The Massachusetts Slave Trade.

ing the immutable laws of nature, and this public resolution of their own in Town Meetings, they actually have in town Two thousand Negroe slaves, who neither by themselves in person, nor by their representatives of their own free election, ever gave consent to their present state of bondage." There were not wanting pious men who saw in the investment of Boston a punishment for the sinful traffic she had fostered. In September of 1775 Deacon Coleman of Newbury wrote:¹ "Was Boston the first port on this Continent that began the slave trade, and are they not the first shut up by an oppressive act, and brought almost to desolation, wherefore, Sir, though we may not be peremptory in applying the judgments of God, yet I cannot pass over such providences without a remark."
Committees on the slavery question were appointed in the Legislature in 1776 and 1777, and a bill for abolition was reported, but no action taken. Efforts were finally discontinued, as importation into Massachusetts had practically ceased.²
The new state constitution (1780) contained in its Bill of Rights the declaration that "all men are born free and equal." It has been held that this clause was intended to have the force of an emancipation proclamation, but Moore thinks this position untenable. "We have made diligent inquiry, search, and examination," he says.³ "without discovering the slightest trace of positive contemporary evidence to show that this opinion is well founded." Whatever the intention of the framers of the constitution, the Supreme Court of the state decided three years later that this clause was equivalent to an abolition of slavery. Dr. Belkuap describes the circumstances in his correspondence with Judge Tucker:⁴ "In 1781, at the court in Worcester county, an indictment was found, against a white man for assaulting, beating and imprisoning a black. He was tried at the Supreme Judicial Court in 1783. His defence was, that the black was his slave, and that the beating, etc., was the necessary restraint and correction of the master. This was answered by citing the aforesaid clause in the declaration of rights. The judges and jury were of opinion that he had no right to beat or imprison the negro. He was found guilty, and fined forty shillings. This decision was a mortal wound to slavery in Massachusetts." It may be said, therefore, that slavery was banished from Massachusetts soil at the very beginning of her existence as a state.
This circumstance did not deter "men of otherwise respectable standing" from carrying on the trade. Felt quotes instructions⁵ given to the captain of a vessel which sailed for Africa from Salem in 1785 The details are much the same as those of an earlier date, enjoining economy in the disposal of the cargo and careful selection of the negroes.
In 1788 participation in the slave trade was declared illegal,⁶ but it was nevertheless carried on, "stealthily but steadily," well into the nineteenth century.⁷ The men engaged in it, however, were few in number, and formed an unimportant part of Massachusetts traders. Felt writes⁸ that in 1791 it was "Reported that another of our vessels, the St. John, had arrived at Surinam from Africa. This shows, that a few of our merchants, like others in various seaports, still loved money more than the far greater riches of a good conscience,— more than conformity with the demands of human rights, with the law of the land and the religion of their God."
It cannot be denied that Massachusetts led the way in the colonial slave trade and played an important part in

¹ Moore, p. 147.
² Do Bois, p. 33.
³ P. 203.
⁴ I Mass. Hist. Coll., IV, 203. See also Barry, History of Massachusetts, III, 189.
⁵ Annals of Salem, II, 288-291.
⁶ Laws of Massachusetts, 1780-1789, p. 235.
⁷ Weeden, II, 835.
⁸ Annals of Salem, II, 296.

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