He endeavored in every case to bring the parties to an agreement to sign articles whereby the master would have the services of the Negro for a stated time, after the expiration of which the Negro received his freedom. When the master refused this, as sometimes there was a refusal, the Chief Justice required the matter to be tried by a jury, which usually found for the Negro.[13]

The practice adopted was like the practice in cases of alleged villenage in England. It was recognized that slavery might exist in Nova Scotia, but it was made as difficult as possible for the master to succeed on the facts. Except the act already mentioned there was no statute recognizing slavery and an attempt in 1787 to incorporate such a recognition in the statute law failed of success by a large majority. The existing act, too, was given what seems a very forced and unnatural interpretation so as to emasculate it of any authority in that regard.

Salter Sampson Blowers, the Attorney General, fully agreed with the Chief Justice's plan. On one occasion he threatened to prosecute a person for sending a Negro out of the province against his will.[14] The Negro managed to get back and the master acknowledged his right, so that no proceedings were necessary. After a number of verdicts for the alleged slaves, masters were generally very willing to enter into articles whereby the slave after serving faithfully for a fixed number of years was given his freedom.

After Blowers became Chief Justice, 1797,[15] he continued Chief Justice Strange's practice with marked results. In one case of which he tells where he had discharged a black woman from the Annapolis gaol on habeas corpus and an action had been brought, the plaintiff proved that he had bought her in New York; but the Chief Justice held that he had not proved the right of the seller so to dispose of her and directed the jury to find for the defendant which they promptly did.

Slavery continued, however. Almost every year we find records of sales, advertisements for runaway slaves, bequests of slaves, &c, till almost the end of the first decade of the 19th century, the latest known bill of sale is dated March 21, 1807 and transfers a "Negro Woman named Nelly of the age of twenty five or thereabout." It was, however, decadent and from about the beginning of the 19th century was quite as much to the advantage of the Negro in many cases as that of the master.

A final effort to legalize slavery in Nova Scotia was made in 1808. Mr. Warwick, member for Digby Township, presented a petition from John Taylor and other slave owners setting up that the doubts entertained by the courts rendered their property useless and that the slaves were deserting and defying their masters. They asked for an act securing them their property or indemnifying them for their loss. Thomas Ritchie member for Annapolis introduced a bill to regulate Negro servants within the province. The bill passed its second reading January 11, 1808, but failed to become law; and the attempt was never renewed.

New Brunswick was separated from Nova Scotia in 1784. The Chief Justice of that province was not as averse from slavery as his brother of Nova Scotia. One of the most interesting and celebrated cases came before the Supreme Court of New Brunswick in Hilary Term, February 1800. Captain Stair Agnew who had been an officer in the Queen's Rangers settled opposite Fredericton. He was a man much thought of as is shown by his being chosen for thirty years to represent York County in the Legislature. He owned a slave Nancy Morton[16] who claimed her freedom and whom apparently he had put in charge of one Caleb Jones. A writ of habeas corpus was obtained directed to Jones and the matter was arranged to be argued before the full court of four judges. For the applicant appeared Ward Chipman[17] and Samuel Denny Street for the master, Jonathan Bliss, Attorney General of the province, Thomas Wetmore, John Murray Bliss, Charles J. Peters and Witham Botsford, all men of ability and eminence. On the Bench were Chief Justice Ludlow and Puisne Justices Allen, Upham and Saunders.

The addresses of the Attorney-General and Mr. Chipman are extant. The former divided his speech into thirty-two heads; the latter took eighty pages of foolscap for his. The arguments were extremely able and exhaustive,[18] everything in history, morals and decided cases being brought to bear. The case took two full days to argue and after careful consideration the court divided equally, the Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Upham affirming the right of the master and Mr. Justice Allan and Mr. Justice Saunders held for the alleged slave.

The return of Jones to the writ was that Nancy "was at the time of her birth and ever since hath been a female Negro slave or servant for life born of an African Negro slave and before the removal of the said Caleb Jones from Mary Land to New Brunswick was and became by purchase the lawful and proper Negro slave or servant for life of him the said Caleb Jones ..., that the said Caleb Jones in the year of our Lord 1785 brought and imported the said ... Nancy his Negro slave or servant for life into the Province of New Brunswick ... and has always hitherto held the said ... Nancy as his proper Negro slave or servant for life ... or by laws he has good right and authority to do...."[19]

The Chief Justice based his opinion on what he called the "Common Law of the Colonies"—and although that expression was ridiculed at the time and has been since, there is no difficulty in understanding it. He meant custom recognized as law not contained in an express legislative enactment. In that sense a modern lawyer will agree that he was right. Practically all the English colonies had slavery thoroughly recognized and often without or before legislation; and all the well known legal maxims asserted the cogency of such custom.[20] Mr. Justice Allen considered that no human power could justify slavery—and his brother Saunders agreed with him. It would seem that these judges were concerned with what the law should be, the others with what it actually was.[21]

In the result the return was held sufficient and the master had his slave. But the decision of the divided court had its effect. Agnew reconveyed Nancy to William Bailey from whom he had bought her and she bound herself to serve for fifteen years, then to receive her freedom.[22] The result of this case was that while slavery was not formally abolished, it before many years practically ceased to exist.[23]

Prince Edward Island was called Isle St. Jean until 1798. In this island slavery had the same history as in the other maritime provinces. Shortly after the peace Negro slaves were brought into the Island by their United Empire Loyalist masters. As late as 1802 we find recorded the sale of "a Mulatto boy three years old called Simon" for L20, Halifax currency, then L18 sterling, and a gift of "one Mulatto girl about five years of age named Catherine." We also find Governor Fanning (1786-1804), freeing his two slaves and giving one of them, Shepherd, a farm.

In Cape Breton which was separate from 1784 to 1820, Negro slaves were found as early as the former date: "Cesar Augustus, a slave and Darius Snider, black folks, married 4th September 1788," "Diana Bestian a Negro girl belonging to Abraham Cuyler Esq" was buried September 15, 1792 and a Negro slave was killed in 1791 by a blow from a spade when trying to force his way into a public ball in Sydney.[24] In this province, too, slavery met the same fate.

There is now to be mentioned an interesting series of circumstances.[25] During the War of 1812-15 the British navy occupied many bays and rivers in United States territory and in some cases troops were landed where there was a slave population. These forces came into possession of many slaves, mostly voluntary fugitives, some seduced and some taken by violence from their masters. Admiral Cochrane in April 1814 issued a proclamation inviting all those who might be disposed to emigrate from the United States for the purpose of becoming free settlers in some of "His Majesty's Colonies" to come with their families on board of the British men of war and offering them the choice of joining the British forces or being sent as free settlers to a British possession. He did not say "slaves" but no one could mistake the meaning.[26] Negroes came in droves. Some were taken to the Bahamas and the Bermudas where their descendants are to be found until this day; many were taken to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.[27]

When the Treaty of Peace was concluded at Ghent, December 24, 1814 the United States did not forget the slaves who had got away from the home of liberty. Article 1 provided for the delivery up of all places taken by either party without carrying away any property captured "or any slaves or other private property." The United States demanded the restoration of "all slaves and other private property which may now be in possession of the forces of His Britannic Majesty." The British officers refused to surrender the slaves contending that the real meaning of the treaty did not cover the case. At length in 1818 a convention was entered into that it should be left to the Emperor of Russia[28] to decide whether the United States by the true intent of Article 1 was entitled to the restitution or full compensation for the slaves.

In 1822 the Emperor decided in favor of the United States. Thereupon the next year (1824) a mixed commission of two commissioners and two arbitrators determined the average value to be allowed as compensation;[29] for slaves taken from Louisiana $580: from Alabama Georgia and South Carolina, $390; from Virginia, Maryland and all other States $280.

The commissioners adjourned for the purpose of enabling evidence to be obtained as to the numbers. Clay submitted to the British Government that 3601 slaves had been taken away but was willing for a settlement to accept the price of 1650. Britain declined, but the commissioners failed to agree and finally by diplomacy in 1827 Britain agreed to pay L250,000 or $1,204,960 in full for slaves and other property. Thus Britain assured the freedom of more than 3,000 slaves and paid for them, a fitting prelude to the great Act of 1833 whereby she freed 800,000 slaves and paid L20,000,000 for the privilege.[30]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] So far at all events as appears from any records that I have seen it is just possible however that "La Liberte, le neigre" mentioned in de Meulles' Census of Acadia in 1696 was a black slave, notwithstanding his name.

