ocility of the slave.

In 1676 the colony was divided into East and West Jersey, with
separate governments. The laws of East Jersey, promulgated in 1682,
contained laws prohibiting the entertaining of fugitive servants, or
trading with Negroes. The law respecting fugitive servants was
intended to destroy the hopes of runaways in the entertainment they so
frequently obtained at the hands of benevolent Quakers and other
enemies of "indenture" and slavery. The law-makers acted upon the
presumption, that as the Negro had no property, did not own himself,
he could not sell any article of his own. All slaves who attempted to
dispose of any article were regarded with suspicion. The law made it a
misdemeanor for a free person to purchase any thing from a slave, and
hence cut off a source of revenue to the more industrious slaves, who
by their frugality often prepared something for sale.

In 1694 "_an Act concerning slaves_" was passed by the Legislature of
East Jersey. It provided, among other things, for the trial of
"_negroes and other slaves, for felonies punishable with death, by a
jury of twelve persons before three justices of the peace; for theft,
before two justices; the punishment by whipping_." Here was the
grandest evidence of the high character of the white population in
East Jersey. In every other colony in North America the Negro was
denied the right of "trial by jury," so sacred to Englishmen. In
Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut,--in all the
colonies,--the Negro went into court convicted, went out convicted,
and was executed, upon the frailest evidence imaginable. But here in
Jersey the only example of justice was shown toward the Negro in North
America. "Trial by jury" implied the right to be sworn, and give
competent testimony. A Negro slave, when on trial for his life, was
accorded the privilege of being tried by twelve honest white colonists
before _three_ justices of the peace. This was in striking contrast
with the conduct of the colony of New York, where Negroes were
arrested upon the incoherent accusations of dissolute whites and
terrified blacks. It gave the Negroes a new and an anomalous position
in the New World. It banished the cruel theory of Virginia, New York,
and Connecticut, that the Negro was a pagan, and therefore should not
be sworn in courts of justice, and threw open a wide door for his
entrance into a more hopeful state than he had, up to that time, dared
to anticipate. It a