Part 3 (1/2)
IV. We will, as often as may be, Obtain some Wise and Good Man, of the English in the Neighborhood, and especially the Officers of the Church, to look in upon us, and by their Presence and Counsel, do what they think fitting for us.
V. If any of our Number fall into the Sin of _Drunkenness_, or _Swearing_, or _Cursing_, or _Lying_, or _Stealing_, or notorious _Disobedience_ or _Unfaithfulness_ unto their Masters, we will Admonish him of his Miscarriage, and Forbid his coming to the Meeting, for at least _one Fortnight_; And except he then come with great Signs and Hopes of his _Repentance_, we will utterly Exclude him, with Blotting his _Name_ out of our list.
VI. If any of our Society Defile himself with _Fornication_, we will give him our _Admonition_; and so, debar him from the Meeting, at least half a Year: Nor shall he Return to it, ever any more, without Exemplary Testimonies of his becoming a _New Creature_.
VII. We will, as we have Opportunity, set ourselves to do all the Good we can, to the other _Negro-Servants_ in the Town; And if any of them should, at unfit Hours, be _Abroad_, much more, if any of them should _Run away_ from their Masters, we will afford them _no Shelter_: But we will do what in us lies, that they may be discovered, and punished. And if any of _us_ are found Faulty in this matter, they shall be no longer of _us_.
VIII. None of our Society shall be _Absent_ from our Meeting, without giving a Reason of the Absence; and if it be found, that any have pretended unto their _Owners_, that they came unto the Meeting, when they were otherwise and elsewhere Employed, we will faithfully _Inform_ their Owners, and also do what we can to Reclaim such Person from all such Evil Courses for the Future:
IX. It shall be expected from every one in the Society, that he learn the Catechism; And therefore, it shall be one of our usual Exercises, for one of us, to ask the _Questions_, and for all the rest in their Order, to say the _Answers_ in the Catechism; Either, The _New English_ Catechism, or the _a.s.semblies_ Catechism, or the Catechism in the _Negro Christianised_.
[Footnote 1: See _Rules for the Society of Negroes_, 1693, by Cotton Mather, reprinted, New York, 1888, by George H. Moore.]
4. Early Insurrections
The Negroes who came to America directly from Africa in the eighteenth century were strikingly different from those whom generations of servitude later made comparatively docile. They were wild and turbulent in disposition and were likely at any moment to take revenge for the great wrong that had been inflicted upon them. The planters in the South knew this and lived in constant fear of uprisings. When the situation became too threatening, they placed prohibitive duties on importations, and they also sought to keep their slaves in subjection by barbarous and cruel modes of punishment, both crucifixion and burning being legalized in some early codes. On sea as well as on land Negroes frequently rose upon those who held them in bondage, and sometimes they actually won their freedom. More and more, however, in any study of Negro insurrections it becomes difficult to distinguish between a clearly organized revolt and what might be regarded as simply a personal crime, so that those uprisings considered in the following discussion can only be construed as the more representative of the many attempts for freedom made by Negro slaves in the colonial era.
In 1687 there was in Virginia a conspiracy among the Negroes in the Northern Neck that was detected just in time to prevent slaughter, and in Surry County in 1710 there was a similar plot, betrayed by one of the conspirators. In 1711, in South Carolina, several Negroes ran away from their masters and ”kept out, armed, robbing and plundering houses and plantations, and putting the inhabitants of the province in great fear and terror”;[1] and Governor Gibbes more than once wrote to the legislature about amending the Negro Act, as the one already in force did ”not reach up to some of the crimes” that were daily being committed. For one Sebastian, ”a Spanish Negro,” alive or dead, a reward of 50 was offered, and he was at length brought in by the Indians and taken in triumph to Charleston. In 1712 in New York occurred an outbreak that occasioned greater excitement than any uprising that had preceded it in the colonies. Early in the morning of April 7 some slaves of the Carmantee and Pappa tribes who had suffered ill-usage, set on fire the house of Peter van Tilburgh, and, armed with guns and knives, killed and wounded several persons who came to extinguish the flames. They fled, however, when the Governor ordered the cannon to be fired to alarm the town, and they got away to the woods as well as they could, but not before they had killed several more of the citizens. Some shot themselves in the woods and others were captured. Altogether eight or ten white persons were killed, and, aside from those Negroes who had committed suicide, eighteen or more were executed, several others being transported. Of those executed one was hanged alive in chains, some were burned at the stake, and one was left to die a lingering death before the gaze of the town.
