Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts/Chapter 3
III
The colonists of Massachusetts assumed to themselves "a right to treat the Indians on the footing of Canaanites or Amalekites," and practically regarded them from the first as forlorn and wretched heathen, possessing few rights which were entitled to respect. Bancroft, iii., 408. Bp. Berkeley's Works, iii., 247. Sermon before the Soc. for the Prop. of the Gospel, 1731, p. 19. Cotton Mather's speculations on their origin illustrate the temper of the times.
"We know not When or How these Indians first became Inhabitants of this mighty Continent, yet we may guess that probably the Devil decoy'd these miserable Salvages hither, in hopes that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ would never come here to deftroy or disturb his Absolute Empire over them." Magnalia, Book iii., Part iii.
The instructions from the Commissioners of the United Colonies to Major Gibbons, on being sent againft the Narragansetts in 1645, further illustrates this spirit.
He was directed to have "due regard to the honour of God, who is both our sword and shield, and to the distance which is to be observed betwixt Christians and Barbarians, as well in warres as in other negociations." Of this Hutchinson says: "It was indeed strange that men, who professed to believe that God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, should upon every occasion take care to preserve this distinction. Perhaps nothing more effectually defeated the endeavors for Christianizing the Indians. It seems to have done more: to have sunk their spirits, led them to intemperance, and extirpated the whole race." Hutchinson's Collection of Papers, 151.
In 1646, the Commissioners of the United Colonies made a very remarkable order, practically authorizing, upon complaint of trespass by the Indians, the seizure of “any of that plantation of Indians that shall entertain, protect, or rescue the offender." The order further proceeds: "And, because it will be chargeable keeping Indians in prisone, and if they should escape, they are like to prove more insolent and dangerous after, that upon such seazure, the delinquent or satisfaction be againe demanded, of the Sagamore or plantation of Indians guilty or accessory as before, and if it be denyed, that then the magistrates of the Jurisdiccon deliver up the Indians seased to the party or parties indamaged, either to serve, or to be shipped out and exchanged for Negroes as the cause will justly beare." Plymouth Records, ix., 71.
The Commissioners themselves were not blind to the severity of this proceeding, although they alleged that it was "just."
There are here two features of historical importance which the reader will not fail to notice, viz., the export for trade of Indians for Negroes, and the measure of "justice" in those days between the colonists and the natives.
It may be observed that in these notes we have not drawn the lines between the Plymouth Colony and that of the Massachusetts Bay. In this connection they may justly be regarded as one; indeed, they cannot be separated, for in these and similar proceedings, to quote a significant proverb of that day, "the Plymouth saddle was always on the Bay horse."
In 1658, June 29, certain persons were punished by fines by the County Courts at Salem and Ipswich for attending a Quaker meeting and otherwife "syding with the Quakers and absenting themselves from the publick ordinances." Among them were two children, Daniel and Provided Southwick, son and daughter to Lawrence Southwick, who were fined ten pounds, but their fines not being paid, and the parties (as is stated in the proceedings) "pretending they have no estates, resolving not to worke and others likewise have been fyned and more like to be fyned"—the General Court were called upon in the following year, May 11, 1659, to decide what course should be taken for the satisfaction of the fines.
This they did, after due deliberation, by a resolution empowering the County Treasurers to sell the said persons to any of the English nation at Virginia or Barbadoes—in accordance with their law for the sale of poor and delinquent debtors. To accomplish this they wrested their own law from its just application, for the special law concerning fines did not permit them to go beyond imprisonment for non-payment. Mass. Laws, 1675, p. 51. Felt's Salem, ii., 581. Mass. Records, iv., i., 366. Mass. Laws, 1675, p. 6. Bishop's N. E. Judged, 85. Hazard, ii., 563.
