566 A. E. Verrill—The Bermuda Islands. 
of some Indians returned to the West Indies in August, 1658, 
probably some of the same lot. 
The Indians and negroes intermarried freely, but the Indians being 
relatively few, their descendants show but little of the Indian char- 
acteristics, though even to this day some of the negroes show more 
or less traces of Indian blood. Formerly many of them showed such 
characteristics much more decidedly. The negro slaves always 
increased more rapidly than the whites and they became too numer- 
ous at times, so that employment could not be found for them, while 
their masters found it hard to clothe and feed them. <A few slaves 
were sometimes sold to go away from the islands. Thus the sale of 
14 negroes and one Indian, to go to Porto Rico, is on record. Some 
were sold to Virginia. In the Royal Gazette for Jan. 17, 1784, 
(No. 1), Tucker & Co., of St. George’s, advertised to purchase some 
of the “idle negroes” in order ‘to send them to a country where 
they may be profitably employed,” by the ship ‘ Queen Charlotte,” 
then loading for Charleston, 8. C. 
A law was passed even as early as 1674, prohibiting the importation 
of any more slaves. Probably very few were ever imported directly 
from Africa, and perhaps none from Virginia. So far as the records 
show, they nearly all came from the West Indies, either by purchase, 
or by capture from the Dutch and Spanish. 
In 1672, it was ordered that all free negroes should apprentice 
themselves to masters or immediately ‘depart the Ilands.” The 
Company enacted a law in 1674 that any negroes brought to the 
islands, and remaining more than 24 hours should be seized and kept 
as “slaves to the Company.” 
It was ordained by the Company, in 1674, that the laws of Eng- 
land should apply equally to the negroes and whites. 
When slavery was finally abolished, in 1834, the number of slaves 
reported was 4,026, and their value was estimated at £175,194 
sterling. 
White Slaves. 
In the years of the early settlement, 1612-25 and later, many 
white persons were virtually held as slaves. Parties of women were 
several times sent out by the Company to be sold (for wives) to the 
highest bidders, or else for some definite price. 
Governor Butler, writing of the arrival of the Joseph, in 1620, 
remarks as follows:—“ In this shyp came over likewise divers newe 
