century, negroes who were Christians when brought into the colony, especially if they had come with
their master from England, were often able to demonstrate that they came as indentured servants
rather than as slaves.32

A.        Slavery in the First Decades of the Colony

Although DeSousa came with the first colonists, he was not the first black in Maryland.
William Claibome had hired negroes to work a few months on Kent island in 1633, before DeSousa
and the other settlers of Lord Baltimore ever appeared in Maryland.33 In 1634 Cyprian Thorowgood
made a trip up the bay where he met a negro who lived among the indians to learn their language.
Thorowgood did not reveal whether the negro came from Virginia or when. According to
Thorowgood, the negro claimed that the Susquehanna indians were cannibals.

"Their (Sasquasahannokes) great feast, at which times they bring
them (prisoner's of war) forth and binde them to trees, makeing a hott
fire about them at first, and still bigger by degrees, until they be dead;
in the meanewhile they use to cut out peeces of their flesh, and boile
it and eat it before them from whom they cut it; this relation I had
from a Negroe, which lived among them for to leame the language."34

It is hard to tell whether the story of the Susquehanna indians was a second hand account
from the peaceful indians who had been subject to Susquehanna attacks or whether the story was
designed to scare Thorowgood and deter the colonists from pressing northward.

Most negroes who came to the Chesapeake were Africans captured by or sold to European
traders. They had a different appearance, different religion, different language, and different culture
than the English colonists. Although most came to this country after a period of servitude in the
West Indies, the smattering of English they acquired there and their contact with English West Indian
planters did not destroy these differences. Blacks of this background were the first slaves in
Maryland.

Some of the first negroes in Maryland were probably purchased in Virginia. In August of
1619, wrote John Rolfe of Virginia, "came in a dutch man of war that sold us twenty Negroes."35
At least four more came to Virginia from England during the next four years. By 1624 the Virginia
census showed twenty-two negroes living in the colony and the muster rolls for 1625 reported
twenty-three.36 The exact status of negroes in Virginia prior to 1634 cannot be determined with
certainty, but they were considered a distinct class of servants with no fixed limit on their time of
service. Unlike the white inhabitants in the 1624 census, negroes were referred to only by first
names and in some instances were referred to simply as negroes with no name at all. The muster
rolls noted the age and date of arrival for white servants - important information for determining
when their period of service expired. No such notation was made for negroes on the rolls. Governor
George Yeardley's will in 1627 distinguished between his servants and his negroes.37 Even
Claibome, in his claims for expenses incurred in operating Kent Island, mentioned sums due for the