Knowing of the
likelihood of the Negroes to rise during the French and Indian War,
Governor Dinwiddie wrote Fox one of the Secretaries of State in 1756: "We
dare not venture to part with any of our white men any distance, as we
must have a watchful eye over our Negro slaves, who are upward of one
hundred thousand."[22] Brissot de Warville mentions in his _Travels of
1788_ several examples of marriages of white and blacks in Pittsburgh.
He noted the case of a Negro who married an indentured French servant
woman. Out of this union came a desirable mulatto girl who married a
surgeon of Nantes then stationed at Pittsburgh. His family was considered
one of the most respectable of the city. The Negro referred to was doing a
creditable business and his wife took it upon herself to welcome
foreigners, especially the French, who came that way. Along the Ohio also
there were several cases of women of color living with unmarried white men;
but this was looked upon by the Negroes as detestable as was evidenced by
the fact that, if black women had a quarrel with a mulatto woman, the
former would reproach the latter for being of ignoble blood.[23]
These tendencies, however, could not assure the Negro that the Northwest
Territory was to be an asylum for freedom when in 1763 it passed into the
hands of the British, the promoters of the slave trade, and later to the
independent colonies, two of which had no desire to exterminate slavery.
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