a little more thorough than in New York, partly because of legislation, which the white mechanics procured, lessening negro competition by forbidding masters to hire out their slaves.  From travelers’ accounts it would appear that the relation of master and slave in Pennsylvania was in general more kindly than anywhere else on the continent; but from the abundance of newspaper advertisements for runaways it would seem to have been of about average character.  The truth probably lies as usual in the middle ground, that Pennsylvania masters were somewhat unusually considerate.  The assembly attempted at various times to check slave importations by levying prohibitive duties, which were invariably disallowed by the English crown.  On the other hand, in spite of the endeavors of Sandiford, Lay, Woolman and Benezet, all of them Pennsylvanians, it took no steps toward relaxing racial control until the end of the colonial period.[38]

[Footnote 38:  E.R.  Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania (Washington, 1911); R.R.  Wright, Jr., The Negro in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1912).]

In the Northern colonies at large the slaves imported were more generally drawn from the West Indies than directly from Africa.  The reasons were several.  Small parcels, better suited to the retail demand, might be brought more profitably from the sugar islands whither New England, New York and Pennsylvania ships were frequently plying than from Guinea whence special voyages must be made.  Familiarity with the English language and the rudiments of civilization at the outset were more essential to petty masters than to the owners of plantation gangs who had means for breaking in fresh Africans by deputy.  But most important of all, a sojourn in the West Indies would lessen the shock of acclimatization, severe enough under the best of circumstances.  The number of negroes who died from it was probably not small, and of those who survived some were incapacitated and bedridden with each recurrence of winter.

Slavery did not, and perhaps could not, become an important industrial institution in any Northern community; and the problem of racial adjustments was never as acute as it was generally thought to be.  In not more than two or three counties do the negroes appear to have numbered more than one fifth of the population; and by reason of being distributed in detail they were more nearly assimilated to the civilization of the dominant race than in southerly latitudes where they were held in gross.  They nevertheless continued to be regarded as strangers within the gates, by some welcomed because they were slaves, by others not welcomed even though they were in bondage.  By many they were somewhat unreasonably feared; by few were they even reasonably loved.  The spirit not of love but of justice and the public advantage was destined to bring the end of their bondage.

CHAPTER VII