blacks who well understood the English tongue.[3] The most effective work of the Society, however, was in New York, where as early as 1704 a school was opened by Elias Neau, a Frenchman who after several years of imprisonment because of his Protestant faith had come to New York to try his fortune as a trader.  In 1703 he had called the attention of the Society to the Negroes who were “without God in the world, and of whose souls there was no manner of care taken,” and had suggested the appointment of a catechist.  He himself was prevailed upon to take up the work and he accordingly resigned his position as an elder in the French church and conformed to the Church of England.  He worked with success for a number of years, but in 1712 was embarrassed by the charge that his school fomented the insurrection that was planned in that year.  He finally showed, however, that only one of his students was in any way connected with the uprising.

[Footnote 1:  Russell:  The Free Negro in Virginia, 138-9.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid., 138.]

[Footnote 3:  C.E.  Pierre, in Journal of Negro History, October, 1916, p. 350.]

From slave advertisements of the eighteenth century[1] we may gain many sidelights not only on the education of Negroes in the colonial era, but on their environment and suffering as well.  One slave “can write a pretty good hand; plays on the fife extremely well.”  Another “can both read and write and is a good fiddler.”  Still others speak “Dutch and good English,” “good English and High Dutch,” or “Swede and English well.”  Charles Thomas of Delaware bore the following remarkable characterization:  “Very black, has white teeth ... has had his left leg broke ... speaks both French and English, and is a very great rogue.”  One man who came from the West Indies “was born in Dominica and speaks French, but very little English; he is a very ill-natured fellow and has been much cut in his back by often whipping.”  A Negro named Simon who in 1740 ran away in Pennsylvania “could bleed and draw teeth pretending to be a great doctor.”  Worst of all the incidents of slavery, however, was the lack of regard for home ties, and this situation of course obtained in the North as well as the South.  In the early part of the eighteenth century marriages in New York were by mutual consent only, without the blessing of the church, and burial was in a common field without any Christian office.  In Massachusetts in 1710 Rev. Samuel Phillips drew up a marriage formulary especially designed for slaves and concluding as follows:  “For you must both of you bear in mind that you remain still, as really and truly as ever, your master’s property, and therefore it will be justly expected, both by God and man, that you behave and conduct yourselves as obedient and faithful servants."[2] In Massachusetts, however, as in New York, marriage was most often by common consent simply, without the office of ministers.