and shall lead them
unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes."

CHAPTER II

THE NEGRO IN THE COLONIES

The Negroes who were brought from Africa to America were brought hither
to work, and to work under compulsion; hence any study of their social
life in the colonial era must be primarily a study of their life under
the system of slavery, and of the efforts of individuals to break away
from the same.

1. _Servitude and Slavery_

For the antecedents of Negro slavery in America one must go back to the
system of indentured labor known as servitude. This has been defined
as "a legalized status of Indian, white, and Negro servants preceding
slavery in most, if not all, of the English mainland colonies."[1] A
study of servitude will explain many of the acts with reference to
Negroes, especially those about intermarriage with white people. For the
origins of the system one must go back to social conditions in England
in the seventeenth century. While villeinage had been formally abolished
in England at the middle of the fourteenth century, it still lingered in
remote places, and even if men were not technically villeins they might
be subjected to long periods of service. By the middle of the fifteenth
century the demand for wool had led to the enclosure of many farms
for sheep-raising, and accordingly to distress on the part of many
agricultural laborers. Conditions were not improved early in the
sixteenth century, and they were in fact made more acute, the abolition
of the monasteries doing away with many of the sources of relief. Men
out of work were thrown upon the highways and thus became a menace to
society. In 1564 the price of wheat was 19s. a quarter and wages were
7d. a day. The situation steadily grew worse, and in 1610, while wages
were still the same, wheat was 35s. a quarter. Rents were constantly
rising, moreover, and many persons died from starvation. In the course
of the seventeenth century paupers and dissolute persons more and more
filled the jails and workhouses.

[Footnote 1: _New International Encyclopaedia_, Article "Slavery."]

Meanwhile in the young colonies across the sea labor was scarce, and it
seemed to many an act of benevolence to bring from England persons who
could not possibly make a living at home and give them some chance in
the New World. From the very first, children, and especially young
people between the ages of twelve and twen