Charles Colcock Jones
The Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the U.S.
Published by
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2019 OK Publishing
EAN 4064066053321
Table of Contents
PREFACE
The preparation of the following pages has been undertaken at the suggestion of friends, seconded by the convictions of my own mind, that a small volume on the Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States would not be an unacceptable offering to the Public, and especially the Christian Public, at the present time. Whatever I have before prepared or published on the subject has been freely used, whenever it has suited my purpose, in the present composition.
I have endeavored to confine myself to the Religious Instruction of the Negroes, and have touched upon other subjects only when it has been necessary for the illustration or support of the one before me.
I commend the Book to the candid consideration of those who read it. My design has been to speak the truth plainly and in love, and to do good. May the blessing of Almighty God attend the effort.
CHARLES COLCOCK JONES.
Riceboro, Liberty County, Ga.,
July 4th, 1842.
PART I.
Historical Sketch of the Religious Instruction of the Negroes from their first introduction into the Country in 1620 to the year 1842.
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST PERIOD--From their first Introduction, in 1620, to the first Census, in 1790: a period of 170 years.
Such is the scarcity of materials, and the difficulty of arriving at the scattered sources of information, that I have called the following Historical Notice of the Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States, "A SKETCH." It deserves no better name, although, perhaps, it may embody the principal facts on the subject.
For the sake of perspicuity, the SKETCH is divided into PERIODS OF TIME--the First Period, extending from the Introduction of the Negroes into the Country, in 1620, to the first Census, in 1790; a period of 170 years: the Second Period, from 1790 to 1820; a period of 30 years: and the Third Period from 1820 to 1842; a period of 22 years.
1. Account of the Introduction of Negroes into the Colonies under the Government of Great Britain.
It was in the year 1501 that Isabella of Spain granted permission for the introduction of Negro slaves into Hispaniola; but such only as had been born in Spain, or in slavery among Christians; and in the following year a few had been sent into the New World.
In 1508 the Spaniards opened a direct trade in slaves, and imported Negroes into Hispaniola from the Portuguese settlements on the Coast of Guinea. Ferdinand V., by royal ordinance, enjoined a direct traffic in slaves between Guinea and Hispaniola, in 1511, and Charles V., in 1512-13.
In 1517 Charles V. granted a patent to one of his Flemish favorites, containing an exclusive right of importing slaves, four thousand annually, into Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. This favorite sold his patent to some Genoese merchants for 25,000 ducats, and they were the first who brought into regular form that commerce for slaves between Africa and America, which has since been carried on under such revolting circumstances and to such an amazing extent.
Forty-five years after, in 1562-3, the English entered the trade under Sir John Hawkins and carried Negroes from Africa to Hispaniola, and in 1567 Queen Elizabeth protected and shared the traffic. Thus the Mother Country was engaged in the traffic forty-five years before the first permanent settlement was made in her American Colonies, which was at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.
The Dutch, in common with other maritime nations of Europe, engaged in the trade, and a man-of-war of that nation, from the Coast of Guinea, in August, 1620, (four months before the Plymouth Colony arrived in America,) landed twenty Negroes for sale, in the Colony of Virginia, on James river, which determines the epoch of their introduction into the Colonies. From this period they were gradually, and at different times, introduced into all the Colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia; and for the most part, contrary to the wishes of the Colonists.
The first cargo of Negro slaves was brought into Boston in 1645, and though their introduction was denounced and the Negroes ordered to be "returned at public charge;" yet it was afterwards permitted,