[2] From 1720 on, Annapolis Royal had a fairly firm government and settlement but it was not until Halifax was founded that it became certain that the country would remain English.

[3] This and most of the facts, dates, etc., in this chapter are taken from the Rev. Dr. T. Watson Smith's fascinating article The Slave in Canada in the Nova Scotia Historical Society's Collections, Vol. X, Halifax, 1899.

[4] (1762) 2 George III, c. 1 (N. S.), Statutes at Large, Nova Scotia, Halifax, 1805, p. 77.

[5] It is referred to in a letter from Ward Chipman to Chief Justice Blowers to be mentioned later. See post, p.

[6] This Act was continued in 1784 by (1784) 24 George III, c. 14 (N. S.). Statutes at Large, Nova Scotia, p. 238.

[7] "Halifax currency" was at this time nine-tenths of Sterling L10 currency = L9 sterling and the 5/ dollar being 4/6 sterling.

[8] It will be remembered that in the Treaty of Peace it was agreed by Article VII "His Britanic Majesty shall with all convenient speed and without causing any destruction or carrying away any negroes or other property of the American inhabitants withdraw his armies, garrisons and fleets from the said United States...."

Sir Guy Carleton claimed that the Negroes who had taken refuge in the British lines at once lost their status of slavery and became free. They were "not Negroes or other property of the American," a rather technical not to say finely drawn distinction but in favorem libertatis; and in any event Britain would not betray the helpless who had put their faith in her.

[9] Washington did make a claim; but the United States had not carried out its part of the contract and Britain would not and never did pay. Jones' Loyalist History of New York, Vol. 2. p. 256, says that the number of Negroes who found shelter in the British lines was 2000 at least; probably this is an underestimate. Hay's Historical Reading at p. 249 gives the number of Negroes who came into Nova Scotia with their Masters at least 3000—and of free Negroes 1522 at Shelburne, 182 at St. John River. 270 at Guysborough, 211 in Annapolis County, and a smaller number at other places. 1200 were sent to Sierre Leone in 1792.

[10] See ante, p. —. The Negro population in 1784 estimated at about 3000 was included in the 28,347 of Disbanded Troops and Loyalists called New Inhabitants, Can. Arch., Report for 1885, p. 10. There were some free Negroes in various companies of the British forces in one capacity or another.

[11] The Negroes sent were Abraham, James, Lymas, Cyrus, John, Isaac, Quako, January, Priscella, Rachel, Venus, Daphne, Ann, Dorothy and four children Celia, William, Venus, Eleanora—reserving Matthew and Susannah at home. All these had been christened, February 11, 1784. "Isaac is a thorough good carpenter and master sawyer, perfectly capable of overseeing and conducting the rest and strictly honest; Lymas is a rough carpenter and sawyer; Quako is a field negro has met with an accident in his arm which will require some indulgence. The other men are sawyers and John also a good axeman. Abraham has been used to cattle and to attend in the house, &c. All the men are expert in boats. The women are stout and able and promise well to increase their numbers. Venus is useful in the hospital, poultry yard, gardens, etc. Upon the whole they are a most useful lot of Negroes."

John Wentworth, last Royalist Governor of New Hampshire and afterwards Sir John Wentworth, Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, doubtless believed himself to be a good man and a good Christian.

The story of Eve and Suke infra is told by Archdeacon Raymond, 3 N. B. Mag., 1899, p. 221.

[12] He went to England in 1796 (it was said, for a visit) resigned his position in Nova Scotia, was Knighted and appointed Recorder of Fort St. George, Bombay, India.

[13] A collateral ancestor of my own, the Reverend Archibald Riddell, had the advantage of a similar proceeding a century before. Being apprehended for taking part in the uprising of the Covenanters in Scotland he was given (or sold) with others to a Scottish Laird who chartered a vessel and proceeded to take his human chattels to America for sale. The plague broke out on the ship, the Laird and his wife died of it as did some of the crew. When the ship reached New Jersey, there being no master, the "slaves" escaped up country. The Laird's son-in-law and personal representative came to America and claimed Riddell and others. The governor called a jury to determine whether they were slaves and the jury promptly found in their favor. Riddell preached in New Jersey until the Revolution of 1688 made it safe for him to return to Scotland. Juries in such cases are liable to what Blackstone calls "pious perjury." All this practice was based upon the common law proceedings when a claim was made of villenage. When a person claimed to be the lord of a villein who had run away and remained outside the manor unto which he was regardant, he sued out a writ of neif, that is, de nativo habendo. The sheriff took the writ and if the nativus admitted that he was villein to the lord who claimed him, he was delivered by the sheriff to the lord of the manor; but if he claimed to be free, the sheriff should not seize him but the Lord was compelled to take out a Pone to have the matter tried before the Court of Common Pleas or the Justices in Eyre, that is, the assizes. Or the alleged villein might himself sue out a writ of libertate probanda: and until trial of the case the lord could not seize the alleged villein. The curious will find the whole subject dealt with in Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium, pp. 77 sqq.

[14] This is very much like the Chloe Cooley case in Upper Canada. I do not know what form the prosecution could possibly take if the Negro was in fact a slave. See Chapter V, note 5 ante.

[15] It is said that August 1797 was the date of the last public slave sale at Montreal, that of Emmanuel Allen for L36.

The last advertisement for sale by auction of a slave in the Maritime Provinces seems to be that in The Royal Gazette and Nova Scotia Advertiser of September 7, 1790, where William Millet of Halifax offers for sale by auction September 9 "A stout likely negro man and sundry other articles."

In 1802 the census showed that there were 451 Blacks in Halifax; in 1791 there were 422.

Dr. T. Watson Smith says in a paper "Slavery in Canada" republished in "Canadian History," No. 12, December, 1900, at p. 321.

"About 1806, so Judge Marshall has stated, a master and his slave were taken before Chief Justice Blowers on a writ of habeas corpus. When the case and the question of slavery in general had been pretty well argued on each side, the Chief Justice decided that slavery had no legal place in Nova Scotia."

I have not been able to trace such a decision and cannot think that it has been correctly reported. Dr. Smith is wholly justified in his statement "there is good ground for the opinion that this baneful system was never actually abolished in the present Canadian Provinces until the vote of the British Parliament and the signature of King William IV in 1833 rendered it illegal throughout the British Empire."

[16] J. Allen Jack, Q. C., D. C., L., of St. John, New Brunswick, gives a full account of this case from which (and similar sources) most of the facts are taken. In a paper read before the Royal Society of Canada May 26, 1898, Trans. R. S. Can., 1898, pp. 137 sqq., Dr. Jack conjectures that Nancy Morton is the Negro female slave conveyed by bill of sale registered in the office of the Register of Deeds, St. John's, N. B. Slaves were treated as realty as regards fieri facias under the Act of 1732 (see ante, p. —) and at least "savoured of the realty." The bill of sale registered January 31, 1791, was dated November 13, 1778, and was executed by John Johnson of the Township of Brooklyn in King's County, Long Island, Province of New York. It conveyed with a covenant to warrant and defend title to Samuel Duffy, Innkeeper for L40 currency (say $100) "a certain negro female about fourteen years of age and goes by the name of Nancy," pp. 141, 142. However that may be, Stair Agnew bought Nancy from William Bailey of the County of York in the Province of New Brunswick for L40 with full warranty of title as a slave.

[17] He was born in Boston in 1753, the son of John Chipman, a member of the Bar. Graduating at Harvard, he joined the Boston Bar and practised in that City until 1776. After the Peace he went to England and in 1784 sailed for New Brunswick of which he was appointed Solicitor General. After a quarter of a century of successful practice he was appointed 1808 a puisne judge of the Supreme Court. He died in February, 1826.

His services to Nancy Morton were given without fee or hope of reward.

[18] That of Mr. Chipman is given in Trans. R. Soc. Can., 1898, pp. 155-184.

[19] It will be seen that the return sets up that Jones bought and owned the slave and the case was argued on that hypothesis, but the historians say that Captain Stair Agnew was the owner. The point is not of importance.

[20] Mos regit legem, Mos pro lege, Leges moribus servient, Consuetudo est optimus interpres legum, custom is the life of the law, custom becomes law, &c., &c. That slavery was necessary and therefore legal in the American Colonies was admitted in the Somerset case.

[21] The modern lawyer, in my opinion, would find no difficulty in coming to the same conclusion as the Chief Justice.

