Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts/Chapter 1

by George Henry Moore

 

NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF
SLAVERY IN MASSACHUSETTS.

 

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I.

WE find the earlieſt records of the history of slavery in Massachusetts at the period of the Pequod War—a few years after the Puritan settlement of the colony. Prior to that time an occasional offender against the laws was punished by being sold into slavery or adjudged to servitude; but the institution first appears clearly and distinctly in the enslaving of Indians captured in war. We may hereafter add a sketch of the theories which were held to justify the bondage of the heathen, but at present limit ourselves to the collection of facts to illustrate our general subject. And at the outset we desire to say that in this history there is nothing to comfort pro-slavery men anywhere. The stains which slavery has left on the proud escutcheon even of Massachusetts, are quite as significant of its hideous character as the satanic defiance of God and Humanity which accompanied the laying of the corner-stone of the Slave-holders' Confederacy.

The story of the extermination of the Pequods is well known. It was that warlike tribe who, ih the early months of "that fatal year," 1637, were reported by Governor Winslow to Winthrop as follows:

“‘The Pecoats follow their fishing & planting as if they had no enemies. Their women of esteem & children are gone to Long Island with a strong gard at Pecoat. They prosesse there you {ls}}hall finde them, and as they were there borne & bred, there their bones shall be buried, & rott in despight of the English. But if the Lord be on our side, their braggs will soon fall." M. H.S. Coll. iv., vi., 164.

The extracts which follow explain themselves and hardly require comment.

Roger Williams, writing from Providence [in June 1637] to John Winthrop, says: "I understand it would be very gratefvll to our neighbours that such Pequts as fall to them be not enslaved, like those which are taken in warr; but (as they say is their generall custome) be vfed kindly, haue howses & goods & fields given them: because they voluntarily choose to come in to them, & if not receaved will [go] to the enemie or turne wild Irish themselues: but of this more as I shall vnderftand. …" M. H. S. Coll., ic., vi 195.

Again [probably in July, 1637]: "It having againe pleased the Most High to put into your hands another miserable droue of Adams degenerate seede, & our brethren by nature, I am bold (if I may not offend in it) to request the keeping & bringing vp of one of the children. I haue fixed mine eye on this little one with the red about his neck, but I will not be peremptory in my choice, but will rest in your loving pleasure for him or any," &c. M. H. S. Coll., iv., vi., 195–6.

Again [probably 18th September, 1637]: "Sir, concerning captiues (pardon my wonted boldness) the Scripture is full of mysterie & the Old Testament of types.

“If they have deserued death 'tis sinn to spare:

"If they haue not deserued death then what punishments? Whether perpetuall slaverie.

"I doubt not but the enemie may lawfully be weaknd & despoild of all comfort of wife & children &c., but I beseech you well weigh it after a due time of trayning vp to labour & restraint, they ought not to be set free: a so as without danger of adioyning to the enemie." M. H. S. Coll., iv., vi., 214.

Later in the fame year [Nov. 1637] Roger Williams, who had promised certain fugitive slaves to intercede for them, "to write that they might be vfed kindly"—fulfilled his promise in a letter to Winthrop, in which, after stating their complaints of ill usage, &c., he adds:

"My humble desire is that all that haue these poor wretches might be exhorted as to walke wisely & iuftly towards them, so to make mercy eminent, for in that attribute the Father of mercy most shines to Adams miserable ofspring." M. H. S. Coll., iv., vi., 218, 219.

Hugh Peter writes to John Winthrop from Salem (in 1637): "Mr. Endecot and my selfe salute you in the Lord Jesus, etc. Wee haue heard of a diuidence of women and children in the bay and would bee glad of a share, viz.: a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good. I wrote to you for some boyes for Bermudas, which I thinke is considerable." M. H. S. Coll., iv., vi., 95.

In this application of Hugh Peter we have a glimpse of the beginning of the Colonial Slave-Trade. He wanted "some boyes for the Bermudas," which he thought was "considerable."

It would seem to indicate that this disposition of captive Indian boys was in accordance with custom and previous practice of the authorities. At any rate, it is certain that in the Pequod War they took many prisoners. Some of these, who had been "disposed of to particular persons in the country," Winthrop, i., 232, ran away, and being brought in again were "branded on the shoulder," ib. In July, 1637, Winthrop says, "We had now slain and taken, in all, about seven hundred. We sent fifteen of the boys and two women to Bermuda, by Mr. Peirce; but he, missing it, carried them to Providence Isle," Winthrop, i., 234. The learned editor of Winthrop's Journal, referring to the fact that this proceeding in that day was probably justified by reference to the practice or institution of the Jews, very quaintly observes, "Yet that cruel people never sent prisoners so far." Ib., note.