[Footnote 1: Holland: _A Refutation of Calumnies_, 63.]
In May, 1720, some Negroes in South Carolina were fairly well organized and killed a man named Benjamin Cattle, one white woman, and a little Negro boy. They were pursued and twenty-three taken and six convicted.
Three of the latter were executed, the other three escaping. In October, 1722, the Negroes near the mouth of the Rappahannock in Virginia undertook to kill the white people while the latter were a.s.sembled in church, but were discovered and put to flight. On this occasion, as on most others, Sunday was the day chosen for the outbreak, the Negroes then being best able to get together. In April, 1723, it was thought that some fires in Boston had been started by Negroes, and the selectmen recommended that if more than two Negroes were found ”lurking together”
on the streets they should be put in the house of correction. In 1728 there was a well organized attempt in Savannah, then a place of three thousand white people and two thousand seven hundred Negroes. The plan to kill all the white people failed because of disagreement as to the exact method; but the body of Negroes had to be, fired on more than once before it dispersed. In 1730 there was in Williamsburg, Va., an insurrection that grew out of a report that Colonel Spotswood had orders from the king to free all baptized persons on his arrival; men from all the surrounding counties had to be called in before it could be put down.
The first open rebellion in South Carolina in which Negroes were ”actually armed and embodied”[1] took place in 1730. The plan was for each Negro to kill his master in the dead of night, then for all to a.s.semble supposedly for a dancing-bout, rush upon the heart of the city, take possession of the arms, and kill any white man they saw. The plot was discovered and the leaders executed. In this same colony three formidable insurrections broke out within the one year 1739--one in St.
Paul's Parish, one in St. John's, and one in Charleston. To some extent these seem to have been fomented by the Spaniards in the South, and in one of them six houses were burned and as many as twenty-five white people killed. The Negroes were pursued and fourteen killed. Within two days ”twenty more were killed, and forty were taken, some of whom were shot, some hanged, and some gibbeted alive.”[2] This ”examplary punishment,” as Governor Gibbes called it, was by no means effective, for in the very next year, 1740, there broke out what might be considered the most formidable insurrection in the South in the whole colonial period. A number of Negroes, having a.s.sembled at Stono, first surprised, and killed two young men in a warehouse, from which they then took guns and ammunition.[3] They then elected as captain one of their own number named Cato, whom they agreed to follow, and they marched towards the southwest, with drums beating and colors flying, like a disciplined company. They entered the home of a man named G.o.dfrey, and having murdered him and his wife and children, they took all the arms he had, set fire to the house, and proceeded towards Jonesboro. On their way they plundered and burned every house to which they came, killing every white person they found and compelling the Negroes to join them.
Governor Bull, who happened to be returning to Charleston from the southward, met them, and observing them armed, spread the alarm, which soon reached the Presbyterian Church at Wilton, where a number of planters was a.s.sembled. The women were left in the church trembling with fear, while the militia formed and marched in quest of the Negroes, who by this time had become formidable from the number that had joined them.
They had marched twelve miles and spread desolation through all the plantations on their way. They had then halted in an open field and too soon had begun to sing and drink and dance by way of triumph. During these rejoicings the militia discovered them and stationed themselves in different places around them to prevent their escape. One party then advanced into the open field and attacked the Negroes. Some were killed and the others were forced to the woods. Many ran back to the plantations, hoping thus to avoid suspicion, but most of them were taken and tried. Such as had been forced to join the uprising against their will were pardoned, but all of the chosen leaders and the first insurgents were put to death. All Carolina, we are told, was struck with terror and consternation by this insurrection, in which more than twenty white persons were killed. It was followed immediately by the famous and severe Negro Act of 1740, which among other provisions imposed a duty of 100 on Africans and 150 on colonial Negroes. This remained technically in force until 1822, and yet as soon as security and confidence were restored, there was a relaxation in the execution of the provisions of the act and the Negroes little by little regained confidence in themselves and again began to plan and act in concert.
