# Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts/Chapter 4

IV.
At first, the number of slaves in Massachusetts was comparatively small, and their increase was not large until towards the close of the seventeenth century. Edward Randolph, in 1676, in an answer to several ​heads of inquiry, &c., stated that there were "not above 200 slaves in the colony, and those are brought from Guinea and Madagascar." He also mentioned that some ships had recently sailed to those parts from Massachusetts. Hutchinson's Collection of Papers, pp. 485, 495. Governor Andros reported that the slaves were not numerous in 1678—"not many seryants, and but few slaves, proportionable with freemen." N. Y. Col. Doc., iii., 263.
In May, 1680, Governor Bradstreet answered certain Heads of Inquiry from the Lords of the Committee for Trade and Foreign Plantations. Among his statements are the following:
"There hath been no company of blacks or slaves brought into the country since the beginning of this plantation, for the space of fifty years, onely one small Vessell about two yeares since, after twenty months' voyage to Madagascar, brought hither betwixt forty and fifty Negroes, most women and children, sold here for 10l., 15l., and 20l., apiece, which stood the merchant, in near 40l. apiece: Now and then, two or three Negroes are brought hither from Barbadoes and other of his Majestie's plantations, and sold here for about twenty pounds apiece. So that there may be within our Government about one hundred or one hundred and twenty. …… There are a very few blacks borne here, I think not above [five] or six at the most in a year, none baptized that I ever heard of…" M. H. S. Coll. iii., viii., 337.
The following century changed the record. Many "companies" of slaves were "brought into the country," and the institution flourished and waxed strong.
​Judge Sewall referred to the "numerousness" of the slaves in the province in 1700. Gov. Dudley's report to the Board of Trade, in 1708, gave four hundred as then in Bofson, one half of whom were born there; and in one hundred other towns and villages one hundred and fifty more—making a total of five hundred and fifty. He stated that negroes were found unprofitable, and that the planters there preferred white servants "who are serviceable in war presently, and after become planters." From January 24, 1698, to 25 December, 1707, two hundred negroes arrived in Massachusetts.
Gov. Shute's information to the Lords of Trade, in 1720, Feb. 17, gave the number of slaves of Massachusetts at 2,000, including a few Indians. He added that, during the same year, thirty-seven male and sixteen female negroes were imported, with the remark, "No great difference for seven years last past." Felt, Coll. Amer. Stat. Assoc., i., 586.
In 1735, there were 2,600 negroes in the Province.
In 1742, there were 1,514 in Boston alone. Douglass, i., 531. These are probably very imperfect estimates, as it is well known that regular enumerations of the population were considered very objectionable by the people of the Bay. Some recalled the numbering of Israel by David, and perhaps all were jealous of the possible designs of the Government in England in obtaining accurate information of their numbers and resources. It is a curious fact that the first census in Massachusetts, was a census of negro slaves.
In 1754, an account of property in the Province liable to taxation being required, Gov. Shirley sent a ​special message to the House of Representatives, in which he said:
"There is one part of the Estate, viz., the Negro Slaves, which I am at a loss how to come at the knowledge of, without your assistance." Journal, p. 119.
On the same day, November 19, 1754, the Legislature made an order that the Assessors of the several towns and districts within the Province, forthwith send into the secretary’s office the exact number of the negro slaves, both males and females, sixteen years old and upwards, within their respective towns and districts. Ib.
This enumeration, as corrected by Mr. Felt, gives an aggregate of 4,489. The census of Negroes in 1764–5, according to the same authority, makes their number 5,779, in 1776, 5,249; in 1784, 4,377, in 1786, 4,371; and in 1790 (by the United States census) 6,001.
The royal instructions to Andros, in 1688, as ​Governor of New England, required him to "pass a law for the restraining of inhuman severity which may be used by ill masters or overseers towards the Christian servants or slaves; wherein provision is to be made that the wilful killing of Indians and Negroes be punished with death, and a fitt penalty imposed for the maiming of them." N. Y. Col. Doc., iii., 547. The reader will note the distinction in these instructions between the Christian servants or slaves, and the Indians and Negroes. It points to a feature of slavery in Massachusetts, at that time, which we propose to notice in another portion of these notes.
The Law of 1698, Chapter 6, forbids trading or trucking with any "Indian, molato or negro servant or slave, or other known dissolute, lewd, and disorderly persons, of whom there is just cause of suspicion." Such persons were to be punished by whipping for so trading with money or goods improperly obtained.
