or a subject of the slave code. Reduced from his natural state of
freedom by his misfortune in tribal war, to that of a slave, and then
transported by the consent of his captors and enemies to these shores,
and sold into an unrequited bondage, the fire of his courage,--like
that of other races similarly situated, without hope of liberty; doomed
to toil,--slackened into an apathetic state, and seeming willing
servitude, which produced a resignation to fate from 1619 to 1770, more
than a century and a half. At the latter date, for the first time in the
history of what is now the United States, the negro, inspired with the
love of liberty, aimed a blow at the authority that held him in bondage.
In numerous instances, when the Indians attacked the white settlers,
particularly in the Northern colonies, negroes were summoned and took
part in the defense of the settlements.

As early as 1652, the militia law of Massachusetts required negroes,
Scotchmen and Indians,--the indentured slaves of Cromwell, who
encountered his army at the battle of Dunbar,--to train in the militia.
Nor was it an uncommon occurrence for them to be manumitted for
meritorious and courageous action in defending their masters' families,
often in the absence of the master, when attacked by the red men of the
woods. It was not infrequent to find the negro as a sentinel at the
meeting-house door; or serving as a barricade for the master's mansion.
The Indian was more of a terror to him than the boa-constrictor; though
slaves, they knew that if captured by the Indians their fate would be
the same as that of the white man; consequently they fought with a
desperation equal to that of the whites, against the common enemy. So
accustomed did they become to the use of arms, that one of the first
acts of the settlers after the Indians were driven from the forest, was
to disarm and forbid negroes keeping or handling fire-arms and weapons
of every sort. This was done from a sense of self-preservation and fear
that the negroes might (and many did) attempt to revenge themselves when
cruelly treated, or rise in mutiny and massacre the whites.

[Illustration: DEATH OF CRISPUS ATTUCKS.

While leading an attack against British troops in Boston.]

But it was not until 1770, when the fervor of rebellion had influenced
the people of the colonies, and Capt. Preston, with the King's soldiers,
appeared in King Street, Boston, to enforce the decree of the British
Parliament, t