until the end of the slavery period. Notwithstanding all this there was a development, which may be said to fall into three periods. They were, first, the years from 1682 to 1700, when slavery was slowly diverging from servitude, which it still closely resembled; second, from 1700 to 1725–1726, when slavery was more sharply marked off from servitude; and third, the period from 1725–1726 to 1780, when nothing was added but some minor restrictions.

During the earliest years slavery in Pennsylvania differed from servitude in but little, save that servitude was for a term of years and slavery was for life. It may be questioned whether at first all men recognized even this difference. Many of Penn’s first colonists were men who embarked upon their undertaking with high ideals of religion and right, and whose conception of what was right could not easily be reconciled with hopeless bondage.[63] The strength of this sentiment is seen in the well known provision of Penn’s charter to the Free Society of Traders, 1682, that if they held blacks they should make them free at the end of fourteen years, the blacks then to become the Company’s tenants.[64] It is the motive in Benjamin Furley’s proposal to hold negroes not longer than eight years.[65] It is particularly evident in the protest made at Germantown in 1688.[66] It is seen in George Keith’s declaration of principles in 1693.[67] And it gave impetus to the movement among the Friends, which, starting about 1696, led finally to the emancipation of all their negroes.

Accordingly at first there may have been some negroes who were held as servants for a term of years, and who were discharged when they had served their time.[68] There is no certain proof that this was so,[69] and the probabilities are rather against it, but the conscientious scruples of some of the early settlers make it at least possible. In the growth of the colony, however, this feeling did not continue strong enough to be decisive. Economic adjustment, an influx of men of different standards, and motives of expediency, perhaps of necessity, made the legal recognition of an inferior status inevitable. Against this the upholders of the idea that negroes should be held only as servants, for a term of years, waged a losing fight. It is true they did not desist, and in the course of one hundred years their view won a complete triumph; but their success came in abolition, and in overthrowing a system established, long after they had utterly failed to prevent the swift growth and the statutory recognition of legal slavery for life and in perpetuity.

Aside from this one fundamental difference the incidents of each status were nearly the same. The negro held for life was subject to the same restrictions, tried in the same courts, and punished with the same punishments as the white servant. So far as either class was subject to special regulation at this time it was because of the laws for the management of servants, passed in 1683 and 1693, which concerned white servants equally with black slaves. These restrictions were as yet neither numerous nor detailed, being largely directed against free people who abetted servants in wrong doing. Thus, servants were forbidden to traffic in their masters’ goods; but the only penalty fell on the receiver, who had to make double restitution. They were restricted as to movement, and when travelling they must have a pass. If they ran away they were punished, the white servant by extra service, the black slave by whipping, but this different punishment for the slave was not enacted until 1700, the beginning of the next period. Whoever harbored them was liable to the master for damages.[70] The relations between master and servant were likewise simple. The servant was compelled to obey the master. If he resisted or struck the master, he was punished at the discretion of the court. On the other hand the servant was to be treated kindly.[71]

The period, then, prior to 1700 was characteristically a period of servitude. The laws spoke of servants white and black.[72] The regulations, the restrictions, the trials, the punishments, were identical. There was only the one difference: white servants were discharged with freedom dues at the end of a specified number of years; for negroes there was no discharge; they were servants for life, that is, slaves.

In the period following 1700 this difference gradually became apparent, and made necessary different treatment and distinct laws. This resulted from a recognition of the dissimilarity in character between property based on temporary service and that based on service for life. In the first place perpetual service gave rise to a new class of slaves. At first the only ones in Pennsylvania were such negroes as were imported and sold for life. But after a time children were born to them. These children were also slaves, because ownership of a negro held for life involved ownership of his offspring also, since, the negro being debarred by economic helplessness from rearing children, all of his substance belonging to his master, the master must assume the cost of rearing them, and might have the service of the children as recompense.[73] This was the source of the second and largest class of slaves. The child of a slave was not necessarily a slave if one of the parents was free. The line of servile descent lay through the mother.[74] Accordingly the child of a slave mother and a free father was a slave, of a free mother and a slave father a servant for a term of years only. The result of the application of this doctrine to the offspring of a negro and a white person was that mulattoes were divided into two classes. Some were servants