Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts/Chapter 2

by George Henry Moore

II.

We come now to the era of positive legiflation on the subject of human bondage in America, Mr. Hurd, the ablest writer on this subject, says: "The involuntary servitude of Indians and negroes in the several colonies originated under a law not promulgated by legislation, and rested upon prevalent views of universal jurisprudence, or the law of nations, supported by the express or implied authority of the home Government." Law of Freedom and Bondage, § 216, i., 225.

Under this sanction slavery may very properly be said to have originated in all the colonies, but it was not long before it made its appearance on the statute-book in Massachusetts. The first statute establithing slavery in America is to be found in the famous Code of Fundamentals, or Body of Libertiss of the Massachusetts Colony in New-England—the first code of laws of that colony, adopted in December, 1641. These liberties had been, after a long struggle between the magistrates and the people, extracted from the reluctant grasp of the former. "The people had [1639] long desired a body of laws, and thought their condition very unsafe, while so much power rested in the discretion of magistrates." Winthrop, i., 322. Never were the demands of a free people eluded by their public servants with more of the contortions as well as wisdom of the serpent. Compare Gray in M. H. S., iii., viii., 208.

The scantiness of the materials for the particular history of this renowned code is such as to forbid the attempt to trace with certainty to its origin the law in question. It is, however, obvious that it was made to provide for slavery as an existing, substantial fact, if not to restrain the application of those higher-law doctrines, which the magistrates must have sometimes found inconvenient in administration. The preamble to the Body of Liberties itself might have been construed into some vague recognition of rights in individual members of society superior to legislative power—although it was promulgated by the poss]essors of the most arbitrary authority in the then actual holders of legislative and executive power. Compare Hurd's Law of Freedom and Bondage, i., 198. Had they only learned to reason as some of the modern writers of Massachusetts history have done on this subject, the poor Indians and Negroes of that day might have compelled additional legiſlation if they could not vindicate their rights to freedom in the general court. For the first article of the Declaration of Rights in 1780, is only a new. edition of “the glittering and founding generalities” which prefaced the Body of Liberties in 1641. Under the latter, human slavery existed for nearly a century and a half without serious challenge, while under the former it is said to have been abolished by inference by a public opinion which still continued to tolerate the slave-trade.

But to the law and the testimony. The ninety-first article of the Body of Liberties appears as follows, under the head of

"Liberties of Forreiners and Strangers.

"91. There shall never be any bond slaverie, villinage or captivitie amongst us unles it be lawfull captives taken in just warres, and such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Chriſtian usages which the law of God establithed in Israell concerning such persons doeth morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be Judged thereto by Authoritie." M. H. S. Coll., iii., viii., 231.

These laws were not printed, but were published in manuscript^[1] under the superintendence of a committee in which Deputy-Governor Endicott was associated with Mr. Downing and Mr. Hauthorne, and, Governor Winthrop says, "establifhed for three years, by that experience to have them fully amended and establifhed to be perpetual." Mass, Records, i., 344, 346. Winthrop's Journal, ii., 55. By the ninety-eighth and last section of this code, it was decreed as follows:

"98. Lastly because our dutie and desire is to do nothing suddainlie which fundamentally concerne us, we decree that these rites and liberties, shall be Audably read and deliberately weighed at every Generall Court that shall be held, within three yeares next insueing, And such of them as shall not be altered or repealed they shall stand so ratified, That no man shall infringe them without due punishment.

“And if any Generall Court within these next thre yeares shall faile or forget to reade and consider them as abovesaid, The Governor and Deputy Governor for the time being, and every Assistant present at such Courts, shall forfeite 20 sh. a man, and everie Deputie 10 sh. a man for each neglect, which shall be paid out of their proper estate, and not by the Country or the Townes which choose them, and whensoever there shall ari{[ls}}e any question in any Court amonge the Assistants and Associates thereof about the explanation of these Rites and liberties, The Generall Court onely shall have power to interprett them." M. H. S. Coll., iii., viii., 236, 237.

