of movement that he had, and if no one would employ him, or if, as frequently happened, he was browbeaten and cheated out of the reward of his labor, the slave might somehow see that he got something to eat.  In a state of society in which the relation of master and slave was the rule, there was of course little place for either the free Negro or the poor white man.  When the pressure became too great the white man moved away; the Negro, finding himself everywhere buffeted, in the colonial era at least had little choice but to work out his salvation at home as well as he could.  More and more character told, and if a man had made himself known for his industry and usefulness, a legislative act might even be passed permitting him to remain in the face of a hostile law.  Even before 1700 there were in Virginia families in which both parents were free colored persons and in which every effort was made to bring up the children in honesty and morality.  When some prosperous Negroes found themselves able to do so, they occasionally purchased Negroes, who might be their own children or brothers, in order to give them that protection without which on account of recent manumission they might be required to leave the colony in which they were born.  Thus, whatever the motive, the tie that bound the free Negro and the slave was a strong one; and in spite of the fact that Negroes who owned slaves were generally known as hard masters, as soon as any men of the race began to be really prominent their best endeavor was devoted to the advancement of their people.  It was not until immediately after the Revolutionary War, however, that leaders of vision and statesmanship began to be developed.

It was only the materialism of the eighteenth century that accounted for the amazing development of the system of Negro slavery, and only this that defeated the benevolence of Oglethorpe’s scheme for the founding of Georgia.  As yet there was no united protest—­no general movement for freedom; and as Von Holst said long afterwards, “If the agitation had been wholly left to the churches, it would have been long before men could have rightly spoken of ‘a slavery question.’” The Puritans, however, were not wholly unmindful of the evil, and the Quakers were untiring in their opposition, though it was Roger Williams who in 1637 made the first protest that appears in the colonies.[1] Both John Eliot and Cotton Mather were somewhat generally concerned about the harsh treatment of the Negro and the neglect of his spiritual welfare.  Somewhat more to the point was Richard Baxter, the eminent English nonconformist, who was a contemporary of both of these men.  “Remember,” said he, in speaking of Negroes and other slaves, “that they are of as good a kind as you; that is, they are reasonable creatures as well as you, and born to as much natural liberty.  If their sin have enslaved them to you, yet Nature made them your equals.”  On the subject of man-stealing he is even stronger: