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Maryland History at St. Marys College on May 19, 1984, however, in most counties of
Maryland and Virginia, as slavery developed over time, females initially predominated,
then males, and finally a rough equivalence obtained. In Anne Arundel and Charles
counties in 1667, female slaves outnumbered males by 3 to 2 although males were in the
majority in St. Marys county. Harris's work is based on surviving estate inventories, and
the actual numbers involved are very low. He finds 57 slaves in these inventories
although at least 1000 were in Maryland by 1670. For example, between 1640 and 1672
he found eleven of seventeen slaves in Charles county inventories were female while for
the same period in Calvert county only one slave is listed in inventories. Although Harris
found generally that single male planters were proportionately more likely to have female
slaves than married couples, this rather suggestive finding did not apply to Maryland in
the 1640-1672 period. First, only one unmarried planter in Maryland had a female slave
in his inventory. Second, slaves were purchased in preference to bound labor only by
persons with some capital and persons who acquired capital were also able to find wives.
Thus, few single men held slaves. In households with young or mature children where
the wife was present, the husband would be discouraged from sexual relations with his
servant and especially his slave. Indeed, in 1651, John Meredith claimed twenty thousand
pounds sterling as damage to his reputation in a defamation action against William
Daynes who allegedly stated that he heard Meredith had fathered a child by his black
slave in Virginia. X Maryland Archives 114.
On this basis, the female slave would be likely to have children only with another
slave or an indentured servant. Given strictures against fornication and the high mortality
in childbirth, the servant might fear his master's wrath (and an extension of term) for such
a liaison. The African slave who could not look for postponed gratification, since he
would never be free, was often some distance away.
60. John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom 31 (1967); Mannix and Cowley, supra
note 26, at 30-1,40-5.
61. Mannix and Cowley, supra note 26, at 32. "In the years from 1575 to 1591, 52,000 slaves
were sent from Angola alone to Brazil and the Spanish Indies, with the shipments rising
to an average of more than 5,000 a year by the end of this period. They continued to rise,
and, by 1617, 28,000 slaves were being shipped annually from Angola and the Congo."
62. Franklin, supra note 53, at 50; Mannix and Cowley, supra note 26, at 4.
63. Mannix and Cowley, supra note 26, at 21-3.
64. John D. Krusler. To Live Like Princes C1976) p. 33.
65. John Smith, supra note 30, at 11, 39.
66. Winthrop Jordan, supra note 37, at 49-52.
67. David W. Galenson, White Servitude in Colonial America 3-15 (1981).
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