Mr. Chipman in his interesting correspondence with Chief Justice Blowers (Trans. R. Soc. Can., 1898, pp. 148 sqq.) admits that if his opponents had hit upon the Nova Scotia Statute of 1762 as revised in 1783 "the conclusiveness of their reasoning on their principles would have been considered as demonstrated." He adds: "In searching your laws upon this occasion I found this clause but carefully avoided mentioning it," which raises a curious question in legal ethics.

[22] The reconveyance to Bailey, a quit claim deed, is witnessed by George Leonard and Thomas Wetmore and is dated February 22, 1800. The indenture by which Nancy bound herself for fifteen years is dated February 23, 1800.

If Dr. Jack is right in his conjecture the argument took place when she was 36 and she would receive her freedom when she was 51. Agnew challenged Judge Allen for some reflection upon him by the Judge; the challenge was declined and Agnew then challenged Street who accepted—and they fought a bloodless duel. Street later in 1821 fought a duel with George Ludlow Wetmore over words which passed on leaving the Court. Wetmore was struck in the head and died in a few hours. Street was tried and aquitted. One result of this case was that Mr. Justice Upham freed his slaves. His wife had six inherited from her father and he himself had some, one a girl born in the East Indies whom he had bought from her master in New York, the master of a ship, afterwards married a soldier in Colonel Allen's regiment.

[23] What is believed to be the last advertisement for the sale of a slave in any maritime province is in the New Brunswick Royal Gazette of October 16, 1809 when Daniel Brown offered for sale Nancy a Negro woman, guaranteeing a good title. The latest offer of a reward for the apprehension of a runaway slave is said to be in the same paper for July 10, 1816.

[24] For this act the perpetrator was excluded by his masonic lodge; being brought to trial before the Supreme Court in August 1792 he was "honourably acquitted" and afterwards he was reinstated by his lodge.

[25] Seldom mentioned and never much boasted of in the United States.

[26] The word Camouflage may be new. The practice antedated humanity.

[27] There is a record of 371 arriving at St. John from Halifax on May 25, 1815, by the Romulus, who had taken refuge on board the British Men of War in the Chesapeake. The Negro settlement at Loch Lomond was founded by them.

At the Census of 1824, 1421 "persons of color" were found in New Brunswick. The Very Rev. Archdeacon Raymond, an excellent authority, thinks most of these "were at one time slaves or the children of slaves," but many were not slaves in New Brunswick.

Those that were brought by Admiral Cochrane to Halifax became a great burden to the community. It was proposed in 1815 by the British Government to remove them to a warmer climate, but this scheme does not seem to have been carried out. By a census taken in 1816 there was found to be 684 in Halifax and elsewhere in Nova Scotia. In the winter of 1814-15 they had suffered rather severely from small pox and were vaccinated to prevent its spread. Some were placed on Melville Island.

[28] Presumably because he had the greatest number of serfs in the world and was, therefore, the best judge of slaves.

[29] Of course, Britain refused to give up a single fugitive. She could not betray a trust even of the humblest. She knew that in "the land of the free and the home of the brave" for the Negro returned to his master, to be brave was to incur torture and death and death alone could make him free.

[30] The Act (1833) 3, 4 William III, c. 73 (Imp.), passed the House of Commons August 7 and received the Royal Assent August 28, 1833; and there were no slaves in all the British world after August, 1838.



CHAPTER VIII

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

The curse of Negro slavery affected the whole English speaking world; and that part of the world where it was commercially profitable resisted its abolition. The British part of this world does not need to assert any higher sense of justice and right than had those who lived in the Northern States; and it may well be that had Negro slave service been as profitable in Canada as in the Cotton States, the heinousness of the sin might not have been more manifest here than there. Nevertheless we must not too much minimize the real merit of those who sought the destruction of slavery. Slaves did not pay so well in Canada as in Georgia, but they paid.

It is interesting to note the various ways in which slavery was met and finally destroyed. In Upper Canada, the existing slaves, 1793, remained slaves but all those born thereafter were free, subject to certain conditions of service. There was a statutory recognition of the existing status and provision for its destruction in the afterborn. This continued slavery though it much mitigated its severity and secured its downfall in time. But there were slaves in Upper Canada when the Imperial Act of 1833 came in force. The Act of 1793 was admittedly but a compromise measure; and beneficial as it was it was a paltering with sin.

In Lower Canada, there was no legislation, and slavery was never formally abolished until the Imperial Act of 1833; but the courts decided in effect if not in form that a master had no rights over his slave, and that is tantamount to saying that where there is no master there is no slave. The reasoning in these cases as in the Somerset case may not recommend itself to the lawyer but the effect is undoubtedly, "Slaves cannot live in Lower Canada."

In Nova Scotia, there was no decision that slavery did not exist. Indeed the course of procedure presupposed that it did exist, but the courts were astute to find means of making it all but impossible for the alleged master to succeed; and slavery disappeared accordingly.

In New Brunswick the decision by a divided court was in favor of the master; but juries were of the same calibre and sentiments in New Brunswick as in Nova Scotia and the same results were to be anticipated, if Nova Scotian means were used; and the slave owners gave way.

In the old land, judicial decision destroyed slavery on the British domain; but conscience and sense of justice and right impelled its destruction elsewhere by statute; and the same sense of justice and right impelled the Parliament of Great Britain to recompense the owners for their property thus destroyed. If there be any more altruistic act of any people in any age of the world's history I have failed to hear or read of it.

In the United States, slavery was abolished as a war measure. Lincoln hating slavery as he did would never have abolished it, had he not considered it a useful war measure. No compensation was paid, of course.[1] Everywhere slavery was doomed and in one way or another it has met a deserved fate.

WILLIAM RENWICK RIDDELL

JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OF ONTARIO, OSGOOD HALL, TORONTO, February 5, 1920

FOOTNOTES:

[1] I had with the late Hon. Warwick Hough of St. Louis, Missouri, who had been an officer in the Southern Army, several conversations on the subject of slavery. He gave it as his firm conviction that, had the South succeeded in the Civil War, it would shortly have itself abolished slavery and sought readmission to the Union. His proposition was that the power and influence of the planter class was waning, while the manufacturers, merchants and the like were increasing in number and influence and they would have for their own protection abolished slavery. I have not met a Northerner or a Canadian who agreed with this view; but a few Southerners have expressed to me their general concurrence with my friend's proposition.



BOOK REVIEWS

Africa and the Discovery of America. Volume I. By LEO WIENER, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. Innes & Sons, Philadelphia, Pa., 1920. Pp. i-xix, 1-290.

The present volume is the first of a series in which Professor Wiener will show that Arabicised Negroes, chiefly Mandingoes, brought to America as slaves, profoundly influenced the culture of the Indians, and were an important, if not always direct factor in establishing the modus vivendi between the Indians and the Europeans, which made practicable the colonization of the New World.

The book is packed with valuable data, newly discovered, and brought together for the first time. It should be read slowly, and read through at least twice before judgment is passed on it. With the first reading comes a shock. One learns that the Journal of the First Voyage, and the First Letter of Columbus are literary frauds, though containing material which came from Columbus's own pen, and that tobacco, manioc, yams, sweet potatoes and peanuts are not gifts of the Indian to the European. Yet with a more intimate study of the subject matter, the conviction increases that the author has built upon the bed-rock of fact, and that his position is unassailable.

It is impossible, within the limits of a review, to do more than to emphasise the most important of his discoveries. In his studies of the First Letter, and of the Journals giving account of the first and the second voyages of Columbus, Professor Wiener seeks to determine how much testimony they give pertaining to Indian names and things, after the elimination of all that is not Indian. The non-Indian elements are of two sorts; the names of the Islands, and the words for "gold," etc. Columbus, dominated by the fixed idea, that, sailing westward, he would find a short cut to India, China and Japan, began with the first sight of land, to be engrossed with the task of identifying each newly discovered country with some island or district of the Far East, named on his maps. He was an ignorant man, though he knew Ptolemy and Marco Polo by heart, credulous, uncritical, not consciously dishonest, but unready to correct false impressions caused by his ignorance and gullibility. His notes, as may be seen from a reproduction of a page of his manuscripts (facing p. 38), were in an execrable hand. The forger of the Journal of the First Voyage was no puzzle expert, and made mistakes in deciphering scrawls. Thus, for example, the note Giaua min., i.e., Java minor, was read Guanahin, the same destined to masquerade as Guanahani, the Indian name of the first island sighted on October 12, 1492.

