and comforting to have servants who spoke and understood English as the initial steps to establish
a home in the wilderness were undertaken. Once established, there were obvious advantages in
having a permanent labor force that would not leave when their term of service was finished, but
acquiring slaves from Africa was an expensive proposition for colonists starting to clear their lands.
Further, the headright system of land grants based on number of persons brought in encouraged the
importation of the cheaper indentured servant. In a time when capital was scarce, that might have
been a significant consideration. In 1664, Governor Charles Calvert wrote his brother Lord
Baltimore,

I have endeavored to see if I could find as many responsible men that
would engage to take a 100 or 200 negroes every year from the Royal
Company at that rate mentioned in yr Lordships letter but I find wee
are not men of estates good enough to undertake such a business, but
would wish we were for we are naturally inclined to love negroes if
our purses would endure it.89

Latin America and the sugar plantations of the West Indies were far more profitable markets
for slaves in the seventeenth century, so black immigration was generally in small numbers coming
to the colony with other goods.90 In Governor Seymour's report to the Board of Trade in 1708, he
noted

before the year 1698, this province has been supplied by some small
Quantities of Negro's from Barbados and other her Majesty's Islands
and Plantations, as Jamaica and New England Seven, eight, nine or
ten in a Sloop and sometimes, tho very seldom, whole ship Loads of
Slaves have been brought here directly from Africa by Interlopers, or
such as have had Licenses, or otherwise traded there.91

The average negro in seventeenth century Maryland was born
in Africa and spent some time in the West Indies. The African was
the only slave, but he or she worked alongside a small number of the
master's white indentured servants. The details of slave life are
difficult to determine, for we have no writings of slaves from this
period nor do the few surviving letters of whites cast much light. The
early laws did not distinguish between slaves and servants, but
servants may have had some rights stated in their indentures. Status
was sometimes as important as race, and black and white servants
occasionally ran away together or had children. If an African wished
to have children by someone of his own race, he probably had to visit
a neighboring plantation. The child then would grow up with its
mother, because the father lived in different quarters on a different
master's land.92 The gradual emergence of a native born slave
population suggests that travel between plantations did occur, but the

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