There were, then, three very distinct classes of colored people in the
country, to wit: The slave in the South, the free colored people of
the South, and the free colored people of the North. These were also
sub-divided into several smaller classes. Slaves were divided into
field hands, house servants and city slaves. The free colored people
of the South had their classes based usually on color; the free
colored people of the North had their divisions caused by differences
in religion, differences as to place of birth, and numerous family
conceits. So that surveyed as a whole, it is extremely difficult to
get anything like a complete social map of these four millions as they
existed at the outbreak of the Civil War.

For a quarter of a century there had been a steady concentration of
the slave population within the cotton and cane-growing region, the
grain-growing States of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia having become
to a considerable extent breeding farms. Particularly was this the
case with the more intelligent and higher developed individual slaves
who appeared near the border line. The master felt that such persons
would soon make their escape by way of the "Underground Railroad" or
otherwise, and hence in order to prevent a total loss, would follow
the dictates of business prudence and sell his bright slave man to
Georgia. The Maryland or Virginia slave who showed suspicious
aspirations was usually checked by the threat, "I'll sell you to
Georgia;" and if the threat did not produce the desired reformation it
was not long before the ambitious slave found himself in the gang of
that most despised and most despicable of all creatures, the Georgia
slave-trader. Georgia and Canada were the two extremes of the slave's
anticipation during the last decade of his experience. These stood as
his earthly Heaven and Hell, the "Underground Railroad," with its
agents, conducting to one, and the odious slave-trader, driving men,