Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/408

 tawny yellow, with flat noses and projecting jaws — an ugliness often, but erroneously, esteemed characteristic of all the African races, but which seems to have been principally confined to the low and swampy grounds about the delta of the Niger. The negroes marked by these shapeless features were noted also for indomitable capacity of endurance, and were esteemed, therefore, the best slaves. Intermixture among themselves, and a large infusion of European blood, have gradually obliterated these differences, or made them less noticeable.

Contrary to what happened in the West Indies, in the Anglo-North American provinces the natural increase of the slave population was rapid. The women were seldom put to the severer labors of the field. The long winter secured to both sexes a season of comparative rest. Such was the abundance of provisions, that it was cheaper to breed than to buy slaves. Those born in America, and reared up on the plantations, evidently surpassed the imported Africans both physically and intellectually. Of the imported slaves a few were Mohammedans, among whom were occasionally found persons of some education, who knew Arabic, and could read the Koran. But the great mass were pagans, in a condition of gross barbarism. They brought with them from Africa many superstitions, but these, for the most part, as well as the negro languages, very soon died out.

Zealous for religion as the colonists were, very little effort was made to convert the negroes, owing partly, at least, to a prevalent opinion that neither Christian brotherhood nor the law of England would justify the holding Christians as slaves. Nor could repeated colonial enactments to the contrary entirely root out this idea, for it was not supposed that a colonial statute could set aside the law of England. What, precisely, the English law might be on the subject of slavery, still remained a matter of doubt. Lord Holt had expressed the opinion, in 1697, that slavery was a condition unknown to English law, and that every person setting foot in England thereby became free. American planters, on their visits to England, accompanied by their slaves, seem to have been annoyed by claims of freedom set up on this ground, and that, also, of baptism. To relieve their embarrassments, the merchants concerned in the American trade had obtained a written opinion from Yorke and Talbot, in 1729, the attorney and solicitor general of that day. According to this opinion, which passed for more than forty years as good law, not only was baptism no bar to slavery, but negro slaves might be held in England just as well as in the colonies. The two lawyers by whom this opinion was given, rose afterward, one of them to be chief justice of England, and both to be chancelors. Yorke, sitting in the latter capacity with the title of Lord Hardwicke, had recognized the doctrine of that opinion as sound law in 1749. He objects to Lord Holt's doctrine of freedom, secured by setting foot on English soil, that no reason could be found "why slaves should not be equally free when they set foot in Jamaica or any other English plantation." "All our colonies are subject to the laws of England, although as to some purposes they have laws of their own." His argument is, that if slavery be contrary to