The purchasers or mortgagees were in general churches and convents, so that the slaves, thus alienated, obtained at least a preferable servitude.

The place of the absent serfs was supplied by free labor, so that agricultural and mechanical occupations, now devolving upon a more elevated class, became less degrading, and, in process of time, opened an ever-widening sphere for the industry and progress of freemen.

Thus a people began to exist.

It was, however; a miserable people, with personal, but no civil rights whatever.

Their condition, although better than servitude, was almost desperate.