had increased one hundred per cent. In 1671 they were two thousand strong, and all, up to that date, direct from Africa. In 1715 there were twenty-three thousand slaves against seventy-two thousand whites. By the year 1758 the slave population had increased to the alarming number of over one hundred thousand, which was a little less than the numerical strength of the whites.

During this period of a century and a half, slavery took deep root in the colony of Virginia, and attained unwieldy and alarming proportions. It had sent its dark death-roots into the fibre and organism of the political, judicial, social, and religious life of the people. It was crystallized now into a domestic institution. It existed in contemplation of legislative enactment, and had high judicial recognition through the solemn forms of law. The Church had proclaimed it a "sacred institution," and the clergy had covered it with the sanction of their ecclesiastical office. There it stood, an organized system, the dark problem of the uncertain future: more terrible to the colonists in its awful, spectral silence during the years of the Revolution than the victorious guns of the French and Continental armies, which startled the English lion from his hurtful hold at the throat of white men's liberties - black men had no country, no liberty-in this new world in the West. But, like the dead body of the Roman murderer's victim, slavery was a curse that pursued the colonists ever

more.

1 Chalmers's American Colonies, vol. ii. p. 7.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE COLONY OF NEW YORK.

1628-1775.

SETTLEMENT OF NEW YORK BY THE DUTCH IN 1609.-NEGROES INTRODUCED INTO THE COLONY, 1628. THE TRADE IN NEGROES INCREASED. TOBACCO EXCHANGED FOR SLAVES AND MERCHANDISE.-GOVERNMENT OF THE COLONY. -NEW NETHERLAND FALLS INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENGLISH, AUG. 27, 1664. — VARIOUS CHANGES.-NEW LAWS ADOPTED. - Legislation.FIRST REPRESEntatives ELECTED IN 1683.-IN 1702 QUEEN ANNE INSTRUCTS THE ROYAL GovERNOR IN REGARD TO THE IMPORTATION OF SLAVES. SLAVERY RESTRICTIONS. - -EXPEDITION TO EFFECT THE Conquest of Canada unsuccessful.-Negro RIOT.-SUPPRESSED BY THE EffiCIENT AID OF TROOPS. FEARS OF THE COLONISTS.-NEGRO PLOT OF 1741.- THE ROBBERY OF HOGG'S HOUSE. - DISCOVERY OF A PORTION OF THE GOODS. -THE ARREST OF HUGHSON, HIS WIFE, AND IRISH PEGGY. - CRIMINATION AND RECRIMINATION. THE BREAKING-OUT OF NUMEROUS FIRES.- THE ARREST OF SPANISH NEGROES.— THE TRIAL OF HUGHSON. — TESTIMONY OF MARY BURTON.HUGHSON HANGED. THE ARREST OF MANY OTHERS IMPLICATED IN THE PLOT. THE HANGING OF CÆSAR AND PRINCE.-QUACK AND CUFFEE BURNED AT THE STAKE. THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR'S Proclamation. — MANY WHITE PERSONS ACCUSED OF BEING CONSPIRATORS. - DESCRIPTION OF HUGHSON'S MANNER OF SWEARING THOSE HAVING Knowledge oF THE PLOT. CONVICTION AND HANGING OF THE CATHOLIC PRIEST URY. — THE SUDDEN AND UNEXPECTED TERMINATION OF THE TRIAL. NEW LAWS MORE STRINGENT TOWARD SLAVES ADOPTED.

FRO

ROM 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. As early as 1628 the irascible slaves from Angola, Africa, were the fruitful source of widespread public alarm. A newly settled country demanded a hardy and energetic laboring class. Money was scarce, the colonists poor, and servants few. The numerous physical obstructions across the path of material civilization suggested cheap but efficient labor. White servants were few, and the cost of securing them from abroad was a great hinderance to their increase. The Dutch had possessions on the coast of Guinea and in Brazil, and

Brodhead's History of New York, vol. i. p. 184.

hence they found it cheap and convenient to import slaves to perform the labor of the colony.1

The early slaves went into the pastoral communities, worked on the public highways, and served as valets in private families. Their increase was stealthy, their conduct insubordinate, and their presence a distressing nightmare to the apprehensive and conscientious.

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.3 In addition to the slaves furnished by the vessels plying between Brazil and the coast of Guinea, many Spanish and Portuguese prizes were brought into the Netherlands, where the slaves. were made the chattel property of the company. An urgent and extraordinary demand for labor, rather than the cruel desire to traffic in human beings, led the Dutch to encourage the bringing of Negro slaves. Scattered widely among the whites, treated often with the humanity that characterized the treatment bestowed upon the white servants, there was little said about slaves in this period. The majority of them were employed upon the farms, and led quiet and sober lives. The largest farm owned by the company was "cultivated by the blacks;" and this fact was recorded as early as the 19th of April, 1638, by "Sir William Kieft, DirectorGeneral of New Netherland." And, although the references to slaves and slavery in the records of Amsterdam are incidental, yet it is plainly to be seen that the institution was purely patriarchal during nearly all the period the Hollanders held the Netherlands.