It is not to be doubted that at the following sessions of the General Court, "the lawes were read over,” in accordance with this decree. And before the expiration of the three years, committees were appointed to revise the Body of Liberties, and orders relating to it were passed every year afterward until 1648, when the laws were first printed. Gray's Reports, ix, 513.^[2]

Of this first printed edition of the laws it is supposed that no copy is now in existence. Ibid. This is much to be regretted, as a comparison might possibly throw some light on the change in the law of slavery, which appears in all the subsequent editions. Although hitherto entirely unnoticed, we regard it as highly important; for it takes away the foundation of a grievous charge against that God-fearing and law-abiding people. For, if "no person was ever born into legal slavery in Massachusetts," there was a most {[ls}}hocking chronic violation of law in that Colony and Province for more than a century, hardly to be reconciled with their historical reputation. In the second printed edition, that of 1660, the law appears as follows, under the title

"BOND-SLAVERY

IT is Ordered by this Court & Authority thereof; That there shall never be any bond-slavery villenage or captivity amongst us, unles it be Lawfull captives, taken in just warrs, [or such] as [shall] willingly sell themselves, or are sold to us, and such shall have the liberties, & Christian usuage, which the Law of God established in Israel, Concerning such perfons, doth morally require, provided this exempts none from servitude, who shall be judged thereto by Authority. [1641.]" Mass. Laws, Ed. 1660, p. 5.

The words italicized in brackets appear among the manuscript corrections of the copy which (formerly the property of Mr. Secretary Rawson, who was himself apparently the Editor of the volume) is now preserved in the Library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, in Massachusetts. It is plain, however, that the printed text required correction, and—although no better authority can possibly be demanded than that of the Editor himself—it is confirmed by the subsequent edition of 1672, in which the same error, having been repeated in the text, is made the occasion of a correction in the printed table of errata. There is a want of accuracy even in this correction itself; but the intention is so obvious that it cannot be mistaken. Mass. Laws, Ed. 1672, pp. 10, 170.

To prevent any possible doubt which may still linger in the mind of any reader at the end of the demonstration through which we ourselves first arrived at this result, we will add the following record—evidence afterwards discovered—which it will puzzle the most astute critic to make "void and of none effect."

In May, 1670, on the last day of the month, a committee was appointed by the General Court "to pervse all our lawes now in force, to collect & drawe vp any literall errors or misplacing of words or sentences therein, or any libertjes infringed, and to make a convenient table for the ready finding of all things therein, that so they may be fitted ffor the presse, & the same to present to the next session of this Court, to be further considered off & approved by the Court." Mass. Records, iv., ii., 453.

At the following session of the Court, the committee presented their report accordingly, and on the 12th October, 1670, the following order was made:

"The Court, having pervsed & considered of the returne of the comittee, to whom the revejw of the lawes was referred, &c., by the Generall Court in May last, as to the lieorall erratars, &c., do order that in * * * * *

"Page 5, lj: 3, tit. Bondsauery, read 'or such as shall willingly,' &c." Mass. Records, iv., ii, 467.

As the circumstances under which all these laws and liberties were originally composed and after long discussion, minute examination, and repeated revisions, finally settled and established, forbid the suppofition that slavery came in an unbidden or unwelcome guest—so is it equally impossible to admit that this alteration of the special law of slavery by the omission of so important and significant a word could have been accidental or without motive.

If under the original law the children of enslaved captives and strangers might possibly have claimed exemption from that servitude to which the recognized common law of nations assigned them from their birth; this amendment, by striking out the word "strangers," removed the necessity for alienage or foreign birth as a qualification for slavery, and took off the prohibition against the children of slaves being "born into legal slavery in Massachusetts."

