254 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



tion of facts, from which every one may draw his own 

 conclusions. 



First, then, let me give a short historical view of the 

 origin of what a majority of the citizens of the United 

 States, as well where slavery exists as where it does not, 

 regard a great evil. 



Perhaps every one is aware that negro slavery com- 

 menced in this country while we were but a colony of 

 Great Britain, and at a time when few, if any, thought it 

 was such a henious sin as it is now denounced in some 

 quarters, or that it would ever reach its present magni- 

 tude. Could the wise fathers who framed our national 

 constitution, have had a prospective vision of the present, 

 it is probable they would have inserted some provision to 

 prevent its extension.* But so little did they then fear, 



* The first slaves introduced, were twenty in number, from a 

 Dutch man-of-war from the coast of Guinea. They were landed for 

 sale in the colony of Virginia, on James River, in August, 1620, 225 

 years ago. Negroes constituted an article of traffic, more or less, 

 in all the colonies. At the time of the Declaration of Independence, 

 in 1776, the whole number was estimated at 500,000, viz: 



In Massachusetts, 3,500 



Rhode Island, 4,373 



Connecticut 6,000 



New Hampshire, 620 



New York, 15,000 



New Jersey, 7,600 



Pennsylvania, 10,000 



Delaware 9,000 



Maryland, 80,000 



Virginia, 165,000 



N. Carolina, 75,000 



S. Carolina, 110,000 



Georgia, 16,000 



Total in 1776 502,132 



Since then slavery has been abolished in the first seven States 

 above named. The census of 1790 exhibited 697,897 slaves, and 

 59,460 free persons of color. 



In 1800, slaves 893,041 



1810, " 1,191,364 



1820, " 1,538,064 



