but were put on the Earl of Warwick's plantation in the Somer
Islands.[144:A]

It is probable that the planters who purchased the negroes from the
Dutch man-of-war reasoned but little on the morality of the act, or if
any scruples of conscience presented themselves, they could be readily
silenced by reflecting that the negroes were heathens, descendants of
Ham, and consigned by Divine appointment to perpetual bondage.[145:A]
The planters may, if they reasoned at all on 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 their native country. This first purchase
was probably not looked upon as a matter of much consequence, and for
several ages 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.[145:B] 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 slave-holder, and, perhap