rarely or never intrude. These were domestic servants, or
persons employed in stores, and their general appearance indicated much
comfort and even luxury. I doubted if they all were slaves. One of my
companions went up to a woman in a straw hat, with bright red and green
ribbon trimmings and artificial flowers, a gaudy Paisley shawl, and
a rainbow-like gown blown out over her yellow boots by a prodigious
crinoline, and asked her 'Whom do you belong to?' She replied, 'I b'long to
Massa Smith, sar.'"

[Footnote 62: _Niles' Register_, XLIX, 72.]

[Footnote 63: J.R. Brackett, _The Negro in Maryland_, p. 206.]

[Footnote 64: D.R. Hundley, _Social Relations in our Southern States_ (New
York, 1860), pp. 350, 351.]

[Footnote 65: Atlanta _Intelligencer_, July 13, 1859, editorial commending
the purpose.]

[Footnote 66: W.H. Russell, _My Diary North and South_ (Boston, 1863), p.
167.]

CHAPTER XXI

FREE NEGROES

In the colonial period slaves were freed as a rule only when generous
masters rated them individually deserving of liberty or when the negroes
bought themselves. Typical of the time were the will of Thomas Stanford of
New Jersey in 1722 directing that upon the death of the testator's wife
his negro man should have his freedom if in the opinion of three neighbors
named he had behaved well,[1] and a deed signed by Robert Daniell of
South Carolina in 1759 granting freedom to his slave David Wilson in
consideration of his faithful service and of L600 currency in hand paid.[2]
So long as this condition prevailed, in which the ethics of slaveholding
were little questioned, the freed element remained extremely small.

[Footnote 1: _New Jersey Archives_, XXIII, 438.]

[Footnote 2: MS. among the probate records at Charleston.]

The liberal philosophy of the Revolution, persisting thereafter in spite of
reaction, not only wrought the legal disestablishment of slavery throughout
the North, but prompted private manumissions far and wide.[3] Thus Philip
Graham of Maryland made a deed in 1787 reciting his realization that the
holding of his "fellow men in bondage and slavery is repugnant to the
golden law of God and the unalienable right of mankind as well as to
every principle of the late glorious revolution which has taken place in
America," and converting his slaves into servants for terms, the adults
to become free at the close of that year and the children as they reached
maturity.[4] In the same period, upon