[Footnote 2: The Code Noir obliged every planter to have his Negroes
instructed and baptized. It allowed the slave for instruction,
worship, and rest not only every Sunday, but every festival usually
observed by the Roman Catholic Church. It did not permit any market to
be held on Sundays or holidays. It prohibited, under severe penalties,
all masters and managers from corrupting their female slaves. It did
not allow the Negro husband, wife, or infant children to be sold
separately. It forbade them the use of torture, or immoderate and
inhuman punishments. It obliged the owners to maintain their old and
decrepit slaves. If the Negroes were not fed and clothed as the law
prescribed, or if they were in any way cruelly treated, they might
apply to the Procureur, who was obliged by his office to protect them.
See Code Noir, pp. 99-100.]


The Spanish and French were doing so much more than the English to
enlighten their slaves that certain teachers and missionaries in the
British colonies endeavored more than ever to arouse their countrymen
to discharge their duty to those they held in bondage. These reformers
hoped to do this by holding up to the members of the Anglican Church
the praiseworthy example of the Catholics whom the British had for
years denounced as enemies of Christ. The criticism had its effect.
But to prosecute this work extensively the English had to overcome
the difficulty found in the observance of the unwritten law that
no Christian could be held a slave. Now, if the teaching of slaves
enabled them to be converted and their Christianization led to
manumission, the colonists had either to let the institution gradually
pass away or close all avenues of information to the minds of their
Negroes. The necessity of choosing either of these alternatives
was obviated by the enactment of provincial statutes and formal