Manumission of slaves was not an infrequent event.5 Sometimes it was done as a reward for meritorious services, and sometimes it was prompted by the holy impulses of humanity and justice. The most cruel thing done, however, in this period, was to hold as slaves in the service of the company the children of Negroes who were lawfully manumitted. "All their children already born, or yet to be born, remained obligated to serve the company as slaves." In cases of emergency the liberated fathers of these bond children were required to serve "by water or by land" in the defence of the Holland government. It is gratify

' O'Callaghan's History of New Netherlands, pp. 384, 385.

3 Ibid., vol. i. pp. 196, 197.

5 O'Callaghan, p. 385.

2 Brodhead, vol. i. p. 194. 4 Dunlap's History of New York, vol. i. p. 58. 6 Van Tienhoven.

ing, however, to find the recorded indignation of some of the best citizens of the New Netherlands against the enslaving of the children of free Negroes. It was severely denounced, as contrary to justice and in "violation of the law of nature." "How any one born of a free Christian mother" could, notwithstanding, be a slave, and be obliged to remain such, passed their comprehension.' It was impossible for them to explain it." And, although "they were treated just like Christians," the moral sense of the people could not excuse such a flagrant crime against humanity.2

Director-General Sir William Kieft's unnecessary war, "without the knowledge, and much less the order, of the XIX., and against the will of the Commonality there," had thrown the Province into great confusion. Property was depreciating, and a feeling of insecurity seized upon the people. Instead of being a source of revenue, New Netherlands, as shown by the books of the Amsterdam Chamber, had cost the company, from 1626 to 1644, inclusive, "over five hundred and fifty thousand guilders, deducting the returns received from there." It was to be expected that the slaves would share the general feeling of uneasiness and expectancy. Something had to be done to stay the panic so imminent among both classes of the colonists, bond and free. The Bureau of Accounts made certain propositions to the company calculated to act as a tonic upon the languishing hopes of the people. After reciting many methods by which the Province was to be rejuvenated, it was suggested "that it would be wise to permit the patroons, colonists, and other farmers to import as many Negroes from the Brazils as they could purchase for cash, to assist them on their farms; as (it was maintained) these slaves could do more work for their masters, and were less expensive, than the hired laborers engaged in Holland, and conveyed to New Netherlands, by means of much money and large promises." 3

Nor was the substitution of slave labor for white a temporary expedient. Again in 1661 a loud call for more slaves was heard. 4 In the October treaty of the same year, the Dutch yielded to the seductive offer of the English, "to deliver two or three thousand hogsheads of tobacco annually. . . in return for negroes and merchandise." At the first the Negro slave was regarded as a cheap laborer, a blessing to the Province; but after a while the

Hildreth, vol. i. p. 441; also Hol. Doc., III. p. 351. 2 Annals of Albany, vol. ii. pp. 55-60. 3 O'Callaghan, p. 353. N. Y. Col. Docs., vol. ii. pp. 368, 369. ▲ Brodhead, vol. i. p. 697

cupidity of the English induced the Hollanders to regard the Negro as a coveted, marketable chattel.

"In its scheme of political administration, the West-India Company exhibited too often a mercantile and selfish spirit; and in encouraging commerce in Negro slaves, it established an institution which subsisted many generations after its authority had ceased." 1

The Dutch colony was governed by the Dutch and Roman law. The government was tripartite, - executive, legislative, and judicial, all vested in, and exercised by, the governor and council. There seemed to be but little or no necessity for legislation on the slavery question. The Negro seemed to be a felt need in the Province, and was regarded with some consideration by the kind-hearted Hollanders. Benevolent and social, they desired to see all around them happy. The enfranchised African might and did obtain a freehold; while the Negro who remained under an institution of patriarchal simplicity, scarcely knowing he was in bondage, danced merrily at the best, in "kermis," at Christmas and Pinckster.2 There were, doubtless, a few cases where the slaves received harsh treatment from their masters; but, as a rule, the jolly Dutch fed and clothed their slaves as well as their white servants. There were no severe rules to strip the Negroes of their personal rights, such as social amusements or public feasts. when their labors had been completed. During this entire period, they went and came among their class without let or hinderance. They were married, and given in marriage; 3 they sowed, and, in many instances, gathered an equitable share of the fruits of their labors. If there were no schools for them, there were no laws against an honest attempt to acquire knowledge at seasonable times. The Hollanders built their government upon the hearthstone, believing it to be the earthly rock of ages to a nation that would build wisely for the future. And while it is true that they regarded commerce as the life-blood of the material existence of a people, they nevertheless found their inspiration for multifarious duties in the genial sunshine of the family circle. A nation thus constituted could not habilitate slavery with all the hideous features it wore in Virginia and Massachusetts. The slaves could not escape the good influences of the mild government of the New Netherlands, nor could the Hollanders withhold the brightness and goodness of their hearts from their domestic slaves.

1 Brodhead, vol. i. p. 746. 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 748. 3 Valentine's Manual for 1861, pp. 640-664