It is true there is little probability that in those days the natural rights of these little heathen, born in a Christian land, would have been much regarded, or that the owners of slave parents would have had much difficulty in quieting the title by having the increase of their chattels duly "judged" to servitude by authoritie," in accordance with the civil law; still there might have been color for the claim to freedom, which this amendment effectually barred. And this was in accordance, too, with the law of Moses—the children of slaves remained slaves, being the class described as "born in the house."

This Massachusetts law of slavery was not a regulation of the status of indentured servants. "Bond-slavery" was not the name of their service, neither is it placed among the "Liberties of servants," but those of "Forreiners and strangers." And in all the editions of the laws, this distinction is maintained; "Bond-slavery" being invariably a separate title. White servants for a term of years would hardly be designated as strangers,^[3] and a careful study of the whole subject justifies at leaſt the doubt whether the privileges of servants belonged to slaves at all.

The law must be interpreted in the light of contemporaneous facts of hiftory. At the time it was made (1641), what had its authors to provide for?

1. Indian slaves—their captives taken in war.

2. Negro slaves—their own importations of "strangers” obtained by purchase or exchange.

3- Criminals—condemned to slavery as a punishment for offences.

In this light, and only in this light, is their legislation intelligible and consistent. It is very true that the code of which this law is a part "exhibits throughout the hand of the practised lawyer, familiar with the principles and securities of English Liberty;" but who had ever heard, at that time, of the "common-law rights" of Indians and negroes, or anybody elſe but Englishmen?

Thus stood the statute through the whole colonial period, and it was never expressly repealed. Based on the Mosaic code, it is an absolute recognition of slavery as a legitimate status, and of the right of one man to sell himself as well as that of another man to buy him. It sanctions the slave-trade, and the perpetual bondage of Indians and negroes, their children and their children's children, and entitles Massachusetts to precedence over any and all the other colonies in similar legislation. It anticipates by many years anything of the sort to be found in the statutes of Virginia, or Maryland, or South Carolina, and nothing like it is to be found in the contemporary codes of her sister colonies in New England. Compare Hildreth, i., 278.

Yet this very law has been gravely cited in a paper communicated to the Massachusetts Historical Society, and twice reprinted in its publications without challenge or correction, as an evidence that "so far as it felt free to follow its own inclinations, uncontrolled by the action of the mother country, Massachusetts was hostile to slavery as an institution.” M. H. S. Coll., iv., iv., 334. Proc., 1855–58, p. 189.

And with the statute before them, it has been persistently asserted and repeated by all sorts of authorities, historical and legal, up to that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth, that "slavery to a certain extent seems to have crept in; not probably by force of any law, for none such is found or known to exist." Commonwealth vs. Aves, 18 Pickering, 208. Shaw, C. J.

The leading case in Massachusetts is that of Winchendon vs. Hatfield in error, iv Mass. Reports, 123. It relates to the settlement of a negro pauper who had been a slave as early as 1757, and passed through the hands of nine separate owners before 1775. From the ninth he absconded, and enlisted in the Massachusetts Army among the eight-months' men, at Cambridge, in the beginning of the Revolutionary War. His term of service had not expired when he was again sold, in July, 1776, to another citizen of Massachusetts, with whom he lived about five weeks, when he enlisted into the three-years' service, and his last owner received the whole of his bounty and part of his wages.

Edom London, for such was the name of this revolutionary patriot, in 1806 was "poor," and "had become chargeable" to the town in which he resided. That town magnanimously struggled through all the Courts, from the Justices Court up to the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth, to shift the responsibility for the maintenance and support of the old soldier from itself to one of the numerous other towns in which he had sojourned from time to time as the slave of his eleven masters. The attempt was unsuccessful; but it is worthy of notice, as Chief Justice Parsons, in the decision on the appeal, settled several very important points concerning the laws of slavery in Massachusetts. He said:

"Slavery was introduced into this country [Massachusetts] soon after its first settlement, and was tolerated until the ratification of the present Constitution [the Constitution of 1780]. … The issue of the female slave, according to the maxim of the Civil law, was the property of her master."

