USA > Louisiana > Louisiana; comprising sketches of counties, towns, events, institutions, and persons, Volume II > Part 55
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back to the earliest period of history, and doubtless originated through the capture of prisoners in war. All the ancient oriental nations, including Jehovah's chosen people, the Jews, had their slaves or bond-servants. The introduction of Christianity did much to ameliorate the condition of the slaves, the early church excom- municating slaveholders who put their bondmen to death without warrant from the civil powers, and from the time of Justinian jurists regarded slavery as contrary to the law of nature-justi- fiable only as a punishment for crime or debt, or a moderation of the victor's right to slay the vanquished. In time the Christian nations of Europe discontinued the practice of selling into slavery the captives taken in war, but a large trade in human beings was kept up by the Mohammedan countries, their Christian captives being sold as slaves in Africa and Asia, and during the early part of the middle ages the merchants of Venice did a thriving business in purchasing slaves along the Slavonian coast and selling them to the Saracens.
The negro slavery of modern times was called into existence as a result of the discovery of America. At first an attempt was made to enslave the Indians to work in the mines and on the planta- tions, the mainland of North America being first visited by Span- ish expeditions in search of slaves until Ponce de Leon was charged with the duty of preventing raids of this character. A few of the aborigines were carried into servitude, but they proved to be too intractable or too weak physically for the work required of them, and the would-be slaveowners were forced to turn their attention elsewhere. It has been asserted that negro slavery was intro- duced by the Spanish upon the advice of Bartolome de las Casas, a Spanish priest, who accompanied Columbus to America in 1493, and later as a Dominican friar went to the island of Hispaniola as a missionary to the natives. Seeing the manner in which the slaves were treated, he made several trips across the ocean to . plead their cause before the court of Spain. The charge that he recommended the importation of negroes to take the place of the natives has been refuted by Grégoire in his "Apologie de las Casas." As a matter of fact, the importation of negro slaves to the Western Hemisphere was due to the Portuguese, who had explored the western coast of Africa some time before the discovery of America by Columbus, and found that the African tribes, like other savage races, were in the habit of enslaving or selling the captives taken in war. Therefore, when it was found impracticable to make slaves of the American Indians, the alternative of buying slaves of the chiefs of the African tribes along the coast was resorted to as a solution of the labor problem in exploiting the New World.
In 1517 Charles V (Don Carlos I), then king of Spain, author- ized the importation of negro slaves from the Portuguese estab- lishments on the coast of Guinea, and Pedro Menendez, the founder of St. Augustine in 1565, was granted authority by Philip II to import 500 negro slaves, though this institution of slavery in the Spanish colonies was in disregard of the admonitions of the Pope,
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who was at that time the supreme law-giver of the Spanish nation. In 1620 the first negro slaves were brought into the English colony at Jamestown, Va., by a Dutch trader, and later in the century, when the English founded Charleston. S. C., black slaves were introduced there. From these few examples it may be seen that the establishment of slavery on the western continent was contemporaneous with its settlement. When, in 1712, the king of France granted Antoine Crozat a monopoly of the Louisiana trade. there were about 20 African slaves held by the French. Hamilton, in his "Colonial Mobile." says: "Chateauguay had a negro named François Jacemin, who the same year was declared to be the father of Antoine, born Oct. 26, of Bienville's negro woman, Marie. This is the first recorded birth of a negro on the gulf coast, although these other children may have been born there." In the letters patent issued to Crozat was this provision: "If for the cultures and plantations which the said Sieur Crozat is minded to make, he finds it proper to have blacks in the said country of the Loni- siana, he may send a ship every year to trade for them directly upon the coast of Guinea. taking permission of the Guinea Con- pany to do so: he may sell those blacks to the inhabitants of the colony of Louisiana, and we forbid all other companies and per- sons whatsoever, under any pretense whatsoever, to introduce blacks or traffic for them in the said country, nor shall the said Sieur Crozat carry any blacks elsewhere."
Crozat surrendered his charter in 1717 and was succeeded by the Western Company. One of the stipulations in the grant to this company was that during the 25 years' life of its franchise it should bring into the colony not less than 3,000 negroes. The first large importation was made under this provision in June, 1719, when two vessels arrived at Dauphine island with 500 negroes from the coast of Guinea. Hamilton mentions the arrival of three ships from the same coast in March, 1721. with 596 negroes, on board. and says: "Three hundred and fifty negroes had sailed in the frigate Charles from Angola. This vessel was burned at sea, many of the crew and human cargo perishing." For several years after this date the Western Company continued to supply the demand for slaves at the rate of from 300 to 500 annually. According to the Historical Collections of Louisiana (Vol. III, p. 64), the com- mon price for a good able-bodied negro was about $150, and for a woman about $120. \ census taken on Jan. 1. 1726, showed 1.540 negro and 229 Indian slaves in the colony, and when the Western Company surrendered its charter in 1732 the number of negroes had increased to over 2,000. France then resumed control of Louisiana and continued to supply negroes for work on the planta- tions. England and Spain also importing a number of slaves and selling them to the colonists. The black code of Louisiana (q. v.) was drafted by Bienville in 1724 under the orders of the Western Company, and was continued in force with slight alterations until the province passed into the hands of the United States. After the Natchez massacre large numbers of the negro slaves attached
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themselves to the Indian tribes, but many of them were recaptured or killed by the French colonists.