Perhaps the best specimen of such ghost-words in the Journal is the name Carib. This is nothing but Marco Polo's Cambalu, the capital of the Grand Khan, successively misread as Canibal, Caniba, Cariba. So also, "canoe" is a ghost-word, traced to a misreading of scaphas as canoas in the manuscript, or the Gothic text of the Latin version of the First Letter. It is interesting to learn that maize, in the forms masa, maza, ultimately from Portuguese mararoca, is the African name for Guinea corn. The transference of the name from Guinea corn to Indian corn, "rests on a misunderstanding of a passage in Peter Martyr's First Decade" (p. 123).

The question arises whether or not there had been a colony of Europeans, with African slaves in America, before the arrival of Columbus.

Fray Ramon Pane, Oviedo, and Las Casas give conico as the Indian word for "farm, plantation." This is clearly the Mandingo kunke "farm." The Indian word for "golo," according to the Journal entry for January 13, 1493, is caona. It is found also in the name of Cacique Caonabo, called in the Journal of the Second Voyage "master of mines,"—the name being explained in the Libretto as "lord of the house of gold." Now the words for "gold" in the Negro languages are mostly derived from Arabic dinār, which, through Hausa zinaria, and Pul kanyera, reaches Vei as kani. Evidently canoa, written also guani, is nothing but this Vei word. In "Cacique Caonabo," we have three Mande words in juxtaposition. Cacique is not far removed from kuntigi, Soso kundzi, "chief,"—caona, that is kani, is "gold," and boi, from Arabic beii, bai, is "house." The chance that three such words should be identical in the dissimilar languages of Africa and America, is nil. The words are African, though represented as belonging to the spoken language of the New World. Moreover, Ramon Pane, in the account he wrote for Columbus of the Indian religion, gives as Indian words, the Mande toto, "frog," and the Malinke kobo, "bug." What is more important, he imputes to the Indians, a knowledge of the terrible West African itch, or craworaw, which he calls by the supposed Indian name caracaracol. The critic faces a dilemma. Either Ramon Pane lied, or he told the truth. Either he fabricated stories of Indians, which he drew from books or manuscript relations by Spanish and Portuguese traders, who were writing about Negroes in Africa, or there had been in Hispaniola, a pre-Columbian colony of European adventurers, with their African slaves, who taught the Indians the Negro words for "farm, gold, frog, bug, itch," etc., and also African folk-lore. No other hypothesis is possible.

{Transcriber's Note: The following paragraphs contain a number of characters with diacritical marks which are represented as follows: ā a-macron ō o-macron ē e-macron [>e] e-caron [>z] z-caron}

The documentary and philological history of tobacco smoking and the cultivation of edible roots, shows additional convincing evidence of the influence of Africa on the culture of America in the colonial period. Columbus never saw the Indians smoking tobacco. According to the Journal of the First Voyage, on October 15, 1492, an Indian brought him a ball of earth and certain precious dried leaves. On November 16, two Spaniards reported that the Indians, carrying firebrands and leaves, used them to "take incense." In the Journal of the Second Voyage, Columbus (this part of the Journal is definitely ascribed to him by his son) writes of Indians spreading powder on a table, and sniffing it through a forked reed, thereby becoming intoxicated. Now the first account is suspiciously like a book-story of Oriental hashish-taking.—the second has no implication of smoking at all, while the third describes nothing but the process of taking a sternutatory. Indeed this last account is clearly based on a book account, in which there was a play on the Arabic words tubbāq "styptic" and tabaq "table." Ramon Pane, when he tells of Indians sniffing the powder, calls it caboba, a mere Italianisation of the Arabic qasabah "reed," transferring the name of the inhaler to the drug. Smoking tobacco through a forked reed of the sort described, has been proved by trial, to be impossible. As late as 1535, Oviedo is unable to tell a straightforward story of Indians smoking tobacco, but he adds the significant fact that the Negroes in the West Indies smoked and cultivated tobacco. Negroes, by the way were first allowed to come to America in 1501,—two years later, Ovando, the governor of Hispaniola complained that they joined with the Indians to make trouble. By 1545, "smoking had become fairly universal in America" (p. 127). It cannot be argued that half a century is too short a time for a new vice to become so widespread. Consider the case of banana culture. Oviedo says that the first bananas were introduced into America in 1516. Within twenty years, the fruit was universally cultivated, while the Spanish name platano has survived in a large number of derivatives in the Indian languages.

As far as the linguistic history of the tobacco-words in the Indian languages is concerned, it leads back to an eastern origin. In Arabic, tubbāq means "styptic." Tobacco leaves were used as a styptic by the Indians of Brazil in the sixteenth century. The Low Latin equivalent of the Arabic tubbāq "styptic," is bitumen, whence Portuguese betume, and French betun, petun. "The French traders," says Professor Wiener, "at the end of the sixteenth century, carried the word and the Brazilian brand of tobacco to Canada, and petun became imbedded in several Indian languages. The older Huron word for "tobacco" is derived from the Carib yuli, which itself is from a Mandingo word. Thus, while the Carib and Arawak influence is apparent in the direction from Florida, to the Huron country, the Brazilian influence proceeds up the St. Lawrence. The whole Atlantic triangle between these two converging lines was left uninfluenced by these two streams, and here, neither Carib nor Brazilian words for "tobacco," nor the moundbuilders' craft have been found. Here the "tobacco" words proceeded northward from Virginia, where the oldest form of the words is an abbreviated Span. tabaco, or Fr. tabao (p. 191). The Carib yuli "smoke," is found in Carib and Arawak, side by side with derivatives of Mande tama, tawa, which are also in the Algonkian languages. The fact that the Hurons, apparently the first Indians to plant tobacco, have no native word for the plant is significant. It shows that the Hurons learned to smoke from the Arawaks or Caribs, then already under Negro influence, and at a time prior to the introduction of the tobacco-plant into Canada by the French. When we consider, then, that tobacco is native to Africa, that tubbāq and petun are the ancestors of the Indian names for the weed, that by 1503, Negroes in large numbers were living in America, deserting their masters to join the Indians, that the Negroes in America smoked and raised tobacco, the conclusion is inescapable that tobacco smoking was discovered and taught by them to the Indians and the Europeans.

"The tobacco-pipe in America," says Professor Wiener, "began its career as a Mandingo amulet" (p. 184). This statement will distress the American archaeologists, but the arguments in support of it cannot be overcome. A counter-claim of pre-Columbian antiquity for pipes found in the mounds cannot be made, since it is so clearly shown that the mounds are not prehistoric, but were fortifications erected along the lines of communication from Florida to the Huron country, to protect the overland trade established in the beginning of the sixteenth century.

In the Journal of the First Voyage, we find mention of ajes and niames, as name of edible roots, but the account hopelessly confuses reports of yams, sweet potatoes and manioc. Neither yams nor sweet potatoes are native to America, and both bear in America, only African names. Oviedo indeed, says distinctly, that the name is "a foreign fruit, and not native to these Indies,"—also, that "it came with that evil lot of Negroes, ... of whom there is a greater number than is necessary, on account of their rebellions" (pp. 203-4). Now in Africa the yam (Dioscorea), cultivated before the coming of the Europeans, is known by names derived from Arabic arum and gambah, e.g., Ewe ad[>e], ad[>z]e, Mandingo nyambe, Malinke nyeme ku,—whence the supposed Indian names, aje, age, niame, igname, used indiscriminately of any edible roots. The African names of the manioc have come from Arabic 'uruq "roots," notably in the Congo languages, yōka, yēke, edioko, plural madioka, whence, as the plant was introduced into America, it was known there as vuca, mandioca. As to sweet potatoes and peanuts, the former were cultivated in Asia before the discovery of America, while the latter, mentioned by Ibn Batutah as an article of food in Africa, took to the New World, their African names mandube, goober and pinder (compare Mozambique manduwe, Basunde nguba, Nyombo pinda). Professor Wiener's conclusion is that manioc culture was taught to the Brazilian Indians before 1492 by Portuguese castaways, who knew of the economic importance of the plant in Africa, while the peanut, spreading north and south from the Antilles, may also have reached America a few years before Columbus.

The numerous full-page illustrations are extremely helpful in aiding the reader to a clear understanding of difficult points in the discussion.

The book is epoch-making. To all seekers of the truth, the coming of the second volume, in which Professor Wiener will deal exhaustively with the Negro element in Indian culture, will be an eagerly anticipated event.

