acted for a great and beloved lord, whom he would show them. Then he took from a little palm-tree basket a lump

In 1661 and 1664, the States-General ordered their admiral to sell as slaves all the pirates he might take.

Pufendorf says, in 1672, that the ownership of acquisitions by capture in war was then a subject of dispute. "The idea that captives in war are slaves," wrote John Adams to Granville Sharp, the English philanthropist, in 1786, " is the foundation of the misfortunes of the negroes. This principle is honored and admitted by all the powers of Europe, who pay tributes to the States of Barbary." Memoirs of Sharp, I, 374.

^Marston's Eastward Ho; 1605. The excesses of the Spaniards were, doubtless, far greater than those of the English, who cannot, however, in their part in the slave-trade, be exonerated from avarice.

Sir Henry Maine says, in his Ancient Law, ch. V, " The simple wish to use the bodily powers of another person as a means of ministering to one's own ease or pleasure is doubtless the foundation of Slavery, and as old as human nature."

of gold, saying, this is the lord of the Spaniards. Then they danced around the basket, and " when they were spent with Singing and Dancing before the little Basket of God," he bade them not keep " the Lord of the Christians in any Place whatsoever, for tho' he were in their Bowels, they would fetch him out, and therefore they should cast him into the River, under Water where they would not find him ; and so they did." ^

> Herrera, I, 9, 3.

CHAPTER II. Indians and White Servants

The Colony of Maryland was settled in 1634, under the proprietary government of Lord Baltimore. The royal charter, we may mention as passing, spoke not only of the spread of English territory, but, as charters usually did, of the zeal of the founder for spreading religion among a savage people who knew not God. The right to initiate all laws was soon secured to the Assembly by the Proprietor, and, although legislation remained subject to veto, the authorities in England interfered little in those internal affairs of the Colony which interest us most. Several cases of this interference we shall have to note, later. We begin with the little settlement, of some few hundred persons, about St. Mary's, on a peninsula by the lower Potomac. There met the Governor, the appointee and representative of the Proprietor, the half dozen councilmen, and the freemen or their representatives, in assembly.

The colonists at once, on landing, met with the Indians, a heathen race unknown to them in England. These pagans, as the white men called them, seemed friendly, and intercourse between the races began auspiciously. But the Indian saw with aversion the spread of the settlement, and the whites lost property and finally even a few lives at their hands. In 1639, it was declared a penal offence for anyone, without the consent of the government, to leave the English plantations to live among any Indians who were not christened.^ Some of the Indians were soon open enemies. The commission issued by the Governor, in 1640, to the commander of an expedition planned against a certain tribe, which had refused to make satisfaction for sundry insolences and rapines, authorized him to attack these Indians, with any company of Englishmen that would be willing to go, " and against them and their Lands and goods to execute and Inflict what may be inflicted by the Law of warr and the pillage and booty therein gotton to part and divide among the Company, that Shall perform the Service." " We find another proclamation, dated a few days later, forbidding all Englishmen, under penalty, from doing any injury to a neighboring tribe which, in peace and amity, the Colony had taken under its protection. The commission to the leader of an expedition against the unfriendly Sesquihanowes, in 1643, expresses the confidence of the authorities in his forwardness to vindicate the honor of God and of the Christian and English name upon those barbarous and inhuman pagans, and bids him do all things needed for training his men, vanquishing the enemy, and "disposing of the spoils," and all things that any general might do by the law of war.^ In 1652, an expedition was planned against the Indians of the Eastern Shore, who had committed serious depredations and murder. It was ordered that one man out of every seven men in the Colony should be armed and equip[)ed by the six remaining at home, and that all the Indian prisoners brought back, unless otherwise disposed of by the Provincial Court, should be divided, according to their value, in a general division among those who had armed and sent forth the fighting men — who, in turn, were to share the other plunder. The captain was ordered to "make Warr upon and through God's Assistance by all possible raeanes to

Vanquish, destroy, plunder, kill or take prisoners at yo' discretion all or any the s*^ Indians either by Sea or land, and being Soe taken to put them to Death by the Law of warr or to Save them at your pleasure." ^

An act of 1715, when the Southern Colonies were involved in an Indian war, provided — among permanent regulations for the militia — that any booty, plunder or Indian prisoners should be given by the commander to the soldier who took the same — to encourage men to enlist in such service.^

Indian slaves are occasionally mentioned in the old records. About 1660, one Indian was sold, as a punishment for petty larceny, and brought one thousand pounds of tobacco.^ But, while Indians taken in war might be enslaved, kidnapping of friendly Indians was early and always forbidden. It was declared felony, in 1649, to take or sell any friend Indian, without license from the Governor — and felony might then be punished with death. At the end of the century, the same offence was made punishable by fine and imprisonment, at

^This expedition was given up, on account of bad weather. Md. Arch., Vol. Ill, 285.

