History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol 1: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as CitizensWilliams, George Washington
History
History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol 1: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens
Williams, George Washington
African Americans -- History; Liberia; Sierra Leone
"In the next place, this worthy Gentleman makes a large
Discourse concerning the Utility and Conveniency to keep the
one, and inconveniency of the other; respecting white and
black Servants, which conduceth most to the welfare and
benefit of this Province: which he concludes to be white
men, who are in many respects to be preferred before Blacks;
who doubts that? doth it therefore follow, that it is
altogether unlawful for Christians to buy and keep Negro
Servants (for this is the thesis) but that those that have
them ought in Conscience to set them free, and so lose all
the money they cost (for we must not live in any known sin)
this seems to be his opinion; but it is a Question whether
it ever was the Gentleman's practice? But if he could
perswade the General Assembly to make an Act, That all that
have Negroes, and do set them free, shall be Reimbursed out
of the Publick Treasury, and that there shall be no more
Negroes brought into the country; 'tis probable there would
be more of his opinion; yet he would find it a hard task to
bring the Country to consent thereto; for then the Negroes
must be all sent out of the Country, or else the remedy
would be worse than the disease; and it is to be feared that
those Negroes that are free, if there be not some strict
course taken with them by Authority, they will be a plague
to this Country.
"_Again_, If it should be unlawful to deprive them that are
lawful Captives, or Bondmen of their Liberty for Life being
Heathens; it seems to be more unlawful to deprive our
Brethren, of our own or other Christian Nations of the
Liberty, (though but for a time) by binding them to Serve
some Seven, Ten, Fifteen, and some Twenty Years, which oft
times proves for their whole Life, as many have been; which
in effect is the same in Nature, though different in the
time, yet this was allow'd among the _Jews_ by the Law of
God; and is the constant practice of our own and other
Christian Nations in the World: the which our Author by his
Dogmatical Assertions doth condem as Irreligious; which is
Diametrically contrary to the Rules and Precepts which God
hath given the diversity of men to observe in their
respective Stations, Callings, and Conditions of Life, as
hath been observed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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