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Except in the indigo and rice area of Carolina,
towards the close of the century Negro slave labor
was not considered profitable. However, the price of
tobacco seemed fixed at a half a penny the pound,
except for the very best grades, and the greater planters 
were experimenting with slaves. Lady Berkeley, Ralph Wormeley 
and a few others had already tried
Negro workers on fairly large scale operations and found 
them profitable. A Negro, after a year's training, did as 
much as a white servant, and his food and clothes cost 
hardly half as much as those of an indentured man or woman. The Negro could not run away to
the frontier, because the Indians would kill him; he
did not expect a heifer, a new suit of clothes and two 
pigs if he were set free; and in case a black man were
freed, he hardly knew what to do - he certainly could
not claim a hundred acres of land. Hence a freed Negro
was not a free man. Everywhere vestries and county
courts had been pondering these questions and rendering
decisions: if a Negro became a Christian, he must
still remain a slave; if a Negro woman bore children,
they were in some cases the property of her master,