to encourage slavers in making Boston a clearinghouse, so to speak, for the slave-trade of the whole continent.
Du Bois notes that the middle colony and southern ports allowed a rebate of not more than one-half the duty of reshipment of slaves; but the student must not fail to consider this in its proper light. It was not a question of morals — of a desire to suppress the slavetrade. The middle and southern ports were merely less anxious to promote sea-traffic — they were less under the influence of ship-owners.
It appears that New Jersey really strove to prohibit the trade in 1713, by a duty of £10. This law looks quite a little like an honest attempt to extirpate the traffic. It certainly was not the expression of a desire to participate in the profits, or to promote shipping, or to interfere with the trade of other colonies. But on looking at the real reason we find (Vol. IV. New Jersey Archives) that it was "calculated to Encourage the Importation of white Servants for the better Peopeling that Country."
It was seen clearly in New Jersey, and also in other colonies (though dimly in some of them) that white servants of a character to become enterprising citizens, when their term of slavery was ended, were likely to be of more benefit to a community with a climate like that of any of the northern colonies than African slaves would be. The negro was to be a slave for life — a mere laborer whose value was as that of a horse. But a large proportion of the white slaves became, at last, business men who would develop the natural resources of the country, and build the nation.
And all this is to say, with emphasis, that the pro-