^ Acts of 1715, ch. 43 (Bacon's Laws of Maryland), continued indefinitely in 1722. The captain of an expedition in 1647 had been ordered to make no distribution until he should arrive at the fort, and give a just account to the authorities of all plunder taken.

The practice of the Indians in requiring ransom, often, is well known. The Assembly of Maryland was petitioned, in 1650, to ransom two children held by hostile Indians. Nine hundred pounds of tobacco was asked for the elder and six hundred for the younger ; and the estate of their father, deceased, was not sufficient for this. The Assembly, stating that the public charges were then very heavy, directed that any of the colonists who chose to redeem them should be entitled to their service, in return, until they were twenty-one years of age. Bozman's Maryland, II, 396.

We find an English soldier who had escaped from the Indians, in the French and Indian War of 1756, telling the Governor that, had he not escaped, he must have served his Indian captor all his days, for saving his life.

^Mention of Indian slaves, in the Provincial Court Eecords, 1658-1662, pp. 143, 148, 187, 484, &c.

discretion of the Governor and Council; and this act was continued later. The reason, as stated in all the laws, was that no breach of peace might occur between the colonists and the neierhborino; Indians.^ In 1722, a resident of the Province was brought before the Governor and Council, committed for examination by the justices of Somerset county, for having sold or otherwise disposed of an Indian boy, of a tribe friendly to the English. On examination, the man confessed that the boy, in consideration of five pounds in money, a horse bridle and saddle, and two suits of clothes, indented to live with him as a servant for a term of thirty years, and that he afterwards sold the boy to a gentleman in Philadelphia, for fifteen pounds. In Virginia, he stated also, it was customary for Indians to be bound out, and this same boy had been previously a servant there. Thereupon the Council decided that as the man had already satisfied the Indians, and had suffered more than three months' imprisonment, he should be mildly dealt with ; and he was fined five hundred pounds of tobacco and imprisoned one day.^ In articles of peace made in 1666 between the government and a number of Indian settlements, it was stipulated that in case of danger from any hostile Indians, the Governor should appoint a place to which these friendly Indians might bring their wives and children for safety, and that these, if the men chanced to be killed, should remain free and not be servants to the English.^ All disputes between Englishman and Indian were for many years heard before the Governor and Council. After 1700, cases involving not over twenty shillings were decided at first by special commissioners, and afterwards by any justice of the courts. After 1756, the county courts heard cases of greater value, and decided the rents of Indian lands, &c.^ We find several

interesting cases concerning Indians. In 1642, a grand jury indicted for murder a certain planter, one Elkin, in that, when moved by malice and the instigation of the devil, he had shot an Indian, known as a king among a neighboring tribe. When brought before the court of the colony, the Governor and secretary on the bench, Elkin pleaded not guilty. The Proprietor's attorney gave as evidence the examination of Elkin, duly attested and with Elkin's signature, in which was a confession that he killed the Indian, and an account of the aifair. But the jury gave a verdict of not guilty, saying that they so decided because they understood the deed had not been committed against the peace of the Proprietor or the King, because the party was a pagan, and because they had no precedent in the neighboring colony of Virginia to make the offence murder. The Governor thereupon directed them that those Indians who had been injured were in peace with the authorities, and that they should not take notice of what other colonies did, but of the law of England. After reconsideration, they found the prisoner guilty of murder in his own defence. Being told that this verdict was a contradiction, they reconsidered again, and found that the prisoner killed the Indian in self-defence. But the Governor refused to have this verdict entered, and called for another jury, to hear the same evidence. This jury found Elkin guilty of manslaughter. It is not uninteresting to note that proceedings were taken to have all the members of the first jury grievously fined — for having given an unsatisfactory verdict, contrary to the verdict of the second jury, from the same evidence.