The father and mother of these children, who had before suffered in their estate and persons, were at the same time banished on pain of death, and took refuge in Shelter Island, where they shortly afterwards died. Mass. Records, iv., i., 367. Hazard, ii., 564. Bishop, 83. The Treasurer, on attempting to find passage for the children to Barbadoes, in execution of the order of sale, found "none willing to take or carry them." Thus the entire design failed, only through the reluctance of these shipmasters to aid in its consummation. Bishop, 190. Sewel's Hist. of the Quakers, i., 278.
Provided Southwick was subsequently in the same year, in company with several other Quaker ladies, "whipt with tenn stripes," and afterwards "committed to prison to be proceeded with as the law directs." Mass. Records, iv., i, 411.
The indignant Quaker historian, in recounting these things, says, "After such a manner ye have done to the Servants of the Lord, and for speaking to one another, … and for meeting together, ransacking their Estates, breaking open their Houses, carrying away their Goods and Cattel, till ye have left none, then their wearing apparel, and then (as in Plimouth government) their Land; and when ye have left them nothing, sell them for this which ye call Debt. Search the Records of former Ages, go through the Histories of the Generations that are past; read the Monuments of the Antients, and see if ever there were such a thing as this since the Earth was laid, and the Foundations thereof in the Water, and out of the Water. …. O ye Rulers of Boston, ye Inhabitants of the Massachusetts! What shall I say unto you? Whereunto shall I liken ye? Indeed, I am at a stand, I have no Nation with you to compare, I have no People with you to parallel, I am at a loss with you in this point; I must say of you, as Balaam said of Amalek when his eyes were open, Boston, the first of the Nations that came out thus to war against, to stop Israel in their way to Canaan from Egypt." Bishop's N. E. Judged, 90.
At the time of King Philip's War, the policy and practice of the Colony of Massachusetts, with regard to slavery, had been already long settled upon the basis of positive law. Accordingly the numerous "captives taken in war" were dispofed of in the usual way. The notes which follow are mainly from the official records of the colony, and will be sufficient to show the general current of public opinion and action at that period.
In August, 1675, the Council at Plymouth ordered the sale of a company of Indians, "being men, weomen, and children, in number one hundred and twelve," with a few exceptions. The Treasurer made the sale "in the countryes behalfe." Plymouth Records, v. 173.
A little later the Council made a similar disposition of fifty-seven more (Indians) who "had come in a submissive way." These were condemned to perpetual servitude, and the Treasurer was ordered and appointed "to make sale of them, to and for the use of the collonie, as opportunity may present." Ib., 174.
The accounts of the Colony of Massachusetts for receipts and expenditures during "the late War," as stated from 25th June, 1675, to the 23d September, 1676, give among the credits the following:
| "By the following accounts received in or as silver, viz.: "Captives; for 188 prisoners at war sold | |
| 397.13.00." |
Plymouth Records, x., 401.
There is a peculiar significance in the phrase which occurs in the Records—"sent away by the Treasurer." It means sold into slavery. Mass. Records, v., 5 The statiftics of the traffic carried on by the Treasurers cannot be accurately ascertained from any sources now at command. But great numbers of Philip's people were sold as slaves in foreign countries. In the beginning of the war Captain Moseley captured eighty, who were confined at Plymouth. In September following one hundred and seventy-eight were put on board a vessel commanded by Captain Sprague, who sailed from. Plymouth with them for Spain. Drake, 224.
These proceedings were not without witnesses against their injustice and inhumanity. The Apostle Eliot's earnest remonstrance is a glorious memorial of his fearless devotion to reason and humanity—to which neither rulers nor people of Massachusetts were then inclined to listen.