The Law of 1700, Chapter 13, was enacted to protect the Indians against the exactions and oppression which some of the English exercised towards them "by drawing them to consent to covenant or bind themselves or children apprentices or servants for an unreasonable term, on pretence of or to make satisfaction for some small debt contracted or damage done by them." Other similar acts were afterwards passed in 1718 and 1726, the latter having a clause to protect them against kidnapping.
In 1701, the Representatives of the town of Boston were "desired to promote the encouraging the bringing of white servants, and to put a period to Negroes being slaves." Drake's Boston, 525. M. H. S. Coll., ii., ​viii, 184. We have no knowledge of the efforts made under this inftruction of the town of Boston, but they failed to accomplish anything. Indeed, the very next enactment concerning slavery was a step backward instead of an advance towards reform—a measure which turned out to be a permanent and effective barrier against emancipation in Massachusetts.
The Law of 1703, Chapter 2, was in restraint of the "Manumission, Discharge, or Setting free" of "Molatto or Negro slaves." Security was required against the contingency of these persons becoming a charge to the town, and "none were to be accounted free for whom security is not given;" but were "to be the proper charge of their respective masters or mistresses, in case they stand in need of relief and support, notwithstanding any manumission or instrument of freedom to them made or given," etc. A practice was prevailing to manumit aged or infirm slaves, to relieve the master from the charge of supporting them. To prevent this practice, the act was ​passed. C. J. Parsons. Winchendon vs. Hatfield in error, iv Mass. Reports, 130. This act was still in force as late as June, 1807, when it was reproduced in the revised laws, and continued until a much later period to govern the decisions of courts affecting the settlement of town paupers. An unsuccessful attempt to repeal it, will be found duly noticed in a subsequent portion of these notes.
The Law of 1703, Chapter 4, prohibited Indian, Negro and Molatto servants or slaves, to be abroad after nine o'clock, etc.
The Law of 1705, Chapter 6, "for the better preventing of a Spurious and Mixt Issue, &c.;" punishes Negroes and Molattoes for improper intercourse with whites, by selling them out of the Province. It also ​punishes any Negro or Molatto for striking a Christian, by whipping at the discretion of the Justices before whom he may be convicted. It also prohibits marriage of Christians with Negroes or Molattoes—and imposes a penalty of Fifty Pounds upon the persons joining them in marriage. It provides against unreasonable denial of marriage to Negroes with those of the fame nation, by any Master—"any Law, Usage, or Custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.
This proviso against the unreasonable denial of marriage to negroes is very interesting. Legislation against the arbitrary exercise and abuse of authority proves its existence and the previous practice. It was as true then as it is now that the institution of slavery was inconsistent with the just rules of Christian morality.
In Pennsylvania, five years before, William Penn had proposed to his Council, "the necessitie of a law [among others] about y$^e$ marriages of negroes." The subject was referred to a committee of both houses of the legislature, and resulted in a Bill in the Assembly, "for regulating Negroes in their Morals and Marriages, etc.," which was twice read and rejected. Penn. Col. Rec, i. 598. 606. Votes of Assembly, i., 120, 121. This proposition of Penn was in accordance with the views of George Fox, whose testimony in regard to the treatment of slaves, given at Barbadoes in 1671, is elsewhere referred to in these notes. In his "Gospel Family Order, being a short discourse concerning the Ordering of Families, both of Whites, Blacks, and Indians," he particularly enforced the necessity of ​looking after the marriages of the blacks, to see that there was some order and solemnity in the manner, and that the marriages should be recorded, and should be binding for life. See The Friend, Vol. xvii. 29, 4$^{to.}$, Phil. 1843.
No Christian man or woman, Quaker or Puritan, could fail to be shocked at the looseness of all such ties and relations under the slave system. One solitary witness against slavery in Massachusetts in 1700, referred to the well known "Temptations Masters were under to connive at the Fornication of their Slaves, lest they should be obliged to find them Wives or pay their Fines." Sewall, 1700. The laws against the irregular commerce of the sexes were an awkward part of a system which established and protected slavery, and marriage (such as it was) saved the expense of constant fines to masters and mistresses for delinquent slaves.
But what protection was there for the married state or sanction of marital or parental rights and duties? This law did not and could not protect or sanction either, and must have been of little practical value to the slaves. Governed by the humor or interest of the master or mistress, their marriage was not a matter of choice with them, more than any other action of their life. Who was to judge whether the denial of a master or mistress was unreasonable or not? And what remedy had the slave in case of denial? The owner of a valuable female slave was to ​consider what all the risks of health and life were to be, and whether the increase of stock would reimburse the loss of service.
