and this permission was only to be granted when he was sent off on an important errand. If he was found wandering about without the passport required by law, he was taken before the nearest justice of the peace, who, after giving him a whipping, forwarded him to the constable in the adjacent county, who in his turn repeated the whipping, and then delivered him to the constable beyond, and this course was continued until the slave finally reached the hands of his master. If he was allowed to escape by the carelessness of one of these constables, the owner could recover a large sum in a court of law. No strange negro was suffered to remain on a plantation four hours after his first appearance unless he had in his possession a certificate showing that his absence from home was properly authorizer.[1]
It reveals the great importance attached by the officials to the various laws for the prevention of slave insurrections, that Governor Andros, in 1694, issued a strong proclamation calling attention to the general remissness in their enforcement, in consequence of which, negroes had run together in certain parts of the Colony, causing assemblages so dangerous as to threaten the peace of the whole community. He commanded that no certificates should be given to slaves allowing them to go off the estates of their masters, and in order that this injunction should come to the ears of all the planters, he required that his proclamation should be read in the churches, at the musters and militia meetings, and on every occasion of great publicity.[2]
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. II, pp. 481, 493. An instance in which four hundred pounds of tobacco were recovered by a planter on account of the default of a constable under these circumstances is recorded in Records of York County, vol. 1687-1691, p. 282, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Records of York County, vol. 1694-1697, pp. 22, 23, Va. State Library.
