Society was divided into four classes, social distinctions being sharply drawn. The lowest stratum was composed of the negro slaves, first introduced in 1619. For many years the number of blacks was comparatively small, servile labor being mainly performed by convicts and indented servants. At first the African slave was looked upon as but an improved variety of indented servant, whose term of labor was for life instead of a few years. In 1650 there were but three hundred negroes in Virginia and fifteen thousand whites. The slave system fast extended, after this date, so that in 1661 Virginia had two thousand blacks, and by the close of the seventeenth century they nearly equalled the whites in number; in South Carolina, in 1708, two thirds of the population were of the negro race. It was not until the blacks had become a numerous class that we find the laws regarding them savoring of harshness. They were especially severe after 1687, when a negro insurrection in Virginia inspired the whites with fear. The statutes for the repression of the slaves now became fairly ferocious. In the eye of the law they were simply chattels, being hardly granted the rights of human beings. A master might kill his slave, for he was but destroying his own property. Runaways could be slain at sight by any one, the owner being reimbursed from the public treasury. The laws against racial amalgamation were savage, but the actual treatment of the slave by his owner was not so barbarous as the laws suggest,--especially in the two northern colonies of the Southern group. He was there comfortably housed, clothed, and fed, and indulged in many amusements. The raising of tobacco required constant care at certain seasons of the year, but there was much leisure, and the occupation was healthful. Work in the rice-swamps and indigo-fields, in the fierce summer heat of South Carolina, was extremely exhausting, and the negroes rapidly wore out; for this reason there was a tendency on the part of the planters of that province to work them to their full capacity while still in their prime. Nowhere else in the South was slave life so burdensome, and nowhere was the slave trade so active. Sidenote: Indented white servants.