The breeding of slaves was not regarded with favor. Dr. Belknap says, that "negro children were considered an incumbrance in a family; and when weaned, were given away like puppies." M. H. S. Coll., i., iv., 200. They were frequently publicly advertised "to be given away,"—sometimes with the additional inducement of a sum of money to any one who would take them off.
At the same time there is no room for doubt that there were public and legalized marriages among slaves in Massachusetts, subsequently to the passage of this act of 1705. Mr. Justice Gray states that, "the subsequent records of Boston and other towns show that their banns were published like those of white persons. ​In 1745, a negro slave obtained from the Governor and Council a divorce for his wife's adultery with a white man. In 1758, it was adjudged by the Superior Court of Judicature, that a child of a female slave 'never married according to any of the forms prescribed by the laws of this land,' by another slave, who ‘had kept her company with her master's consent,’ was not a bastard." Quincy's Reports, 30, note. This judgment indicates liberal views with regard to the law of marriage as applied to slaves, although we suspect there was special occasion for the exercise of charity and mercy which might deprive it of any authority as a leading case.
It is perfectly well known that it was practically settled in Massachusetts that baptism was not emancipation—although there is no evidence in their statutes to show that the question was ever mooted in that colony, as it was in other colonies, where legislation was found necessary to establish the doctrine.
Still it was in the power of masters in Massachusetts to deny baptism to their slaves, as appears from the following extract, from Matthias Plant to the Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, etc. Answers to Queries, from Newbury, October 25, 1727:
"6. Negroe Slaves, one of them is desirous of baptism, but denied by her Master, a woman of wonderful sense, and prudent in matters, of equal knowledge in Religion with most of her sex, far exceeding any of her own nation that ever yet I heard of."
​About baptism of slaves "borne in the house, or bought with monie," see letter of Davenport to the younger Winthrop, June 14, 1666, and postscript. M. H. S. Coll. iii., x., 60. 62.
Mr. Palfrey gives it as his opinion, that "From the reverence entertained by the Fathers of New England for the nuptial tie, it is safe to infer that slave husbands and wives were never parted." Hist. N. E., ii., 30, note. The Fathers of New England also cherished a due regard for parental and filial duties and responsibilities, yet it is certain that slave mothers and children were separated. Resting upon "the law of God, established in Israel," the Puritan could have had no scruple about this matter—such a condition of marriage to the slave must have been regarded as an axiom as it was by the Hebrew. Compare Exodus, xxo., 4, 5, 6. Mr. Palfrey's inference is not warranted by the facts.
In 1786, the legislature of the State of Massachusetts passed an "Act for the orderly Solemnization of Marriage," by the seventh section whereof it was enacted "that no person authorized by this act to marry shall join in marriage any white person with any Negro, Indian or Mulatto, under penalty of fifty pounds; and all such marriages shall be absolutely null and void." The prohibition continued until 1843, when it was repealed by a special "act relating to marriage between individuals of certain races."
The statute of 1705 also provided an import duty of four pounds per head on every Negro brought into the Province from and after the 1st day of May, 1706, for the payment of which both the vessel and master ​were answerable. A penalty of double the amount of the duty on each one omitted was imposed for refusal or neglect to make the prescribed entry of "Number, Names, and Sex, in the Impost Office." A drawback was allowed upon exportation, and the like advantage was allowed to the purchaser of any Negro sold within the Province, in case of the death of his Negro within six weeks after importation or bringing into the Province.
Mr. Drake says that, in 1727, "the traffic in slaves appears to have been more an object in Boston than at any period before or since." Hist. of Boston, 574, and in the following year (1728) an additional "Act more effectually to secure the Duty on the Importation of Negroes" was passed, by which more stringent regulations were adopted to prevent the smuggling of such property into the Province, and the drawback was allowed on all negroes dying within twelve months.
This act expired by its own limitation in 1735, but another of a similar character was passed in 1739, which recognised the old law of 1705 as being still in force. It reduced the time for the drawback on the death of negroes to six months after importation.
Free Negroes not being allowed to train in the ​Militia, an act passed in 1707, Chapter 2, required them to do service on the highways and in cleaning the streets, etc., as an equivalent. Thirty-three free negroes were mentioned in the minutes of the Selectmen of Boston, in 1708, to whom, according to this law, two hundred and eighteen days of labor were assigned upon the highways and other public works. Lyman's Report, 1822. The same act prohibited them to entertain any servants of their own color in their houses, without permission of the respective masters or mistresses.