PHILLIPS BARRY, A.M., S.T.B. CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS

* * * * *

A Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages. By SIR HARRY H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., D.Sc. (Cambs). Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1919, pp. 815, 2 sketch maps.

The author of this monumental work, in the opinion of the reviewer, is in himself a composite of many of the capacities, which, combined or singly in her subjects have made the greatness of Britain. He has been a great colonial administrator, a distinguished African explorer; he is a talented artist, and has recently astonished the literary world by producing what H. G. Wells declares to be one of the best first novels he has ever read. The contributions of Sir Harry Johnston to the sciences of botany, zoology, and anthropology are truly prodigious. It is in the last named field that his major interests have lain, and a succession of important works have established him as the foremost authority upon the ethnology of Africa and upon the anthropology of the Negro race.

This ponderous volume on the Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages is the first part of a work which represents the fruit of many years of study of multitudinous African languages and dialects. The major portion of the book consists of illustrative vocabularies of 366 Bantu and 87 Semi-Bantu languages and dialects with an extensive bibliography. A competent criticism of this portion of the work can be made by no one but a philologist with a special knowledge of African languages. The present reviewer does not possess these qualifications. Nevertheless it is obvious to any student of Africa that the publication of this work places a mine of useful information at the disposal of the linguist, the grammarian, and the missionary, and will also be invaluable to the student of African ethnology and to the physical anthropologist.

The first chapter sketches the history of research into the Bantu laguages. The contributions of various philosophists are appraised.

The second chapter on the distribution and character of the Bantu languages is of greatest interest to the layman and to the general anthropologist. We are informed that the Bantu languages "constitute a very distinct type of speech which, as contrasted with others amongst the group of Negro tongues, is remarkable as a rule for Italian melodiousness, simplicity and frequency of its vowel sounds, and the comparative ease with which its exemplars can be acquired and spoken by Europeans" (p. 15). "This one Negro language family now covers the whole of the southern third of Africa, with the exception of very small areas in the southwest (still inhabited sparsely by Hottentot and Bushman tribes) and a few patches of the inner Congo basin" (p. 15). Throughout Africa, north of the Bantu border line, the traveller meets with numerous languages widely different and mutually incomprehensible whereas with a knowledge of one Bantu language it is not difficult to understand the structure and even the vocabulary of others. The importance of this language family in Africa is therefore obvious. The author defines clearly the special and peculiar characteristics of Bantu languages. There follows an interesting discussion of the origin and spread of these languages. Probably the parent speech was spoken originally in the very heart of Africa, somewhere between the basins of the Upper Nile, the Bahr-al-ghazal, the Mubangi, and the Upper Benue. The archaic Bantu seem first to have moved eastward, toward the Mountain Nile and the Great Lakes. Probably they remained in the Nile Valley north of the Albert Nyanza "till at least as late as three or four hundred years before Christ—late enough to have been in full possession of goats and oxen and to have received the domestic fowl from Egypt or Abyssinia. They then embarked upon their great career of conquering and colonizing the southern third of Africa" (p. 22).

The original Bantu invaders found before them in Central and South Africa other peoples—Negroes of different types, pygmies, Bushmen, and Hottentots. "The first great Bantu migrations undoubtedly emanated from the vicinity of the Victoria Nyanza and the north Tanganyika, and were directed round and not through the Congo forests" (p. 24). On the basis of linguistic, ethnological and anthropological evidence Sir Harry is led to deduce that at a critical period in their career the Negro speakers of the early Bantu languages were brought under the influence of a semi-Caucasian race from the north or northeast. This contact gave rise to the many handsome-featured pale-skinned castes and ruling clans in so many of the Bantu peoples.

The following statement is of great anthropological importance: "The Bantu-speaking peoples of Africa, ... do not constitute a race apart from the other negroes or offer any homogeneity of physical type. But on the whole they represent so much the average negro type that 'Bantu' is still in favor as a physical definition among craniologists. In reality, they are just fifty millions of Negroes whose speech belongs to one of the many language families of 'Negro type'; only in this case the language family instead of being confined in its range to a hundred villages or two hundred square miles, is spread over the southern third of Africa—say over 3,500,000 square miles—from the Cameroons, the Northern Congo, the Nyanzas, and the Mombasa coast to Cape Colony and Natal" (p. 25), Bantu languages are spoken by peoples of diverse physical types.

"Yet about the Bantu speech and the culture which accompanies it (ordinarily) there is a suggestion, strengthened by the association of these languages with metal working (iron more especially), with agriculture, cultivated plants, and cattle-keeping, that adds to the impression derived from their legends, their religious beliefs, games, and weapons. It is thought that the Bantu language family was finally moulded by some non-Negro incomers of possibly Hamitic affinities, akin at any rate in physique and culture, if not in language, to the dynastic Egyptians, the Galas, and perhaps most of all to those 'Ethiopians' of mixed Egyptian and Negro-Nubian stock that down to one thousand years ago inhabited the Nile basin south of Wadi Halfa and north of Kordofan." (Pp. 25-26.)

Sir Harry attributes most of the higher cultural elements associated with the Bantu languages to the non-Negro invaders. He believes that the Bantu invasions of southern and central Africa cannot be referred back much earlier than the second century B. C., and that the differentiation of the more than two hundred forms of Bantu speech occurred subsequently and rapidly.

To the student of African ethnography this volume is a great disappointment in one respect. The sketch map showing the distribution of Bantu and Semi-Bantu languages is absurdly inadequate. The writer of this review had confidently expected an authoritative large-scale map showing the distribution of linguistic families, dialects, and tribes. It is to be hoped that such a map will form a part of the completed work.

E. A. HOOTON. HARVARD UNIVERSITY

* * * * *

History of the United States from Hayes to McKinley, 1877-1896. By JAMES FORD RHODES, LL.D., D.Litt. Volume VIII, 1877-1896. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1919. Pp. 484.

This is supposed to be a continuation of Mr. Rhodes History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule at the South in 1877. As one, however, considers the treatment of the former work in comparison with this recent treatise, he must conclude that the author has not maintained the standard set in his earlier volumes which show deeper insight and a more scientific point of view. Persons who have looked forward to the continuation of Mr. Rhodes's comprehensive history from the transition period of Hayes' administration will certainly be disappointed in observing how he has failed in tracing the threads of history, which in our time, have become momentous. After reading the volume one is still at a loss as to what forces in our national life the author considers as being actually in the making during the period which the volume covers.

The work begins with a treatment of Hayes' administration setting forth facts which have appeared elsewhere in the author's studies in this particular period. As in other works, the author defends almost everything Hayes did and arraigns the Reconstruction Republicans who were opposed to him. He then presents in an unscientific way the brief discussion of economic questions bearing on railroad rates, wages, strikes, mobs and riots. Financial depression, the silver question and the valuable service of John Sherman are given considerable attention. Valuable facts are set forth in his discussion of civil service reform, the tariff commission and the Chinese question. Too much of the book, however, is devoted to merely political matter involving a detailed discussion of campaigns and elections at the expense of the economic, constitutional and diplomatic movements decidedly influencing the history of this country.

In this work the author pays very little attention to the Negro except as he leaves the impression that the race was justly deprived of the suffrage and of holding office. He makes reference to the complaint of the Republicans to show that in disfranchising the Negro in the South to make that section solidly Democratic that every white voter in the South thereafter possessed the political power of two white voters in the North. He mentions also the federal election laws and the Force Bill but finally concludes that the experiment of making the Negro a citizen was a failure. Here again Mr. Rhodes shows his lack of knowledge of human affairs in that he studies history only in the present tense. No man at present is wise enough to say whether we shall finally obtain more good than bad results from the Reconstruction, for we are too close to that part of our history to make a proper estimate of these events.

* * * * *

The Negro Year Book. Edited by MONROE N. WORK, Director of Department of Records and Research, Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. The Negro Year Book Publishing Company, Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, 1919. Pp. 523.

There has appeared for 1918-1919 a new edition of the Negro Year Book to which students of Negro Life and History have learned to look for information concerning the Negro. This volume appears with a table of contents and a useful index to the numerous facts compiled. The volume not only covers the field of former editions but includes also much up to date material throwing light on Negro current history. The very first portion of the work is entitled Fifty-three Years of Progress, 1866-1919. This is a statistical study of Negro schools, Negro ownership of property, and Negro enterprise. The reader will be interested in such information as illiteracy, music, painters, actors, occupations, agriculture, business, and the study of crime.