The colony of Georgia was established in 1732, and on Jan. 9. 1734, the trustees passed "An act for rendering the Colony of Georgia more Defensible by Prohibiting the Importation of Black Slaves or Negroes into the same." By the provisions of this act if, after June 24, 1735, any person or persons should be found guilty of importing, or causing to be imported, any negro, such person or persons should forfeit £50 for every such negro or black so im- ported or brought into the colony. It was also provided that all negroes found within the colony after the prescribed date should be seized and taken as the property of the trustees, to be sold or exported as the common council might direct. Several petitions were presented by the colonists to the trustees, but it was not until 1749 that the act was repealed and Georgia became a slave- holding colony.
The continuous and constantly increasing demand for slaves in the New World started a lively competition among the slave traders, with the result that the African chieftain received a better price for his captives, which in turn stimulated his warlike pro- pensities and caused him to redouble his efforts to supply the demand. Toward the latter part of the 17th century England obtained from Spain the right to engage in the slave trade. This right was not exercised by the government directly, but was. farmed out to a corporation, at the head of which was Sir John Hawkins. Between the years 1680 and 1700 his company took 300,000 negroes from Africa to the various English colonies, and by 1780 about 600,000 had been imported into the island of Jamaica alone. Thus England became a leader in the slave trade and at the same time maintained the somewhat inconsistent attitude of legalizing slavery in her colonies, but not recognizing it as a legal institution in the mother country, the English courts decid- ing in 1772 that as soon as a slave set his foot upon the soil of Great Britain he was free, though he might be reclaimed if he- returned to his master's country.
Concerning the condition of the slaves in Louisiana about this- time, Francisco Bonligny, in his memoir sent to the Spanish gov- ernment in 1776, says: "The negroes are slaves only in name. for in reality they are as happy as may be the laborers of Europe. The master is obliged only to give to each negro a barrel of corn in the ear, a piece of ground for him to make his crop of corn, rice, or whatever he may wish, a cabin like those that are made here in the orchard of Orihuela. and a yard of 30 or 40 paces with a fence, for him to raise chickens, hogs, etc. With his profits each negro buys every winter a woolen coat, a pair of long breeches, and two or three shirts. With what remains he buys bear's grease, to cook as he pleases the corn on which they all live and are so healthy and robust that some persons who came here lately from Havana were astonished to see the negroes so nimble, strong and bright. It is the custom here in winter, as there are some-
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times heavy frosts, not to make the negroes go to the fields before 7 or 8 o'clock in the morning. They stop work at 12, and return to the fields at 2 o'clock in the evening. In summer they go out at daybreak and remain till 11, and return to work at 3 and remain till night. This way they have the time to attend for a short * while to their crops and to their poultry, hogs, etc. *
* Nothing proves better the health they enjoy than the fact that a physician usually makes a contract to attend all the negroes on a plantation annually for $1 a head."
On July 11, 1792, Gov. Carondelet issued a schedule of regula- tions regarding the treatment of slaves, the principal provisions of which were: 1-Each slave was to be granted a barrel of corn per month ; 2-Sunday was to be a holiday for the slaves, and if compelled to work on that day they should be remunerated; 3-No slave was to be compelled to go to work before daylight nor to continue at work after dark in the evening; 4-Slave- holders were required to give 2 shirts, 1 woolen coat, 1 pair woolen and 1 pair of linen pants, and 2 handkerchiefs to each male annu- ally, and to provide suitable clothing for the women; 5-No slave "was to be punished by more than 30 lashes in 24 hours ; 6-Vio- dators were to be fined $100 and in grave cases the slave was to be sold.
About the close of the 18th century an agitation was started in both England and America for the suppression of the slave traffic, and in this country the agitation culminated in the incorporation in the constitution of 1789 the provision that "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year 1808, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such impor- tation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person." (Art. I, Sec. '9.) Under this clause Congress prohibited the importation of negroes after the year 1808. but the profits of the business were so great that smuggling was common until the naval blockade of 1861. Simultaneously with the movement to suppress the slave trade the North Atlantic colonies took steps to abolish slavery within their boundaries. Vermont led off in 1777; Massachusetts followed in 1780; Rhode Island and Connecticut adopted a system of gradual manumission, though both these states still had a few slaves in 1840; New York also began gradual emancipation in 1799, and finally abolished it altogether in 1827; New Jersey in- augurated the same plan in 1804. though there were over 200 slaves in that state as late as 1850; and in Pennsylvania, which began the work of emancipation in 1780, there were still a few slaves in 1840.