With regard to this latter point, Chief Justice Dana, in directing a jury, in 1796, had stated as the unanimous opinion of the Court, that a negro born in the State before the Constitution of 1780, was born free, although born of a female slave.

Chief Justice Parsons, however, candidly declared that "it is very certain that the general practice and common usage had been opposed to this opinion."

Chief Justice Parker, in 1816, cautiously confirmed this view of the subject by his predecessor. Andover vs. Canton, 13 Mass. Reports, 551–552.

"The practice was … to confider such issue as slaves, and the property of the master of the parents, liable to be sold and transferred like other chattels, and as assets in the hands of executors and adminiftrators.” He adds, “we think there is no doubt that, at any period of our hiftory, the issue of a slave husband and a free wife would have been declared free."^[4]

"His children, if the issue of a marriage with a slave, would, immediately on their birth, become the property of his master, or of the master of the female slave."

Notwithftanding all this, in Mr. Sumner's famous speech in the Senate, June 28, 1854, he boldly asserted that "in all her annals, no person was ever born a slave on the soil of Massachusetts," and "if, in point of fact, the issue of slaves was sometimes held in bondage, it was never by sanction of any statute-law of Colony or Commonwealth."

And recent writers of history in Massachusetts have assumed a similar lofty and positive tone on this subject. Mr. Palfrey says: "In fact, no person was ever born into legal flavery in Massachusetts." Hist. N. E., ii., 30, note. Neither Mr. Sumner nor Mr. Palfrey give any authorities for their statements beyond the cases in Massachusetts Reports, iv., 128, 129; xvi., 73, and Cushing's Reports, x., 410, which are also referred to by Mr. Justice Gray in a still more recent and authoritative publication. The distinguished ability of this gentleman, so long recognized and acknowledged at the bar in Massachusetts, will do ample honor to the bench to which he is so justly advanced. We entertain the highest respect for his attainments, his judgment, and his critical sagacity; but in this instance we think he has fallen into a serious error, which not even the great weight of his authority can establish or perpetuate in history.

In an elaborate historical note to the case of Oliver vs. Sale, Quincy's Reports, 29, he says:

"Previously to the adoption of the State Constitution in 1780, negro slavery exi{{ls}]ted to {{ls}ome extent, and negroes held as slaves might be sold, but all children of slaves were by law free."

So distinct and positive an assertion should have been fortified by unequivocal authority. In this case Mr. Gray gives us two or three dozen separate references. These are numerous and conclusive enough as to the facts in the first clauses of his statement—that negro slavery existed in Massachusetts, and that negro slaves might be sold; but for the last and most important part of it, that all children of slaves were by law free,^[5] there is not an iota of evidence or auhtority in the entire array, excepting the opinion of the Court in 1796, already referred to.

This "unanimous opinion of the Court," in 1796, which has been so often quoted to sustain the reputation of Massachusetts for early and consistent zeal against slavery, will hardly suffice to carry the weight assigned to it. In the first place, the facts proved to the jury in the case itself were set at naught by the Court in the statement of this opinion. We quote them, omitting the peculiar phraseology by which they are disguised in the report.

An action was brought by the inhabitants of Littleton, to recover the expense of maintaining a negro, against Tuttle, his former master. It was tried in Middlesex, October Term, 1796. The negro's name was Cato. His father, named Scipio, was a negro slave when Cato was born, the property of Nathan Chase, an inhabitant of Littleton. Cato's mother, named Violet, was a negro in the same condition, and the property of Joseph Harwood. Scipio and Violet were lawfully married, and had issue, Cato, born in Littleton, January 18th, 1773, a slave, the property of the said Harwood, as the owner of his mother. Mass. Reports, iv., 128, note.

