Although they never exceeded two
per cent. of the gross population, their presence prompted characteristic
legislation dating from about the beginning of the eighteenth century.
This on one hand taxed the importation of negros unless they were promptly
exported again on the other hand it forbade trading with slaves, restrained
manumission, established a curfew, provided for the whipping of any
negro or mulatto who should strike a "Christian," and prohibited the
intermarriage of the races. On the other hand it gave the slaves the
privilege of legal marriage with persons of their own race, though it did
not attempt to prevent the breaking up of such a union by the sale and
removal of the husband or wife.[19] Regarding the status of children there
was no law enacted, and custom ruled. The children born of Indian slave
mothers appear generally to have been liberated, for as willingly would a
man nurse a viper in his bosom as keep an aggrieved and able-bodied redskin
in his household. But as to negro children, although they were valued so
slightly that occasionally it is said they were given to any one who would
take them, there can be no reasonable doubt that by force of custom they
were the property of the owners of their mothers.
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