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_.].