[38]
[Footnote 38: E.R. Turner, _The Negro in Pennsylvania_ (Washington, 1911);
R.R. Wright, Jr., _The Negro in Pennsylvania_ (Philadelphia, 1912).]
In the Northern colonies at large the slaves imported were more generally
drawn from the West Indies than directly from Africa. The reasons were
several. Small parcels, better suited to the retail demand, might be
brought more profitably from the sugar islands whither New England, New
York and Pennsylvania ships were frequently plying than from Guinea whence
special voyages must be made. Familiarity with the English language and
the rudiments of civilization at the outset were more essential to petty
masters than to the owners of plantation gangs who had means for breaking
in fresh Africans by deputy. But most important of all, a sojourn in the
West Indies would lessen the shock of acclimatization, severe enough under
the best of circumstances. The number of negroes who died from it was
probably not small, and of those who survived some were incapacitated and
bedridden with each recurrence of winter.
Slavery did not, and perhaps could not, become an important industrial
institution in any Northern community; and the problem of racial
adjustments was never as acute as it was generally thought to be.
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