Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/127

 attachment to the plantations of their masters owing to their recent importation. One of the most powerful influences that fostered a steady and sober spirit in the negroes who were natives of the soil, was thus entirely absent in the case of the imported slaves unless they had reached the Colony whilst still very young.

It was not until 1672, that we discover indications of open discontent among the negroes of Virginia. An Act of Assembly passed in that year reveals the fact that there were slaves in rebellion in different parts of the Colony at this time, and that it had been found so far impossible to subdue and capture them. There does not appear to have been any movement among them resembling an organized insurrection; it was rather a number of cases in which two or more, or even one, had taken refuge in the fastnesses of the wilderness of forest. Abandoning as hopeless all thought of seizing these fugitives by peaceful means, the House of Burgesses authorized whoever should seek to capture them, whether by legal warrant or by hue and cry, to kill them on the spot if they attempted to resist arrest. The master of every slave who perished under these circumstances received satisfaction for his loss at the public charge to the extent of four thousand five hundred pounds of tobacco. If the successful effort to seize the negro resulted in wounding him, his owner was recouped in proportion to the loss entailed by his sickness, which probably included the medical expense of the cure, payment being made in the form of a certificate, which was to be presented to the General Assembly to be honored. In every instance in which a slave had fled to an Indian town, its chief was required to bring him before the nearest justice of the peace, receiving as a reward a certain amount of roanoke,