The Negro Year Book is a desirable step in the right direction. Mr. Work and his coworkers deserve unusual praise for this undertaking in a field where for a number of years yet to come the returns must necessarily be meagre. The work meets a long felt want of statistical information as to exactly what the Negro people are doing. These facts will serve not only as an inspiration to the race itself but to refute so much misinformation often circulated to do Negroes injury. It is earnestly hoped that the managers of this work will find it possible in the near future to publish an annual volume and to this end the public should give the movement unstinted support to make such an undertaking financially profitable.



NOTES

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has published a monograph entitled Negro Migration during the War by Mr. Emmett J. Scott, Secretary-Treasurer of Howard University. This is the first effort at a detailed treatment of the movement of the Negroes from the South to the North. It has such interesting chapters as the causes of the migration, stimulation of the movement, the call of the self-sufficient North, the draining of the black belt, efforts to check the movement, the effect of the migration on the South, the situation in the congested districts in the North and West, and remedies for relief. Persons who have an interest in this conspicuous event of our internal history will find it profitable to read this volume.

The Illinois Centennial Commission has published Volume V of the Modern Commonwealth, a history of that State. On page 21 appears this paragraph:

"Half way between the native stock and the foreign born stands the Negro population, practically all of whom have drifted into the state since the Civil War. In 1870 there were only 28,762 Negroes in Illinois, but since that time they have been increasing steadily and, with the exception of the decade 1880-1890, at a more rapid rate than the white population. Especially rapid was the growth in the decade ending with 1870, when it was 277 per cent or almost four times the rate of increase of the white population. As a result of this influx of Negroes the proportion which they constitute of the total population has increased very steadily from 1.1 per cent in 1870 to 1.9 per cent in 1910. But the absolute number is still small, amounting only to 109,049 at the last census."

The American Negro Academy has published Number 20 of its Occasional Papers containing a study of Alexander Crummell, an Apostle of Negro Culture by William H. Ferris. This dissertation sets forth not only the main facts of the life of the subject of the sketch but gives also some interesting history in connection with the founding of the American Negro Academy.

Major John R. Lynch, one of the most conspicuous figures of the Reconstruction period now living, has discovered certain errors in the Reconstruction records published in the January number of the Journal of Negro History, and has written the editor the following letter to make the necessary corrections:

4352 FORESTVILLE AVENUE, CHICAGO, May 17th, 1920.

Editor, Journal of Negro History.

In compliance with your request I write this to point out a few errors which appeared in the January 1920 issue of the Journal covering the Reconstruction period.

Page 67 the name of Benjamin F. Turner appears as a member of the 43d Congress, and Jeremiah Haralson as a member of the 44th Congress. Turner was a member of the 42d but not of the 43d Congress.

Haralson and Rapier were members of the 43d Congress, both having been elected in 1872.

On page 73, Rubert Gleed should be Robert Gleed. A.R. Davis should be A. K. Davis, Dr. Stiles should be Dr. Stites, W.H. Fonte should be W. H. Foote.

On page 74, H. M. Faley should be H. M. Foley. To the list of Colored men elected to that Legislature should be added the name of J. M. Wilson, of Marion County.

On the same page is the statement: "John R. Lynch elected speaker of the House." This is incorrect. Lynch was elected speaker in January 1872, by the Legislature that was elected in November 1871. The man who was elected speaker in January 1870, by the Legislature that was elected in November 1869, was Judge Freeman E. Franklin, a white Republican from Yazoo County. Shortly after the adjournment of the first session of that Legislature speaker Franklin died. When the second session convened in January 1871 Hon. H. W. Warren, a white Republican from Leake County was elected speaker for the unexpired term.

Respectfully yours, (Signed) JOHN R. LYNCH.



THE JOURNAL

OF

NEGRO HISTORY

VOL. V—OCTOBER, 1920—NO. 4



DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN BEARING ON THE RETURN OF NEGRO SLAVES, 1783-1828[1]

Diplomatic relations bearing on the Negro of the Revolutionary period constitute one of the mooted questions of American foreign policy. Yet although this question was then one of the disturbing factors in our relations with Great Britain, it has hitherto passed unnoticed.[2] As a large number of Negroes were taken from the United States by Great Britain during the Revolutionary War there followed so much effort to secure the return of these Negroes that the subject had to be dealt with in the Treaty of Paris which ended the war in 1783. So numerous were the infractions of the stipulation prohibiting the carrying off of the Negroes and so fruitless were the discussions resulting from the non-fulfillment of the articles in the treaty that several diplomatic representatives were sent on missions to Great Britain, the last of which ended with the Jay Treaty of 1794. Obviously, no satisfactory settlement as to the Negro could then be reached. An array of evidence from the sources[3] shows that the question was frequently discussed and that its significance lies in its absence from the stipulations of the Jay Treaty. It is evident, moreover, that the United States was not satisfied with this treaty and that between Great Britain and this country there was widening a breach which culminated in the War of 1812, during which Great Britain committed the same offence that she did during the war for independence.[4]

How can one account then for the unfavorable attitude of Great Britain toward the return of the Negro fugitives? The humanitarian spirit of Great Britain which, by the celebrated decision of Lord Mansfield in the Somerset case in 1772 guaranteed to every man his freedom as soon as he set foot on British soil, extended beyond the limits of the empire. Although this decision of the judge evoked some unfavorable comment, for slavery was the "normal condition of the Negro," his ideas were disseminated by the military authorities defending the Crown in America. During the Revolutionary War many of the British commanders issued proclamations of freedom to the Negro slaves. Lord Dunmore, the dethroned Governor of Virginia, was among the first to issue a proclamation of freedom[5] to all Negroes who would fight for the King. Soon thereafter, Clinton,[6] the Commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, issued a proclamation to the same effect. Still later, Cornwallis issued a proclamation specifying the grant of "freedom and protection" to all Negroes who would seek his command. Whatever motive prompted the issuance of these orders, it is evident that the status of the Negro during this "emergency" as regarded by Great Britain was that of a freeman.

To these proclamations many Negroes responded. For instance, General Greene learned on Long Island that a group of Negroes aggregating two hundred (200) had in July, 1776, sought freedom within the British lines and had been accepted as a regiment in that vicinity.[7] He reported, moreover, to General Washington in 1781 that enough Negroes in North Carolina to form two regiments had sought British freedom and protection and that they were being organized by the British.[8] Whether they came within the British lines as a result of these proclamations or in recognition of the laws of war "it has been computed by good judges" says Ramsay,[9] "that at the evacuation of one part, two hundred and forty-one Negroes and their families were taken off to St. Lucia in one transport, the Scimitar; and that between the years 1775 and 1783, 25,000 Negroes, that is, one-fifth of all the slaves, were taken from the State of South Carolina." In Georgia,[10] there was made a report that the loss was much greater, probably three-fourths or seven-eighths of all the Negroes in the State. Again, from an estimate made at the time, Jefferson observed that about thirty thousand Negroes were taken from Virginia.[11] From the other slave-holding States which were invaded by the British, many other Negroes were carried away from their masters. So effectively was the scheme carried out that fear was expressed throughout the South less the economic position of that section would be threatened. In consequence of such actions on the part of Great Britain, General Washington receded from the position of excluding Negroes from the American Army and took drastic steps in preventing the carrying away of other Negroes by Great Britain.[12]

Considered, therefore, as an American slave in time of peace and an American soldier in time of danger, it is no anomaly that the status of the Negro complicated the negotiations between military representatives of Great Britain and the United States. Extended but fruitless negotiations ensued. A satisfactory settlement of the return of the Negroes seemed impossible. With independence assured through the representatives assembled, the Treaty of Paris was negotiated in 1783. Franklin urged in his communication with Oswald, 1779, that the question as to the return of Negroes taken away by Great Britain be adjusted immediately.[13] This suggestion was strengthened by the support given it by the American representative, Henry Laurens, who had been in confinement in London during the war and whose chance arrival on the closing day gave the subject increased importance. Thus credit for the incorporation of the article on the Negro into the Treaty of Paris is given to Henry Laurens.[14]