Washington, Jefferson. Franklin. Hamilton and other leaders of public opinion during the early days of the republic were opposed to slavery on moral and religious grounds, but from the beginning the Southern states had found slave labor profitable, and the value of this class of labor was greatly enhanced by the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793-an invention which was the
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chief factor in increasing the cotton crop from 2,000,000 pounds in 1791 to 48,000,000 ten years later. The first census of the United States, in 1790, showed a slave population of 697,897. By 1810 this had increased to 1,191,364, an increase of over 70 per cent, a large part of which was due to the stimulus given to the cotton industry by Whitney's invention. The original draft of the ordinance of 1784, in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson, provided for the laying off of states from the parallel of 31º north- ward, and for the prohibition of slavery in all the region affected after the year 1800. Mr. Jefferson expressed it as his opinion that "Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government." Six states voted in the affirmative on the anti-slavery proposition, but as the vote of seven was necessary to secure its adoption, it was defeated. The ordinance of 1787. for the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio river, after setting forth the manner in which the territory might be divided into states and admitted into the Union, provided that "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; provided always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or services." When the provisions of the ordinance were after- ward extended to the Southwest, the clause prohibiting slavery was omitted.
Louisiana was admitted into the Union as a state in 1812. According to Stoddard, the slave population of the state at that time was over 40,000. With regard to their treatment by their owners, he says: "The French and Spanish planters treat their slaves with great rigor ; and this has been uniformly the case from the first establishment of the colony. They were at first too poor to supply their slaves with clothing and food; add to this, their families stood in need of the avails of their labor; and every expense incurred on account of their comfort and support was viewed as a serions evil. Hence this original defect in the system has been considered as a precedent by subsequent generations, not - because they view the examples of their ancestors with reverence, but because they conceive it redounds to their interest."
This does not comport with the statements of Bouligny 36 years before, though it is possible that the slaveholders had adopted a more austere system of discipline as a result of the negro uprising in Jan., 1811. (see Negro Insurrections), and it is quite probable that Stoddard recorded only the extreme cases that came bencath his observation. The laws passed by Louisiana legislatures during the early days of statehood were calculated to protect the slaveholder against loss, and to improve the moral statuts of the slaves. For example, the act of Sept. 5, 1812, author-
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ized Jean Baptiste Le Blanc to recover from the state $500 as the value of a slave condemned to death. Two days later an act was passed giving Johnson & Bradish power to file a claim for $300 for a negro killed while a runaway, and the legislature of 1830 provided by suitable legislation that the owner of any slave sentenced to perpetual imprisonment should recover the value of such slave from the state treasury. By the act of Jan. 29, 1817, approved by Gov. Villere, it was provided that no slave should be brought into the state who had been convicted of murder, rape, arson, manslaughter, burglary, an attempt to murder or to incite an insurrection among slaves in any state. The owner of any such slave was liable to a fine of $500, and the slave was to be sold-one-half of the proceeds of the sale to go to the state and the other half to the person giving the information leading to the conviction of the owner. Owing to the difficulties attending the recovery of fugitive slaves through their detention in jails far away from their masters, the legislature on March 17, 1826, passed an act designating the public prisons of New Orleans and Baton Rouge as depots for the reception of such slaves, after the said slaves had been detained for two months in any of the jails of the state without being claimed, and after being taken to either of the specified depots they were to be advertised in both the English and French languages. Through the operation of this law a num- ber of runaway slaves were returned to their owners. Laws were also enacted prescribing the punishment for persons inciting dis- content among the slaves, for teaching, or causing to be taught, any slave to read and write; or for furnishing liquor to any slave without the consent of his master.
