"At the very birth of foreign commerce from New England ports," says one writer,[1] "the African slave trade became a regular business." The Desire, as already mentioned, was a slaver. "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 of the West Indies."
The Massachusetts statute of 1705, which is curiously enough often quoted as showing that the people there were opposed to the slave-trade, was carefully worded to promote the trade. It did, indeed, lay a tax of four pounds on each negro imported, but "a drawback was allowed upon exportation." "The harbors of New England were thus offered as a free exchange-mart for slavers."
In Rhode Island "Governor Cranston, as early as 1708, reported that between 1698 and 1708 one hundred and three vessels were built in that State, all of which were trading to the West Indies and the Southern colonies. They took out lumber and brought back molasses" in the direct trade, but "in most cases made a slave voyage in between."
According to the "Reminiscences of Samuel Hopkins," Rhode Island had one hundred and fifty vessels in the African slave-trade in 1770. Hopkins wrote in that year saying: "Rhode Island has been more deeply interested in the slave-trade, and has enslaved more Africans than any other colony in New England."
In 1787 he wrote again: "This trade in human
- ↑ History of Slavery in Massachusetts, by Geo. H. Moore.