Governor Winthrop, writing to Governor Bradford of Plymouth, 28th July, 1637, an account of their success against the Pequods—"y^e Lords greate mercies towards us, in our prevailing against his & our enimies"—says:

"The prisoners were devided, some to those of y^e river [the Connecticut Colony] and the rest to us. Of these we send the male children to Bermuda, by Mr. William Peirce, & y^e women & maid children are disposed aboute in y^e tounes. Ther have now been slaine and taken, in all, aboute 700." M. H. S. Coll., iv., iii, 360. Compare the order for "disposing of y^e Indian squaws," in Mass. Records, i., 201.

Bradford's note to the letter quoted above, says of their being sent to Bermuda: "But y^e were carried to y^e West Indeas."

Hubbard, the contemporary historian of the Indian Wars, says of these captives, "Of those who were not so desperate or sullen to sell their lives for nothing, but yielded in time, the male Children were sent to the Bermudas, of the females some were distributed to the Englith Towns; some were dispofed of among the other Indians, to whom they were deadly enemies, as well as to ourselves." Narrative, 1677, p. 130.

A subsequent entry in Winthrop's Journal gives us another glimpse of the subject, Feb. 26, 1638.

"Mr. Peirce, in the Salem ship, the Desire, returned from the West Indies after seven months. He had been at Providence, and brought some cotton, and tobacco, and negroes, etc., from thence, and salt from Tertugos;" Winthrop, i. 254. He adds to this account that "Dry fish and strong liquors are the only commodities for those parts. He met there two men-of-war, set forth by the lords, etc., of Providence with letters of mart, who had taken divers prizes from the Spaniard and many negroes." Long afterwards Dr. Belknap said of the slave-trade, that the rum distilled in Massachusetts was "the mainspring of this traffick." M. H. S. Coll., i., iv., 197.

Josselyn says, that "they sent the male children of the Pequets to the Bermudus." 258. M. H. S. Coll., iv., iii. 360.^[1]

This single cargo of women and children was probably not the only one sent, for the Company of Providence Island, in replying from London in 1638, July 3, to letters from the authorities in the island, direct special care to be taken of the "Cannibal negroes brought from New England." Sainsbury's Calendar, 1574–1660, 278.^[2]

And in 1639, when the Company feared that the number of the negroes might become too great to be managed, the authorities thought they might be sold and sent to New England or Virginia. Ib., 296.

The ship "Desire" was a vessel of one hundred and twenty tons, built at Marblehead in 1636, one of the earliest built in the Colony. Winthrop, i., 193.

In the Pequot War, some of the Narragansetts joined the English in its prosecution, and received a part of the prisoners as slaves, for their services. Miantunnomoh received eighty, Ninigret was to have twenty. Mather says of the principal engagement, "the captives that were taken were about one hundred and eighty, which were divided between the two Colonyes, and they intended to keep them as servants, but they could not endure the Yoke, for few of them continued any considerable time with their masters." Drake, 122, 146. Mather's Relation, quoted by Drake, 39. See also Hartford Treaty, Sept. 21, 1638, in Drake, 125. Drake's Mather, 150, 151.

Captain Stoughton, who assisted in the work of exterminating the Pequots, after his arrival in the enemy's country, wrote to the Governor of Massachusetts [Winthrop] as follows: "By this pinnace, you shall receive forty-eight or fifty women and children. … Concerning which, there is one, I formerly mentioned, that is the fairest and largest that I saw amongst them, to whom I have given a coate to cloathe her. It is my desire to have her for a servant, if it may stand with your good liking, else not. There is a little squaw that Steward Culacut desireth, to whom he hath given a coate. Lieut. Davenport also desireth one, to wit, a small one, that hath three strokes upon her stomach, thus: — ||| +. He desireth her, if it will stand with your liking. Sosomon, the Indian, desireth a young little squaw, which I know not." MS. Letter in Mass. Archives, quoted by Drake, 171.