But whatever may be inferred from these facts taken in connection with the "opinion" of the Court, in 1796, we ask the attention of the reader to another case a little later, before the same tribunal. In the case of Perkins, Town Treasurer of Topsfield, vs. Emerson, tried in Essex, the Court held that a certain negro girl born in the Province in Wenham in 1759, was a slave belonging to Emerson from 1765 to 1776, when she was freed. This decision was in November, 1799. Dane's Abridgment, ii., 412. Thus it appears that the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts instructed a jury in 1796, by an unanimous opinion, that a negro born in the State before the Constitution of 1780, was born free, although born of a female slave. Three years later, the same Court and the same judges (three out of four),^[6] held a negro girl born in the province in 1759 to have been the lawful slave of a citizen of Massachusetts from 1765 to 1776. In the latter case, too, the decision of the Court was given on the question of law alone, as presented upon an agreed statement of the facts. MS. Copy of Court Records

A case in Connecticut presents an illustration of great importance. It is that of "a fugitive slave, and attempted rescue, in Hartford, 1703,” of which an account is given in one of Mr. J. Hammond Trumbull's admirable articles on some of the Connecticut Statutes. Historical Notes, etc., No. vi.

"The case laid before the Honorable General Assembly in October, 1704," after a statement of facts, etc., proceeds with reasons for the return of the fugitive, some of which we quote.

"1. According to the laws and constant practice of this colony and all other plantations, (as well as by the civil law) such persons as are born of negro bond-women are themselves in like condition, that is, born in servitude. Nor can there be any precedent in this government, or any of her Majesty’s plantations, produced to the contrary.^[7] And though the law of this colony doth not say that such persons as are born of negro women and suppofed to be mulattoes, shall be slaves, (which was needless, because of the constant practice by which they are held as such,) yet it saith expressly that 'no man shall put away or make free his negro or mulatto slave,' etc., which undeniably shows and declares an approbation of such servitude, and that mulattoes may be held as slaves within this government."

The value of this testimony on the subject is enhanced by the character and position of the witness. He was Gurdon Saltonstall, born in Massachusetts, the son of a magistrate, educated at Harvard College, and afterwards Governor of Connecticut,—"at that time the popular minister of the New London church, and nearly as distinguished at the bar as in the pulpit. The friend and confidential adviser of the governor (Winthrop), who was one of his parishioners, his influence was already felt in the Colonial Councils, and he was largely entrusted with the management of public affairs. In general scholarship, and in the extent of his professional studies, both in divinity and law, he had probably no superior in the colony: as an advocate, according to the testimony of his contemporaries, he had no equal." J. Hammond Trumbull's Historical Notes. Backus, ii., 35. Trumbull's Connecticut, Vol. i. (1797), 417. Mr. Trumbull also mentions a question raised in 1722, as to the status of the children of Indian captive-slaves, in a memorial to the Legislature, from which it is apparent that no doubt was entertained as to the legal slavery of children of negroes or imported Indians from beyond seas.

Ample evidence is given elsewhere in these notes of the fact, that the children of slaves were actually held and taken to be slaves, the property of the owners of the mothers, liable to be sold and transferred like other chattels and as assets in the hands of executors and administrators.^[8] This fact comes out in many portions of this history; there is no one thing more patent to the reader. The instances are numerous, and it is needless to recapitulate them here; but it may be proper to refer to the facts that in the inftructions of the town of Leicester to their representative in 1773, among the ways and means suggested for extinguishing slavery, they proposed "that every negro child that shall be born in ſaid government after the enacting such law should be free at the same age that the children of white people are," and in the petition of the negro slaves for relief in 1777 to the General Court of Massachusetts, they humbly pray that "their children (who were born in this land of liberty) may not be held as slaves after they arrive at the age of twenty-one years." Mass. Archives. Revolutionary Resolves, Vol. vii. p. 132.

The Articles of Confederation of the United Colonies of New England, 19th May, 1643, which commence with the famous recital of their object incoming into those parts of America, viz., "to advaunce the Kingdome of our Lord Jesus Chrift, and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospell in puritie with peace," practically recognize the lawful existence of slavery.

