lantic coast, and occasionally, though very seldom, one meets with a
black newcomer from Jamaica, Barbadoes, or other West Indian islands.

DOCUMENTS

TRAVELERS' IMPRESSIONS OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA FROM 1750 TO 1800

From these writers, almost all of whom were foreigners, one would naturally
expect such a portraiture of slavery as persons unaccustomed to the
institution would give. Most Americans, of course, considered the
institution as belonging to the natural order of things and, therefore,
hardly ever referred to it except when they mentioned it unconsciously.
Foreigners, however, as soon as they came into this new world began to
compare the slaves with the lowest order of society in Europe. Finding the
lot of the bondmen so much inferior to that of those of low estate in
European countries, these travelers frequently made some interesting
comparisons. We are indebted to them for valuable information which we can
never hope to obtain from the literature of an essentially slaveholding
people. Here we see how the American Revolution caused a change for the
better in the condition of the Negroes in certain States, and how the
rigorousness of slavery continued in the others. We learn too what
enlightened Negroes thought about their state and what the white man
believed should be done to prevent their reaching the point of
self-assertion. That a large number of anti-slavery Americans were
advocating and effecting the emancipation of slaves appears throughout
these documents.

BURNABY'S VIEW OF THE SITUATION IN VIRGINIA

Speaking of Virginia, he said: "Their authority over their slaves renders
them vain and imperious, and entire strangers to that elegance of
sentiment, which is so peculiarly characteristic of refined and polished
nations. Their ignorance of mankind and of learning, exposes them to many
errors and prejudices, especially in regard to Indians and Negroes, whom
they scarcely consider as of human species; so that it is almost
impossible in cases of violence, or even murder, committed upon those
unhappy people by any of the planters, to have delinquents brought to
justice: for either the grand jury refuse to find the bill, or the petit
jury bring in the verdict of not guilty."--_Andrew Burnaby, "Travels_,"
1759, p. 54.

GENERAL TREATMENT OF SLAVES AMONG THE ALBANIANS--CONSEQUENT ATTACHMENT OF
DOMESTICS.--REFLECTIONS ON SERVITUDE BY AN AMERICAN LADY

In the society I am describing, e