Untitled - African American History

NEGRO SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE-TRADE. civil
forgotten at the sound of their rude musical instruments /
and in the midst of their noisy dances. The great
Architect had framed them both physically and men- /
tally to fill the sphere in which they were thrown, and \
His wisdom and mercy combined in constituting them \
thus suited to the degraded position they were destined I
to occupy. Hence, their submissiveness, their obedience, J
and their contentment.
Some of the more turbulent occasionally instigated
rebellion ; for their treatment in the West India Islands,
and especially while the Spaniards were almost exclu-
sive owners, was harsh in the extreme. Newton records
the candid confession of a planter at Antigua, in 1751,
that the owners had calculated with exactness to determine
whether it was most to their interest to treat the
slaves in such manner as to protract their lives, or to
wear them out before they became old and decrepid,
and to supply their places with new ones. The latter
was found to be most profitable, and was their settled
policy, and hence, nine years was considered the limit
of a slave's life on many plantations. 1 That such rigor
should produce rebellion in the most abject slave would
be a natural result. Hence, the early disturbances in
1518 and 1522, already alluded to. In 1551, Charles V
interdicted the carrying of arms to all negroes, free and
bond, and in 1561, Philip IY renewed the ordinance
and extended it to the slaves of the viceroys themselves,
even in their master's presence. 2 When Jamaica was
ceded to the English, in 1655, the mountains were in-
fested with fugitive and rebellious negroes, known as
the Maroons, who made frequent incursions on the
plains. These continued at intervals till 1796, when, by
the aid of bloodhounds, they were effectually repressed.
1
Thoughts upon the African Slave-Trade, p. 38.
2 La traite et son origiue, par M. Schoelcher, 368.