convinced; discomfited, not subdued; and the patient, suffering, indomitable spirit they evinced shows what power there is in a little truth held in faith.

Christianity had reached its zenith in Africa. It was her proudest hour. Paganism had been met and conquered. The Church had passed through a baptism of blood, and was now wholly consecrated to the cause of its Great Head. Here Christianity flowered; here it brought forth rich fruit in the lives of its tenacious adherents. Here the acorn had become the sturdy oak, under which the soldiers of the cross pitched their tents. The African Church had triumphed gloriously.

But, in the moment of signal victory, the Saracens poured into North Africa, and Mohammedanism was established upon the ruins of Christianity.

The religion of Christ was swept from its moorings, the saint was transformed into the child of the desert, and quiet settlements became bloody fields where brother shed brother's blood.

Glorious and sublime as was the triumph of Christianity in North Africa, we must not forget that only a narrow belt of that vast country, on the Mediterranean, was reached by Christianity. Its western and southern portions are yet almost wholly unknown. Her vast deserts, her mighty rivers, and her dusky children are yet beyond the reach of civilization; and her forests have been the grave of many who would explore her interior. To-day England stands by the new-made grave of the indomitable Livingstone, her courageous son, who, as a missionary and geographer spent his best days and laid down his life in the midst of Africa.

For nearly three centuries Africa has been robbed of her sable sons. For nearly three centuries they have toiled in bondage, unrequited, in this youthful republic of the West. They have grown from a small company to be an exceedingly great people,-five millions in number. No longer chattels, they are human beings; no longer bondmen, they are freemen, with almost every civil disability removed.

Their weary feet now press up the mount of science. Their darkened intellect now sweeps, unfettered, through the realms of learning and culture. With his Saxon brother, the African slakes his insatiable thirstings for knowledge at the same fountain. In the Bible, he reads not only the one unalterable text, "Servants, obey your masters," but also, "Ye are all brethren." "God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." "He is no respecter of persons."

The Negro in this country has begun to enjoy the blessings of a free citizenship. Under the sunny sky of a Christian civilization he hears the clarion voices of progress about him, urging him onward and upward. From across the ocean, out of the jungles of Africa, come the voices of the benighted and perishing. Every breeze is freighted with a Macedonian call, "Ye men of the African race, come over and help us!"

"Shall we, whose souls are lighted

By wisdom from on high, –

Shall we, to men benighted

The lamp of life deny?"

God often permits evil on the ground of man's free agency, but he does

not commit evil.

The Negro of this country can turn to his Saxon brothers and say, as Joseph said to his brethren who wickedly sold him, "As for you, ye meant it unto evil, but God meant it unto good; that we, after learning your arts and sciences, might return to Egypt and deliver the rest of our brethren who are yet in the house of bondage."

That day will come! Her chains will be severed by the sword of civilization and liberty. Science will penetrate her densest forests, and climb her loftiest mountains, and discover her richest treasures. The Sun of righteousness, and the star of peace, shall break upon her sin-clouded vision, and smile upon her renewed households. The anthem of the Redeemer's advent shall float through her forests, and be echoed by her mountains. Those dusky children of the desert, who now wander and plunder, will settle to quiet occupations of industry. Gathering themselves into villages, plying the labors of handicraft and agriculture, they will become a well-disciplined society, instead of being a roving, barbarous horde.

The sabbath bells will summon from scattered cottages smiling populations, linked together by friendship, and happy in all the sweetness of domestic charities. Thus the glory of her latter day shall be greater than at the beginning, and Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands unto God.

It is our earnest desire and prayer, that the friends of missions in all places where God in his providence may send this history will give the subject of the civilization and Christianization of Africa prayerful consideration. The best schools the world can afford should be founded on the West Coast of Africa. The native should be educated at home, and mission-stations should be planted under the very shadow of the idol-houses of the heathen. The best talent and abundant means have been sent to Siam, China, and Japan. Why not send the best talent and needful means to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Cape Palmas, that native missionaries may be trained for the outposts of the Lord? There is not a more promising mission-field in the world than Africa, and yet our friends in America take so little interest in this work! The Lord is going to save that Dark Continent, and it behooves his servants here to honor themselves in doing something to hasten the completion of this inevitable work! Africa is to be redeemed by the African, and the white Christians of this country can aid the work by munificent contributions. Will you do it, brethren? God help you!

Part II.

SLAVERY IN THE COLONIES

CHAPTER XII.

THE COLONY OF VIRGINIA.

-

1619-1775.

"

INTRODUCTION Of the First Slaves." The Treasurer' AND THE DUTCH MAN-OF-War. THE CORRECT DATE. THE NUMBER Of Slaves. Were there Twenty, or Fourteen?- LITIGATION ABOUT THE POSSESSION OF THE SLAVES. - CHARACTER OF THE SLAVES IMPORTED, and THE CHARACTER OF THE COLONISTS. Race PrejudicES.-LEGAL ESTABLISHMENT OF SLAVERY. - WHO ARE SLAVES FOR LIFE. - DUTIES ON IMPORTED SLAVES. POLITICAL AND MILITARY PROHIBITIONS AGAINST NEGROES. - PERSONAL RIGHTS.-CRIMINAL LAWS AGAINST SLAVES. EMANCIPATION. - -HOW BROUGHT ABOUT. FREE NEGroes.—THEIR RIGHTS. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TRAINING. -POPULATION. SLAVERY FIRMLY ESTAblished.

