The American Historical Review.

* * * * *

THE JOURNAL OF NEGRO HISTORY

VOL.  I—­JUNE, 1916—­No. 3

PUBLISHED QUARTERLY

CONTENTS

JOHN H. RUSSELL, Ph.D.:  Colored Freemen as Slave Owners in Virginia

JOHN H. PAYNTER, A.M.:  The Fugitives of the Pearl

BENJAMIN BRAWLEY:  Lorenzo Dow

LOUIS R. MEHLINGER:  The Attitude of the Free Negro Toward African
    Colonization

DOCUMENTS: 
  TRANSPLANTING FREE NEGROES TO OHIO FROM 1815 TO 1858: 
    Blacks and Mulattoes,
    New Style Colonization,
    Freedom in a Free State,
    The Randolph Slaves,
    The Republic of Liberia. 
  A TYPICAL COLONIZATION CONVENTION: 
    Convention of Free Colored People,
    Emigration of the Colored Race,
    Circular, Address to the Free Colored People of the State of Maryland,
    Proceedings of the Convention of Free Colored People of the State of
      Maryland

REVIEWS OF BOOKS: 
     ABEL’S The Slaveholding Indians.  Volume I:  As Slaveholder and
       Secessionist;
     GEORGE’S The Political History of Slavery in the United States;
     CLARK’S The Constitutional Doctrines of Justice Harlan;
     THOMPSON’S Reconstruction in Georgia, Economic, Social, Political,
       1865—­1872

NOTES

THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF NEGRO LIFE AND HISTORY, INCORPORATED

41 North Queen Street, Lancaster, PA. 2223 Twelfth Street, Washington, D. C.

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Copyright, 1916

COLORED FREEMEN AS SLAVE OWNERS IN VIRGINIA[1]

Among the quaint old seventeenth century statutes of Virginia may be found the following significant enactment: 

No negro or Indian though baptized and enjoyned their own freedome shall be capable of any purchase of Christians but yet not debarred from buying any of their owne nation.[2]

“Christians” in this act means persons of the white race.  Indented servitude was the condition and status of no small part of the white population of Virginia when this law was enacted.  While it is not a part of our purpose in this article to show that white servants were ever bound in servitude to colored masters, the inference from this prohibition upon the property rights of the free Negroes is that colored freemen had at least attempted to acquire white or “Christian” servants.  In a revision of the law seventy-eight years later it was deemed necessary to retain the prohibition and to annex the provision that if any free Negro or mulatto “shall nevertheless presume to purchase a Christian white servant, such servant shall immediately become free."[3]