permission was granted to John Mottrom and Edward Fleet to use a section of the train bands, with such a quantity of arms and ammunition as they would require, in overtaking certain slaves who had fled from them. The men impressed to take part in this service were to be paid out of the public levy of the counties in which they resided, and satisfaction was to be made in the same manner to the owners of the boats used in the pursuit. The negroes when caught were to be brought back, and after being whipped, were to be put to work again in the field.[1]
Whatever disposition may have existed among the slaves to steal away from the plantations to which they belonged, was due in some measure to the influence and example of the restless or discontented white servants, who were bolder, more energetic, and more enterprising than members of the African race. The list of laborers on every large estate in the last quarter of the seventeenth century included both negroes and white men; brought together in intimate and constant association, the slaves were naturally very susceptible to the improper persuasions of their white companions, and consequently special laws had to be passed to punish the white servants who absconded in company with them. Not all of the negroes, however, who were guilty of the offence of running away were prompted to do so by the influence of individuals of the other race. A large proportion of the slaves, especially in the period following 1670, had only been recently imported into the Colony, and being African savages unaccustomed to a life of labor and restraint, it is not strange that many should have felt and acted upon the impulse to seek freedom by flight. This part of the black population had not yet acquired an
- ↑ General Court Orders, June 30, 1640, Robinson Transcripts, p. 13.