"To the Honorable the Governor and Council, sitting at Boston this 13t. of the 6t, 75, the humble petition of John Eliot, Sheweth that the terror of selling away such Indians unto the Ilands for perpetual slaves, who shall yield up ymselves to your mercy, is like to be an effectual prolongation of the warre, and such an exasperation of them, as may produce we know not what evil consequences, upon all the land. Christ hath saide, blessed are the mercyfull for they shall obtain mercy. This useage of them is worse than death … it seemeth to me, that to sell them away for {[ls}}laves is to hinder the inlargement of his [Christ's] kingdom … to sell soules for money seemeth to me a dangerous merchandize. If they deserve to die, it is far better to be put to death under godly governors, who will take religious care, that meanes may be used, that they may die penitently. … Deut. 23: 15–16. If a fugitive servant from a Pagan Master might not be delivered to his master but be kept in Israel for the good of his soule, how much less lawful is it to sell away soules from under the light of the gospel, into a condition, where theire soules will be utterly lost, so far as appeareth unto man." Plymouth Colony Records, x. 451–2. Compare Mather's Magnalia, Book vii., 109 (753), concerning the neglect to proselyte the Indians, etc.
There is nothing to show that "the Council gave heed to the petition of Eliot," but a careful examination of the archives disclosed only a report of a Committee of the General Court, dated Nov. 5, 1675, and adopted by the Magistrates and Deputies the same day, by which several were to be sent away.[1] MS. Letter.
In 1676, November 4th, it was ordered that whereas there is an Acte or order made by the Councell of War bearing date July, 1676, prohibiting any male Indian captive to abide in this Jurisdiction that is above fourteen years of age att the beginning of his or their captivity, and in case any such should continue in the Collonie after the time then prefixed they should be forfeit to the use of the Govt, this Court sees cause to ratify and confirme that order and acte, and do therefore order; that all such as have any such Indian male captive that they shall dispose of them out of the Collonie by the first of December next on paine of forfeiting every such Indian, or Indians to the use of the Collonie; and the Constables of each town of this Jurisdiction are hereby ordered to take notice of any such Indian or Indians staying in any of the respective towns of this Collonie after the time prefixed, and shall forthwith bring them to the Treasurer to be disposed of to the use of the Government as aforesaid. Plymouth Records, xi., 242.
There were a few, about five or fix, exceptions made to this order, in favor of certain Indians, who had been assured by Capt. Benjamin Church that they should not be sold to any foreign parts, upon good behavior, &c. Ib., 242.
The Massachusetts General Court made an order in 1677, 24 May, that the Indian children, youths or girls, whose parents had been in hostility with the Colony, or had lived among its enemies in the time of the war, and were taken by force, and given or sold to any of the inhabitants of this jurisdiction, should be at the disposall of their masters or their assignes, who were to instruct them in Civility and Christian religion. Mass. Records, v., 136. Note the distinction between friendly Indians whose children were to be held until 24, years of age, both in this order and in Plymouth Records, v., 207, 223.
The Court, in the following year (1678), found cause to prohibit “all and every person and persons within our jurisdiction or elsewhere, to buy any of the Indian children of any of those our captive salvages that were taken and became our lawfull prisoners in our late warrs with the Indians, without special leave, liking and approbation of the government of this jurisdiction. Ib., 253.
In the succeeding year (1679), the following entry appears in the records:
"Tn reference unto severall Indians bought by Jonathan Hatch of Capt. Church, the brothers of the woman, desireing shee might be released, appeared in Court with the said Jonathan Hatch, and came to composition with her for the freedom of both her and her husband, which are two of the three Indians above named; and her brothers payed on that accompt the sume of three pounds silver mony of New England, and have engaged to pay three pounds more in the same specie, and then the said man and woman are to be released; and for the third of the said Indians, it being younge, the Court have ordered, that it shall abide with the said Jonathan Hatch untill it attains the age of 24 years, and then to be released for ever." Plymouth Records, vi., 15
It were well if the record were no worse; but to all this is to be added the baseness of treachery and falsehood. Many of these prisoners surrendered, and still greater numbers came in voluntarily to submit, upon the promise that they and their wives and children should have their lives spared, and none of them transported out of the country. In one instance, narrated by the famous Captain Church himself, no less than "eight score persons" were "without any regard to the promises made them on their surrendering themselves, carried away to Plymouth, there sold and transported out of the country." Church, 23, 24, 41, 51, 57. Baylies, in his Memoir of Plymouth Colony, Part iii., pp. 47, 48, gives some additional particulars of this affair.
