It is from this work, however, that we shall obtain a nearer and
clearer view of the African planted upon our shores. Negro slavery
began at an early day in the North American Colonies; but up until the
Revolution of 1688 the demand for slaves was mainly supplied from
England, the slaves being white.[1] "It is probable," says Professor
DuBois, "that about 25,000 slaves were brought to America each year
between 1698 and 1707, and after 1713 it rose to perhaps 30,000
annually. "Before the Revolution the total exportation to America is
variously estimated as between 40,000 and 100,000 each year."
Something of the horrors of the "Middle Passage" may be shown by the
records that out of 60,783 slaves shipped from Africa during the years
1680-88, 14,387, or nearly one-fourth of the entire number, perished
at sea. In 1790 there were in the country nearly seven hundred
thousand Africans, these having been introduced by installments from
various heathen tribes. The importation of slaves continued with more
or less success up until 1858, when the "Wanderer" landed her cargo of
500 in Georgia.

During the period from 1790 to the breaking out of the Civil War,
shortly after the landing of the last cargo of slaves, the colored
population, both slave and free, had arisen to about four million, and
had undergone great modifications. The cargo of the "Wanderer" found
themselves among strangers, even when trying to associate with those
who in color and hair were like themselves. The slaves of 1860
differed greatly from the slaves of a hundred years earlier. They had
lost the relics of that stern warlike spirit which prompted the Stono
insurrection, the Denmark Vesey insurrection, and the Nat Turner
insurrection, and had accepted their lot as slaves, hoping that
through God, freedom would come to them some time in the happy future.