exactly sold, but the law permitted the transfer from one owner to another when the slave acquiesced in the transfer before a notary, but it was often done without regard to the slave.  They were even bequeathed and sold as personal property at auction.  Notices for sale were frequent.  There were rewards for runaway slaves.  Negroes whose terms had almost expired were kidnapped and sold to New Orleans.  The legislature imposed a penalty for such, but it was not generally enforced.  They were taxable property valued according to the length of service.  Negroes served as laborers on farms, house servants, and in salt mines, the latter being an excuse for holding them as slaves.  Persons of color could purchase servants of their own race.  The law provided that the Justice of the County could on complaint from the master order that a lazy servant be whipped.  In this frontier section, therefore, where men often took the law in their own hands, slaves were often punished and abused just as they were in the Southern States.  The law dealing with fugitives was somewhat harsh.  When apprehended, fugitives had to serve two days extra for each day they lost from their master’s service.  The harboring of a runaway slave was punishable by a fine of one day for each the slave might be concealed.  Consistently too with the provision of the laws in most slave States, slaves could retain all goods or money lawfully acquired during their servitude provided their master gave his consent.  Upon the demonstration of proof to the county court that they had served their term they could obtain from that tribunal certificates of freedom.  See The Laws of Indiana.]

[Footnote 26:  Masters had to provide adequate food, and clothing and good lodging for the slave, but the penalty for failing to comply with this law was not clear and even if so, it happened that many masters never observed it.  There was also an effort to prevent cruelty to slaves, but it was difficult to establish the guilt of masters when the slave could not bear witness against his owner and it was not likely that the neighbor equally guilty or indifferent to the complaints of the blacks would take their petitions to court.

Under this system a large number of slaves were brought into the Territory especially after 1807.  There were 135 in 1800.  This increase came from Kentucky and Tennessee.  As those brought were largely boys and girls with a long period of service, this form of slavery was assured for some years.  The children of these blacks were often registered for thirty-five instead of thirty years of service on the ground that they were not born in Illinois.  No one thought of persecuting a master for holding servants unlawfully and Negroes themselves could be easily deceived.  Very few settlers brought their slaves there to free them.  There were only 749 in 1820.  If one considers the proportion of this to the number brought there for manumission this seems hardly true.  It is better to say that during these first two decades of the nineteenth century some settlers came for both purposes, some to hold slaves, some, as Edward Coles, to free them.  It was not only practiced in the southern part along the Mississippi and Ohio but as far north in Illinois as Sangamon County, were found servants known as “yellow boys” and “colored girls.”—­See the Laws of Illinois.]