As early as 1775 the opponents of slavery began their organized efforts to prevent its spread and continuance in the formation of the Pennsylvania abolition society, but it was not until some years later that the abolition movement assumed proportions sufficient to cause alarm. Notwithstanding this early opposition, slavery was firmly established in the South, and was protected by the constitution of the United States, Article IV, Section 2, providing that "No person held to service or labor in one state, under the law thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein. be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." For almost half a century after the adoption of that constitution the political leaders of the North, with the exception of a few in New England, expressed them- selves as having neither the purpose nor desire to interfere with slavery where it already existed, merely confining their objec- tions to its extension into new territories. This view found expres- sion in the laws of the country in 1820, when Missouri was pre- pared for admission into the Union as a slave state under the measure known as the "Missouri Compromise," which provided "that in all the territory ceded by France to the United States under the name of Louisiana which lies north of latitude 36° 30',
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excepting only such part thereof as is included within the limits of the state contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary servi- tude, otherwise than in punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall be and is forever prohibited." Under this compromise Arkansas was admitted as a slave state in 1836 without serious opposition from any of the free state congressmen, and in 1846 Iowa was admitted as a free state with- out opposition on the part of the slave states, the former lying south and the latter north of the compromise line. Hence, for a time it looked as though the slavery question was settled, but on Aug. 8, 1846, David Wilmot, a member of Congress from Pennsylvania, offered in the house his famous "Proviso," for the exclusion of slavery from all territory acquired by the United States as a result of the Mexican war. This reopened the whole question, although the "Proviso" was finally defeated. In Jan., 1847, when it was proposed to establish a territorial government for Oregon, Mr. Burt, of South Carolina, moved an amendment to the clause prohibiting slavery in the territory by adding the fol- lowing: "Inasmuch as the whole of said territory lies north of 36° 30' north latitude, known as the line of the Missouri Com- promise." This amendment was defeated, and subsequently, while the Oregon bill was under consideration in the senate, Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, moved to strike out the slavery restric- tion clause as it stood in the bill and substitute a section extending the line 36° 30' to the Pacific ocean, but this, too, was lost.
The compromise of 1850, known as the "Omnibus Bill," was introduced in Congress by Henry Clay. It proposed to admit California under the constitution as formed by the people of that state; to organize territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico without any restriction as to slavery ; to settle the question of boundary between New Mexico and Texas by negotiation with the latter; to pass an effective act for the rendition of fugitive slaves; and to abolish the slave trade, as it was called, in the Dis- trict of Columbia. Weeks of debate followed, and on June 15 Pierre Soulé, then a U. S. senator from Louisiana, offered the following amendment (which was finally adopted) to that section relating to the Territory of Utah: "And when the said territory, or any portion of the same, shall be admitted as a state, it shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their con- stitution may prescribe at the time of their admission." Con- cerning this compromise, Alexander H. Stephens, in his "Consti- tutional View of the War Between the States," says: "What was the principle settled in 1850 upon the territorial question which had for so long a time caused so great and fearful agitation, both in and out of Congress? * * iIt was clearly this, that after the principal division had been abandoned and repudiated by the North, in the organization of all territorial governments, the prin- ciple of Congressional restriction should be totally abandoned also, and that all new states, whether north or south of 36° 30', should be admitted into the Union 'either with or without slavery,
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as their constitutions might prescribe at the time of their admis- sion.' This was, unquestionably, the principle established in 1850 on this subject."
It is worthy of note that the boundaries of Utah and New Mexico, as fixed by the Compromise of 1850, included a portion of the Louisiana cession lying north of 36° 30'-territory which came within the restrictions of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Therefore, when it was proposed, in 1854, to organize territorial governments for Nebraska and Kansas, Stephen A. Douglas, chair- man of the senate committee on territories, reported back the bills with amendments to make them conforin to the spirit and language of the Utah and New Mexican bills of 1850. In the amendment it was declared that "The 8th section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union, approved March 6, 1820, being inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress with slavery in the states and territories, as recognized by the legislature of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Meas- ures, is hereby declared inoperative and void; it being the true intent and meaning of this act, not to legislate slavery into any territory or state nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the constitution of the United States."
James Buchanan, afterward president of the United States, says that in offering and supporting this amendment the South was for the first time the aggressor. But if Mr. Stephens' interpretation of the Compromise of 1850 is correct-and it seems to be the logical conclusion-Mr. Douglas and his colleagues were merely applying the principle then established to the organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. After a tumultuous debate, the Kansas-Nebraska bill passed both houses of Congress; it was emphatically endorsed by the Democratic national convention of 1856, which nominated Mr. Buchanan for the presidency, and after some stormy scenes Kansas and Nebraska were both admitted into the Union as free states under its provisions. This was the last national legislation of any consequence on the subject of slavery prior to the outbreak of the Civil war.
Throughout all the agitation on the subject of slavery, Louisiana maintained an attitude entirely consistent with that of the other slaveholding states. On Jan. 19, 1838, when the Calhoun resolu- tions, giving an exposition of the nature of the government, were before Congress, the Louisiana legislature passed a resolution approving "the course of Southern members of Congress in resist- ing by all constitutional means any attempt to abolish slavery in any portion of the Union," and thanking "those Southern con- gressmen who withdrew from Congress rather than suffer in their presence a debate on abolition of slavery in the South." In 1845 the same body declared in favor of the annexation of Texas, "pro- vided, it be stipulated in the act of annexation that Texas shall enjoy all the rights and privileges now secured to that portion
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