to be allowed.[88] The matter went beyond this, for in 1722 a woman was punished for abetting a clandestine marriage between a white woman and a negro.[89] A few months thereafter the Assembly received a petition from inhabitants of the province, inveighing against the wicked and scandalous practice of negroes cohabiting with white people.[90] It appeared to the Assembly that a law was needed, and they set about framing one. Accordingly in the law of 1725–1726 they provided stringent penalties. No negro was to be joined in marriage with any white person upon any pretense whatever. A white person violating this was to forfeit thirty pounds, or be sold as a servant for a period not exceeding seven years. A clergyman who abetted such a marriage was to pay one hundred pounds.[91]

The law did not succeed in checking cohabitation, though of marriages of slaves with white people there is almost no record.[92] There exists no definite information as to the number of mulattoes in the colony during this period, but advertisements for runaway slaves indicate that there were very many of them. The slave register of 1780 for Chester County shows that they constituted twenty per cent. of the slave population in that locality.[93] It must be said that the stigma of illicit intercourse in Pennsylvania would not generally seem to rest upon the masters, but rather upon servants, outcasts, and the lowlier class of whites.[94]

Negro slaves were subject to another class of restrictions which were made against them rather as slaves than as black men. These concerned freedom of movement and freedom of action. During the earlier years of the colony’s history regulation of the movements of the slaves rested principally in the hands of the owners. The continual complaints about the tumultuous assembling of negroes, to be noticed presently, would seem to indicate that considerable leniency was exercised.[95] But frequently white people lured them away, and harbored and employed them.[96] The law of 1725–1726 was intended specially to stop this. No negro was to go farther than ten miles from home without written leave from his master, under penalty of ten lashes on his bare back. Nor was he to be away from his master’s house, except by special leave, after nine o’clock at night, nor to be found in tippling-houses, under like penalty. For preventing these things counter-restrictions were imposed upon white people. They were forbidden to employ such negroes, or knowingly to harbor or shelter them, except in very unseasonable weather, under penalty of thirty shillings for every twenty-four hours. Finally it was provided that negroes were not to meet together in companies of more than four. This last seems to have remained a dead letter.[97]

That this legislation failed to produce the desired effect is shown by the experience of Philadelphia in dealing with negro disorder. Such disorder was complained of as early as 1693, when, on presentment of the grand jury, it was directed that the constables or any other person should arrest such negroes as they might find gadding abroad on first days of the week, without written permission from the master, and take them to jail, where, after imprisonment, they should be given thirty-nine lashes well laid on, to be paid for by the master. This seems to have been enforced but laxly, for in 1702 the grand jury presented the matter again, and their recommendation was repeated with warmth in the year following.[98] A few years later they urged measures to suppress the unruly negroes of the city.[99] In 1732 the council was forced to recommend an ordinance to bring this about, and such an ordinance was drawn up and considered. Next year the Monthly Meeting of Friends petitioned, and the matter was taken up again, but nothing came of it, so that the council was compelled to observe that further legislation was assuredly needed.[100] In 1741 the grand jury presented the matter strongly,[101] and an explicit order was at last given that constables should disperse meetings of negroes within half an hour after sunset.[102] The nuisance, probably, was still not abated, for in 1761 the mayor caused to be published in the papers previous legislation on the subject.[103] Nothing further seems to have been done.

The continued failure to suppress these meetings in defiance of a law of the province, must be attributed either to the intrinsic difficulty of enforcing such a law, or to the fact that the meetings were objectionable because of their rude and boisterous character, rather than because of any positive misdemeanor. More probably still this is but one of the many pieces of evidence which show how leniently the negro was treated in Pennsylvania.

The third period, from 1726 to 1780, is distinguished more because of the lack of important legislation about the negro than through any marked character of its own. The outlines of the colony’s slave code had now been drawn, and no further constructive work was done. There is, however, one class of laws which may be