In 1712, an act was passed prohibiting the importation or bringing into the Province any Indian servants or slaves. The preamble recites the bad character of the Indians and other slaves, "being of a malicious, surley and revengeful spirit; rude and insolent in their behaviour, and very ungovernable.” A glimpse of possible future reform is to be caught in this act, for it recognizes the increafse of slaves as a "discouragement to the importation of White Christian Servants." But its chief motive was in the peculiar circumstances of the Province "under the sorrowful effects of the Rebellion and Hostilities" of the Indians, and the fact that great numbers of Indian slaves were already held in bondage in the Province at the time.
This act had a special reference to Southern Indians, the Tuscaroras and others, captives in war, chiefly from South Carolina. Governor Dudley afterwards entered into correspondence with other colonial governors, about preventing the sale of Indians from that Province to the Northern colonies. Similar acts were passed by Pennsylvania in 1712, ​New Hampshire in 1714, and Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1715.
Under the earliest laws of taxation in Massachusetts, slaves must have been rated (if taxed at all) as polls, the owners paying for them as for other servants and children, "such as take not wages." This continued until the period of the Province Charter, when, in the year 1692, "every male slave of sixteen years old and upwards" was rated "at Twenty Pounds Estate." In 1694, "all Negro's, Molattoes and Indian Servants, as well male as female, of 16 years old and upwards, at the rate of 12d. per poll same as other polls." In 1695, "all Negro's, Molatto, and Indian Servants, males of 14 years of age and upward at the rate of 20l. estate, and Females at 14l. estate, unless disabled by infirmity." They were subsequently in the same year rated "as other personal estate," which mode was continued in 1696, 1697, and 1698, in the latter year "according to the sound judgment and discretion of the Assessors, not excluding faculties."
This rating for "faculties" was a prominent feature in the early tax-laws of Massachusetts, and was continued after the commencement of the present century.
It was applied to white men in Massachusetts from the beginning, being intended as a just valuation for those who had arts, trades, and faculties, by the produce of which they were "more enabled to bear the publick charge than common laborers and Workmen, ​as Butchers, Bakers, Brewers, Victuallers, Smiths, Carpenters, Taylors, Shoomakers, Joyners, Barbers, Millers and Masons, with all other manual persons and Artists." Mass. Laws, Ed. 1672, p. 24. The law of 1698, however, appears to have been the first, if not the only one, in which this feature was applied to the "Negroes, Molattoes and Indians" in bondage; and may be justly regarded as an indication of progress, for it was an admission that these unfortunate creatures had "faculties," valuable to their owners, if not to themselves.
There was little variation in these laws during the entire colonial period—all Indian, Negro, and Mulatto servants continuing to be rated as personal property—excepting that occasionally some of those who were servants for a term of years, but not for life, were numbered and rated as polls.
n 1716, an attempt was made to modify this feature of the legislation of Massachusetts. The following extract from Judge Sewall's Diary is copied from the original. Though quoted by Coffin, in his History of Newbury, 188, and Felt, in the Coll. Amer. ​Stat. Association, i., 586, it is not correctly printed by either.
"1716. I essayed June 22, to prevent Indians and Negroes being rated with Horses and Hogs; but could not prevail. Col. Thaxter bro't it back" [from the Deputies], "and gave as a reason of y$^r$" [their] "Nonagreement, They were just going to make a New Valuation."
This concise mention of Judge Sewall's benevolent "essay," indicates that he had first proposed the matter in the Council, of which he was then a member; and that the Council agreeing, their decision was sent down to the House for their concurrence. But the House non-concurred; and signified by Colonel Thaxter, that they declined their assent to the resolve of the Council, for the reason that "they were just going to make a New Valuation;" and as in the preceding valuations of the property of their constituents, Indian, Negro, and Mulatto slaves had been prominent articles, they must keep on still in the old track; Indians, Negroes, and Mulattoes must still be valued as property, and for this species of property their owners must still be taxed. MS. Letter of Rev. Samuel Sewall.
In 1718, all Indian, Negro, and Mulatto servants for life were estimated as other Personal Estate—viz: Each male servant for life above fourteen years of age, at fifteen pounds value; each female servant for life, above fourteen years of age, at ten pounds value. The assessor might make abatement for cause of age or infirmity. Indian, Negro, and Mulatto Male servants for a term of years were to be numbered and ​rated as other Polls, and not as Personal Estate. In 1726, the assessors were required to estimate Indian, Negro, and Mulatto servants proportionably as other Personal Estate, according to their found judgment and discretion. In 1727, the rule of 1718 was restored, but during one year only, for in 1728 the law was the same as that of 1726; and so it probably remained, including all such servants, as well for term of years as for life, in the rateable estates. We have seen the supply bills for 1736, 1738, 1739, and 1740, in which this feature is the fame.