An early traveller in New England has preserved for us the record of one of the earliest, if not, indeed, the very first attempt at breeding of slaves in America. The following passage from Josselyn's Account of Two Voyages to New England, published at London in 1664, will explain itself:

"The Second of October, [1639] about 9 of the clock in the morning Mr. Mavericks Negro woman came to my chamber window, and in her own Countrey language and tune sang very loud and shrill, going out to her, she used a great deal of respect towards me, and willingly would have expressed her grief in English; but I apprehended it by her countenance and deportment, whereupon I repaired to my host, to learn of him the cause, and resolved to intreat him in her behalf, for that I understood before, that she had been a Queen in her own Countrey, and observed a very humble and dutiful garb used towards her by another Negro who was her maid. Mr. Maverick was desirous to have a breed of Negroes, and therefore seeing she would not yield by persuasions to company with a Negro young man he had in his house; he commanded him will'd she nill'd she to go to bed to her, which was no sooner done but she kickt him out again, this she took in high disdain beyond her slavery, and this was the cause of her grief." Josselyn, 28.

Josselyn visited New England twice, and spent about ten years in this country, from 1638–39 and 1663 to 1671. In speaking of the people of Boston he mentions that the people "are well accommodated with servants …. of these some are English, others Negroes." Ibid., 182.

Mr. Palfrey says: "Before Winthrop's arrival there were two negro slaves in Massachusetts, held by Mr. Maverick, on Noddle's Island." History of New England, II., 30, note. If there is any evidence to sustain this statement, it is certainly not in the authority to which he refers. On the contrary, the inference is irresistible from all the authorities together, that the negroes of Mr. Maverick were a portion of those imported in the first colonial slave-ship, the Desire, of who{[ls}}e voyage we have given the history. It is not to be suppofed that Mr. Maverick had waited ten years before taking the steps towards improving his stock of negroes, which are referred to by Josselyn. Ten years' slavery on Noddle's I{[ls}}land would have made the negro-queen more familiar with the English language, if not more compliant to the brutal customs of slavery.

It will be observed that this first entrance into the slave-trade was not a private, individual speculation. It was the enterprise of the authorities of the Colony. And on the 13th March, 1639, it was ordered by the General Court "that 3l 8s should be paid Leiftenant Davenport for the present, for charge disbursed for the sflaves, which, when they have earned it, hee is to repay it back againe." The marginal note is, "Lieft. Davenport to keep y^e slaues." Mass. Rec., i., 253.

Emanuel Downing, a lawyer of the Inner Temple, London, who married Lucy Winthrop, sister of the elder Winthrop, came over to New England in 1638. The editors of the Winthrop papers say of him, "There were few more active or efficient friends of the Massachusetts Colony during its earliest and most critical period." His son was the famous Sir George Downing, English ambassador at the Hague.

In a letter to his brother-in-law, "probably written during the summer of 1645," is a most luminous illustration of the views of that day and generation on the subject of human slavery. He says:

"A warr with the Narragansett is verie considerable to this plantation, ffor I doubt whither yt be not synne in vs, hauing power in our hands, to suffer them to maynteyne the worship of the devill, which their paw wawes often doe; 2lie, if upon a Just warre the Lord should deliver them into our hands, we might easily haue men, woemen and children enoughto exchange for Moores, which wilbe more gayneful pilladge for vs than wee conceive, for I doe not see how wee can thrive vntill wee gett into a stock of slaves sufficient to doe all our buisines, for our children's children will hardly see this great Continent filled with people, soe that our servants will still desire freedom to plant for them selues, and not stay but for verie great wages. And I suppofe you know verie well how wee shall maynteyne 20 Moores cheaper than one Englishe servant.

"The ships that shall bring Moores may come home laden with salt which may beare most of the chardge, if not all of yt. But I marvayle Conecticott should any wayes hasard a warre without your advise, which they cannot mayntayne without your helpe." M. H. S. Coll., iv., vi., 65.

1. Governor Winthrop in his will (1639–42) left to his son Adam his island called the Governor's Garden, adding, "I give him also my Indians there and my boat and such household as is there."—Winthrop's Journal, ii., 360., App.
2. "We would have the Cannibal negroes brought from New England inquired after, whose they are, and specialll care taken of them." P. R. O. Col. Ent. Bk., Vol. iv., p. 124. In the preface to the Colonial Calendar, p. xxv., Mr. Sainsbury explains why no answers to the Company's letters are in the State Paper Office. The Bahama Isands were governed absolutely by a Company in London, and unfortunately the letters received by the Company have not been preserved, or if so, it is not known where they now are. MS. Letter.