[Footnote 1: Holland: _A Refutation of Calumnies_, 68.]
[Footnote 2: Coffin.]
[Footnote 3: The following account follows mainly Holland, quoting Hewitt.]
About the time of Cato's insurrection there were also several uprisings at sea. In 1731, on a s.h.i.+p returning to Rhode Island from Guinea with a cargo of slaves, the Negroes rose and killed three of the crew, all the members of which died soon afterwards with the exception of the captain and his boy. The next year Captain John Major of Portsmouth, N.H., was murdered with all his crew, his schooner and cargo being seized by the slaves. In 1735 the captives on the _Dolphin_ of London, while still on the coast of Africa, overpowered the crew, broke into the powder room, and finally in the course of their effort for freedom blew up both themselves and the crew.
A most remarkable design--as an insurrection perhaps not as formidable as that of Cato, but in some ways the most important single event in the history of the Negro in the colonial period--was the plot in the city of New York in 1741. New York was at the time a thriving town of twelve thousand inhabitants, and the calamity that now befell it was unfortunate in every way. It was not only a Negro insurrection, though the Negro finally suffered most bitterly. It was also a strange compound of the effects of whiskey and gambling, of the designs of abandoned white people, and of prejudice against the Catholics.
Prominent in the remarkable drama were John Hughson, a shoemaker and alehouse keeper; Sarah Hughson, his wife; John Romme, also a shoemaker and alehouse keeper; Margaret Kerry, alias Salinburgh, commonly known as Peggy; John Ury, a priest; and a number of Negroes, chief among whom were Caesar, Prince, Cuffee, and Quack.[1] Prominent among those who helped to work out the plot were Mary Burton, a white servant of Hughson's, sixteen years of age; Arthur Price, a young white man who at the time of the proceedings happened to be in prison on a charge of stealing; a young seaman named Wilson; and two white women, Mrs. Earle and Mrs. Hogg, the latter of whom a.s.sisted in the store kept by her husband, Robert Hogg. Hughson's house on the outskirts of the town was a resort for Negroes, and Hughson himself aided and abetted the Negro men in any crime that they might commit. Romme was of similar quality. Peggy was a prost.i.tute, and it was Caesar who paid for her board with the Hughsons. In the previous summer she had found lodging with these people, a little later she had removed to Romme's, and just before Christmas she had come back to Hughson's, and a few weeks thereafter she became a mother. At both the public houses the Negroes would engage in drinking and gambling; and importance also attaches to an organization of theirs known as the Geneva Society, which had angered some of the white citizens by its imitation of the rites and forms of freemasonry.
[Footnote 1: The sole authority on the plot is ”A Journal of the Proceedings in the Detection of the Conspiracy formed by Some White People, in Conjunction with Negro and other Slaves, for Burning the City of New York in America, and Murdering the Inhabitants (by Judge Daniel Horsemanden). New York, 1744.”]
Events really began on the night of Sat.u.r.day, February 28, 1741, with a robbery in the house of Hogg, the merchant, from which were taken various pieces of linen and other goods, several silver coins, chiefly Spanish, and medals, to the value of about 60. On the day before, in the course of a simple purchase by Wilson, Mrs. Hogg had revealed to the young seaman her treasure. He soon spoke of the same to Caesar, Prince, and Cuffee, with whom he was acquainted; he gave them the plan of the house, and they in turn spoke of the matter to Hughson. Wilson, however, when later told of the robbery by Mrs. Hogg, at once turned suspicion upon the Negroes, especially Caesar; and Mary Burton testified that she saw some of the speckled linen in question in Peggy's room after Caesar had gone thither.
On Wednesday, March 18, a fire broke out on the roof of His Majesty's House at Fort George. One week later, on March 25, there was a fire at the home of Captain Warren in the southwest end of the city, and the circ.u.mstances pointed to incendiary origin. One week later, on April 1, there was a fire in the storehouse of a man named Van Zant; on the following Sat.u.r.day evening there was another fire, and while the people were returning from this there was still another; and on the next day, Sunday, there was another alarm, and by this time the whole town had been worked up to the highest pitch of excitement. As yet there was nothing to point to any connection between the stealing and the fires.