And thus they continued to be rated with horses, oxen, cows, goats, sheep, and swine, until after the commencement of the War of the Revolution. We have not seen the law, but Mr. Felt states that "in 1776 the colored polls were taxed the same as the white polls, and so continued to be." Coll. Amer. Stat. Assoc., i., 475. See also pp. 203, 311, 345, 411.
In the inventory of Captain Paul White, in 1679, was "one negrow = 30l." In 1708, an Indian boy from South Carolina brought 35l. An Indian girl brought fifteen pounds, at Salem, in August, 1710. The highest price paid for any of a cargo brought into Boston, by the sloop Katherine, in 1727, was eighty pounds. The estate of Samuel Morgaridge, who died in 1754, included the following: "Item, three negroes 133l. 6s. 8d." Coffin's Newbury, 188, 336. Coll. Essex Institute, i., 14. Felt's Salem, ii., 416.
"The Guinea Trade," as it was called then, since known and branded by all civilized nations as piracy, ​whose beginnings we have noticed, continued to flourish under the auspices of Massachusetts merchants down through the entire colonial period, and long after the boasted Declaration of Rights in 1780 had terminated (?) the legal existence of slavery within the limits of that State. Felt's Salem, ii., 230, 261, 265, 288, 292, 296. To gratify those who are curious to see what the instructions given by respectable merchants in Massachusetts to their slave captains were in the year 1785, we copy them from Felt's Salem, ii., 289–90; probably the only specimen extant.
"———, Nov. 12, 1785.
"Capt ———.
"Our brig, of which you have the command, being cleared at the office, and being in every other respect complete for sea; our orders are, that you embrace the first fair wind and make the best of your way to the coast of Africa, and there invest your cargo in slaves. As slaves, like other articles, when brought to market, generally appear to the best advantage; therefore, too critical an inspection cannot be paid to them before purchase; to see that no dangerous distemper is lurking about them, to attend particularly to their age, to their countenance, to the straightness of their limbs, and, as far as possible to the goodness or badness of their constitution, &c. &c., will be very considerable objects.
"Male or female slaves whether full grown or not, we cannot particularly instruct you about; and on this head shall only observe, that prime male slaves generally sell best in any market. No people require more kind and tender treatment to exhilarate their spirits, than the Africans; and, while on the one hand you are attentive to this, remember that on the other hand, too much circumspection cannot be observed by yourself and people, to prevent their taking the advantage ​of such treatment by insurrection, &c. When you consider that on the health of your slaves, almost your whole voyage depends; for all other risques, but mortality, seizures and bad debts, the underwriters are accountable for;—you will therefore particularly attend to smoking your vessel, washing her with vinegar, to the clarifying your water with lime or brimstone, and to cleanliness among your own people, as well as among the slaves.
"As the factors on the coast have no laws but of their own making, and of course such as suit their own convenience, they therefore, like the Israelites of old, do whatsoever is right in their own eyes; in consequence of which you ought to be very careful about receiving gold dust, and of putting your cargo into any but the best hands, or if it can be avoided, and the same dispatch made, into any hands at all, on any credit. If you find that any saving can be made by bartering rum for slops, and supplying your people with small stores, you will do it; or even if you cannot do it without a loss, it is better done than left undone; for shifts of clothes, particularly in warm climates, are very necessary. As our interest will be considerable, and as we shall make insurance thereon, if any accident should prevent your following the track here pointed out, let it be your first object to protest publicly, why, and for what reason you were obliged to deviate. You are to have four slaves upon every hundred, and four at the place of sale; the priviledge of eight hogsheads, and two pounds eight shillings per month;—these are all the compensations you are to expect for the voyage.
"Your first mate is to have four hogsheads privilege, and your second mate two, and wages as per agreement. No slaves are to be selected out as priviledged ones, but must rise or fall with the general sales of the cargo, and average accordingly. We shall expect to hear from you, by every opportunity to Europe, the West Indies, or any of these United States; and let your letters particularly inform us, what you have done, what you are then doing, and what you expect to do. We could wish to have as particular information as can be obtained, respecting the trade in all its branches on the coast; to know if in any future time, it is probable a load of N. E. Rum could be sold for bills of exchange on London, or any part of Europe; or, for gold dust; and what despatch in this case might be made.