VIRGINIA was the mother of slavery as well as "the mother

VIR

of Presidents." Unfortunate for her, unfortunate for the other colonies, and thrice unfortunate for the poor Colored people, who from 1619 to 1863 yielded their liberty, their toil, — unrequited, their bodies and intellects to an institution that ground them to powder. No event in the history of North America has carried with it to its last analysis such terrible forces. It touched the brightest features of social life, and they faded under the contact of its poisonous breath. It affected legislation, local and national; it made and destroyed statesmen; it prostrated and bullied honest public sentiment; it strangled the voice of the press, and awed the pulpit into silent acquiescence; it organized the judiciary of States, and wrote decisions for judges; gave States their political being, and afterwards dragged them

it

1 A Flemish favorite of Charles V. having obtained of his king a patent, containing an exclusive right of importing four thousand Negroes into America, sold it for twenty-five thousand ducats to some Genoese merchants, who first brought into a regular form the commerce for slaves between. Africa and America. HOLMES'S American Annals, vol. i. p. 35.

by the fore-hair through the stormy sea of civil war; laid the parricidal fingers of Treason against the fair throat of Liberty, and through all time to come no event will be more sincerely deplored than the introduction of slavery into the colony of Virginia during the last days of the month of August in the year 1619!

I

The majority of writers on American history, as well as most histories on Virginia, from Beverley to Howison, have made a mistake in fixing the date of the introduction of the first slaves. Mr. Beverley, whose history of Virginia was printed in London in 1772, is responsible for the error, in that nearly all subsequent writers excepting the laborious and scholarly Bancroft and the erudite Campbell - have repeated his mistake. Mr. Beverley, speaking of the burgesses having "met the Governor and Council at James Town in May 1620," adds in a subsequent paragraph, "In August following a Dutch Man of War landed twenty Negroes for sale; which were the first of that kind that were. carried into the country." By "August following," we infer that Beverley would have his readers understand that this was in 1620. But Burk, Smith, Campbell, and Neill gave 1619 as the date.2 But we are persuaded to believe that the first slaves were landed. at a still earlier date. In Capt. John Smith's history, printed in London in 1629, is a mere incidental reference to the introduction of slaves into Virginia. He mentions, under date of June 25, that the "governor and councell caused Burgesses to be chosen in all places," 3 which is one month later than the occurrence of this event as fixed by Beverley. Smith speaks of a vessel named "George" as having been "sent to Newfoundland" for fish, and, having started in May, returned after a voyage of "seven weeks.' In the next sentence he says, "About the last of August came in a dutch man of warre that sold vs twenty Negars."4 Might not he have meant "about the end of last August came the Dutch man-of-war, etc.? All historians, except two, agree that these slaves were landed in August, but disagree as to the year. Capt. Argall, of whom so much complaint was made by the Virginia Company to Lord Delaware,5 fitted out the ship "Treasurer" at the expense of the Earl of Warwick, who sent him "an olde commission of hostility from the Duke of Savoy against the Span

R. Beverley's History of Virginia, pp. 35, 36. 3 Smith, vol. ii. pp. 38, 39.

2 See Campbell, p. 144; Burk, vol. i. p. 326. 4 Smith's History of Virginia, vol. ii. p. 39.

5 Virginia Company of London, p. 117, sq.

yards," for a "filibustering" cruise to the West Indies. And, "after several acts of hostility committed, and some purchase gotten, she returns to Virginia at the end of ten months or thereabouts." 2 It was in the early autumn of 1618,3 that Capt. Edward (a son of William) Brewster was sent into banishment by Capt. Argall; and this, we think, was one of the last, if not the last official act of that arbitrary governor. It was certainly before this that the ship "Treasurer," manned "with the ablest men in the colony," sailed for "the Spanish dominions in the Western hemisphere." Under date of June 15, 1618, John Rolfe, speaking of the death of the Indian Powhatan, which took place in April, says, "Some private differences happened betwixt Capt. Bruster and Capt. Argall," etc.4 Capt. John Smith's information, as secured from Master Rolfe, would lead to the conclusion that the difficulty which took place between Capt. Edward Brewster and Capt. Argall occurred in the spring instead of the autumn, as Neill says. If it be true that "The Treasurer" sailed in the early spring of 1618, Rolfe's statement as to the time of the strife between Brewster and Argall would harmonize with the facts in reference to the length of time the vessel was absent as recorded in Burk's history. But if Neill is correct as to the time of the quarrel, — for we maintain that it was about this time that Argall left the colony, then his statement would tally with Burk's account of the time the vessel was on the cruise. If, therefore, she sailed in October, 1618, being absent ten months, she was due at Jamestown in August, 1619.

But, nevertheless, we are strangely moved to believe that 1618 was the memorable year of the landing of the first slaves in Virginia. And we have one strong and reliable authority on our side. Stith, in his history of Virginia, fixes the date in 1618.5 On the same page there is an account of the trial and sentence of Capt. Brewster. The ship "Treasurer" had evidently left England in the winter of 1618. When she reached the Virginia colony, she was furnished with a new crew and abundant supplies for her cruise. Neill says she returned with booty and “a certain number of negroes." Campbell agrees that it was some time before the landing of the Dutch man-of-war that "The Treasurer" returned to Virginia. He says, "She returned to Virginia after

1 Campbell, p. 144.

2 Burk, vol. i. p. 319. 3 Neill, p. 120. 4 Smith, vol. ii. p. 37.

5 There were two vessels, The Treasurer and the Dutch man-of-war; but the latter, no doubt, put the first slaves ashore.