By the Seventh Article of the Treaty of Paris,[15] it was stipulated that the British troops should withdraw from the United States without carrying away or destroying any property belonging to the citizens of the United States. In spite of this agreement at the peace conference, this stipulation was not fulfilled by Great Britain. Convincing evidence of an infraction of this stipulation is seen in a letter written by General Washington to Sir Guy Carleton, May 6, 1783, in which the former expressed himself as being surprised to hear that embarkations of Negroes had taken place during the whole of that year.[16] He, moreover, expressed his private opinion to the effect that such an action "is totally different from the letter and spirit of the treaty." A few days thereafter the Virginia delegates in Congress wrote to the Governor of Virginia that they would make this the subject of a "pointed remonstrance from our minister in Europe to the British Court with a demand for reparation and in the meantime urge General Washington to insist on a more faithful observance of that stipulation at New York."[17]

Notwithstanding further orders which were issued by Sir Guy Carleton, May 12, 1783, to prevent the carrying away of any Negroes or other property of the American inhabitants many other infractions of the provision were reported.[18] Even General Washington remarked[19] that "some of his own slaves and those of friends living with him were probably carried away to New York." "If by chance," continued he, "you should come at the knowledge of any of them, I will be much obliged by your securing them so that I can obtain them again." So numerous were the violations of this part of the treaty that Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, in a letter written to Vergennes, the Foreign Minister of France, asked for suggestions from France in regard to the infractions of this article of the Treaty of Paris. In it, he expressed the objection of the Crown, which was to the effect that Negroes had come within the British lines under the promise of freedom and protection and that this promise was fulfilled by Great Britain in preference to the stipulation in the treaty.[20]

The situation became more aggravated. The breach between the two countries was gradually widening. Sensing this acute situation, Washington suggested that Carleton meet him in a conference at Orangetown, New Jersey, May, 1783. At one of their meetings Washington called the attention of Carleton to several resolutions passed by Congress relating to the return of all Negroes and other property of American inhabitants taken away by the British forces. Concerning these, Carleton replied that he wished to be considered as giving no construction of the treaty, but that he "conceived it could not have been the intention of the British Government by the treaty of peace to reduce themselves to the necessity of violating their faith to the Negroes who came within the British lines under the proclamation of the predecessors in command."[21] In point of fact, however, he said "delivering up the Negroes to their former masters would be delivering them up—some to execution and others to punishments which would in his own opinion be a dishonorable violation of the public faith." He concluded, nevertheless, that if the sending off of the Negroes should hereafter be declared an infraction of the treaty, "compensation ought to be made by Great Britain to the owners."[22]

In regard to the last suggestion of Carleton, Washington observed that many difficulties would arise in compensating the proprietors for their Negroes. He also thought it impossible to ascertain the value of the Negroes, for the value of a slave, contended he, "consists chiefly in his industry and sobriety." Another difficulty Washington observed was that of identifying the slave. He was of the opinion that the slave would give the wrong name of his master. Washington considered this conduct on the part of General Carleton, moreover, a departure from both the letter and spirit of the Seventh Article of the Treaty of Paris.

In answer to these contentions Carleton said that as the Negroes were free and secured against their masters they could have no inducement to conceal their true name or that of their masters. In commending compensation Carleton was of the opinion that he was pursuing a course which would operate most for the security of the proprietors. "If the Negroes were left to themselves," he remarked, "numbers of them would very probably go off and not return to the parts of the country from whence they came or clandestinely would get on board the transports in such a manner as would not be in his power to prevent." "In either case," continued Carleton, "an inevitable loss would ensue to the proprietors."[23] But as the business was then conducted they had at least a chance for compensation.

In conformity with these views, Carleton suggested that commissioners be appointed by the two countries "to agree upon the mode of compensating as well as the amount and other points with respect to which there was no provision made in the treaty." This suggestion was approved by Congress, and in compliance with it Egbert Benson, William Smith, and Daniel Parker were appointed[24] with specific instructions from Washington to "assist representatives of Great Britain in inspecting and superintending the embarkation of persons and property in fulfillment of the Seventh Article of the Treaty of Paris."[25]

These commissioners began their work immediately by examining the claim of one Phillip Lott to a Negro named Thomas Francis[26] on board a vessel called the Fair American in New York harbor and about to be carried to the island of Jamaica. Concerning this inquiry a pointed remonstrance was made to Sir Guy Carleton. After the details of the examination were presented to him, the commissioners requested Great Britain to prohibit its representatives from carrying away the Negro and to deliver Francis to Lott. Notifying Washington, June 14, 1783, of their progress, the commissioners reminded him that Sir Guy Carleton intimated an impropriety in the claim, as the property was not suggested to be in danger of being sent away. "This left room," said the commissioners, "for an idea that possibly property about to be sent away would be restored ... and we conceive it is now reduced to a certainty that all applications for the delivery of property will be fruitless and we therefore desist from them."[27]

A few days later the commissioners reported to Washington that in superintending an embarkation of fourteen transports bound for Nova Scotia "about 3000 souls, among whom were at least 130 Negroes who appeared to be property of the citizens of the United States," were carried away. They also indicated that these embarkations were made in spite of their presence and remonstrance and for this reason asked General Washington for "further directions on this subject."[28] Other reports of the commissioners to General Washington, June 17, 1783, show that on many other occasions Negroes not residing within the British lines were taken away. To the remonstrances of the commissioners, Sir Guy Carleton gave a deaf ear. They, in the meantime, wrote General Washington that they had interpreted Carleton's silence as a "determination that all future applications should remain equally unnoticed." That they realized that their efforts were fruitless goes without saying, for they confessed that their work was ineffective and that the British vessels were never subjected to any rigid inspections and it was, therefore, impossible to determine, from the register provided by Sir Guy Carleton, the exact number of Negroes carried away in those vessels.[29]

The work of the commissioners, nevertheless, was noteworthy. They called Washington's attention to the fact that Sir Guy Carleton affected to distinguish between the cases of such Negroes as came within the British lines in consequence of the promise of freedom and protection promulgated by Carleton's predecessors and such as came in either previous to the proclamations or subsequent to the cessation of hostilities. "Negroes of the first description," insisted Carleton, "were not included in the treaty." The commissioners soon realized that even this limited construction given to the article was not intended to be fulfilled by Carleton's subordinate officers. They based their contention upon the fact that printed certificates granting Negroes the privilege of embarking[30] were distributed by the commandant of New York City, "as their convenience might require."[31] These certificates fell into the hands of many persons for whom they were not intended. So loosely were they distributed that one was picked up by the commissioners who transmitted the same to General Washington.

On the other hand, the commissioners insisted that the treaty stipulated specifically that his Brittanic Majesty should withdraw all his armies, garrisons and fleets from the United States and from every port, place and harbor within the same without causing any destruction or carrying away any Negroes or other property of the American inhabitants.[32] With these two interpretations of the Seventh Article invariably insisted upon by Carleton on the one hand and the commissioners on the other an agreement was less likely to be reached and, in spite of the efforts to the contrary, the deportation of Negroes took place steadily until all the British departed.[33]

In the meantime, Congress was discussing the ratification of the Treaty of Paris. The non-observance of the Seventh Article on the part of Great Britain and the destruction worked by Carleton evoked many resolutions opposing the ratification of the treaty for the expressed reason that it did not provide for the loss of Negroes. One of these resolutions was to the effect that it was "inexpedient to concur in passing laws necessary for carrying into effect the treaty."[34] These efforts of Congress, however, like those of the commissioners were of no avail. Complaints of American citizens of the loss of their property were expressed by the representatives in Congress. They, to be sure, had their effect, for soon thereafter, Congress transferred the question of the return of Negroes to the realm of actual diplomacy.[35]

John Adams, 1788, who, by the way, was one of the representatives of the United States who signed the Treaty of Paris, received an appointment as representative of this country to England to settle the alleged violations of the Treaty of Paris. He was instructed in 1785 to press for a fulfillment of the terms of the treaty of peace on the part of Great Britain.[36] He had little time, however, to press his claim before representatives of Great Britain were inquiring why the United States did not perform her part in this reciprocal contract. To these inquiries, Adams replied that "America could not; that it was hardly a government at all." He, moreover, informed Congress that the reason assigned by Laurens for incorporating the Seventh Article was that the people of the United States would be unable to comply with the part of the treaty which respects debts unless the provision which respects Negroes was made. "This construction," he continued, "was never denied and that it seemed to be understood by the ministry that on a settlement with the United States compensation must be made."

Obviously, then, both Great Britain and America understood that the Seventh Article would be fulfilled by Great Britain only when the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Articles were fulfilled by the United States.[37] This point, however, was discussed pro and con for many months and was seldom admitted by the American diplomatic representatives, Adams himself said that he could "get no comfort from his mission." The construction given the Seventh Article making its fulfillment by Great Britain contingent upon the execution of other provisions only complicated matters.

