unity, set ourselves to do all the
Good we can, to the other _Negro-Servants_ in the Town; And if any
of them should, at unfit Hours, be _Abroad_, much more, if any of
them should _Run away_ from their Masters, we will afford them
_no Shelter_: But we will do what in us lies, that they may be
discovered, and punished. And if any of _us_ are found Faulty in
this matter, they shall be no longer of _us_.

VIII. None of our Society shall be _Absent_ from our Meeting,
without giving a Reason of the Absence; and if it be found, that any
have pretended unto their _Owners_, that they came unto the Meeting,
when they were otherwise and elsewhere Employed, we will faithfully
_Inform_ their Owners, and also do what we can to Reclaim such
Person from all such Evil Courses for the Future:

IX. It shall be expected from every one in the Society, that he
learn the Catechism; And therefore, it shall be one of our usual
Exercises, for one of us, to ask the _Questions_, and for all the
rest in their Order, to say the _Answers_ in the Catechism; Either,
The _New English_ Catechism, or the _Assemblies_ Catechism, or the
Catechism in the _Negro Christianised_.

[Footnote 1: See _Rules for the Society of Negroes_, 1693, by Cotton
Mather, reprinted, New York, 1888, by George H. Moore.]

4. Early Insurrections

The Negroes who came to America directly from Africa in the eighteenth
century were strikingly different from those whom generations of
servitude later made comparatively docile. They were wild and turbulent
in disposition and were likely at any moment to take revenge for the
great wrong that had been inflicted upon them. The planters in the South
knew this and lived in constant fear of uprisings. When the situation
became too threatening, they placed prohibitive duties on importations,
and they also sought to keep their slaves in subjection by barbarous and
cruel modes of punishment, both crucifixion and burning being legalized
in some early codes. On sea as well as on land Negroes frequently rose
upon those who held them in bondage, and sometimes they actually
won their freedom. More and more, however, in any study of Negro
insurrections it becomes difficult to distinguish between a clearly
organized revolt and what might be regarded as simply a personal crime,
so that those uprisings considered in the following discussion can only
be construed as the more