But, as there were few towns or
cities in the Northwest during the first decades of the new republic, the
flight of the Negro into that territory was like that of a fugitive taking
his chances in the wilderness. Having lost their pioneering spirit in
passing through the ordeal of slavery, not many of the bondmen took flight
in that direction and few free Negroes ventured to seek their fortunes in
those wilds during the period of the frontier conditions, especially when
the country had not then undergone a thorough reaction against the Negro.
The migration of the Negroes, however, received an impetus early in the
nineteenth century. This came from the Quakers, who by the middle of the
eighteenth century had taken the position that all members of their sect
should free their slaves.[1] The Quakers of North Carolina and Virginia
had as early as 1740 taken up the serious question of humanely treating
their Negroes. The North Carolina Quakers advised Friends to emancipate
their slaves, later prohibited traffic in them, forbade their members from
even hiring the blacks out in 1780 and by 1818 had exterminated the
institution among their communicants.[2] After healing themselves of the
sin, they had before the close of the eighteenth century militantly
addressed themselves to the task of abolishing slavery and the slave trade
throughout the world.
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