The Revolution was nearing.  Public attention was largely occupied with the Stamp Act and preparations for hostilities.  The Negro was left to toil on; and, while at this time there was no legislation sought for slavery, there was nothing done that could be considered hostile to the institution.  The Negroes hailed the mutterings of the distant thunders of revolution as the precursor of a new era to them.  It did furnish an opportunity for them in Maryland to prove themselves patriots and brave soldiers.  And how far their influence went to mollify public sentiment concerning them, will be considered in its appropriate place.  Suffice it now to say, that cruel and hurtful, unjust and immoral, as the institution of slavery was, it had not robbed the Negro of a lofty conception of the fundamental principles that inspired white men to resist the arrogance of England; nor did it impair his enthusiasm in the cause that gave birth to a new republic amid the shock of embattled arms.

FOOTNOTES: 

[414] Dr. Abiel Holmes, in his American Annals, vol. ii. p. 5, says, “Maryland now contained about thirty-six thousand persons, of white men from sixteen years of age and upwards, and negroes male, and female from sixteen to sixty.”  I infer from this statement that slavery was in existence in Maryland in 1634; and I cannot find any thing in history to lead me to doubt but that slavery was born with the colony.

[415] Cabinet Cyclopaedia, vol. i. p. 61.

[416] See Bacon’s Laws, also Holmes’s Annals, vol. i. p. 250.

[417] The following appeared in the Plantation Laws, printed in London in 1705:  “Where any negro or slave, being in servitude or bondage, is or shall become Christian, and receive the sacrament of baptism, the same shall not nor ought not to be deemed, adjudged or construed to be a manumission or freeing of any such negro or slave, or his or her issue, from their servitude or bondage, but that notwithstanding they shall at all times hereafter be and remain in servitude and bondage as they were before baptism, any opinion, matter or thing to the contrary notwithstanding.”

[418] McSherry’s Hist. of Maryland, p. 86.

[419] Freedom and Bondage, vol. i. p. 249.

[420] McMahon’s Hist. of Maryland, vol. i. p. 274.

[421] The following form was used for a long time in Maryland for binding out a servant.

This Indenture made the ——­ day of ——­ in the ——­ yeere of our Soveraigne Lord King Charles,_&c betweene ——­ of the one party_, and ——­ on the other party, Witnesseth, that the said ——­ doth hereby covenant promise, and grant, to and with the said ——­ his Executors and Assignes, to serve him from the day of the date hereof, untill his first and next arrivall in Maryland:  and after for and during the tearme of ——­ yeeres, in such service and imployment, as the said ——­