"After the destruction of Dartmouth, the Plymouth forces were ordered there, and as the Dartmouth Indians had not been concerned in this outrage, a negotiation was commenced with them. By the persuasions of Ralph Earl, and the promises of Captain Eels, who commanded the Plymouth forces, they were induced to surrender themselves as prisoners, and were conducted to Plymouth. Notwithstanding the promises by which they had been allured to submit, notwithstanding the earnest, vehement, and indignant remonstrances of Eels, Church, and Earl, the government, to their eternal infamy, ordered the whole to be sold as slaves, and they were transported out of the country, being about one hundred and sixty in number. So indignant was Church at the commission of this vile act, that the government never forgave the warmth and the bitterness of his expressions, and the resentment that was then engendered induced them to withhold all command from this brave, skilful, honest, open-hearted and generous man, until the fear of utter destruction compelled them, subsequently, to entrust him with a high command. This mean and treacherous conduct alienated all the Indians who were doubting, and even those who were strongly predisposed to join the English."
Easton, in his Relation, p. 21, says: "Philip being flead; about a 150 Indians came in to a Plimouth Garrison volentarly. Plimouth authority sould all for Slafes (but about six of them) to be carried out of the country."
Church's authority from Plymouth Colony to demand and receive certain fugitives (whether men, women, or children) from the authorities of Rhode Island government, August 28, 1676, is printed in Hough's Easton's King Philip's War, p. 188. He was "impowered to sell and dispose of such of them, and soe many as he shall see cause for, there: to the Inhabitants or others, for Term of Life, or for shorter time, as there may be reasons. And his actinge, herein, shall at all Times be owned and justefied by the said Collony."
Nor did the Christian Indians or Praying Indians escape the relentless hostility and cupidity of the whites. Besides other cruelties, instances are not wanting in which some of these were sold as slaves, and under accusations which turned out to be utterly false and without foundation. Gookin's Hist. of the Christian Indians.
Some of them are probably referred to by Eliot, in his letter to Boyle, Nov. 27, 1683, in which he says, "I desire to take boldness to propose a request. A vessel carried away a great number of our surprised Indians, in the times of our wars, to sell them for slaves; but the nations, whither she went, would not buy them. Finally, she left them at Tangier; there they be, so many as live, or are born there. An Englishman, a mason, came thence to Boston, he told me they desired I would use some means for their return home. I know not what to do in it; but now it is in my heart to move your honour, so to meditate, that they may have leave to get home, either from thence hither, or from thence to England, and so to get home. If the Lord shall please to move your charitable heart herein, I shall be obliged in great thankfulness, and am persuaded that Christ will, at the great day, reckon it among your deeds of charity done unto them, for his name's sake." M. H. S. Coll., iii., 183.
Cotton Mather furnishes another extract appropriate in this connection.
"Moreover, 'tis a Prophesy in Deut. 28, 68. The Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee. Thou shalt see it no more again; and there shall ye be sold unto your Enemies, and no Man shall buy you. This did. our Eliot imagine accomplished, when the Captives taken by us in our late Wars upon them, were sent to be sold, in the Coasts lying not very remote from Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea, and scarce any Chapmen would offer to take them off." Mather's Magnalia, Book iii., Part iii.
Mr. Everett, in one of the most elaborate of his finished and beautiful orations, has narrated the story of two of the last captives in that famous war, in a passage of furpassing eloquence which we venture to quote:
"President Mather, in relating the encounter of the 1st of August, 1676, the last but one of the war, says, 'Philip hardly escaped with his life also. He had fled and left his peage behind him, also his squaw and son were taken captive, and are now prisoners at Plymouth. Thus hath God brought that grand enemy into great misery before he quite destroy him. It must needs be bitter as death to him to lose his wife and only son (for the Indians are marvellous fond and affectionate towards their children) besides other relations, and almost all his subjects, and country also.'