The fourth Article, which provides for the due adjustment of the expense or "charge of all just warrs whether offensive or defensive," concludes as folows:

"And that according to their different charge of eich Jurisdiccon and plantacon, the whole advantage of the warr (if it please God to bless their Endeavours) whether it be in lands, goods, or persons, shall proportionably devided among the said Confederats." Hazard, ii., 3. Plymouth Records, 1x., 4. The same feature remained in the Constitution of the Confederacy to the end of its existence.^[9] See Ratification of 1672. Plymouth Records, x., 349.

The original of the Fugitive Slave Law provision in the Federal Constitution is to be traced to this` Confederacy, in which Massachusetts was the ruling colony. The Commissioners of the United Colonies found occasion to complain to the Dutch Governor in New Netherlands, in 1646, of the fact that the Dutch agent at Hartford had harbored a fugitive Indian woman-slave, of whom they say in their letter: "Such a servant is parte of her master's eftate, and a more considerable parte than a beast." A provision for the rendition of fugitives, etc., was afterwards made by treaty between the Dutch and the English. Plymouth Colony Records, ix., 6, 64, 190.

Historians have generally supposed that the transactions in 1644–5, in which Thomas Keyser and one James Smith, the latter a member of the church of Bofton, were implicated, "first brought upon the colonies the guilt of participating in the traffic in African slaves." Bancroft, i., 173–4.

The account which we have given of the voyage of the first colonial slave-ship, the Desire, shows this to have been an error, and that which we shall give of these transactions will expose another of quite as much importance.

Hildreth, in whose hiftory the curious and instructive story of New England theocracy is narrated with scrupulous fidelity, gives so clear an account of this bufiness as to require little alteration, and we quote him with slight additions, and references to the authorities, which he does not give in detail.

This affair has been magnified by too precipitate an admiration into a protest on the part of Massachusetts against slavery and the slave-trade. So far, however, from any such protest being made, the first code of laws in Massachusetts established slavery, as we have shown, and at the very birth of the foreign commerce of New England the African slave-trade became a regular business. The ships which took cargoes of staves and fish to Madeira and the Canaries were accustomed to touch on the coast of Guinea to trade for negroes, who were carried generally to Barbadoes or the other English Islands in the West Indies, the demand for them at home being small.^[10] In the case referred to, instead of buying negroes in the regular course of traffic, which, under the fundamental law of Massachusetts already quoted, would have been perfectly legal,^[11] the crew of a Boston ship joined with some London vessels on the coast, and, on pretence of some quarrel with the natives, landed a "murderer"—the expressive name of a small piece of cannon—attacked a negro village on Sunday, killed many of the inhabitants, and made a few prisoners, two of whom fell to the share of the Boston ship. In the course of a lawsuit between the master, mate, and owners, all this story came out, and one of the magistrates presented a petition to the General Court, in which he charged the master and mate with a threefold offence, murder, man-stealing, and Sabbath-breaking; the two first capital by the fundamental laws of Massachusetts, and all of them "capital by the law of God." The magistrates doubted their authority to punish crimes committed on the coast of Africa; but they ordered the negroes to be sent back, as having been procured not honestly by purchase, but unlawfully by kidnapping. Hildreth, i., 282. Masss. Records, ii., 67, 129, 136, 168, 176, 196; iii., 46, 49, 58, 84. Winthrop's Journal, ii., 243, 379.

 

In all the proceedings of the General Court on this occasion there is not a trace of anti-slavery opinion or sentiment,^[12] still less of anti-slavery legislation; though both have been repeatedly claimed for the honor of the colony.

