[Footnote 1:  William T. Alexander:  History of the Colored Race in America, New Orleans, 1887, p. 136.]

[Footnote 2:  DuBois:  Suppression of the Slave-Trade, 34.]

New Hampshire, profiting by the experience of the neighboring colony of Massachusetts, deemed it best from the beginning to discourage slavery.  There were so few Negroes in the colony as to form a quantity practically negligible.  The system was recognized, however, an act being passed in 1714 to regulate the conduct of slaves, and another four years later to regulate that of masters.

In North Carolina, even more than in most of the colonies, the system of Negro slavery was long controlled by custom rather than by legal enactment.  It was recognized by law in 1715, however, and police regulations to govern the slaves were enacted.  In South Carolina the history of slavery is particularly noteworthy.  The natural resources of this colony offered a ready home for the system, and the laws here formulated were as explicit as any ever enacted.  Slaves were first imported from Barbadoes, and their status received official confirmation in 1682.  By 1720 the number had increased to 12,000, the white people numbering only 9,000.  By 1698 such was the fear from the preponderance of the Negro population that a special act was passed to encourage white immigration.  Legislation “for the better ordering of slaves” was passed in 1690, and in 1712 the first regular slave law was enacted.  Once before 1713, the year of the Assiento Contract of the Peace of Utrecht, and several times after this date, prohibitive duties were placed on Negroes to guard against their too rapid increase.  By 1734, however, importation had again reached large proportions; and in 1740, in consequence of recent insurrectionary efforts, a prohibitive duty several times larger than the previous one was placed upon Negroes brought into the province.

The colony of Georgia was chartered in 1732 and actually founded the next year.  Oglethorpe’s idea was that the colony should be a refuge for persecuted Christians and the debtor classes of England.  Slavery was forbidden on the ground that Georgia was to defend the other English colonies from the Spaniards on the South, and that it would not be able to do this if like South Carolina it dissipated its energies in guarding Negro slaves.  For years the development of Georgia was slow, and the prosperous condition of South Carolina constantly suggested to the planters that “the one thing needful” for their highest welfare was slavery.  Again and again were petitions addressed to the trustees, George Whitefield being among those who most urgently advocated the innovation.  Moreover, Negroes from South Carolina were sometimes hired for life, and purchases were openly made in Savannah.  It was not until 1749, however, that the trustees yielded to the request.  In 1755 the legislature passed an act that regulated the conduct of the slaves, and in 1765 a more regular code was adopted.  Thus did slavery finally gain a foothold in what was destined to become one of the most important of the Southern states.