d inherit the status of its mother.

The murder of a white family by a quartet of slaves in conspiracy not only
led to their execution, by burning in one case, but prompted an enactment
in 1708 that slaves charged with the murder of whites might be tried
summarily by three justices of the peace and be put to death in such manner
as the enormity of their crimes might be deemed to merit, and that slaves
executed under this act should be paid for by the public. Thus stood the
law when a negro uprising in the city of New York in 1712 and a reputed
conspiracy there in 1741 brought atrociously numerous and severe
punishments, as will be related in another chapter.[35] On the former of
these occasions the royally appointed governor intervened in several cases
to prevent judicial murder. The assembly on the other hand set to work
at once on a more elaborate negro law which restricted manumissions,
prohibited free negroes from holding real estate, and increased the rigor
of slave control. Though some of the more drastic provisions were afterward
relaxed in response to the more sober sense of the community, the negro
code continued for the rest of the colonial period to be substantially as
elaborated between 1702 and 1712.[36] The disturbance of 1741 prompted
little new legislation and left little permanent impress upon the
community. When the panic passed the petty masters resumed their customary
indolence of control and the police officers, justly incredulous of public
danger, let the rigors of the law relapse into desuetude.

[Footnote 35: Below, pp. 470, 471.]

[Footnote 36: The laws are summarized and quoted in A.J. Northrup "Slavery
in New York," in the New York State Library _Report_ for 1900, pp. 254-272.
_See also_ E.V. Morgan, "Slavery in New York," in the American Historical
Association _Papers_ (New York, 1891), V, 335-350.]

As to New Jersey, the eastern half, settled largely from New England, was
like in conditions and close in touch with New York, while the western
half, peopled considerably by Quakers, had a much smaller proportion of
negroes and was in sentiment akin to Pennsylvania. As was generally the
case in such contrast of circumstances, that portion of the province which
faced the greater problem of control determined the legislation for
the whole. New Jersey, indeed, borrowed the New York slave code in all
essentials. The administration of the law, furthermore, was about as it was
in New York, in the ea