"And what was the fate of Philip's wife and his son? This is a tale for husbands and wives, for parents and children. Young men and women, you cannot understand it. What was the fate of Philip's wife and child? She is a woman, he is a lad. They did not surely hang them. No, that would have been mercy. The boy is the grandson, his mother the daughter-in-law of good old Massasoit, the first and best friend the English ever had in New England. Perhaps—perhaps now Philip is slain, and his warriors scattered to the four winds, they will allow his wife and son to go back—the widow and the orphan—to finish their days and sorrows in their native wilderness. They are sold into slavery, West Indian slavery! an Indian princess and her child, fold from the cool breezes of Mount Hope, from the wild freedom of a New England forest, to gasp under the lash, beneath the blazing sun of the tropics! 'Bitter as death;' aye, bitter as hell! Is there anything,—I do not say in the range of humanity—is there anything animated, that would not struggle against this?" Everett's Address at Bloody Brook, 1835; Church, 62, 63, 67, 68.
Well might the poet record his sympathy for their fate—"Ah! happier they, who in the strife
For freedom fell, than o'er the main,
Those who in galling slavery's chain
Still bore the load of hated life,—
Bowed to base tasks their generous pride,
And scourged and broken-hearted, died!"
"Free as nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran."
In the prosecution of his admirable historical labors, Ebenezer Hazard, of Philadelphia, endeavored to ascertain what was done with the son of Philip. He wrote to the late Judge Davis, of Boston, who was unable, at that time, to give a satisfactory answer. Mr. Hazard died in 1817; but Judge Davis was afterwards enabled to furnish a very interesting account of the affair, derived from documents communicated to him by Nahum Mitchell, Esq.
From these documents he learned "that the question, whether the boy should be put to death, was seriously agitated, and the opinion of learned divines was requested on the subject. The Rev. Mr. Cotton, of Plymouth, and the Rev. Mr. Arnold, of Marshfield, gave the following answer:
"The question being propounded to us by our honored rulers, whether Philip's son be a child of death! Our answer, hereunto is, that we do acknowledge, that rule, Deut. 24: 16, to be morall, and therefore perpetually binding, viz., that in a particular act of wickedness, though capitall, the crime of the parent doth not render his child a subject to punishment by the civill magistrate; yet, upon serious consideration, we humbly conceive that the children of notorious traitors, rebells, and murtherers, especially of such as have bin principal leaders and actors in such horrid villanies, and that against a whole nation, yea the whole Israel of God, may be involved in the guilt of their parents, and may, salva republica, be adjudged to death, as to us seems evident by the scripture instances of Saul, Achan, Haman, the children of whom were cut off, by the sword of Justice for the transgressions of their parents, although concerning some of those children, it be manifest, that they were not capable of
being co-acters therein.
Samuel Arnold,
John Cotton."
September 7th, 1670.
The Rey. Increase Mather, of Boston, offers these sentiments on the question, in a letter to Mr. Cotton, October 30, 1676.
"If it had not been out of my mind, when I was writing, I should have said something about Philip's son. It is necessary that some effectual course should be taken about him. He makes me think of Hadad, who was a little child when his father, (the Chief Sachem of the Edomites) was killed by Joab; and, had not others fled away with him, I am apt to think, that David would have taken a course, that Hadad should never have proved a scourge to the next generation."
The Rev. James Keith, of Bridgewater, took a different view of the subject, and gave more benignant interpretations. In a letter to Mr. Cotton of the same date with Dr. Mather's, he says, "I long to hear what becomes of Philip's wife and his son. I know there is some difficulty in that psalm, 137, 8, 9, though I think it may be considered, whether there be not some specialty and somewhat extraordinary in it. That law, Deut. 24: 16, compared with the commended example of Amasias, 2 Chron. 25: 4, doth sway much with me, in the case under consideration. I hope God will direct those whom it doth concern to a good issue. Let us join our prayers, at the throne of grace, with all our might, that the Lord would so dispose of all public motions and affairs, that his Jerusalem in this wilderness may be the habitation of justice and the mountain of holiness; that so it may be, also, a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down."
