[2] Several years before 1619, Negroes in England were sentenced to work in the colonies. "Two Moorish thieves [negroes] in London were sentenced to work in the American colonies. And they said no, they would rather die at once." Brown adds: "I do not know whether they were sent to Virginia or not." (_The First Republic in America_, p. 219. See also postnote 14.) Again, "I do not know that these negroes were the first brought to the colony of Virginia. I do not remember to have seen any contemporary account which says so. The accounts which we have even of the voyages of the company's ships are very incomplete, and we have scarcely an idea of the private trading voyages which would have been most apt to bring such 'purchas' to Virginia." Pory wrote in September, 1619: "'In these five months of my continuance here, there have come at one time or another eleven sail of ships into this river.' If he meant that these eleven ships came in after he did, at least three of them are not accounted for in our annals." Washburn, _Slavery as it once prevailed in Massachusetts_, pp. 198, 327. [3] Nell, _Colored Patriots of the American Revolution_, p. 59. [4] Rivers, _History of South Carolina_, p. 113; Buckingham, _Slave States of America_, I, p. 19. [5] _The Journal of Negro History_, III, p. 33; Work, _Negro Year Book_, p. 152. "The second settler in Alabama was a Negro." [6] Ballagh gives an interesting and the most reliable account of this ship and these Negroes. (_History of Slavery in Virginia_, p. 8.) A heated controversy took place over what should be done with the Negroes. "And so the people of her were all disposed of for the year to the use of the company till it could be truly known to whom the right lyeth." Brown, _The First Republic in America_, pp. 359, 368, 391, 325-27. [7] Thwaites, _The Colonies_, p. 98. [8] Daniels, _In Freedom's Birthplace_, p. 7. [9] _New International Encyclopedia_, p. 166. [10] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 32. [11] Ballagh, _Hist. of Slavery in Va._, p. 31. [12] Washburn holds that the moral stamina of sturdy people seeking freedom argued against enslavement. _Slavery as it once prevailed in Mass._, p. 194. [13] "If twenty negroes came in 1619, as alleged, their increase was very slow, for according to a census of 16th of February, 1624, there were but twenty-two then in the colony." Neill, _Hist. of the Va. Co._, p. 72. "When the census was taken in January, 1625, there were only twenty persons of the African race in Virginia...." _Virginia Carolorum_, pp. 15, 16, 22, 33, 40, 59, 225; Brown, _The Genesis of Am._, II, p. 987. [14] Ballagh, _History of Slavery in Virginia_, pp. 9-10.