Читать книгу Fugitive Slaves (1619-1865) - Marion Gleason McDougall - Страница 4

§ 3. Treatment of fugitives.—From 1640 to 1700, laws were also passed in New Jersey, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia. It is not necessary to follow out the provisions here,⁷ but each of the Southern colonies, as in later regulations, provided most minutely for all possible cases. By a Virginia law of 1642, all persons who entertained runaways, whether slaves or hired freemen, were to be fined twenty pounds of tobacco for each night's hospitality. The fugitives were to add to their tenure of service double their time of absence, and on a second offence to be branded with the letter R.⁸

A curious regulation in 1660–1, in Virginia, provided that if a negro and white bound servant ran away together, since the negro's time of servitude was for life, and he was therefore incapable of making up his lost time, the white servant's punishment should be doubled by adding the negro's sentence to his own.⁹ Another regulation, entitled "How to Know a Runaway," commanded that all recovered fugitives have their hair "cutt" close about their ears.¹⁰

Sometimes the penalties were even more severe, but the processes were much the same. A person who found a slave or vagabond without a pass usually took him before the next justice, who took cognizance of the captor's good service, and certified it in the next Assembly: the runaway was then delivered from constable to constable, until he was returned to his master.

After 1700 the process grows yet more elaborate; for example, take a North Carolina law of 1741. The securer of a runaway was to have seven shillings and sixpence proclamation money, and for every mile over ten which he conducted the fugitive threepence extra. When seized, runaways were to be whipped and placed in the county gaol. If the owner was known, he was notified and went for his slave; if not, a notice describing the runaway must be placed upon the door of the court-house, and sent to the clerk or reader of each church or chapel within the county. They were required to post all such notices every Lord's day for two months in some convenient place near the church. At the end of this time, should no claimant appear, the slave must be sent from constable to constable, till the public gaol of the government was reached. There, upon consent of the court or of two justices, he might be sold to hire by the gaoler.¹¹ The Maryland Archives record that in 1669 ten thousand pounds of tobacco were appropriated to build one of these log-house gaols wherein fugitive servants might be lodged.¹²

§ 4. Regulations in New England colonies.—Let us turn now to the New England colonies. Here we must expect to find but few provisions, since the class of slaves and bound servants was so small that it could easily be controlled. The first law in Massachusetts Bay was passed in 1630, and was entitled, "An Act respecting Masters, Servants, and Laborers." In accordance with the arbitrary methods of government then pursued, it included not only runaway servants, but also any persons who should "privily go away with suspicion of evil intention," and ordered the magistrate "to press men, boats, or pinnaces," and "to bring them back by force of arms." A humane provision, usually wanting in Southern laws, though also found in New Netherlands, declared that, whenever servants fled on account of the tyranny of their masters, they should be protected until measures for their relief could be taken.¹³

In Connecticut and New Hampshire similar laws were passed, and in 1707 Massachusetts Bay, in regulating the free negro population, enacted that every freeman or mulatto who should harbor a negro servant in his house without his owner's consent should pay five shillings for the use of the poor of the town.¹⁴

In those days, when bridges were few, the ferrymen were apparently much relied upon as agents to detect and apprehend runaways. In 1714 we find that several negro slaves had been carried over ferries, and thus escaped out of Rhode Island. The Assembly therefore enacted that "no ferryman or boatman whatsoever, within this colony, shall carry or bring any slave as aforesaid over their ferries, without a certificate under the hands of their masters or mistresses, or some person in authority, upon the penalty of paying all costs and damages their said masters or mistresses shall sustain thereby: and to pay a fine of twenty shillings for the use of the colony for each offence, as aforesaid." All persons were also commanded to take up any slave they might find travelling about without a pass.¹⁵