The number of negroes in the colony rose to some 6500 at the eve of the American Revolution.

Most of them were held in very small parcels, but at least one citizen, Captain John Perkins of Norwich, listed fifteen slaves in his will.
[Footnote 22: The scanty materials available are summarized in B.C.
Steiner, _History of Slavery in Connecticut_ (Johns Hopkins University _Studies_, XI, nos.

9, 10, Baltimore, 1893), pp.

9-23, 84.

See also W.C.
Fowler, "The Historical Status of the Negro in Connecticut," in the _Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries_, III, 12-18, 81-85, 148-153, 260-266.] [Footnote 23: _Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut_, III, 298.] [Footnote 24: _Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut_, IV, 40, 376; V, 52, 53; VI, 390, 391.] Rhode Island was distinguished from her neighbors by her diversity and liberalism in religion, by her great activity in the African slave trade, and by the possession of a tract of unusually fertile soil.