spiritual growth. He was
regarded by both the religious and civil government, under which he
lived, as a heathen. Even his accidental conversion could not change
his condition, nor mollify the feelings of the white Christians (?)
about him. Like the wild animal, he was possessed with the barest
privilege of getting something to eat. Beyond this he had nothing.
Everywhere he turned, he felt the withering glance of a suspicious
people. Prejudice and prescriptive legislation cast their dark shadows
on his daily path; and the conscious superiority of the whites
consigned him to the severest drudgery for his daily bread. The
recollection of the past was distressing, the trials and burdens of
the present were almost unbearable, while the future was one shapeless
horror to him.

Perhaps the lowly and submissive acquiescence of the Negroes, bond and
free, had a salutary effect upon the public mind. There is something
awfully grand in an heroic endurance of undeserved pain. The white
Christians married, and were given in marriage; they sowed and
gathered rich harvests; they bought and built happy homes; beautiful
children were born unto them; they built magnificent churches, and
worshipped the true God: the present was joyous, and the future
peopled with sublime anticipation. The contrast of these two peoples
in their wide-apart conditions must have made men reflective. And
added to this came the loud thunders of the Revolution. Connecticut
had her orators, and they touched the public heart with the glowing
coals of patriotic resolve. They felt the insecurity of their own
liberties, and were now willing to pronounce in favor of the liberty
of the Negroes. The inconsistency of asking for freedom, praying for
freedom, fighting for freedom, and dying for freedom, when they
themselves held thousands of human beings in bondage the most cruel
the world ever knew, helped the cause of the slave. In 1762 the Negro
population of this colony was four thousand five hundred and
ninety.[448] Public sentiment was aroused on the slavery question;
and in October, 1774, the following prohibition was directed at
slavery:--

"_Act against importation of slaves_--"No Indian, negro, or
mulatto slave shall at any time hereafter be brought or
imported into this State, by sea or land, from any place or
places whatsoever, to be disposed of, left or sold, within
this State."[449]

The above bill was brief, but pointed; and s