"You will be careful to get this information from gentlemen of veracity, and know of them if any other articles would answer from ​this quarter. We should be glad to enter into a contract, if the terms would answer, with any good factor for rum, &c. If any such would write us upon the subject, and enclose a memorandum with the prices annexed, such letters and memorandums shall be duly attended to. We are in want of about five hundred weight of camwood, and one large elephant's tooth of about 80 lbs., which you will obtain. If small teeth can be bought from 15 to 30 lbs., so as to fell here without a loss, at three shillings, you may purchase 200 lbs. Should you meet with any curiosities on the coast, of a small value, you may expend 40 or 50 gallons of rum for them. Upon your return you will touch at St. Pierre's, Martinico, and call on Mr. John Mounreau for your further advise and destination. We submit the conducting of the voyage to your good judgment and prudent management, not doubting of your best endeavours to serve our interest in all cases; and conclude with committing you to the almighty Disposer of all events. "We with you health and prosperity, "And are your friends and owners."
The slaves purchased in Africa were chiefly sold in the West Indies, or in the Southern colonies; but when these markets were glutted, and the price low, some of them were brought to Massachusetts. The statiftics of the trade are somewhat scattered, and it is difficult to bring them together, but enough is known to bring the subject home to us. In 1795, one informant of Dr. Belknap could remember two or three entire cargoes, and the Doctor himself remembered one somewhere between 1755 and 1765 which consisted almost wholly of children. Sometimes the vessels of the neighboring colony of Rhode Island, after having sold their prime slaves in the West Indies, brought the remnants of their cargoes to Boston for sale. Coll. M. H. S., i., iv., 197.
The records of the slave-trade and slavery everywhere are the same—the fame disregard of human ​rights, the same indifference to suffering, the same contempt for the oppressed races, the same hate for those who are injured. It has been asserted that in Massachusetts, not only were the miseries of slavery mitigated, but some of its worst features were wholly unknown. But the record does not bear out the suggestion; and the traditions of one town at least preserve the memory of the most brutal and barbarous of all, "raising slaves for the market." Barry's Hanover, 175.
The first newspapers published in America illustrate among their advertisements the peculiar features of the institution to which we refer, and in their scanty columns of intelligence may be found thrilling accounts of the barbarous murders of masters and crews by the hands of their slave-cargoes. The case of the Amistad negroes had its occasional parallel in the colonial history of the traffic—excepting that the men of New England had a sympathy at home in the 17th and 18th centuries, which was justly withheld from their Spanish and Portuguese imitators in the 19th. Nor was that region wholly exempt from the terror by day and by night of slave insurrections. In Coffin's Newbury, 153, is a notice of a conspiracy of Indian and negro slaves "to obtain their inalienable rights,"—apparently a scheme of some magnitude.
​As the advantages of advertising came to be understood, the descriptions of slave property became more frequent and explicit. Negro men, women, and children were mixed up in the sales with wearing apparel, Gold Watches, and other Goods—"very good Barbados Rum” is offered with "a young negro that has had the Small Pox"—and competitors offer "Likely negro men and women just arrived"—"negro men new and negro boys who have been in the country some time," and also "just arrived, a choice parcel of negro boys and girls." "A likely negro man born in the country, and bred a Farmer, fit for any service," "a negro woman about 22 years old, with a boy about 5 months," &c., a "likely negro woman about 19 years and a child of about six months of age to be sold together or apart," and "a likely negro man, taken by execution, and to be sold by publick auction at the Royal Exchange Tavern in King Street, at six o'clock this afternoon," must conclude these extracts.
At this point it may be necessary to interpose a caution with reference to the judgment which must be pronounced against the policy which has been illustrated ​in these notes; and a recent writer of English history has so clearly stated our own views, that his language requires very little change here.
It would be to misread history and to forget the change of times, to see in the Fathers of New England mere commonplace slavemongers; to themselves they appeared as the elect to whom God had given the heathen for an inheritance; they were men of stern intellect and fanatical faith, who, believing themselves the favorites of Providence, imitated the example and assumed the privileges of the chosen people, and for their wildest and worst acts they could claim the sanction of religious conviction. In seizing and enslaying Indians, and trading for negroes, they were but entering into possession of the heritage of the saints; and New England had to outgrow the theology of the Elizabethan Calvinists before it could understand that the Father of Heaven respected neither person nor color, and that his arbitrary favor—if more than a dream of divines—was confined to spiritual privileges. Compare Froude's History of England, Vol. viii., 480.
It was not until the struggle on the part of the colonists themselves to throw off the fast-closing shackles of British oppression culminated in open resistance to the mother-country, that the inconsistency of maintaining slavery with one hand while pleading or striking for freedom with the other, compelled a reluctant and gradual change in public opinion on this subject.