The question thus seriously agitated would not, in modern times, occur in any nation in Christendom. Principles of public law, sentiments of humanity, and the mild influence of the Gospel, in preference to a recurrence of the Jewish dispensation, so much regarded by our ancestors in their deliberations and decisions,[2] would forbid the thought of inflicting punishment on children for the offences of a parent. It is gratifying to learn, that, in this instance, the meditated severities were not carried into execution, but that the merciful spirit manifested in Mr. Keith's suggestions prevailed. In a letter from Mr. Cotton to his brother Mather, on the 20th of March following, on another subject, there is this incidental remark: 'Philip's boy goes now to be sold.'" Davis's Morton's Memorial, Appendix, pp. 353–5.
In the winter of 1675–6, Major Waldron, a Commissioner, and Magistrate for a portion of territory claimed by Massachusetts (now included in that of Maine), issued general warrants for seizing every Indian known to be a manslayer, traitor, or conspirator. These precepts, which afforded every man a plausible pretext to seize suspected Indians, were obtained by several shipmasters for the most shameful purposes of kidnapping and slave-trading. One with his vessel lurked about the shores of Pemaquid, and notwithstanding warning and remonstrance, succeeded in kidnapping several of the natives, and, carrying them into foreign parts, sold them for slaves. Similar outrages were committed farther east upon the Indians about Cape Sable, "who never had been in the least manner guilty of any injury done to the English." Hubbard adds to his account of this affair, "the thing alleadged is too true as to matter of Fact, and the persons that did it, were lately committed to prison in order to their further tryal." If the careful research of Massachusetts antiquarians can discover any record of the trial, conviction and just punishment of these offenders, it will be an honorable addition to their history—far more creditable than the constant reiteration of the story of "the negro interpreter" in 1646, which has been so long in service, "to bear witness against ye haynos and crying sinn of man-stealing," in behalf of "The Genrall Corte" of Massachusetts. Hubbard's Narrative, 1677, pp. 29, 30. Williamson's Maine, i., 531.
After the death of King Philip, some of the Indians from the west and south of New England who had been engaged in the war, endeavored to conceal themselves among their brethren of Penacook who had not joined in the war, and with them of Ossapy and Pigwackett who had made peace.
By a "contrivance" (as Mather calls it) which savors strongly of treachery, four hundred of these Indians were taken prisoners, one half of whom were declared to have been accessories in the late rebellion; and being "sent to Boston, seven or eight of them, who were known to have killed any Englishmen, were condemned and hanged; the rest were sold into slavery in foreign parts."
Some of those very Indians, who were thus seized and sold, afterwards made their way home, and found opportunity to satisfy their revenge during the war with the French and Indians known as King William's War. Belknap, i., 143, 245. Mather's Magnalia, Book vii., 55 (699).
- ↑ Eliot appears also to have been the first in America to lift up his voice against the treatment which Negroes received in New England. Towards the end of his life, Cotton Mather states, "He had long lamented it with a Bleeding and Burning Passion, that the English used their Negro's but as their Horses or their Oxen, and that so little care was taken about tbeir immortal Souls; he look'd upon it as a Prodigy, that any wearring the Name of Christians should so much have the Heart of Devils in them, as to prevent and hinder the Instruction of the poor Blackamores, and confine the souls of their miserable Slaves to a Destroying Ignorance, meerly for fear of thereby losing the Benefit of their Vassalage; but now he made a motion to the English within two or three Miles of him, that at such a time and Place they would send their Negro's once a week to him: For he would then Catechise them, and Enlighten them, to the utmost of his Power in the Things of their Everlasting Peace; however, he did not live to make much Progress in this Undertaking." Mather's Magnalia, Book iii., 207 (325). Compare also p. 209 (327).
- ↑ In this discussion, however, both seripture rule and example were in favour of the prisoner. The case quoted by Mr. Keith from 2 Chronicles is directly in point. "But he slew not their children, but did as it is written in the law in the book of Moses," &c.