1. There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the ancient MS. which was the foundation of the very able and inftructive paper of the late Mr. Francis C. Gray on "The Early Laws of Massachusetts," as a part of which the Body of Liberties was printed in 1843.
2. In the elaborate, learned, and most valuable note of Mr. Gray, here referred to, the reader will find references to all the original authorities, which it is needless to repeat in this place. We have been unable to verify his reference to Mass. Records, ii., 2, for proceedings of the General Court on the 20th May, 1642, in the common copies of that volume.
3. John Cotton, in his letter to Cromwell, July 28, 1651, says: "the Scots, whom God delivered into your hands at Dunbarre, and whereof sundry were sent hither, we have been desirous (as we could) to make their yoke easy. * * * They have not been sold for slaves to perpetual servitude, but for 6, or 7 or 8 yeares, as we do our owne." Hutchinson's Coll., 235. He certainly did not mean "our owne" Indians and negroes.
4. Kendall, who travelled through the northern parts of the United States in the years 1807 and 1808, referring to this subject, says: "While slavery was maintained in Massachusetts, there was a particular temptation to negroes for taking Indian wives, the children of Indian women being acknowledged to be free." Travels, ii., 179.. See Hist. Coll. Essex Institute, Vol. vii., p. 73. Case of Priscilla, &c., against Simmons.
5. In the case of Newport vs. Billing, which Mr. Gray believes to have been "the latest instance of a verdict for the master," it was found by the highest court in Massachusetts, on appeal from a similar deci{{ls]}ion in the inferior court, "that the said Amos [Newport] was not a freeman, as he alledged, but the proper slave of the said Joseph [Billing]. Records, 1768, fol. 284. As this seems to have been one of the so-called "freedom cases," it is to be regretted that Mr. Gray did not ascertain from the files whether "the said Amos" was a native of Massachusetts!
6. The judges present at these Terms respectively were the following, viz.:

   October Term, 1796, in Middlesex:	November Term, 1799, in Essex:
   Francis Dana, Chief Justice.	Francis Dana, Chief Justice.
   Robert Treat Paine,	Robert Treat Paine,
   Increase Sumner,	Theophilus Bradbury,
   Nathan Cushing,	Nathan Cuthing, Justices.
   Thomas Dawes, jr., Justices.

7. Lay, in his tract "All Slave-Keepers Apostates," p. 11., enumerating the hardships of the institution, says, "Nor doth this satisfy, but their children also are kept in slavery, ad infinitum; …"
8. "A bill of sale, or other formal instrument, was not necssary to transfer the property in a slave, which was a mere personal chattel, and might pass, as other chattels, by delivery." Milford vs. Bellingham, 16 Mass. Reports, 110. Governor Dudley's report to the Board of Trade on slaves and the slave-trade in Massachusetts, etc., in 1708, stated that "in Boston, there are 400 negro servants, one half of whom were born here." Collections Amer. Stat. Assoc., i., 586.
9. The agreement between Leisler of New York, and the Commissioners of Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Connecticut, May 1, 1690, provided that "all plunder and captives (if any happen) shall be divided to y^e officers and soldiers according to y^e Custome of Warr." N.Y. Doc. Hist., ii., 134, 157. Stoughton and Sewall were the Commissioners for Massachusetts.
10. "One of our ships, which went to the Canaries with pipe-staves in the beginning of November last, returned now [1645] and brought wine, and sugar, and salt, and some tobacco, which she had at Barbadoes, in exchange for Africoes, which she carried from the Isle of Maio." Winthrop's Journal, ii., 219.
11. In awarding damages to Captain Smith against his associate in this business, they would allow him nothing for the negroes; but the reason they give is worth quoting here:

    "4. * * the negars (they being none of his, but stolen) we thinke meete to alowe nothing." Mass. Records, ii., 129.

    This was "the Court's opinion" "by both howses." Ib., iii., 58.

12. It is possible that the petition referred to in the following extract from the Records may have related to this subject; but it left no impression which can be traced.

    "29 May, 1644. Mr. Blackleach his petition about the Mores was consented to, to be comitted to the elders, to enforme us of the mind of God herein, & then further to consider it." Mass. Records, ii., 67. Mr. John Blackleach, a merchant, was of Salem as early as 1634, and representative in 1636. Some of his letters are printed in M. H. S. Coll., iv., vii. 146–155.