NEGRO SLAVERY.
385
his Life of Penn, to various reasons, viz.: the hostility
which then prevailed in the Assembly to all projects
emanating from the executive — the jealousies which
existed between the province and territories — the influx
of emigrants of a lower tone of moral feeling than the
first settlers of the colony, and the diminution of Quaker
influence in the Assembly; the executive council, com¬
posed wholly of members of this society, having concurred
with Penn in proposing the bill.
The same causes appear to have been in operation for
several years after; and we accordingly find a degree of
severity and rigor in the legislative enactments of 1705,
entirely at variance with the humane policy of Penn
and with the benevolent laws of a very few years later
date.
The law of 1705 was entitled " an act for the trial and
punishment of negroes." The act provided that negroes
convicted of heinous crimes, such as murder, manslaughter,
burglary, rape, &c, should be tried by three justices of
the peace and six freeholders of the vicinage; that the
punishment of death should be awarded to such offences;
that any negro convicted of carrying arms without his
master's consent, should, on conviction before a magis¬
trate, receive twenty-one lashes; and finally, that not
more than four negroes should meet together without
their master's permission, on the penalty of receiving any
number not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, on conviction
before one justice of the peace. This law was intended
as a substitute for William Penn's act of 1700, for the
" trial and punishment of negroes." In this same year a
25
Permalink: http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/n7rkr
