indenture) some of the more trusty were permitted to have small farms,
from the produce of which they made return to the company. Their
children, however, continued to be slaves. In 1664 New Netherland became
New York. The next year, in the code of English laws that was drawn
up, it was enacted that "no Christian shall be kept in bond slavery,
villeinage, or captivity, except who shall be judged thereunto by
authority, or such as willingly have sold or shall sell themselves." As
at first there was some hesitancy about making Negroes Christians, this
act, like the one in Massachusetts, by implication permitted slavery.

It was in 1632 that the grant including what is now the states of
Maryland and Delaware was made to George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore.
Though slaves are mentioned earlier, it was in 1663-4 that the Maryland
Legislature passed its first enactment on the subject of slavery. It was
declared that "all Negroes and other slaves within this province, and
all Negroes and other slaves to be hereinafter imported into this
province, shall serve during life; and all children born of any Negro
or other slave, shall be slaves as their fathers were, for the term of
their lives."

In Delaware and New Jersey the real beginnings of slavery are unusually
hazy. The Dutch introduced the system in both of these colonies. In the
laws of New Jersey the word _slaves_ occurs as early as 1664, and acts
for the regulation of the conduct of those in bondage began with the
practical union of the colony with New York in 1702. The lot of the
slave was somewhat better here than in most of the colonies. Although
the system was in existence in Delaware almost from the beginning of the
colony, it did not receive legal recognition until 1721, when there was
passed an act providing for the trial of slaves in a special court with
two justices and six freeholders.