n the subject, have supposed that they were even performing a
humane act in releasing these Africans from the noisome hold of the
ship. They might well believe that the condition of the negro slave
would be less degraded and wretched in Virginia than it had been in his
native country. This first purchase was not probably looked upon as a
matter of much consequence, and for several years the increase of the
blacks in Virginia was so inconsiderable as not to attract any special
attention. The condition of the white servants of the colony, many of
them convicts, was so abject that men accustomed to see their own race
in bondage could look with more indifference at the worse condition of
the slaves.

The negroes purchased by the slavers on the coast of Africa were brought
from the interior, convicts sold into slavery, children sold by heathen
parents destitute of natural affection, kidnapped villagers, and
captives taken in war, the greater part of them born in hereditary
bondage. The circumstances under which they were consigned to the
slave-ship evince the wretchedness of their condition in their native
country, where they were the victims of idolatry, barbarism, and war.
The negroes imported were usually between the ages of fourteen and
thirty, two-thirds of them being males. The new negro, just transferred
from the wilds of a distant continent, was indolent, ignorant of the
modes and implements of labor, and of the language of his master and,
perhaps, of his fellow-laborers. To tame and domesticate, to instruct in
the modes of industry, and to reduce to subordination and usefulness a
barbarian, gross, obtuse, perverse, must have demanded persevering
efforts and severe discipline.

While the cruel slave trade was prompted by a remorseless cupidity, an
inscrutable Providence turned the wickedness of men into the means of
bringing about beneficent results. The system of slavery doubtless
entailed many evils on slave and slaveholder, and, perhaps, the greater
on the latter. These evils are the tax paid for the elevation of the
negro from his aboriginal condition.

Among the vessels that came over to Virginia from England about this
time is mentioned a bark of five tons. A fleet sent out by the Virginia
Company brought over, in 1619, more than twelve hundred settlers. The
planters at length enjoyed the blessings of property in the soil and the
society of women. The wives were sold to the colonists for one hundred
twenty p