If it be true that at no period of her colonial and provincial history was Massachusetts without her ​"protestants" against the whole system; their example was powerless in that day and generation. The words and thoughts of a Williams, an Eliot, and a Sewall, fell unheeded and unnoticed on the ears and hearts of the magistrates and people of their time, as the acorn fell two centuries ago in the forests by which they were surrounded.
V.
But the humane efforts of Roger Williams and John Eliot to abate the severity of judgment against captives, and mitigate the horrors of slavery in Massachusetts, hardly amounted to a positive protest against the institution itself. In their time there was no public opinion against slavery, and probably very little exercise of private judgment against it. Even among the Quakers the inner light had not yet disclosed its enormity, or awakened tender consciences to its utter wickedness.
There were two signal exceptions to the general
* ↑ There is a curious illustration of "the way of putting it" in Massachusetts, in Mr. Felt's account of this "census of slaves," in the Collections of the American Statistical Association, Vol. i., p. 208. He says that the General Court passed this order "for the purpose of having an accurate account of slaves in our Commonwealth, as a subject in which the people were becoming much interested, relative to the cause of liberty!" There is not a particle of authority for this suggestion—such a motive for their action never existed anywhere but in the imagination of the writer himself!
* ↑ It is to be regretted that we have no official authorities on the subject of the changes in this class of population during the period from 1776 to 1784. There is a most extraordinary, if not incredible, statement made by the Duke de la Rochefoucault Liancourt in his Travels through the United States … in the years 1795, 1796, and 1797, of which a translation was published in London in 1799. In that work, Vol. ii. page 166, he fays, "It is to be observed, that, in 1778, the general census of Massachusetts included eighteen thousand slaves, whereas the subsequent census of 1790 exhibits only six thousand blacks.
* ↑ Jonathan Sewall, writing to John Adams, February 31, 1760, puts the following case: "A man, by will, gives his negro his liberty, and leaves him a legacy. The executor consents that the negro shall be free, but refuseth to give bond to the selectmen to indemnify the twon against any charge for his support, in case he should become poor, (without which, by the province law, he is not manumitted,) or to pay him the legacy. Query. Can he recover the legacy, and how? John Adams, in reply, after illustrating in two cases the legal principle that the intention of the testator, to be collected from the words, is to be observed in the construction of a will, applied it to the case presented as follows, viz.: "The testator plainly intended that his negro should have his liberty and a legacy; therefore the law will presume that he intended his executor should do all that without which he could have neither. That this indemnification was not in the testator’s mind, cannot be proved from the will any more than it could be proved, in the first cafe above, that the testator did not know a fee simple would pass a will without the word heirs; nor than, in the second case, that the devise of a trust, that might continue for ever, would convey a fee simple without the like words. I take it, therefore, that the executor of this will is, by implication, obliged to give bonds to the town treasurer, and, in his refusal, is a wrong doer; and I cannot think he ought to be allowed to take advantage of his own wrong, so much as to allege this want of an indemnification to evade an action of the case brought for the legacy by the negro himself. But why may not the negro bring a special action of the case against the executor, setting forth the will, the devise of freedom and a legacy, and then the necessity of indemnification by the province law, and then a refusal to indemnify, and, of consequence, to set free and to pay the legacy? Perhaps the negro is free at common law by the devise. Now, the province law seems to have been made only to oblige the master to maintain his manumitted slave, and not to declare a manumission in the master's lifetime, or at his death, void. Should a master give a negro his freedom, under his hand and seal, without giving bond to the town, and should afterwards repent and endeavor to recall the negro into servitude, would not that instrument be a sufficient discharge against the master?" Adams' Works, i. 51, 55.
* ↑ The case of The Inhabitants of Stockbridge vs. The Inhabitants of West Stockbridge—regarding the settlement of a negro pauper (who had been a soldier in the American Army of the Revolution) presents a decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1817, not only recognizing the fact of the absolute legal continuance of slavery in that State in the years 1770–1777; but settling a point of law which is interesting in this connection. At that time "no contract made with the slave was binding on the master; for the slave could have maintained no action against him, had he failed to fulfil his promise [a promise to emancipate] which was an undertaking merely voluntary on his part." Mass. Reports, xiv., 257.
