Negroes had no political rights in the Province.  Free Negroes were prohibited from entertaining Negro or Indian slaves, or trading with them.  Masters were required, when manumitting slaves, to furnish security, as in the other colonies.  Marriages between the races were forbidden.  Negroes were not allowed to be abroad after nine o’clock at night.

In 1773 the Assembly passed “An Act making perpetual the Act entitled, An Act for laying a duty on negroes and mulatto slaves,” etc., and added ten pounds to the duty.  The colonists did much to check the vile and inhuman traffic; but, having once obtained a hold, it did eat like a canker.  It threw its dark shadow over personal and collective interests, and poisoned the springs of human kindness in many hearts.  It was not alone hurtful to the slave:  it transformed and blackened character everywhere, and fascinated those who were anxious for riches beyond the power of moral discernment.  Here, however, as in New Jersey, the Negro found the Quaker his practical friend; and his upper and better life received the pruning advice, refining and elevating influence, of a godly people.  But intelligence in the slave was an occasion of offending, and prepared him to realize his deplorable situation.  So to enlighten him was to excite in him a deep desire for liberty, and, not unlikely, a feeling of revenge toward his enslavers.  So there was really danger in the method the guileless Friends adopted to ameliorate the condition of the slaves.

When England began to breathe out threatenings against her contumacious dependencies in North America, the people of Pennsylvania began to reflect upon the probable outrages their Negroes would, in all probability, commit.  They inferred that the Negroes would be their enemy because they were their slaves.  This was the equitable findings of a guilty conscience.  They did not dare expect less than the revengeful hate of the beings they had laid the yoke of bondage upon; and verily they found themselves with “fears within, and fightings without.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[509] Gordon’s History of Penn., p. 114.

[510] Whittier’s Penn.  Pilgrim, p. viii.

[511] The memorial referred to was printed in extenso in The Friend, vol. xviii.  No 16.

[512] Minutes of Yearly Meeting, Watson’s MS. Coll.  Bettle’s notices of N.S.  Minutes, Penn.  Hist.  Soc.

[513] Colonial Rec., vol. i. pp. 598, 606.  See also Votes of Assembly, vol. i. pp. 120-122.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE COLONY OF GEORGIA.

1732-1775.

     GEORGIA ONCE INCLUDED IN THE TERRITORY OF CAROLINA.—­THE
     THIRTEENTH COLONY PLANTED IN NORTH AMERICA BY THE ENGLISH
     GOVERNMENT.—­SLAVES RULED OUT ALTOGETHER BY THE
     TRUSTEES.—­THE OPINION OF GEN.  OGLETHORPE CONCERNING
     SLAVERY.—­LONG AND BITTER DISCUSSION IN REGARD TO THE
     ADMISSION OF SLAVERY INTO THE COLONY.—­SLAVERY
     INTRODUCED.—­HISTORY OF SLAVERY IN GEORGIA.