who first bought negroes at the auction block intended to establish a
system of permanent bondage. Only by a slow process did chattel slavery
take firm root and become recognized as the leading source of the labor
supply. In 1650, thirty years after the introduction of slavery, there
were only three hundred Africans in Virginia.

The great increase in later years was due in no small measure to the
inordinate zeal for profits that seized slave traders both in Old and in
New England. Finding it relatively easy to secure negroes in Africa,
they crowded the Southern ports with their vessels. The English Royal
African Company sent to America annually between 1713 and 1743 from five
to ten thousand slaves. The ship owners of New England were not far
behind their English brethren in pushing this extraordinary traffic.

As the proportion of the negroes to the free white population steadily
rose, and as whole sections were overrun with slaves and slave traders,
the Southern colonies grew alarmed. In 1710, Virginia sought to curtail
the importation by placing a duty of £5 on each slave. This effort was
futile, for the royal governor promptly vetoed it. From time to time
similar bills were passed, only to meet with royal disapproval. South
Carolina, in 1760, absolutely prohibited importation; but the measure
was killed by the British crown. As late as 1772, Virginia, not daunted
by a century of rebuffs, sent to George III a petition in this vein:
"The importation of slaves into the colonies from the coast of Africa
hath long been considered as a trade of great inhumanity and under its
present encouragement, we have too much reason to fear, will endanger
the very existence of Your Majesty's American dominions.... Deeply
impressed with these sentiments, we most humbly beseech Your Majesty to
remove all those restraints on Your Majesty's governors of this colony
which inhibit their assenting to such laws as might check so very