eeting or other assembly, held or pretended to be held
for religious purposes, or other instruction, conducted by any
slave, free Negro or mulatto preacher, ordained or otherwise; any
slave who shall hereafter attend any preaching in the night time
although conducted by a white minister, without a written permission
from his or her owner, overseer or master or agent of either of
them, shall be punished by stripes at the discretion of any justice
of the peace, not exceeding 39 lashes, and may for that purpose be
apprehended by any person, without any written or other precept:

_Provided_, That nothing herein contained shall be so construed as
to prevent the master or owner of slaves or any white person to whom
any free Negro or mulatto is bound, or in whose employment, or on
whose plantation or lot such free Negro or mulatto lives, from
carrying or permitting any such slave, free Negro or mulatto, to go
with him, her or them, or with any part of his, her, or their white
family to any place of worship, conducted by a white minister in the
night time: And provided also, That nothing in this or any former
law, shall be construed as to prevent any ordained or licensed white
minister of the gospel, or any layman licensed for that purpose by
the denomination to which he may belong, from preaching or giving
religious instruction to slaves, free Negroes and mulattoes in the
day time; nor to deprive any masters or owners of slaves of the
right to engage, or employ any free white person whom they think
proper to give religious instruction to their slaves; nor to prevent
the assembling of slaves of any one owner or master together at any
time for religious devotion. Acts of the General Assembly of
Virginia, 1831-1832, pp. 20-21.

[4] Campbell, Political History of Michigan, 246.

[4a] Slavery did not immediately cease, however. The number of slaves in
the vicinity of Detroit in 1773 were ninety-six; 127 in 1778; and 175 in
1783. Detroit had a colored population of 15 in 1805 and two years later
a number had sufficiently increased for Governor Hull to organize a
company of militia among them. The increase had been due to the coming
of refugees from Canada. The Census of 1810 showed 17 slaves in Detroit;
that of 1830 shows 32 in Michigan and an enumeration subsequent to 1836
shows that all were dead or manumitted. See Census of th