At a later date, South Carolina also enacted laws which, by court decision, were interpreted to mean the abolition of Indian slavery. The act of 1740[1254] stated that “all negroes, Indians (free Indians in amity with this government, and negroes, mulattoes, or mestizoes who are now free, excepted), mulattoes, or mestizoes, who are now or who shall hereafter be in this province, and all their issue and offspring born, or to be born, shall be, and they are hereby declared to be and remain forever hereafter, absolute slaves, and shall follow the condition of the mother.” Under this provision it has been uniformly held that color was _prima facie_ evidence that the party bearing the color of a negro, mulatto or mestizo, was a slave; but the same _prima facie_ result did not follow from the Indian color, according to the decision of the courts.[1255] After the passage of the act, Indians and descendants of Indians were regarded as free Indians in amity with the government, until the contrary was shown. Elsewhere in the act of 1740 it is declared that “every negro, Indian, mulatto, and mestizo is a slave unless the contrary can be made to appear”, yet in the same act it is immediately thereafter provided—“the Indians in amity with this government excepted, in which case the burden of the proof shall lie on the defendant”, that is on the person claiming the Indian plaintiff to be a slave. This latter clause of the provision grew to be considered the rule, and so the race of slave Indians, or of Indians not in amity with the government, passed out of existence and the previous part of the provision lost its application.[1256] By an act of May 18, 1652, passed by the Commissioners of Providence Plantations and Warwick, it was provided that “no black mankind, or white, being forced to covenant, bond or otherwise, serve any man or his assigns longer than ten years, or until they come to be twenty-four years of age, if they be taken under fourteen, from the time of their coming within the limits of this colony, and at the end or term of ten years to set them free, as the matter is with the English servants”.[1257] The act makes no mention of Indian slaves, doubtless because at this early date there were not enough in the colony to arouse interest in their condition. When at the time of King Philip’s War Indian slaves were being transported by Massachusetts and distributed among the settlements, Rhode Island, March, 1676, passed a law concerning them similar to the law of 1652 relating to negroes. This act provided that “no Indian in this colony be a slave but only to pay their debts, or for their bringing up, or courtesy they have received, or to perform covenant, as if they had been countrymen not in war.”[1258]