History of the Negro Race in America Volume I Part 24

[222] Hildreth, vol. i. p. 441; also Hol. Doc., III. p. 351.

[223] Annals of Albany, vol. ii. pp. 55-60.

[224] O'Callaghan, p. 353. N.Y. Col. Docs., vol. ii, pp. 368, 369.

[225] Brodhead, vol. i. p. 697.

[226] Brodhead, vol. i. p. 746.

[227] Ibid., vol. i. p. 748.

[228] Valentine's Manual for 1861, pp. 640-664.

[229] New York Hist. Coll., vol. i. pp. 322, 323.

[230] Journals of Legislative Council, vol. i. p xii.

[231] Bradford's Laws, p. 125.

[232] Journals, etc., N.Y., vol. i. p. xiii.

[233] Dunlap's Hist, of N.Y., vol. i. p. 260,

[234] Booth's Hist, of N.Y., vol. i. p, 270-272.

[235] On the 22nd of March, 1680, the following proclamation was issued: "Whereas, several inhabitants within this city have and doe dayly harbour, entertain and countenance Indian and neger slaves in their houses, and to them sell and deliver wine, rum, and other strong liquors, for which they receive money or goods which by the said Indian and negro slaves is pilfered, purloyned, and stolen from their several masters, by which the publick peace is broken, and the damage of the master is produced, etc., therefore they are prohibited, etc.; and if neger or Indian slave make application for these forbidden articles, immediate information is to be given to his master or to the mayor or oldest alderman."--DUNLAP, vol. ii. Appendix, p. cxxviii.

[236] Bradford Laws, p. 81.

[237] The ordinance referred to was re-enacted on the 22d of April, 1731, and reads as follows: "No Negro, Mulatto, or Indian slave, above the age of fourteen, shall presume to appear in any of the streets, or in any other place of this city on the south side of Fresh Water, in the night time, above an hour after sunset, without a lanthorn and candle in it (unless in company with his owner or some white belonging to the family). Penalty, the watch-house that night; next day, prison, until the owner pays 4_s_, and before discharge, the slave to be whipped not exceeding forty lashes."--DUNLAP, vol. ii. Appendix, p.

clxiii.

[238] Booth, vol. i. p. 271.

[239] Hurd's Bondage and Freedom, vol. i. p. 281.

[240] Dunlap, vol. i. p. 323.

[241] Judge Daniel Horsemanden.

[242] Hume, vol. vi. pp. 171-212.

[243] Ibid., vol. vi. p. 171.

[244] Horsemanden's Negro Plot, p. 29.

[245] As far back as 1684 the following was pa.s.sed against the entertainment of slaves: "No person to countenance or entertain any negro or Indian slave, or sell or deliver to them any strong liquor, without liberty from his master, or receive from them any money or goods; but, upon any offer made by a slave, to reveal the same to the owner, or to the mayor, under penalty of 5."--DUNLAP, vol.

ii. Appendix, p. cx.x.xiii.

[246] Horsemanden's Negro Plot, p. 33.

[247] Bradford's Laws, pp. 141-144.

[248] Horsemanden's Negro Plot, p. 60.

[249] The city of Now York was divided into parts at that time, and comprised two militia districts.

[250] Dunlap, vol. i. p. 344.

[251] Horsemanden's Negro Plot, p. 284.

[252] Horsemanden's Negro Plot, p. 286.

[253] Colonial Hist. of N.Y., vol. vi. p. 199.

[254] Horsemanden's Negro Plot, pp. 292, 293.

[255] Ibid., pp. 298, 299, note.

[256] Horsemanden's Negro Plot, pp. 221, 222.

[257] Smith's Hist. of N.Y., vol. ii. pp. 59, 60.

[258] "On the 6th of March, 1742, the following order was pa.s.sed by the Common Council: 'Ordered, that the indentures of Mary Burton be delivered up to her, and that she be discharged from the remainder of her servitude, and three pounds paid her, to provide necessary clothing.' The Common Council had purchased her indentures from her master, and had kept her and them, until this time."--DUNLAP, vol. ii. Appendix, p. clxvii.

[259] "On the 17th of November, 1767, a bill was brought into the House of a.s.sembly "to prevent the unnatural and unwarrantable custom of enslaving mankind, and the importation of slaves into this province." It was changed into an act "for laying an impost on Negroes imported." This could not pa.s.s the governor and council; and it was afterward known that Benning I. Wentworth, the governor of New Hampshire, had received instructions not to pa.s.s any law "imposing duties on negroes imported into that province." Hutchinson of Ma.s.sachusetts had similar instructions. The governor and his Majesty's council knew this at the time.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE COLONY OF Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

1633-1775.