* ↑ A Bill of Sale of a Negro Women Servant in Boston in 1724, recites that "Whereas Scipio, of Boston aforessaid, Free Negro Man and Laborer, purposes Marriage to Margaret, the Negro Woman Servant of the said Dorcas Marshall [a Widow Lady of Boston]: Now to the Intent that the said Intended Marriage may take Effect, and that the said Scipio may Enjoy the said Margaret without any Interruption," etc., she is duly sold, with her apparel, for Fifty Pounds. N. E. Hist. and Gen. Reg., xviii., 78.
* ↑ So early as the poet Hesiod, married slaves, whether male or female, were esteemed inconvenient. Works and Days, line 406, also 602–3.
* ↑ Mr. Charles C. Jones, of Georgia, in his work on the Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States, published at Savannah, in 1842, gives, pp. 34, 35, memoranda of four instances of the kind, which he observed in looking over the old record of "Entryes for Publications" (for marriages) within the town of Boston, two in the year 1707, and two in 1710.
* ↑ "Dec. 7, 1737 Col. Royal petitions the General Court, that, having lately arrived from Antigua, he has with him several slaves for his own use, and not to sell, and therefore prays that the duty on them be remitted. The duty was £4 a-head. This petition was laid on the table, and rests there yet." Brooks's Medford, 435. The act of 1739 was for ten years, and therefore expired in 1749. We have found no repeal of the old law, but the proceedings concerning the act proposed in 1767 would seem to show all the old acts of Impost to be expired or obsolete.
* ↑ Mr. Felt says, in his memoranda, under the date of 1829, "the rating for faculties, long a prominent item in our former tax-acts, and not unfrequently made a subject of pleasant remark, has been dropped, like other notions of ancient custom." Coll. Amer. Stat. Affoc., i., 502. See also pp. 297, 374.
* ↑ The early records of the town of Boston preserve the fact that one Thomas Deane, in the year 1661, was prohibited from employing a negro in the manufacture of hoops under a penalty of twenty shillings, for what reason is not stated. Lyman's Report, 1822. Phillis Wheatley's was not the only instance, in Boston, of the negro's capacity for intellectual improvement. A worthy Englishman, Richard Dalton, Esq., a great admirer of the Greek classics, because of the tenderness of his eyes, taught his negro boy, Cæsar, to read to him distinctly any Greek writer, without understanding the meaning or interpretation. Douglass, ii., 345. In the Boston Chronicle for September 21, 1769, is advertised:—"To be sold, a Likely Little negroe boy, who can speak the French language, and very fit for a Valet."
* ↑ Another act of the year 1718 forbade, under heavy penalties, Masters of Ships to carry off "any bought or hired servant or apprentice."
* ↑ Brooks's Medford preserves similar instructions in 1759, and a specimen of the slave captain's day-book on the coast of Africa, pp. 436–7.
* ↑ This vessel was probably the Brig Favorite. Compare Felt's Salem, ii., 287 and 291.
* ↑ "The slave-trade can be supported only by barbarians; for civilized nations purchase slaves, but do not produce them." Gibbon, Extraits de mon Journal, Oct. 19, 1763. What would the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire have said of the Virginia of the nineteenth century!
* ↑ Boston News Letter, No. 1399, New England Weekly Journal, No. 214, Boston News Letter, No. 1422, No. 1423.
* ↑ Boston News Letter, No. 1402.
* ↑ N E. Journal, No. 200.
* ↑ N, E. Journal, No. 217.
* ↑ N. E. Journal, No. 230.
* ↑ Boston News Letter, No. 1438, August 12th to 19th, 1731.
* ↑ This man was offered for sale by the Widow and Administratrix to the Estate of Thomas Amory in 1731. Boston News Letter, No. 1413.
* ↑ Boston News Letter, No. 1487, July 20th to July 27th, 1732.
* ↑ N. E. Weekly Journal, No. 267, May 1st, 1732.
* ↑ The Boston Gazette and Casey, Journal, No. 594, August 18, 1766. This advertisement is a conclusive answer to the claim that "no evidence is found of such taking in execution in Massachusetts." Dane's Abridgment, ii., 314.
* ↑ In this sentence, as originally printed in the Historical Magazine, a "Dudley" was included among those indicated as having been in advance of their contemporaries on this subject. The reference was to Paul Dudley, who was the author of a tract, published in 1731, entitled, "An Essay on the Merchandise of Slaves and Souls of Men. With an Application to the Church of Rome." This title, and references to the tract by others, gave us the impression that it was against Slavery; but an opportunity recently enjoyed of examining the tract itself, showed the mistake. It is altogether "an Application to the Church of Rome,"—in fact, "an oration against Popery," of which Massachusetts had a much greater horror than of slavery.