I have said, that in the early publications respecting Barbados, it is staled, that it was made a matter of debate even in England, and was asserted boldly in several instances, that the African was not a human being, but a gradation between man and monkey, without any rational soul, and therefore to be classed with the beasts that perish. Such assertions, however, did not hinder some pious men from proceeding to Barbados at a very early period of its settlement; and who accounted it no dishonour to preach to, and instruct the black slaves, and zealously to labour amongst them to promote their welfare in this world, and more especially in the next. These men were ministers of the Church of England, and their labours were not altogether in vain. Every means, however, were had recourse to (even to persecution,) to banish such missionaries from the colony.

Though they could no longer deny their humanity the early planters were soon satisfied that the less their slaves knew of the Gospel of Christ, they would be the better fitted for the duties they had to require of them; and although the island was divided into parishes, and churches were built for the accommodation of the white population, the clergymen were strictly prohibited from preaching to the blacks. On no account could a person of colour be allowed to enter any of these churches; and it was not even permitted that their bodies should be buried within the same enclosure where that of the white man was committed to the earth.