THE EARLIEST MENTIONS OF NEGROES IN Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.--PEQUOD INDIANS EXCHANGED FOR NEGROES.--VOYAGE OF THE SLAVE-SHIP "DESIRE" IN 1638.--FUNDAMENTAL LAWS ADOPTED.--HEREDITARY SLAVERY.--KIDNAPPING NEGROES.--GROWTH OF SLAVERY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.--TAXATION OF SLAVES.--INTRODUCTION OF INDIAN SLAVES PROHIBITED.--THE POSITION OF THE CHURCH RESPECTING THE BAPTISM OF SLAVES.--SLAVE MARRIAGE.--CONDITION OF FREE NEGROES.--PHILLIS WHEATLEY THE AFRICAN POETESS.--HER LIFE.--SLAVERY RECOGNIZED IN ENGLAND IN ORDER TO BE MAINTAINED IN THE COLONIES.--THE EMANc.i.p.aTION OF SLAVES.--LEGISLATION FAVORING THE IMPORTATION OF WHITE SERVANTS, BUT PROHIBITING THE CLANDESTINE BRINGING-IN OF NEGROES.--JUDGE SEWALL'S ATTACK ON SLAVERY.--JUDGE SAFFIN'S REPLY TO JUDGE SEWALL.

Had the men who gave the colony of Ma.s.sachusetts its political being and Revolutionary fame known that the Negro--so early introduced into the colony as a slave--would have been in the future Republic for years the insoluble problem, and at last the subject of so great and grave economic and political concern, they would have committed to the jealous keeping of the chroniclers of their times the records for which the historian of the Negro seeks so vainly in this period.

Stolen as he was from his tropical home; consigned to a servitude at war with man's intellectual and spiritual, as well as with his physical, nature; the very lowest of G.o.d's creation, in the estimation of the Roundheads of New England; a stranger in a strange land,--the poor Negro of Ma.s.sachusetts found no place in the sympathy or history of the Puritan,--Christians whose deeds and memory have been embalmed in song and story, and given to an immortality equalled only by the indestructibility of the English language. The records of the most remote period of colonial history have preserved a silence on the question of Negro slavery as ominous as it is conspicuous. What data there are concerning the introduction of slavery are fragmentary, uncertain, and unsatisfactory, to say the least. There is but one work bearing the luminous stamp of historical trustworthiness, and which turns a flood of light on the dark records of the darker crime of human slavery in Ma.s.sachusetts. And we are sure it is as complete as the ripe scholarship, patient research, and fair and fearless spirit of its author, could make it.[260]

The earliest mention of the presence of Negroes in Ma.s.sachusetts is in connection with an account of some Indians who were frightened at a Colored man who had lost his way in the tangled path of the forest.

The Indians, it seems, were "worse scared than hurt, who seeing a blackamore in the top of a tree looking out for his way which he had lost, surmised he was _Abamacho_, or the devil; deeming all devils that are blacker than themselves: and being near to the plantation, they posted to the English, and entreated their aid to conjure this devil to his own place, who finding him to be a poor wandering blackamore, conducted him to his master."[261] This was in 1633. It is circ.u.mstantial evidence of a twofold nature; i.e., it proves that there were Negroes in the colony at a date much earlier than can be fixed by reliable data, and that the Negroes were slaves. It is a fair presumption that this "wandering blackamore" who was conducted "to his _master_" was not the only Negro slave in the colony. Slaves generally come in large numbers, and consequently there must have been quite a number at this time.

Negro slavery in Ma.s.sachusetts was the safety-valve to the pent-up vengeance of the Pequod Indians. Slavery would have been established in Ma.s.sachusetts, even if there had been no Indians to punish by war, captivity, and duplicity. Encouraged by the British authorities, avarice and gain would have quieted the consciences of Puritan slave-holders. But the Pequod war was the early and urgent occasion for the founding of slavery under the foster care of a _free church and free government_! As the Pequod Indians would "not endure the yoke," would not remain "as servants,"[262] they were sent to Bermudas[263] and exchanged for Negroes,[264] with the hope that the latter would "endure the yoke" more patiently. The first importation of slaves from Barbados, secured in exchange for Indians, was made in 1637, the first year of the Pequod war, and was doubtless kept up for many years.

But in the following year we have the most positive evidence that New England had actually engaged in the slave-trade.