act of 1730 which while penalizing with stripes the speaking by a slave of such words as would be actionable if uttered by a free person provided that in his defence the slave might make the same pleas and offer the same evidence as a freeman.  The number of negroes in the colony rose to some 6500 at the eve of the American Revolution.  Most of them were held in very small parcels, but at least one citizen, Captain John Perkins of Norwich, listed fifteen slaves in his will.

[Footnote 22:  The scanty materials available are summarized in B.C.  Steiner, History of Slavery in Connecticut (Johns Hopkins University Studies, XI, nos. 9, 10, Baltimore, 1893), pp. 9-23, 84.  See also W.C.  Fowler, “The Historical Status of the Negro in Connecticut,” in the Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries, III, 12-18, 81-85, 148-153, 260-266.]

[Footnote 23:  Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, III, 298.]

[Footnote 24:  Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, IV, 40, 376; V, 52, 53; VI, 390, 391.]

Rhode Island was distinguished from her neighbors by her diversity and liberalism in religion, by her great activity in the African slave trade, and by the possession of a tract of unusually fertile soil.  This last, commonly known as the Narragansett district and comprised in the two so-called towns of North and South Kingstown, lay on the western shore of the bay, in the southern corner of the colony.  Prosperity from tillage, and especially from dairying and horse-breeding, caused the rise in that neighborhood of landholdings and slaveholdings on a scale more commensurate with those in Virginia than with those elsewhere in New England.  The Hazards, Champlins, Robinsons, and some others accumulated estates ranging from five to ten thousand acres in extent, each with a corps of bondsmen somewhat in proportion.  In 1730, for example, South Kingstown had a population of 965 whites, 333 negroes and 233 Indians; and for a number of years afterward those who may safely be assumed to have been bondsmen, white, red and black, continued to be from a third to a half as many as the free inhabitants.[25] It may be noted that the prevalent husbandry was not such as generally attracted unfree labor in other districts, and that the climate was poorly suited to a negro population.  The question then arises, Why was there so large a recourse to negro slave labor?  The answer probably lies in the proximity of Newport, the main focus of African trading in American ships.  James Browne wrote in 1737 from Providence, which was also busy in the trade, to his brother Obadiah who was then in Southern waters with an African cargo and who had reported poor markets:  “If you cannot sell all your slaves to your mind, bring some of them home; I believe they will sell well.” [26] This bringing of remainders home doubtless enabled the nearby townsmen and farmers to get slaves from time to time at bargain prices.  The whole colony indeed came to have a relatively large proportion of blacks.  In 1749 there were 33,773 whites and 3077 negroes; in 1756 there were 35,939 and 4697 respectively; and in 1774, 59,707 and 3668.  Of this last number Newport contained 1246, South Kingstown 440, Providence 303, Portsmouth 122, and Bristol 114.[27]