Another mission was planned in 1789,[38] but before another representative was appointed Washington urged upon Gouverneur Morris, who contemplated visiting London, "to find out the reasons why Great Britain had not complied with the Seventh Article." In a letter written to Morris, October 13, 1789, Washington desired Morris to converse with his Brittanic Majesty's Ministers as to whether there was any objection to performing those articles remaining to be performed on his part. "Learn with precision," he concluded, "what they mean to do on this head." In compliance with this request, on April 7, 1790, Morris interviewed the British representative, the Duke of Leeds, who gave to him only "general assurances" for a faithful observance of the articles and, becoming a "little embarrassed," could not say how the matter in regard to the Negroes stood. After many days of silence, the Duke of Leeds, April 23, 1790, "lamented every circumstance" which delayed the fulfillment of engagements on the part of the United States.[39] He also indicated that, if circumstances rendered their final completion impracticable, he had no scruples in declaring the object of Great Britain would be to "retard the fulfillment of such subsequent parts of the treaty as depend entirely upon Great Britain until redress is granted to their subjects upon the specific points of the treaty itself or a fair and just compensation for the non-performance of those engagements on the part of the United States."[40]

Informing Washington of his progress, May 29, 1790, Morris disclosed the fact that he was no longer contending for the return of the Negroes, for that would involve either "breaking faith" with those whom they had seduced by the offer of freedom or the violation of the stipulation which they had made with the United States in the Treaty of Paris. In presenting America's side, however, he insisted upon compensation in order that it would not be difficult for the planters to show that they had sustained a heavy loss from the want of men to cultivate their lands and thereby produce the means of paying their debts. To this the Duke of Leeds replied that he wished to "consider the treaty subject generally" and thought that some compensation could be mutually made. He declared, nevertheless, that he would rather "make a new treaty than perform the Seventh Article of the Treaty of Paris."[41]

Subsequent diplomatic negotiations between Jefferson and Hammond, the Minister of Great Britain, indicate that Washington was not satisfied with the status of the case after Jefferson cited specific infractions of the Seventh Article of the treaty, enclosing documents supporting these claims. Hammond informed the United States, November 30, 1791, that the King had suspended the execution of the Seventh Article in consequence of the non-compliance on the part of the United States of the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Articles. In short, he insisted that the stipulations should be performed in the order in which they stood. He stated, moreover, that the "two objects were so mutually connected with each other as not to admit of separation either in the mode of discussing them or in any subsequent engagements which might result from that discussion."[42]

It was soon evident then that such extended discussions were fruitless. This state of affairs, to be sure, could not exist very much longer. Citizens of the United States were pressing "more zealously" for the return of the Negroes. For almost a decade the subject had been discussed without an amicable adjustment. In a communication to the Congress, April 16, 1794, Washington showed that he had grasped the situation by informing that body of the fact that "despatches received from our minister in London contain a serious aspect of our affairs with Great Britain." He suggested, therefore, to the Senate that an envoy extraordinary be sent to England. To this end Washington appointed John Jay to settle the infractions of the Treaty of Paris.[43]

In Jay's instructions nothing was specifically said concerning the carrying away of the Negroes by the British, but, as it appeared from subsequent transactions, it is quite certain that the infractions of the Seventh Article as well as those of other articles were to be adjusted. In this wise, the "irrepressible question"—relating to the return of Negroes carried away by Great Britain during the Revolutionary War became one of the purposes of Jay's mission.[44]

During the negotiation with Grenville there took place many heated debates, in which each party accused the other of the first aggression. Meanwhile Jay ascertained, September 13, 1794, that Grenville supported the contention held by his predecessors, that the article of the treaty was intended to prevent depredations at the departure of the army; that no alteration in the actual state of property was intended by the Seventh Article; that every Negro who strayed or escaped from the American lines and came into the lines of the British Army became by the laws of war British property; and that to extend the Seventh Article of the treaty to include Negroes who came within the British lines under the proclamation of freedom was to give it a "wider latitude than the terms of it would warrant."[45] In short, Grenville contended that in regard to those within the British lines before the signing of the treaty they were "left entirely without restrictions."[46]

In reply to Grenville's argument Jay divided the subject of the Negroes into three groups: first, the Negroes captured or disposed of during the course of the war; second, the Negroes who remained with and belonged to American citizens within the British lines; and third, the Negroes who, confiding in the promise of freedom, fled from their masters and took refuge with the British. Concerning the first two groups, no extended discussion followed. Grenville stated, however, in regard to the second group, that he was "not so sure." The last-named group on the other hand, produced much pourparler, for Jay maintained that these Negroes were "clearly comprehended by the terms of the treaty." According to his argument, Negroes could not by "mere flight" alter their slave character. He soon appreciated the difficult position of England in trying to keep the pledges of freedom offered to the Negroes and at the same time fulfill, according to the American interpretation, the article of the treaty in regard to the return of Negroes.

During the negotiation Jay admitted, moreover, that the carrying away of Negroes was justifiable in view of the promises of freedom and protection promulgated by British military representatives.[47] He concluded, however, with the thought that "Great Britain ought not to expect to escape the consequence of the folly of her Generals in America." For this reason he restated the idea expressed by other American representatives to Great Britain, that compensation should be obtained for the Negroes carried away. In spite of Jay's change of position Grenville persisted with unyielding opposition in the view that such slaves were no longer American property. "On this point" wrote Jay to Randolph, "we could not agree."

Concerning this question, Jay said, moreover,[48] that "various articles have been under consideration but did not meet with mutual approbation and consent." Sensing the situation Randolph declared to Jay, December 3, that he was extremely afraid that the reasoning of Grenville about the Negroes would not be satisfactory. "Indeed I own," said Randolph, "that I can not myself yield to its force." Randolph knew of the anti-British sentiment in the South and realized that the treaty would be opposed by the South because that section would feel that it had been neglected,[49] should it receive no compensation for the Negroes carried away by the British.

In a communication to Jay two weeks later it is obvious that there was no concerted opinion even in America in regard to the much mooted question. Jay and Randolph, for instance, differed as to whether the slaves concerned ever became the property of Great Britain. Jay held that the Negroes in question never became the property of Great Britain whereas, Randolph held that while property is acquired in movables as soon as they come within the power of the enemy, yet "property rights thus acquired in war may by the treaty of peace be removed."[50]

To the contention of Great Britain that the Seventh Article meant merely an engagement against further depredations, Randolph declared the stipulation "superfluous"; for he maintained that the mere cessation of war meant that much. To this point, Grenville declared the treaty "odious," if the stipulation were interpreted to include Negroes who sought British lines under the promise of freedom and protection "on the basis of common morality." Great Britain was not to be expected to execute a stipulation with such an interpretation. Obviously, then, Great Britain would not recede from her position. Citizens of America, especially those deprived of their property, were beginning to think that our diplomatic relations were not properly taken care of by Jay. Expressions of disapproval of the treaty by resolutions in the Senate evinced the temper of the people. Jay, in the meantime was called "traitor"; his mission was declared a failure and the treaty was attacked from many sides.

At this juncture special mention must be made of the objections of the southerners on the ground that the treaty did not provide for the return of their property, while the objection of the North was not so pressing. In fact, northerners acquiesced in the opinion of Hamilton who had substantially the same view that Grenville had.[51] Thus we see the first glimpse of the North becoming estranged from the South because of the difference of opinion in regard to the Negro.

The leading source of dissatisfaction of the treaty of Jay seemed to be a failure to get compensation for the Negroes carried away by Great Britain. The stipulation, moreover, was not definite, for many constructions could be placed upon it. The words of the treaty, moreover, were too vague and uncertain to express accurately the intention of the signers. Whether Negroes whom the British carried away could any longer be considered American property, seemed to be the crux of the situation. Although no definite settlement could be reached by the two nations, authorities of international law[52] give the case to Great Britain. One rule which was recognized by the foremost nations of the world was to the effect that a slave escaping in war becomes free. Concerning this Halleck says that such slaves cannot be regained by their former masters.[53] Woolsey says that "a slave sojourning to a free land cannot be treated as his master's property—as destitute of jural capacity." To the same purport, Heffter says "in no case is a state bound to allow the slavery which subsists in others." Dana, in his edition of Wheaton's International Law supports this contention.[54]